Lsv 04 08 2008

Feature Article – Red/Green Big Mana with Shadowmoor, by Luis...

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http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=15706

Feature Article – Red/Green Big Mana with Shadowmoor by Luis Scott-Vargas

Welcome to another week of me (mostly) failing to beat Faeries. I have cast more Cloudthreshers and Sulfurous Blasts than I’d like to admit, and tested about 35 cards in my sideboard, and I cannot honestly say that Faeries is a good matchup yet. The combination of Ancestral Visions, Cryptic Command, Bitterblossom, and Mistbind Clique allow Faeries to somehow manage to have the advantage in both the card advantage and tempo arenas, making it quite difficult to attack them effectively. I don’t want to beat a dead horse by continuing to focus on Faeries, but at the moment it makes up around 30 or 40% of the metagame online, a number which doesn’t actually seem inflated. The deck is honestly that good, and I expect it to be the deck to beat come Hollywood unless Shadowmoor delivers the goods to other decks. Still, all hope is not lost, as I think I have come to a reasonable sideboard plan versus Faeries, as well as some new tricks come Shadowmoor. To be clear, this is the deck I have been battling with:

G/R Snow Mana Suggested by Luis Scott-Vargas on 2008-04-13 as a potential deck for Standard As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15706.html Print this deck!

Maindeck: Creatures 2 Civic Wayfinder 4 Cloudthresher 3 Siege-gang Commander 3 Tarmogoyf 4 Wall Of Roots Instants 4 Skred 4 Sulfurous Blast

Stats: Average mana: 2.02 Average creature mana cost: 3.68 Average creature power: 2.37 Basic Snow Lands Average creature 10 Snow-covered Forest toughness: 3.62 4 Snow-covered Mountain Deck Composition: Basic Snow Lands: 23.33% Lands Creatures: 26.67% 2 Desert Instants: 13.33% 4 Treetop Village Lands: 10.00% Planeswalkers: 3.33% Snow Lands Snow Lands: 6.67% 3 Highland Weald Sorceries: 16.67% 1 Mouth Of Ronom Sorceries 4 Harmonize 4 Into The North 2 Primal Command

Planeswalkers 2 Garruk

4/8/2008 11:11 PM

Feature Article – Red/Green Big Mana with Shadowmoor, by Luis...

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http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=15706

Wildspeaker

Download this Download this deck Download this deck in in deck in Magic Workstation Magic Online Text Apprentice format! format! format!

I’ll get to the sideboard in a second, after some brief notes about the deck. I played a very similar list at Worlds this year, and was pretty happy with it. I did get mauled by Dragonstorm, but so did just about everyone else. Lately MTGO has been ridiculously infested with Faeries, and a certain Innovator also wrote on this very website that the sure way to beat Faeries was to run Threshers and Sulfurous Blasts in RG Ramp, so who was I to disagree? I started with Chapin’s list from his article and soon made a fair number of changes. Faeries has almost completely hunted Reveillark to extinction, and with that the Black splash loses its appeal. Once you have cast Void as a Brainspoil a few times you start getting sick of it. The other main change from the original list was the cut of Incinerates for a full set of Sulfurous Blast. Blasts have been awesome, basically serving as instant speed Wrath that can even go to the dome in a pinch. This deck also loses basically every game where it misses its 4th land drop, so I added a 24th land as well as two Civic Wayfinders over the unexciting Search for Tomorrow. Desert is my colorless land of choice, as Mutavault was mostly outclassed by Treetop Village. Even with eight instant speed Wrath effects, Faeries didn’t go down that easy. Ancestral Visions is the main culprit, as trading one for one with a deck that has cheaper card draw and can stop your Harmonizes doesn’t always work out. Faeries runs between 12 and 16 counters post board (Flashfreeze + Cryptic Command + Rune Snag + Spellstutter Sprite), almost all of which cost less than the spells you would like to resolve. Granted Sulfurous Blast and Thresher were as good as advertised when they resolved, but that was often the tricky part. Mistbind Clique is effectively a Time Walk, as even if you Skred or Mouth of Ronom it in response to its champion ability they can choose remove a Faerie to tap you out. They won’t get the Faerie back, but depending on the situation it’s often worth losing a 1/1 token to tap you out. Still, enough of why Faeries is

4/8/2008 11:11 PM

Feature Article – Red/Green Big Mana with Shadowmoor, by Luis...

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http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=15706

tough, let’s see what can be done about it. Four each of Thresher and Sulfurous Blast is a good start, but the real trick is forcing Faeries to tap out to deal with your threats so you can resolve your bombs. Once they have to deal with what you have on the board, it is a lot easier to Thresh them to your heart’s content. The obvious problem with this is that RG Snow just doesn’t have many cheap threats that come down before Faeries just starts leaving counter mana up. Maindeck, the Treetop Villages, Goyfs, and surprisingly enough, Civic Wayfinders often provide the needed pressure to force Faeries to play something in response. Bitterblossom is good but easily raceable with even the crappiest guys, especially when you wipe the board every so often. My sideboard plan against Faeries started out with 3 Pyroclasm and 3 Spectral Force, but that soon changed. Spectral Force doesn’t really change the dynamic of you casting some ungainly five mana spell and them laughing and tapping a measly two mana to counter it. It was even worse than Siege-Gang Commander in the face of a Cryptic Command or Terror, and Siege-Gang has been surprisingly poor. Upon the suggestion of FFfreak, a fellow MTGOer, I decided to try Magus of the Moon. It is both cheap enough to come down while they tap out for a Bitterblossom or be played around Rune Snag, and against most builds it severely hampers their ability to cast spells. Good luck casting Cryptic Command, much less any Black spell with this guy out. Between Mutavault, Faerie Conclave, River of Tears, Secluded Glen, and Underground River, some Faeries decks have as little as three basic Islands. Magus worked out, but more was still needed. After testing a variety of good and not so good cards (Mire Boa being particularly embarrassing), I found the answer in Riftsweeper. It answers Visions, which is the card you lose to the most, and is a cheap threat, another essential. I also have been siding in two Chameleon Colossus, although it has applications in many more matchups than the Magi and Riftsweepers. With that said, my current sideboard: 4 Magus of the Moon 4 Riftsweeper 2 Chameleon Colossus 2 Primal Command 3 Dragon’s Claw While they might look laughably bad, the Dragon’s Claws have been crucial in beating the Mono-Red Burn deck that is inevitably popular. The combination of costing almost nothing to assemble (minus the optional Mutavaults) and being irresistibly fun to some people has caused Burn decks to flourish in every format where they are even remotely viable. Still, once you side into 4 Primal Commands and 3 Dragon’s Claws, their burn is pretty outmatched. The Commands and Colossi are good in any midrange matchup, such as the mirror or against most of the elf decks. To sideboard against Faeries I have been cutting the following: -2 Garruk Wildspeaker -3 Siege-Gang Commander

4/8/2008 11:11 PM

Feature Article – Red/Green Big Mana with Shadowmoor, by Luis...

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http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=15706

-2 Primal Command -1 Harmonize -2 Into the North +4 Magus of the Moon +4 Riftsweeper +2 Chameleon Colossus I’m not going to go through a detailed sideboarding guide since this deck has been around for a while and most of the time it’s easy enough to see when Sulfurous Blast or Cloudthresher isn’t good enough in a particular matchup. However, if anyone has questions feel free to ask in the forums and I will provide a hopefully timely response. Now it may seem that there is no reason to play this deck, as I just finished talking about how it has trouble against the best deck in the format. As it stands, I really like RG against just about every other deck except Reveillark, but as I said, Reveillark really isn’t a factor right now because of Faeries. The combination of Sulfurous Blast, Skred, and Siege-Gang paired with acceleration is great at crushing all the aggressive decks that hope to beat Faeries. With this heavy sideboard plan against Faeries, RG has a good shot at winning, and a close matchup against Faeries plus favorable matchups almost across the board make the deck very viable in my eyes. While this information will be useful on MTGO for a while, most people have turned their eyes towards Shadowmoor when thinking about Standard. From the partial list of cards available on MTGSalvation, there are three that seem perfect for the RG Snow deck. Guttural Response {rg} Instant Counter target blue instant spell Just a few days before this card was spoiled, I was telling someone that what RG really needed was Pyroblast. Now even I am not greedy enough to really think that Pyroblast (and presumably Hydroblast) would actually return to Standard, but Guttural Response is a good imitation. A cheap spell that can force a Thresher or Sulfurous Blast through Cryptic Command, Flashfreeze, or even a big Rune Snag seems to fit perfectly in the gameplan RG aims to have. Still, even Pyroblast isn’t as exciting as the next card: Vexing Shusher {rg}{rg} Creature - Goblin Shaman Vexing Shusher can't be countered by spells or abilities. {rg}: Target spell can't be countered by spells or abilities. While this isn’t the end-all be-all against Faeries like it would have been against Wafo-Tapa’s Guile deck, it seems like it can be potentially insane. Granted the Faerie decks will be playing spot removal, but you have enough dorks that they are going to be hard pressed to have enough kill spells. And if you ever have an unanswered Shusher, Cloudthresher, and

4/8/2008 11:11 PM

Feature Article – Red/Green Big Mana with Shadowmoor, by Luis...

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http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=15706

Mistbind Clique get to have a little cage fight without the possibility of them countering it. The last card that I have seen so far that might go in is not quite as exciting, but still seems like a possible upgrade to Sulfurous Blast. Firespout 2{rg} Sorcery Firespout deals 3 damage to each creature without flying if {R} was spent to play Firespout and 3 damage to each creature with flying if {G} was spent to play Firespout. (If {G} & {R} is spent, do both.) This has its advantages over Sulfurous Blast, mainly that you can blast their flying dudes without touching your Vexing Shusher or other groundpounders. It also costs less, and doesn’t deal you the three damage when that would be a problem. Unfortunately, not hitting players is more often going to be to your detriment, as it eliminates the neat play of blasting your opponents Garruk along with his Beasts. Also, you are usually the aggressor, and the option of burning them out with a Blast is always nice. The loss of instant speed action is also questionable, especially versus Mistbind Clique. Still, Firespout is certainly worth testing, and might fit alongside Sulfurous Blast in some number. It is hard to make any sort of informed predictions without full information about Shadowmoor of course, but so far the first third of the set that has been spoiled doesn’t appear to offer Faeries much. Realistically, those little pests only need like one or maybe two cards to really round out the deck, but it seems like other decks have more ground to gain due to the non-tribal nature of the new set. I have been asked why I don’t simply play Faeries, especially if it is as good as I claim it to be. Well, if my only goal was to win some packs online, maybe I would. Those who are interested in doing well in Hollywood (or Regionals, or your local events) should be exploring other options in order to possibly get an edge on the field. Faeries is going to be good, but finding something that beats Faeries as well as holding its own against the rest of the field is much better. If you have a City Champs or the like in a few days, maybe picking up Faeries or Merfolk might be a better bet, but in the long run testing other options will probably pay off. I personally don’t usually go in to battle with just the stock version of a popular deck, GP: Philly aside. There the format was so wide open that I didn’t expect undue hate to focus on the Counterbalance deck, and there wasn’t. What I do expect is for everyone to be prepared to beat Faeries, and while most of them won’t, you still have the problem of the mirror. Unless you find a really good plan for the mirror, it seems like there isn’t much edge to be gained in it. Granted playskill helps, but at a Pro Tour or Grand Prix Day 2, most players will be competent enough to make it close enough that you are unlikely to Top 8 if all you play is the mirror match. Playskill can go a long way (Cheon winning Grand Prix: Krakow with that abysmal U/W Pickles deck comes to mind), but the real edge to be gained in Constructed is to test and come up with a well-positioned deck. With whatever deck you choose to battle with, just keep in mind your goals and what you are getting out of the process. Ideally fun is one of the things,

4/8/2008 11:11 PM

Feature Article – Red/Green Big Mana with Shadowmoor, by Luis...

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http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=15706

otherwise you are doing yourself a disservice. I know Threshing a whole mess of Faeries certainly amuses me, almost as much as renaming cards with Paul’s name. How can you not appreciate such hits as Taurean Pauler, Violet Paul, and even Walk the Cheons! Anyway, that’s it from me! If you’ve any questions, come grab me in the forums or find me on MTGO (lsv). Luis

4/8/2008 11:11 PM