Raphael Levy
7/27/2012 10:16:00 AM
A few weeks back, I wrote about the Legacy tournament I played in Toulouse and talked about the UW deck I was running to eventually win the four Tundras at stake. It was mostly a practice tournament for GP Ghent that took place last weekend.


When I thought it was mostly to see what the format was about, I realized that I actually learned how to play a deck that requires a lot of training. When I finished most of my game two's during the extra turns in Toulouse, I finished most of my game three's in Ghent before time was called, thanks to the automatisms I got by Pondering/Brainstorming/Toping a million times before I picked the deck up for the “real” tournament.

I got to think more about the deck after I wrote about it and before submitting my decklist.

I badly wanted a second Entreat the Angels. Although playing faster helps finishing the rounds in time, killing faster does that even better. Knowing that you have two of them in the deck allows you to play the first one without having to get the maximum value out of it, meaning you shouldn't be afraid to play it for 1 or 2 early in the game.

It also gives you an extra 3-drop for your Counterbalance.

I took out Spell Snare because it just isn't good in the format. What you can counter with it are mostly creatures that you can already deal with using Swords to Plowshares: Tarmogoyf, Gaddock Teeg, Stoneforge Mystic –although you'd rather counter that one directly. It makes the card so narrow that I'd rather not play it at all and play most useful cards…

…like a singleton Counterbalance for example. This card is good in most matchups, but you don't want to draw more than one in the matchups they're not good in. When I said I needed a card that would “gain you life” to stay out of reach of burn spells, I needed something that would reliably protect you from bolts. Counterbalance just does that work for you.

So here is what I came up with:

UW Miracles by Raphael Levy Finished 33rd - 64th Place at 2012 Grand Prix Ghent - 7/21 Main Deck Sideboard 3 Snapcaster Mage 2 Vendilion Clique Creatures [5] 2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor Planeswalkers [5] 4 Brainstorm 1 Counterbalance 2 Counterspell 2 Entreat the Angels 4 Force of Will 4 Ponder 4 Sensei's Divining Top 2 Spell Pierce 4 Swords to Plowshares 3 Terminus Spells [30] 4 Flooded Strand 5 Island 1 Karakas 1 Marsh Flats 2 Misty Rainforest 2 Plains 1 Polluted Delta 1 Scalding Tarn 3 Tundra Lands [20] Deck Total [60] 1 Banishing Stroke 2 Counterbalance 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Path to Exile 2 Relic of Progenitus 2 Spell Pierce 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Terminus 1 Tormod's Crypt Sideboard [15] View a Sample Hand! Solitaire this Deck! Click for full deck stats & notes!

Main deck:
-2 Spell Snare
+1 Entreat the Angels
+1 Counterbalance

Sideboard:
-2 Tormod's Crypt
-1 Ethersworn Canonist
-2 Counterbalance
-1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Banishing Stroke
+2 Spell Pierce
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Relic of Progenitus

Graveyard Hate

I took out 2 of the Tormod's Crypt and added 1 Relic of Progenitus and 2 Surgical Extraction. I already explained why I liked Relic of Progenitus, but I think even then I was underrating it. Tormod's Crypt are only good against Dredge and Reanimator, although they will sneak their Griselbrand into play with Show and Tell after game one… Relic will do the same job, more or less, to remove the whole graveyard. But I really want to point out, again, that this card is great against RUG Delver and Maverick. Nimble Mongoose is a pain, and gaining a few turns by removing your opponent's graveyard without losing a card is huge. It also keeps Tarmogoyf in check. It's another way to play Terminus on your opponent's turn. It keeps Knight of the Reliquary in check against Maverick. I would replace the Tormod's Crypt for a third Relic if it was not about Pithing Needle.

As for the Surgical Extraction, they are a lot more versatile than Tormod's Crypt. Against the decks mentioned above, but they play a very relevant role against Esper. The matchup isn't great, but it improves a lot with Extraction. Lingering Souls is a big problem but Extraction deals with it. How? Your opponent is often reluctant to flash it back and run into a Terminus which will give you a window to exile it.

High Mid Low

Vendilion Clique

$59.98

$50.34

$44.64

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The Vendilion Clique was replaced by the second Entreat the Angels main deck as the extra flying kill condition.

Spell Pierce seemed to be the best solution against various Combo decks such as Storm, Sneak Attack and Reanimator.

I decided to run Banishing Stroke and I'm glad I did. It's just an extra creature removal and an answer to Choke and Umezawa's Jitte, which could be troublesome. I found out that Chalice of the Void is also a huge problem.

The field of GP Ghent was pretty much what I expected: a lot of Mavericks, a lot of RUG Delver, a few combo decks and some more “random decks.” For the numbers check these links: Field in Atlanta and Field in Ghent.

Here is the updated sideboard plans against the most played decks:

Vs. RUG Delver:
-2 Spell Pierce
-2 Counterspell
-4 Force of Will

+2 Path to Exile
+1 Terminus
+2 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Banishing Stroke
+2 Counterbalance

In this matchup, you will often be behind on tempo. They will mostly keep their cheap counterspells, and even add Pyroblasts. The worst spell you could cast in this matchup is Force of Will. Your plan is to stabilize the board thanks to your cheap removals or Relic to deal with Tarmogoyf and Nimble Mongoose. He won't be able to counter all your threats on the long run (Counterbalance being a big one for only UU), and you'll win in the end, given that you have stabilized the board at some point…

Vs. Maverick:
-2 Spell Pierce
-2 Counterspell
-1 Force of Will
-1 Counterbalance

+2 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Terminus
+2 Path to Exile
+1 Banishing Stroke

While RUG Delver's plan is to grind you down to zero life with his few threats, Maverick's plan is to play something you won't be able to deal with. That would be a Gaddock Teeg (or a Green Sun's Zenith >2) that he would protect, a Jitte, or a Choke. There aren't many spells you really want to counter, and that's why you want to keep your Force of Will.

Vs. Esper:
-1 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Ponder
-2 Spell Pierce

+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Counterbalance

Spell Pierce just isn't that great in that Matchup. The game is going to take a while, and there won't be many opportunities where you're going to take much advantage of it. Counterbalance makes up a lot for the lack of permission. Also, you can't really take out creature removals since you have to take care of Spirit tokens with Terminus, and Stoneforge Mystic with Swords to Plowshares.

Day 1:
Round 1-3 Byes: 3-0
Round 4 VS Tom Valkeneers with Merfolk: 0-2, 3-1
Round 5 VS Guillaume Libraire with Maverick: 2-0, 4-1
Round 6 VS Vincent Lemoine With Esper: 1-2, 4-2
Round 7 VS Alrik Mabire with Goblins : 2-0, 5-2
Round 8 VS Stef Broeke with Maverick: 2-1, 6-2
Round 9 VS Fernando Iglesias with Tempo RUG : 2-1, 7-2

Day 2:
Round 10 VS Tim Louter with RUG Delver : 2-1, 8-2
Round 11 VS Rickard Samuelsson with Loam: 1-2, 8-3
Round 12 VS Ray Schoot with Elves: 2-0, 9-3
Round 13 VS Ciro Bonaventura with RUG Delver: 0-2, 9-4
Round 14 VS Maarten Euser with RUG Delver: 2-0, 10-4
Round 15 VS Jan Erik Haefeker with Maverick: 2-0, 11-4
Round 16 VS Gerhard Moellemann with Esper: 1-1-1, 11-4-1

This is quite representative of the decks that were in the tournament, although I guess I could have played against more combo decks. Maverick and RUG are popular creature decks everywhere so I'm not surprised I got to play against them most of the time, and with good results: 3-0 vs. Maverick, 3-1 vs. RUG. I'm pretty sure I threw the match against Ciro in round 13, I think I lost focus a bit. These things happen when you spend the day looking at the top 3 cards of your library every turn.

A few facts about the tournament:

-Round 4: I'm not sure about the Merfolk matchup. I did get rolled over that time but it felt like it didn't look too bad if I could just kill one more guy every game. Let me know if you have that data!

-The matchup against Esper is very slow. In round 6, Vincent and I played really fast and we ended up in the extra turns anyway. My last round match ended up in a draw but in that case, neither of us played particularly fast.

-In game 1 of round 9, playing against RUG Delver. I finally stabilized the board and I'm facing an opponent with no cards in hand, 3 lands and who just played 2 Lightning Bolts to put me down to 3 life. I have Top and I just played a Counterbalance, feeling quite safe… He proceeded to draw Fireblast (!). I Top'ed, no answer. Fetched, Top'ed, third card from the top: Terminus…

-Twice or three times in the tournament, I was facing creatures on the board and I drew Terminus. Every time, I looked surprised because I was so used to set it up that when I actually drew it when I needed it and swept the board, it really felt like cheating.

High Mid Low

Chalice of the Void

$12.98

$9.19

$7.25

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-Playing against Loam in game 3 of round 11, I got locked pretty badly by Chalice of the Void for 1. I didn't board in Banishing Stroke when I should have, but this is the kind of cards that makes me want to play 2.

-In round 16, it was fairly certain that my opponent and I could just draw into top 64. One of our neighbors convinced his opponent to draw since he was 100% sure they would both make it. I looked at the standings and after some maths, I was fairly sure he was right. I kinda felt like playing and so did my opponent. We proceeded to split the first two games, and with 10 minutes left on the clock in a UW vs. Esper Matchup, we started game three that had very little chance to finish. We eventually unintentionally drew into 64.

-It turns out, ironically, that the guy next to us who convinced his opponent to draw finished 65^th, due to the number of ID's taken at higher tables… When someone does the math and is 100% of something, you should probably double check, just in case!

I really enjoyed playing that deck but I would probably change a couple of things to the list if I had to play it again. As you have seen, I took out Spell Pierce in every matchup. I think that over the course of the tournament, I got to cast it twice. And how many times did I want to see a Terminus on the top of my library? Only ALL the time. I boarded in Terminus almost every game. Sure I played against mostly Maverick and RUG, but isn't it what the format is about?

Two Spell Pierce just aren't enough to make a difference against combo decks and their use is too narrow against the rest of the field.

You might also say that you don't need an extra Terminus to beat these decks since you already beat them. It's also true. However, I would have felt much safer with a fourth Terminus main.

As for the extra card, it could be anything. It could be a Surgical Extraction, a second Counterbalance or a Banishing Stroke for a way to deal with Batterskull main deck and therefore have two after board.

I'm also very tempted to cut the Counterspells and replace them with Counterbalance. I don't know if that's the right thing to do, but I'm considering it.

In any case, keep the Spell Pierces in the sideboard at least, all 4 of them. They would make a difference against combo decks.

Two UW decks made it to the Top 8 in Ghent; I suggest you have a look at the decklists here. They are splashing a third color: black for Max Sjöblom and red for Andrea Milillo for extra sideboard options. I can't say for sure if their versions are better or worse than the one I played or the one I would play if I had to play again, but they are definitely worth considering.

A Top 64 at a GP isn't something I'm usually excited about, but I'm actually quite happy with the outcome. I had fun playing the deck and playing in a format that I used to dislike a lot. Next stop is Indianapolis for the World Cup where I'll be leading the French team with hopefully more stories to tell!

Raph