STD DEKTEK – Bant Wurm

HOW MUCH DO I LOVE ADVENT?

I gazed lovingly into the beady eyes of the wurm, and it stared back at me with a satisfied expression on its face and a burnt out cigarette clutched between its lips. I leaned in on my dragon-kin mistress and whispered seductively in its ear hole thingy:

“Do you want to watch ‘The Notebook’ tonight, honey?” The violent thrashing of its tail signaled that she was unwilling to cry herself to sleep, and that a romantic comedy was more up her alley.

“Well what do YOU want to do then, my dove?” The wurm smiled a tooth grin and darted out of the $50 per night motel room before I could react. I called after her, but she was out of my view before I could stop her. Was she trying to escape me? Was my performance not up to par?

“Baby nooooooooooooo!” I lamented, but she was gone. All gone. I had nothing left to remember our magical, passionate weekend together except for a broken scale, a pool of slime, and a huge bill for the mini bar.

Deflated, I collapsed in a heap on the dirty, sweaty blankets that were so pristine the night before. I bunched them up in my fists, buried my face in them and sobbed... Oh how I sobbed for the loss of my baby! Then just as the day looked its darkest, I saw something shining in the distance, closing in on me fast. The scene was something out of a Warner Brothers cartoon: A huge corona of dust advancing on the hapless Bugs Bunny. Fight or flight response active, for a minute I was frozen in place, unsure of what to do. I squinted into the sunlight… and could it be? YES! It was my lovely wurm, returned to me with presents hanging from its maw!

The corpse of a knight in full armor! How sweet!

A collection of artifacts, including a Winter Orb! Useful!!
And the piece-de-resistance: A groupon for a weekend in Niagara Falls! WOWZA!!!

My heart melted as wurm coiled me up in her serpentine form and dragged me back into our room to fornicate.

…

…
…  I like Advent of the Wurm THAT MUCH!
 

WURMING MY WAY TO VICTORY

Dragons Maze gave everyone a few new toys, but my favorite colors (G/W) seemed to really get a boost. Advent of the Wurm & Voice of Resurgence are just as incredible as my sexual prowess (Mrs. Wurm can attest to the validity of my claims) and demand to be used in every deck I build from now until rotation.

Looking at the Bant colors I see a few things that really jump out at me:

Thragtusk + Snapcaster Mage + Restoration Angel (Things to Blink)

Snapcaster + Sphinx’s Revelation + Advent of the Wurm (Snapcaster Goodness)
Snapcaster + Restoration Angel + Advent of the Wurm (Flash Creatures)
… And Voice of Resurgence is just insane, is it not?

I guess that means that each of the above is getting a slot or 4, and will look something like this as a skeleton:

4 Thragtusk

3 Restoration Angel
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Sphinx’s Revelation
4 Advent of the Wurm
4 Voice of Resurgence

… THAT’S ALREADY 22 CARDS!

The deck basically built itself to within 10-15 cards or so, and it then becomes a decision on how much / which removal / utility creatures to include along with my cream of the crop.

Well, Snapcaster isn’t that great without something to flashback, so we’d better add some more spells. We’re light on removal and conveniently in the colors of the best charms (IMHO), and unsummon plays nice with Snappy for a T3 Snap + play.

X Unsummon

X Selesnya Charm
X Azorious Charm

Now it looks like I’m doing nothing for the first few turns like a control deck that plays creatures, but without an endgame. Aggro will crush me if I don’t have some way to stem the bleeding before hitting 5 for Tusk, so I’m going to need some other way to stabilize. “Daddy Fat Stacks” is always ready to rumble and is undercosted for the beef he brings to the table.

X Loxodon Smiter

 

CARL SZALICH’S BANT FLASH DECK

Creatures (19)

4 Voice of Resurgence

4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Restoration Angel
4 Thragtusk

It’s beautiful. A pile of the best creatures in standard just decided to have a party and invite everyone!

Snapper is busy chugging 40s and reminiscing the days of Vapor Snag.

Tusk and Voice are having a heated debate about politics over crumpets and tea.
Smiter and Angel are off breeding in a smoke filled back room.

… Reminds me of high school! :)

Spells (16)

3 Unsummon

3 Selesnya Charm
3 Azorious Charm
3 Sphinx’s Revelation
4 Advent of the Wurm

16 spells should give me enough to reliably have Snapcaster meat. I was initially debating trying to squeeze in a Runechanters Pike, up my spell count and run Thoughtscour but the reliability of other choices vs. the cute pike trick won out after testing. T3 pike with no spells in your bin and no bodies onboard is not as good as T3 Smiter with all the aGgro running around. The situational goodness of pike loses to the consistency of fat.

Lands (25)

1 Moorland Haunt

1 Gavony Township
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Breeding Pool
3 Hinterland Harbor
4 Temple Garden
4 Sunpetal Grove

These aren’t the lands you’re looking for. Move along.

Sideboard (15)

3 Rest in Peace (C)

4 Centaur Healer (A)
1 Sphinx’s Revelation (B)
3 Supreme Verdict (A)
2 Jace, Architect of Thought (B)
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter (B)

(A)   = Aggro Package

      (B)   = Control Package
      (C)   = Graveyard Hate

I’m still looking to write that article on how to design a sideboard, but until I do, it’s bush league, baby!

The (supreme) verdict is still out on whether to run Rest in Peace or Tormods Crypt. RiP hurts our deck as well because it blanks Snapcaster, but it’s a more permanent solution than Crypt that prevents them from rebuilding their graveyard.

Jace, Garruk, and the final Sphinx’s Revelation come in against control so that we can also experience the joys of card draw and recover after they wrath the board. Notably absent is counter magic… I don’t feel it’s needed as we’re normally better off playing a threat or just answering theirs with our lucky charms.

The aggro match is only OK, but substituting elephants for Centaur Healers really helps. The addition of 3x Supreme Verdict also lets us play more like a control deck and bumps our removal spells up to 12.

 

DID YOU MOVE TO WINSVILLE??

Nope! Instead I converted a cardboard box into a mobile home and decided to hang out under a bridge. :S

I got the chance to try this list last Friday to a disappointing result: 2-2. I don’t think it was so much the deck that failed me, but more the draws. Even with 25 lands main I mulliganed almost every game and STILL didn’t get up to 4 mana consistently.

When it was working, it still felt very underpowered. Sure sometimes you’d get the surprise Wurm blocker and others you’d get to flash it back with a Snapper, but when you weren’t doing that, well, you really weren’t doing much. Could be that I didn’t really make it to 5 mana often enough to experience the joy of dropping Tusks and playing more than one spell a turn.

Even sphinx’s revelation felt dead in my hands with or without the mana to cast it. It just feels too slow right now in such a fast meta. Against blitz decks your T5 sphinx for 2 isn’t very impressive, and midrange decks have their own CA in the form of Garruk and Prime Speaker Zegana. I almost feel that Garruk, Primal Hunter would be a better choice than sphinx because it still draws cards BUT can also generate blockers when you need them. Even Jace, Architect of thought seems better here. For 4cc you can hurt agro (-1 attack) OR draw cards like Sphinx. You don’t directly gain life with this plan, but in a way you do by reducing attackers power.

When I managed to hit the mythical 4 mana mark Advent of the Wurm performed just as I’d hoped, so at least I can’t blame him/her/it for my failure.

 

THAT’S JUST PILLOW TALK, BABY!

It is also unfortunate that I had to end the illicit love affair I’d been having with wurm. She was cute, sure, but kinda bitchy and snobbish. If it didn’t say “Prada”, she wouldn’t wear it. If it couldn’t somehow be related to celebrity gossip, she didn’t want to hear about it. It was always “her way or the highway”, so the highway I chose!

That’s right brothers! High five! :)

… Fine, I admit it! She broke up with me, OK?! There. Are you happy now? When I couldn’t even muster the 4 mana to cast her and placate her unquenchable lust for 4/4 she just up and left without a goodbye or a note.

Typical woman.

(Just don’t tell her I said that!)

 

Cheers,

Carl Szalich

@psilence6k on Twitter

STD DEKTEK – Naya Rade

MASTERING THE HUNT

2 weeks ago I played a Selesnya deck to a 4-0-1 victory.

Last week Huntsmaster of the Fells sat me down for a one-on-one.

“So… do we have a problem here, Carl?”

“Ummm what do you mean Mr. Huntsmaster, sir?”
“You haven’t summoned me in months. I’ve just been sitting here in your binder squashed between Prime Speaker Zegana and Auriela the Warleader. Do you know what it’s like having to listen to them debate between who’s cuter between Gatekeeper of Malakir and Master of the Pearl Trident?
“Doesn’t seem that bad. I mean, obviously it’s Gatekeeper since I’m not into seafood…”
*SIGH* “You’re missing the point. When you need life, who gets it for you?”
“… Thragtusk?”
“NO! ME YOU DUMMY! I get you life! And when you need to burn out an annoying Silverblade Paladin, who do you call?”
“… Mizzium Mortars?”
“My but you’re thick. ME! YOU CALL ME! I DO EVERYTHING!!”
“Everything except show up in my deck, that is?”
“… Sick burn, bro. You’re a stone cold basilisk.”

On that note (and to stop Huntsmasters constant nagging and whining. I mean damn, I’ve got a fiancée to blah blah blah  in my ear if that’s what I wanted!) it was time to 4-0-1 with a Naya deck again!

CARL SZALICH’S NAYA RADE DECK

Creatures (33)

4 Avacyn’s Pilgrim

3 Arbor Elf
3 Voice of Resurgence (only had 3)
3 Loxodon Smiter
4 Boros Reckoner
3 Restoration Angel
4 Huntsmaster of the Fells
2 Hellrider
4 Thragtusk
2 Thundermaw Hellkite
1 Aurelia, the Warleader

Seems pretty self-explanatory. Mash all the best creatures together and call it a deck. No need to use any brain power or creativity. Just human centipede together a few Tusks, Huntsmasters, and Angels and tell them to feed!

I find that having 6-7 1-drop accelerators are pretty key for a deck like this one. You need to keep applying threats as quickly as possible to both combat faster aggro and try and do a little damage before control closes the doors on you. It also lets me run a low number of 2-drops because I can skip right to the 3-drops on T2.

The thing I really like about this deck is that it’s good against the field and doesn’t have many bad matchups. Against aggro you’ve got built in life gain all over the place (Thrag / Huntsmaster + Resto) and lots of “value blockers” (Smiter / Reckoner). Against control you’ve got a ton of “must answers” and hasty creatures that let you roll out one or two baddies that threaten to end the game on their own if not answered AND you’ve got main deck Voice. In all honesty, the only cards I DON’T want to see off the top are my mana dorks, as every other card is a bomb.

Planeswalkers (3)

3 Domri Rade

I finally got to try him out, and he wasn’t half as bad as I’d expected! Most of the time it was a T2 or T3 fatty followed by Domri -2 to fight. Elephants love the arena… but not as much as Minotaurs! That was a nice little combo I hadn’t even thought of until it happened.

When Domri wasn’t telling his peeps to brawl he was quietly gaining me card advantage or (more often than not) diddling himself in his uselessness. I’d like to say that with my > 50% worth of creatures that I was hitting a draw at least half the time, but alas, math isn’t concrete and the fates were cruel. Most of the time I just got to see the land I was going to be drawing next turn.

It’s all about the fight club for our friend Domri.

This build did cause me to think that I was trying to be too “cute”, and sacrificed some power just to try out Domri since I ran no spells. In the future I’d probably cut Domri so that I can play Advent of the Wurm and some main deck removal (probably Mizzium Mortars). Sorry Dom. :(

Lands (24)

1 Kessig Wolf Run

1 Gavony Township
4 Stomping Grounds
4 Rootbound Craig
4 Temple Garden
3 Sunpetal Grove
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Clifftop Retreat
 
These are lands, I tap them for mana.
Sometimes I don’t draw them, then I lose.
Sometimes I draw too many, then I lose.
 

HUNTSMASTER SAYS…

“Well there you go. Another victory. And you know who you’ve got to thank for it?”

“Domri Rade?!”
“Ummm you know I read the part about how you’d cut him for Advent of the Wurm, right?”
“Oh yea! I must have meant Aurelia, the Warleader!!”
*FACE PALM*

 

Cheers all,

Carl Szalich

@Psilence6K on Twitter