Craig Wescoe
5/17/2012 9:56:00 AM
This week I'm going to talk about Haunted Humans (in Standard), a deck that has fallen off a lot of people's radars lately. Mage-Blade (a.k.a UW Delver) has been the deck to beat for quite a while, and recently RG Aggro has enjoyed resurgence in popularity. Naya Pod is still running strong, ever since it took down the SCG Invitational a couple months ago. Right now Mage-Blade, RG Aggro, and Naya Pod are the top three decks in the metagame.
Wolf Run Ramp is on the decline, as it usually is just before a major tournament. If Grand Prix Minneapolis this coming weekend is anything like the past few major tournaments, people will underestimate
Primeval Titan and he will once again steal the show. One would think people have learned their lesson by now, but statistically speaking, it is more likely that history will instead repeat itself. Will you make this mistake or will you be prepared to beat it?
Although Wolf Run will likely take home the trophy again this weekend, I did not come here to talk about Wolf Run. I came here to talk to you about Haunted Humans. Much like Wolf Run, people are no longer focusing their attention on the human tribe, at least the UW variety. This is good news for dedicated White Weenie players! The archetype is not poorly positioned or anything; it has simply fallen out of favor for whatever reasons. Maybe people are simply playing outdated lists, ones that get torn apart by Naya Pod. Or maybe they're not sideboarding correctly against Delver. Maybe people just don't know what cards from Avacyn Restored they should be playing. Or maybe I just haven't written about White Weenie in a while. In any case, let's fix these problems. Let's talk about White Weenie and how to build it to beat the current metagame.
Beating Mage-Blade (Delver)
A strategy I used to good effect at Grand Prix Orlando against Delver was to play an extremely low curve, including 16 one-drops:
4x
Champion of the Parish
4x
Doomed Traveler
4x
Gideon's Lawkeeper
4x
Elite Vanguard
On the opposite end of the curve, my main deck had zero copies of
Angelic Destiny and only two copies of
Hero of Bladehold. The strategy was to make their
Vapor Snags as bad as possible while simultaneously minimizing the effectiveness of their
Sword of War and Peace. By playing out our hand quickly with aggressive threats, we could accomplish both these feats. This is one strategy for beating Delver, but there are others.
Another strategy, and the one that I currently prefer, is playing the following cards:
4x
Mental Misstep
4x
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2x
Leonin Relic-Warder
3x
Oblivion Ring
Instead of minimizing the effectiveness of
Sword of War and Peace, we let it hit us once before we untap and remove it from the battlefield. Also
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben does a lot of work keeping the Sword off the table. Getting to six mana is a very difficult proposition, so if Thalia sticks around, the opponent will likely have to play the Sword out for four mana and pass the turn, giving us the opportunity to exile it before it ever does any damage. This answers the Sword problem, now what about the
Vapor Snag problem?
While I do not advocate running 16 one-drops, I do advocate only running a pair of four-drops in the main. Drawing a single copy of
Hero of Bladehold can be a good way to end a game against Delver, but drawing too many usually ends in disaster. I also advocate running quite a few three-drops, mostly as a way of combating the Red/Green based strategies (which I will talk about in the next sections). In order to do this, we need to come up with a different strategy than 16 one-drops since
Vapor Snag would still be very good against us if it can be used effectively on our three-drops. These are the three-drops I like right now:
4x
Geist of Saint Traft
4x
Mirran Crusader
3x
Oblivion Ring
4x
Fiend Hunter
Not all these will be in the deck at the same time, but the first 11 or so will be in against Delver.
Geist of Saint Traft has hexproof, so
Vapor Snag can't touch him.
Oblivion Ring likewise can't target it.
Mirran Crusader, however, has a large target on his back (as does Fiend Hunter).
Champion of the Parish is likewise a prime target for Snag, shrinking him back down to size. A timely
Mental Misstep will throw a wrench in the opposing Delver player's plans, keeping our pressure strong.
Mental Misstep can also act as a zero-mana removal spell for
Delver of Secrets if we have it in hand when they play the Delver. It can likewise protect our early
Champion of the Parish from
Gut Shot or even an opposing
Mental Misstep. At times the free
Counterspell has even countered a clutch
Faith's Shield. There are so many strong targets for
Mental Misstep against Mage-Blade that I like having the full set of four against them. How are they going to beat us if not with one-mana spells?
Geist of Saint Traft + Sword of War and Peace? That's about the only possible line that doesn't involve a one-mana spell resolving, and between
Leonin Relic-Warder,
Oblivion Ring, and
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, we have plenty of answers to that line.
Mental Misstep completes the package and give us strong game against Delver decks.
Beating RG Aggro and Naya Pod
RG Aggro won the SCG Madison even this past weekend, so it is sure to be on people's radars for this weekend. Blue/White decks have always had sufficient tools at their disposal to beat Red/Green decks if they so choose to use them (and are able to find them). Current Standard is no exception. The problem had been that there were two very different Red/Green archetypes:
Primeval Titan Ramp and
Strangleroot Geist Aggro. The former relied on
Rampant Growth and
Slagstorm to get into Titan territory while the latter looked to finish things off on turn four or five with a
Sword of War and Peace. Now instead of
Primeval Titan being the other big Red/Green deck, we have Naya Pod. Although distinct in its own right from Red/Green aggro, there is much more overlap between RG Aggro and Naya Pod than there is between Wolf Run Ramp and either of the other two. As a result, there are enough cards with overlapping utility against these two decks to merit moving in the following direction:
4x
Mirran Crusader
3x
Oblivion Ring
4x
Angelic Destiny
3x
Divine Deflection
4x
Fiend Hunter
2x
Leonin Relic-Warder
Slagstorm and
Whipflare can cause problems for this plan, but if the opponent is relying on
Strangleroot Geist and
Huntmaster of the Fells to get the job done, they will quickly find themselves on the ropes and getting trumped turn after turn by white's superior removal options.
Blade Splicer is just as bad against combinations of the above cards.
Now let's take a look at where we're at before going over more detailed sideboard plans.
Here's how I would recommend sideboarding with this list:
Wolf Run Ramp
IN: 4
Angelic Destiny, 1
Hero of Bladehold
OUT: 2
Gideon's Lawkeeper, 2
Leonin Relic-Warder, 1
Fiend Hunter
On the play, I can see bringing in
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben since she can slow down their ramp spells and their board sweepers. On the draw I wouldn't bring her in though. She'll hurt you as much as she hurts the opponent, and she just gets swept away with the sweeper spell anyway.
Mage-Blade
IN: 3
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, 4
Mental Misstep
OUT: 3
Divine Deflection, 2
Mirran Crusader, 1
Fiend Hunter, 1 Plains
It isn't that
Mirran Crusader is particularly bad in the matchup. He is fine, especially once we bring in
Mental Misstep. The problem is having too many high-drops that can clog up our hand. He is simply the most expendable threat in the matchup. Likewise,
Divine Deflection can be very good at times against Delver and may even win you game 1. But once we bring in Thalia, it becomes another high-cost spell that sits in our hand too long. They also have
Gitaxian Probe, which decreases the spell's blowout factor by a sizeable margin.
RG Aggro
IN: 4
Angelic Destiny, 1
Fiend Hunter
OUT: 2
Gideon's Lawkeeper, 2
Hero of Bladehold, 1
Loyal Cathar
I'm not sure about the final slot. I went with
Loyal Cathar, but it could be any number of things. Be careful to play around
Zealous Conscripts. Ideally you can land
Angelic Destiny on
Geist of Saint Traft. The games often result in a board stall with each player having a bunch of ground creatures holding off opposing ground creatures. Their way to break the stalemate is
Sword of War and Peace. Ours is
Angelic Destiny.
Naya Pod
IN: 3
Fiend Hunter, 4
Angelic Destiny
OUT: 2
Gideon's Lawkeeper, 2
Hero of Bladehold, 2
Loyal Cathar, 1
Moorland Haunt
Do not bring in
Mental Misstep against either of the Red/Green decks. It is a trap. I thought it would be good against
Birds of Paradise and
Llanowar Elves and Galvanic Blasts, but in testing they proved poor. The downside of them rotting in hand is greater than the upside of holding them back one mana early. Our best plan against the Green decks is to let them have their mana and then trump their threats with superior threats and their gamebreakers (mostly Sword of War and Peace) with answers (Oblivion Ring).
Also
Divine Deflection works particularly well against werewolves (Huntmaster of the Fells and Daybreak Ranger) because the opponent will often pass the turn after we tap out for a threat, hoping to shoot down our threat. We can then
Redirect it back to the werewolf, or at a better place (including at the opponent) to gain a significant tempo swing.
Divine Deflection is also a great finisher, Fireball-style, or at protecting
Geist of Saint Traft in combat (or both). The only real drawback is its mana cost, but even a
Divine Deflection for 1 can be enough to save a creature in combat while killing off a
Birds of Paradise or whatever. Also remember that if the opponent attacks with a creature holding a Sword and you prevent all of the creature's damage with
Divine Deflection, the Sword's bonus will not trigger. This can be important when trying to race a
Sword of War and Peace.
Other cards I'm considering:
Nearheath Pilgrim - This was one of the cards I considered before trying
Divine Deflection, so it might not be necessary, but he seems particularly good with
Champion of the Parish, with
Mirran Crusader, and with anything enchanted by
Angelic Destiny. He may be better than
Loyal Cathar, but I wanted more protection against Wolf Run decks, so I went with the Cathar instead.
Ratchet Bomb - BW Tokens hasn't received much attention lately, but if it's a deck, I can see running the bomb in the board. There were many situations against Delver, Red/Green, and Naya Pod where a
Ratchet Bomb for 0 would clear out the opponent's board of flipped Delvers, flipped werewolves, wolf tokens, and golem tokens. If the Blue/White miracle control deck gets ported over to Standard, I can see this being an answer to
Entreat the Angels.
Cloudshift - Tacking on one more mana to
Fiend Hunter or
Leonin Relic-Warder to get rid of another target sounds very powerful to me. It's also a way of protecting our key threats from removal (or bounce), or removing
Geist of Saint Traft from combat after hitting for four with its Angel token, or surprise-pumping a
Champion of the Parish after blocks have been declared (by blinking another human). There is only so much room for cute tricks, and this one is near the top of my list, but just under
Divine Deflection. There is something about an improved
Captain's Maneuver that really attracts me.
Celestial Purge - If Zombies and/or Red decks become popular, this is probably better than
Timely Reinforcements against them. Right now with Red/Green and Naya being more popular than either of these, I would recommend keeping the
Purge outside the 75 for this weekend, though have it ready to bring in for the following weekend depending on what happens in Minneapolis this weekend.
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Appendix: Hallelujah!
Congratulations to Alexander Hayne on winning Pro Tour Avacyn Restored in Barcelona this past weekend, with his miracle-based UW Control deck he named ‘Hallelujah'!
Ever since the dominance of Team Channel-Fireball, there haven't been many organized teams at the professional level. Pro Tour Barcelona was different. Team Channel
Fireball showed up (well, sort of…), as did Team Mythic (a.k.a. SCG Black). Those have been the two major international teams of recent years. Besides those, there were the geographic teams: the Japanese, the Brazilians, the French, the Canadians, etc. For Barcelona there were over a dozen organized groups of players, giving the event a real ‘team' feel, which in my opinion is my favorite part of Magic.
Every member of Team Canada (to my knowledge) played the same deck, which was originally designed by Alex, and with the other teammates helping to tune and perfect it. According to Adam Yurchick, it was Alex's baby the whole time and the one deck he focused on from the beginning. I can certainly relate, as I often have a pet deck that I try my hardest to tune and get up to speed. I didn't really have a pet deck for this tournament, but I kept trying to get white decks of various incarnations to work.
Up to Wednesday night before the Pro Tour, I was convinced I would be playing something with
Entreat the Angels. My frontrunner decks were White Weenie (with 4x
Entreat the Angels in the sideboard against control decks) and Red/White miracle-control featuring 4x
Entreat the Angels, 4x
Terminus, 4x
Bonfire of the Damned, and
Otherworld Atlas to give myself twice the opportunities to hit miracles. One of my teammates for the event, Eduardo Borges, replaced the white with blue and built a really solid Blue/Red control deck. While I really wanted blue, the deck no longer appealed to me when white was cut. The whole basis for playing a miracle control deck in my opinion was
Entreat the Angels. If we cut that, we're basically just a glorified counter-burn deck. And that did not feel like a deck capable of winning the tournament to me.
That night I turned the lights out and laid down in my bed envisioning how the pro tour would play out. I saw myself in the finals, adorned in my black suit, tapping my beta (dark picture) Plains to miracle cast
Entreat the Angels to win the pro tour. It was an awesome vision, and I thought to myself, ‘hallelujah!' (which means, ‘Praise Jah', ‘Jah' being the abbreviated name of the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, the God I believe in). It felt real, but I didn't even have a deck yet, and I only had one more day to figure out what I was playing.
Flash forward to Sunday. Seated in the viewing area amidst all the other fallen competitors, just behind the ten or so members of Team Canada, I intently watched the finals of Pro Tour Barcelona is it was being projected onto the wall in real time. It was game five between Gaudenis Vidugiris and Alexander Hayne. Alex untapped his (dark picture) beta Plains, along with his (dark picture) beta islands, the same version of each that I always play with. He then reached over toward his library, adorned in his black suit, to draw his card for the turn…
…flipping over Entreat the Angels, miracle-casting it to win the pro tour! Instantaneously, the Canadians erupted in jubilation and hastened to exit the viewing room, storming into the tournament hall where, presumably, they would celebrate with their fellow teammate and newly crowned pro tour champion Alexander Hayne. I couldn't help but sit in my chair and smile to myself as the other competitors slowly filed out of the viewing area. At that moment there were no feelings of regret over having played a suboptimal deck or having failed to realize the vision I had on Wednesday evening. It was simply not my tournament to win, yet it felt like everything happened as it was supposed to happen - and it was awesome! I could only sit there and think to myself, ‘Hallelujah!'
Craig Wescoe
@Nacatls4Life on twitter
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