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By: PiDave, Dave
Aug 23 2012 11:59am
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Hi everyone, it's been a while. Once upon a time I used to write (with much pleasure) a Pauper Standard weekly metagame report but as life went on some things changed and I had to stop writing quite abruptly some seven months ago. Since then I've been following the evolution of various formats but I haven't had many chances to actually play our beloved game; anyway, that was bound to change with the incoming summer holidays! For the last three weeks I've been playing as much MTG as possible, mainly in Modern and Standard, with mixed results: I tried to build some budget Modern decks but the best I could muster up (an uninteresting Wg Tokens build) just was not fast enough for a format so vast and with so many diverse strategies. I also built some other wacky decks (*cough*Jacerator*cough*) to try and attack the format from other edges but they would not cut it and auto-fold to any Storm deck. There are just no cheap alternatives to cards like Vendilion Clique, Vedalken Shackles or the shocklands. Anyway, the format is still wide open to rogue/new decks (as Blippy likes to remember us every week in his articles) but I guess the cardpool is just too vast for me at the moment and whenever I try to brew something I end up using the same cards.

So I turned to Standard. And I read. A lot! This was fun per se, but after some time I felt the urge to get my hands dirty and try to find a way to attack a metagame full of Delvers, Pods, Bonfires and ramping Titans.

Delver of Secrets is everywhere: there are a ton of variants of blue-based tempo decks and that try to stick an early efficient creature and ride it to the win with counterspells, free (well, almost) instants and the dreaded Vapor Snag. The latest iteration of the (UW Hero Delver) could be the strongest so far but I'm expecting to see some good results from Quirion Dryad UG lists as well.
RG Aggro (and almost any deck that use Red, Actually) is just packed with the most expensive card we've seen in a while: Bonfire of the Damned. This card single-handedly hoses any deck that relies on early creatures and (as Mr. Brad Nelson says) is just as swingy as a very steep rollercoaster when it's miracled.
Then there are all flavors of Birthing Pod: Naya, Bant, Zombie...pretty much any color combination can successfully run the Pod. This is because when Pod hits the board it actually starts a sub-game where the Podder has his whole library available to find the correct answers for almost any game state.
Zombies are a thing too: the printing of Blood Artist unleashed hordes of Geralf's Messengers and Gravecrawlers back in May, and the deck is still competitive after the introduction of M13.
Wolf Run Ramp is back again thanks to Reid Duke with an impressive blue variant that exploits the tapping abilities of Frost Titan to gain control of the board with a lighting fast endgame.
And then there's Frites: a five color deck that can ramp into a turn 3 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite for the win, exploiting Mulch and Unburial Rites. If the opponent has no removal or Phantasmal Images around, that is! Also, the deck tends to fold to himself a lot because of the greedy manabase.
Anyway these are the prominent decks of the meta at the moment, with Solar Flare (a deck that has multiple Sun Titans and Phantasmal Images as endgame) being another interesting but somewhat uncommon choice and MonoG Dungrove Elder also being around with his mate Rancor.

Summing all up, a competitive deck should then be able to deal with early threats, remove pesky non-creature and hexproof permanents, be somewhat resilient to tempo plays and have a strong endgame that can survive a certain one-sided miracle sweeper, all of this while being at least as fast as ramping Titans.

So this is what I whipped up:

 

 

This is based on a deck that a certain volcanic deckbuilder (hi Smi77y!) choose to run at a PTQ some time ago with somewhat poor results. The original decklist had a different approach since it was all-in with the reanimator plan but did not have a very solid mana base that could support a game without Unburial Rites. Let's see what I did change.

First of all: yup, no Elesh Norn. I understand she has a big "I WIN" red button on her but I hate losing her to Phantasmal Image or seeing her stolen by a podded-in Zealous Conscripts. The original Five-colored Rites run her also because that deck's Plan B is Tokens plus Gavony Township so both parts of her ability are exploited quite well. Since WRB has no Township that part of the plan is not as necessary. Griselbrand was in the list that inspired me but an Image deal with him as well and having him stolen by Conscripts could even be worse. Add to this the fact that his mana requirements are pretty intensive and here you have the reasons why I decided to leave him out.

As you can see the list is a little lighter on fatties (7) and graveyard filling effects (3 Faithless Looting, 6 counting flashback) than the typical Frites list; the reasoning behind this is that I want to be able to win even without exploiting the Looting/Rites interaction: I just need to be able to hard-cast any fatty in the deck. To do so I absolutely need two things:

- a way to reach my late game with as much lifepoints as possible
- a reliable manabase

Let's do a card-by-card walkthrough:

Whipflare
Whipflare is pretty awesome at hosing the opponent's mana dorks and early creatures; right now it's probably the fastest sweeper available.

Ratchet Bomb
Ratchet Bomb can solve problematic creatures like Dungrove Elder or (Geist of Saint-Traft); it also helps in dealing with Birthing Pod and swarms of tokens, while remaining also a proactive threat that can occasionally buy some time.

Go for the Throat
Go for the Throat/Doom Blade: this split is geared toward the zombie matchup.

Tribute to Hunger
Tribute to Hunger: while this could be called a bad version of Geth's Verdict it is easier on the mana base and still as effective. The lifegain is just bonus.

Oblivion Ring
Oblivion Ring is just awesome, probably the best catch-all semi-removal of all times. It deals with pretty much everything, even though it can be less than optimal against ETB-based deck such as Pod: a well timed Acidic Slime can be just brutal.

Lingering Souls
Lingering Souls is what makes this deck tick: without its extreme efficiency there usually is no way to safely reach the late game. Anyway, there are times when the Souls just won't show up, so I included a couple more midrangey cards:

Olivia Voldaren
Olivia Voldaren. She's been almost forgotten but she's just as powerful as midrange creatures come: if she's left unchecked for a couple turns she can just take over the board and win the game by herself. She's also resilient to being stolen by Zealous Conscripts since her abilities are mana-activated; unfortunately her being a legend means that Phantasmal Image is still pretty good against her.

Bloodline Keeper
Bloodline Keeper is also another excellent one-card strategy and interacts pretty well with the last midrange singleton of the deck:

Elspeth Tirel
Elspeth Tirel. We're going to make lots of tokens so we might as well take advantage from them. Her purpose is either to stall the game with lifegain when tokens are already around or produce some by herself to chump block on the ground. Her ultimate is also easily reachable and powerful nonetheless.

On to the fatties:

Wurmcoil Engine
Wurmcoil Engine is awesome against targeted removal but a little weak to Vapor Snag. It still is quite easy on the mana requirements and very strong against RG Aggro and Pod, hence the two-of.

Inferno Titan
Inferno Titan is pretty decent against swarms of little creatures and has some much-needed late game reach while still having Titan-class body.

Sunblast Angel
Sunblast Angel: no one expects her when I tap six mana. Late-game one-sided sweeper. She could also be a third Inferno Titan, but so far I've been happy to see her as a late topdeck or as early Faithless Looting fodder: she just becomes a proactive threat. If the opponent notice her, that is.

Sheoldred, Whispering One
Sheoldred, Whispering One: she doesn't do anything the turn she hits the board but she provides some nice reanimating redundancy. Also: not so good when stolen with Conscripts!

Angel of Glory's Rise
Angel of Glory's Rise: pre-sideboarded for the Zombie matchup - should be either Wurmcoil Engine or another Inferno Titan, or even Sun Titan. She being a flyer could actually turn out to be useful anyway.

Faithless Looting
3 Faithless Looting: as much as I love a turn 4 fatty, the 4 card combo wasn't happening as much as with the original five-color version; Mulch is way better than Looting for this purpose.

Unburial Rites
Unburial Rites: the main card-advantage engine of the deck. Pretty good when hard-cast, awesome if flashbacked. There's a reason if it's the namesake card of the deck.

As I said before, I dropped two colors in favor of a more stable mana base; the deck needs early Red and Black pretty badly so a full set of Blackcleave Cliffs was a must. White makes up for the majority of the key 3cmc spells so the remaining duals are split with that as the main focus. The basic land count also reflects this approach, leaving black a little behind. Anyway, the total count of the mana sources is pretty balanced at 11 Red, 12 Black and 12 White and so far I've never had any trouble having the right colors out when I needed them. Also...

Slayers' Stronghold
Slayers' Stronghold is sick in this deck. Reanimating an Inferno Titan with four mana and activating this land means a total of 14 theoretical damage in one turn. Two of them are more than enough though, since the seven mana required for such a play are quite a lot. It also comes in quite handy with Lingering Souls in the graveyard since a 3/1 flying, hasty and vigilant spirit provides reach without actually using up any card. More options are always welcome anyway!

The sideboard is tuned to deal with problematic matchups like Zombies and other aggressive decks. Board guide follows:

Zombies:
-1 Doom Blade
-2 Tribute to Hunger
-2 Go for the Throat
-1 Sunblast Angel
+1 Oblivion Ring
+2 Celestial Purge
+2 Timely Reinforcements
+1 Angel of Glory's Rise

Naya Pod:
-2 Go for the Throat
-2 Tribute to Hunger
-1 Angel of Glory's Rise
+1 Doom Blade
+2 Day of Judgment
+1 Stony Silence
+1 Wurmcoil Engine

Bant Pod:
-2 Go for the Throat
-1 Angel of Glory's Rise
-1 Bloodline Keeper
+1 Doom Blade
+1 Combust
+1 Stony Silence
+1 Wurmcoil Engine

U/W (Hero) Delver:
-2 Go for the Throat
-1 Angel of Glory's Rise
-1 Bloodline Keeper
+2 Day of Judgment
+2 Combust

RUG / UR Delver:
-2 Go for the Throat
-1 Angel of Glory's Rise
-1 Bloodline Keeper
-2 Tribute to Hunger
+2 Day of Judgment
+2 Combust
+2 Spellskite

FRites:
-2 Tribute to Hunger
-1 Angel of Glory's Rise
+1 Wurmcoil Engine
+1 Oblivion Ring
+1 Doom Blade

Esper Control / Solar Flare:
-2 Tribute to Hunger
-1 Angel of Glory's Rise
+1 Wurmcoil Engine
+2 Day of Judgment

RG aggro:
-2 Tribute to Hunger
-1 Angel of Glory's Rise
-1 Bloodline Keeper
+1 Wurmcoil Engine
+1 Doom Blade
+2 Timely Reinforcements

Spellskites are in in case of Rancor. The trend is obviously to balance the removal package to better suit the matchup and speed up the deck against control while slowing it down against fast aggro; against aggro is also key to exploit the Timely Reinforcements and the Day of Judgments to the full extent.

I tested the list on MTGO in the Tournament Practice room and I'm pretty satisfied with it. The mana flows smoothly and the deck is quite resilient even to a mull to 5. As for actual competitive play, I took part in a couple single elim. events, going 1-1 with a slightly different list losing to Zombies in round 2 due to me punting the first game and an unprepared sideboard plan for the follow up. The second foray saw me crashing against MonoR Goblins with a mull to 5 in the second game that did not serve me a single card from the sideboard nor a single removal spell. I ended up with 4 fatties and two Rites in hand, with four lands in play. Perfect mana though! :-D

So, if you feel like playing some standard with a deck that should be somewhat well positioned against the current metagame give this list a try; I'm not confident enough with my game to bring it in a Daily Event but maybe there is someone interested in that regard. I just hope someone can enjoy playing it as much as I do. Improvements, discussion and sideboard strategy is more than welcome! :-)

Thank you for reading, see you next time!
-- Dave

2 Comments

An interesting variation on a by Paul Leicht at Fri, 08/24/2012 - 14:46
Paul Leicht's picture
5

An interesting variation on a deck type Ive been writing about and tinkering with for a while. I am surprised you don't run some number of Blasphemous Acts since it interacts well tokens as a forced cheap sweeper. Particularly nice of course are the blood artist/aristocrat interactions with it but even without running those its a handy reset button.

The rites should have a by youaremyavatar at Fri, 08/23/2013 - 20:41
youaremyavatar's picture

The rites should have a standard. Never has it been standarized before. - James Stuckey