Frank Lepore
7/25/2012 10:22:00 AM
Recent Video Articles:
Video Deck Tech - Faithless Rites/GRITES! (Standard)
Video Deck Tech - Junk Superfriends (Standard)
Video Deck Tech - BW Vengeance Control (Standard)

We've reached that difficult point again where Standard on Magic Online simply hasn't caught up to the real world in terms of card availability. Luckily the gap is getting shorter by the set, but for the time being, we're still at the mercy of Magic Online's delay of new sets; in this case, M13. While there are several cards already available online in older iterations (Mutilate, Gilded Lotus, Quirion Dryad, etc.) it came as a surprise to me that many of them were a lot pricier than I thought they would be! I assume this is due to people trying to do the same thing I was thinking of doing: getting a head start on the format and picking up the older, reprinted staples. Whereas a card like Quirion Dryad should be under a dollar, they were selling for close to three. I can't really defend buying cards at that price when I know they'll sink like a stone during the M13 release week, especially when the cards wouldn't be legal in any constructed formats just yet.


That having been said, there are still some innovative brews going around Magic Online. I started looking through the MTGO Daily and Premier Events for decks that went 4-0 or placed in the Top 8 respectively. I started finding more and more Wolf Run RUG lists popping up. I wasn't sure why, but people seemed to have started to add a good amount of blue cards to their Wolf Run lists! Take the following list for example...

Wolf Run RUG by Boooosh (4-0) Main Deck Sideboard 4 Frost Titan 4 Primeval Titan 3 Solemn Simulacrum Creatures [11] 1 Karn Liberated Planeswalkers [1] 4 Ponder 4 Rampant Growth 4 Sphere of the Suns 4 Temporal Mastery 2 Vapor Snag 3 Whipflare Spells [21] 3 Cavern of Souls 2 Evolving Wilds 5 Forest 4 Glimmerpost 4 Hinterland Harbor 1 Inkmoth Nexus 3 Island 1 Kessig Wolf Run 1 Mountain 3 Sulfur Falls Lands [27] Deck Total [60] 2 Ancient Grudge 2 Batterskull 2 Blasphemous Act 1 Karn Liberated 1 Natural End 1 Wrack with Madness 4 Wurmcoil Engine 2 Zealous Conscripts Sideboard [15] View a Sample Hand! Solitaire this Deck! Click for full deck stats & notes!

Upon seeing this deck, I instantly loved it. It had the lesser played Titan of the Frost variety, it had Whipflares which are awesome right now, Miracles, a Karn Liberated, and it still had a lot of the cards that make Wolf Run formidable! I kept looking and then I found the following list which is the one I eventually chose to discuss...

Wolf Run RUG by Tacks Finished 5th - 8th Place at MTGO Standard Premier - 7/20/12 Main Deck Sideboard 1 Birds of Paradise 4 Primeval Titan 4 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Thrun, the Last Troll 1 Viridian Emissary Creatures [11] 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage Planeswalkers [1] 4 Abundant Growth 4 Devastation Tide 3 Green Sun's Zenith 4 Ponder 4 Rampant Growth 4 Temporal Mastery Spells [23] 1 Cavern of Souls 1 Evolving Wilds 7 Forest 4 Glimmerpost 4 Hinterland Harbor 2 Inkmoth Nexus 3 Island 2 Kessig Wolf Run 1 Mountain Lands [25] Deck Total [60] 1 Acidic Slime 3 Combust 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast 3 Phantasmal Image 1 Tree of Redemption 4 Wolfir Avenger 2 Wurmcoil Engine Sideboard [15] View a Sample Hand! Solitaire this Deck! Click for full deck stats & notes!

I liked this one initially because it had Devastation Tide - a card which everyone wanted to be really good, but turned out to be less than Stellar in practice. I really wanted to see if it had found a home. Let's take a look at the games, but I warn you, I played the deck absolutely terribly. I'm not very familiar with Wolf Run in general, and make no mistake, these were the first times I had ever played the deck!

Wolf Run RUG vs. Monogreen Behemoth



Wolf Run RUG vs. BR Zombies



Wolf Run RUG vs. Esper Control



Again, I know I made a ton of misplays, so pointing them out...not sure that's going to help. I think it was the combination of my unfamiliarity with the deck along with the sizeable amount of decisions that need to be made at all times. It also didn't help that I was exhausted while I was playing, and I could definitely feel my Fatigue playing a huge part in my mistakes; after I would make a play, I would actually realize that it was incorrect or hasty and that I really just needed to get some sleep. For anyone who doesn't think exhaustion doesn't play a part in how well you play Magic, let me assure you that it indeed does.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I thought the deck was okay, but I have to admit that I really liked the first list I saw better. When I was downloading lists I thought they would all have Frost Titans in them as I thought that was the paragon of adding blue to Wolf Run, and I came to find out - a couple games in no less - that the deck in questions had no such giants. And let me tell you: eight giants is better than four anyday.

While MTGO player “Tacks” took 5th place in the Premier Event, I'm not sure the deck is completely where it needs to be. It had a couple glaring issues that I noticed. For one thing there actually aren't that many colored lands. If you compare the two decks I posted above, one has 27 lands and the other has 25. The one with 27 lands actually has two less colorless lands (one less Inkmoth Nexus and one less Kessig Wolf Run to be specific). I often found myself unable to cast both a Rampant Growth and a Green Sun's Zenith in the same turn. When you get to a certain amount of mana you would often be fine, but you would often want a green and a blue on turn two for something like Rampant Growth or a Green Sun's Zenith for one, but also for the situations where you untap into a Temporal Mastery.

High Mid Low

Temporal Mastery

$9.99

$5.63

$3.25

Store QTY Price   Friendly Flames 1 $3.25 Cloak and Dagger 2 $3.80 TheStuffSeller 1 $4.00 GG Cards and Trading 1 $4.15 WittyParker 1 $4.48 Top Tyr Games 1 $4.49 TheStuffSeller 1 $4.49 Nerd Rage Gaming 1 $4.59 Get There Games 2 $4.74 >> View all Prices for Temporal Mastery << Store.TCGplayer.com allows you to buy cards from any of our vendors, all at the same time! Shop, Compare & Save with TCGplayer.com! - [Store FAQ]

The other issue I had with the deck was the Green Sun's Zenith targets. I always wanted more ramp for one thing, and I think the deck relies pretty heavily on the turn two Green Sun's Zenith for one into your lone Birds of Paradise. This presumably fills the role of the “four Sphere of the Suns” in other lists. I could think of plenty of creatures that would have made the card much, much better in many situations, not the least of which was one Acidic Slime. I would have also loved a Wolfir Silverheart, a Viridian Corrupter in the sideboard, maybe a single Huntmaster of the Fells. There are plenty of things I could search for, but I came to disappointingly realize that my only options were one Birds of Paradise, one Viridian Emissary, one Thrun, the Last Troll, and the suite of Primeval Titans. That's it: four different creatures. Three if you happened to draw any of the one-ofs. While this might seem “streamlined” I think we're wasting a lot of opportunities to include silver bullets. For example, I'm sure now that M13 is available, a Thragtusk is going to go in here immediately.

The sideboard is just fine. I didn't play against any “white” decks, so I have no idea how good Combust actually is. I loved boarding in the Wolfir Avengers, but I felt like they were a little hard to both cast and regenerate in the same turn if needed. The Phantasmal Images were also awesome, especially in conjunction with Devastation Tide since you get to replay the Clone for the low price of two mana and also get any additional benefits from “enters the battlefield” triggers. I like the single Acidic Slime, but I already went over that, and I'm not sure how useful the Melira, Sylvok Outcast or the two Wurmcoil Engines are. I boarded the Wurmcoils in quite a bit, but the fact that the deck isn't a “dedicated” ramp deck (with only four Rampant Growth and “4' Birds) along with having 25 lands makes me wonder if I'd rather these guys just be Thragtusks.

Well, that's about it. I love that this is a unique evolution of Wolf Run Ramp, and I love that the deck is attempting to try not only new things, but new cards that are underappreciated. Devastation Tide in Wolf Run RUG also took a Top 32 slot at the latest SCG Open in Las Vegas, so maybe it is indeed a thing to be experimented with. I'll definitely be looking out for this weekend at the TCGplayer Open in Providence, so make sure to tune in all day Saturday for live commentary from myself and the awesome Caleb Durward! Thanks for reading guys, and I'll see you this weekend!

Frank Lepore
@FrankLepore on Twitter
FrankLepore on TwitchTV