So after the last few FNM's and watching the current state of the standard meta I believe that a combo control deck is the direction that I want to be heading in. Enter Polymorph and Progenitus, yes the combo everyone's been talking about yet very few have (from what I have seen) have tried to build a deck around it. Last week I got completley wrecked by a 5-Color version of this deck, but 5 colors main deck just seems a little slow (for this type of deck) in the current standard format. This is going to be a Work in Progress (WIP) deck that I'm going to build and update right here in this very blog. The first build that I have of this list is Esper colors with a splash of green and red for Fog and board sweeping effects like Volcanic Fallout. Yes I know it seems contradictory to my prior statement but just follow along with me here, splashing is much easier to accomplish than trying to evenly distribute the mana over all five colors. So far the list is pretty basic and it looks like this:
Lands: 24
***************
3 Glacial Fortress
3 Arcane Sanctum
3 Drowned Catacomb
3 Seaside Citadel
3 Dragonskull Summit
3 Sunpetal Grove
3 Swamp
3 Plains
Creatures: 2
**************
2 Progenitus
Other Spells: 34
****************
4 Polymorph
4 Volcanic Fallout
4 Hallowed Burial
3 Negate
4 Essence Scatter
4 Offering to Asha
2 Fog
4Spectral Procession
2 Identity Crisis
3 Goblin Assault
The strategy of this deck is to win by controlling the board with your counters and board wipers until you can hit one of your own creatures with Polymorph to cheat a Progenitus into play and start smashing face.
Okay now that the simple strategy explanation is out of the way, my initial thoughts on this list are this:
1) I may need more token producers but only testing will show that.
2) I may or may not have too many counters again I leave that up to testing for now.
3) Lack of card draw may also pose a problem
Now I know there are a few cards that may make some heads turn so lets look at them shall we?
Offering to Asha is no Cryptic Command but gaining 4 life while (usually) countering a spell is a great way to pose a literal counter threat without breaking the bank, and I like that for this deck. I like that A LOT.
Another decision that could raise a few eyebrows is the inclusion of Identity Crisis in the main deck. This little gem has made its way into plenty of the recent 5-Color Control lists sideboards and it absolutely wrecks any deck's tempo in the games that it resolves.
I figured that if it's such great sideboard tech why not give a go in the main of a primarily control deck? If it totally tanks then it's back to the sideboard for it.
I will soon be posting how this deck tested as well as a sideboard and any tweaks. So until next time Happy Building,
Ryan
11 August 2009
01 August 2009
The new Black: Speedball Review/T2 Jund Rock
After taking Speedball to FNM for two weeks in a row, I've realized that it generally beats the hell out of almost every deck in the format... except the two top decks; GW Overrun and WW. It's just two decks, not that much of a problem, right? Wrong. Those two decks make up at least 40% of the current meta, which means that even though Speedball does well against everything else, it still loses to a huge chunk of people at local tournaments. What's a planeswalker to do!?
Go black.
According to several sources, one of the few decks that stands a chance against these big white horse-c*cks is Jund Rock, a RBG aggro variant rather similar to my own, i.e. things with haste, things with cascade, etc. The difference is that when you splash black into the mix, you have access to several wonderfully powerful cards such as Putrid Leech, Terminate, Jund Charm, and Bituminous Blast, which can turn the tide of a game easily. Here's my tentative list.
Creatures- 20
----------
4 Putrid Leech
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Hell's Thunder
4 Bloodbraid Elf
Instants/Sorceries- 18
----------
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Terminate
4 Colossal Might
3 Bituminous Blast
3 Sign in Blood
Lands- 22
----------
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Rootbound Crag
5 Swamp
5 Forest
4 Mountain
Most of the heavy hitters are still here, such as Boggart Ram-Gang, Bloodbraid Elf, and Hellspark Elemental, with a new addition to the lineup; Putrid Leech. He's just a 2/2 for GB on the surface, but pay two life and it becomes a hefty 4/4, letting it deal with pretty much any card played before turn 4 or sometimes even 5. The noncreature spells, however, see the most changes. Terminates and Bituminous Blast give the deck much needed removal and even added cascade, and Sign in blood gives you card draw and can even kill an opponent in a pinch. Sideboarding mass removal (preferably in the form of Jund Charm) lets you throw sweepers out to keep WW in check. Overall the deck sacrifices a bit of speed (though not much) to give the player a more controlled game and alot more survivability. Of course it still retains the capacity for unpredictable, explosive, game ending turns. Wheres the fun without something like that?
On a good hand, you can realistically pull off a turn 4 or 5 kill, just like Speedball, however the advantage comes in disrupting their win-con and being able to kick ass and take names late in the game. Actually, less taking names, we don't care about names. And much more ass-kickery. Here here!
Go black.
According to several sources, one of the few decks that stands a chance against these big white horse-c*cks is Jund Rock, a RBG aggro variant rather similar to my own, i.e. things with haste, things with cascade, etc. The difference is that when you splash black into the mix, you have access to several wonderfully powerful cards such as Putrid Leech, Terminate, Jund Charm, and Bituminous Blast, which can turn the tide of a game easily. Here's my tentative list.
Creatures- 20
----------
4 Putrid Leech
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Hell's Thunder
4 Bloodbraid Elf
Instants/Sorceries- 18
----------
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Terminate
4 Colossal Might
3 Bituminous Blast
3 Sign in Blood
Lands- 22
----------
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Rootbound Crag
5 Swamp
5 Forest
4 Mountain
Most of the heavy hitters are still here, such as Boggart Ram-Gang, Bloodbraid Elf, and Hellspark Elemental, with a new addition to the lineup; Putrid Leech. He's just a 2/2 for GB on the surface, but pay two life and it becomes a hefty 4/4, letting it deal with pretty much any card played before turn 4 or sometimes even 5. The noncreature spells, however, see the most changes. Terminates and Bituminous Blast give the deck much needed removal and even added cascade, and Sign in blood gives you card draw and can even kill an opponent in a pinch. Sideboarding mass removal (preferably in the form of Jund Charm) lets you throw sweepers out to keep WW in check. Overall the deck sacrifices a bit of speed (though not much) to give the player a more controlled game and alot more survivability. Of course it still retains the capacity for unpredictable, explosive, game ending turns. Wheres the fun without something like that?
On a good hand, you can realistically pull off a turn 4 or 5 kill, just like Speedball, however the advantage comes in disrupting their win-con and being able to kick ass and take names late in the game. Actually, less taking names, we don't care about names. And much more ass-kickery. Here here!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)