First of all, I'm glad to be back home finally after a week in Virginia for work. The weather was phenomenal the entire time I was there, 80's-90's and high humidity, such a welcome change over desolate and dry Colorado.
The first deck I'd like to talk about is more of an idea than a solid deck. I've seen literally hundreds of variations, and there's really only 1 thing that all of them have in common, Birthing Pod.
Birthing Pod is a card advantage engine like nobodies business. If you can get a Pod out early, and get it to stick, you'll be drowning your opponent in card advantage in a way only Jace and Stoneforge could do in the past.
The downside to Birthing Pod is that it takes a lot more skill to play compared to most decks. You need to be very mindful of what creatures are remaining in your deck so that you don't sacrifice the wrong thing and end up drawing a blank or not the creature you were looking for.
Here's the list that I've been playing around with to moderate success:
| B/G Pod | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lands - 25 4 Verdant Catacombs 3 Tectonic Edge 9 Forest 9 Swamp Creatures - 27 CMC = 1 4 Birds of Paradise CMC = 2 4 Bloodghast 1 Viridian Emissary 1 Perilous Myr 1 Fauna Shaman CMC = 3 2 Liliana's Specter 1 Pilgrim's Eye CMC = 4 2 Obstinate Baloth 1 Entomber Exarch 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 1 Skinrender | CMC = 5 4 Acidic Slime 1 Mitotic Slime CMC = 6 1 Wurmcoil Engine 1 Massacre Wurm CMC = 7 1 Sheoldred, Whispering One Artifacts - 4 4 Birthing Pod Spells - 4 1 Go for the Throat 1 Doom Blade 2 Beast Within | Sideboard: 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 2 Obstinate Baloth 3 Go for the Throat 3 Doom Blade 2 Beast Within 4 Viridian Corrupter | |
I've been doing fairly well with the deck, but I am still doing a lot of tweaks to the list.
The best part about Birthing Pod decks is how incredibly versatile they are. You pretty much need to have Green as one of your colors, but beyond that it is entirely up to you.
The second deck that I believe has a real shot is Black/Blue Control. Here's a list that recently did fairly well in a Magic-League tournament:
| U/B Control | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Land - 25 4 Creeping Tar Pit 4 Darkslick Shores 4 Drowned Catacomb 4 Tectonic Edge 4 Swamp 5 Island Creatures - 4 2 Wurmcoil Engine 2 Consecrated Sphinx Planeswalkers - 5 3 Jace Beleren 1 Liliana Vess 1 Karn Liberated | Spells - 26 2 Go for the Throat 4 Mana Leak 4 Preordain 3 Spreading Seas 3 Dismember 2 Duress 1 Cancel 1 Blue Sun's Zenith 2 Into the Roil 4 Despise | Sideboard: 1 Spreading Seas 1 Dismember 2 Flashfreeze 2 Doom Blade 3 Disfigure 2 Memoricide 3 Black Sun's Zenith 1 Grave Titan | |
It uses Jace Beleren currently, but it will see a decent increase in powerlevel once the new Jace is available in Standard.
The thing that I don't like about the above list is that nearly every card is a 1 for 1, there's very little card advantage outside of the Planeswalkers. If I was building a list like this I would include some Consuming Vapors and Mind Rot.
Finally, I believe that Eldrazi Green has an excellent shot at being a top tier deck. It has been testing very well on Magic-League, and is a very difficult match for me when I'm online and testing my own decks.
Here's a list that recently won a Magic-League tournament:
| Eldrazi Green | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lands - 28 4 Eldrazi Temple 2 Khalni Garden 3 Tectonic Edge 2 Mystifying Maze 14 Forest 1 Eye of Ugin 2 Forest Creatures - 22 4 Primeval Titan 4 Overgrown Battlement 4 Joraga Treespeaker 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 1 Avenger of Zendikar 2 Spellskite 2 Fauna Shaman 1 Wall of Tanglecord 1 Wurmcoil Engine 1 Acidic Slime | Planeswalkers - 1 1 Garruk Wildspeaker Spells - 9 4 Green Sun's Zenith 2 Summoning Trap 3 Beast Within | Sideboard: 1 Spellskite 1 Fauna Shaman 1 Beast Within 1 Viridian Corrupter 4 Obstinate Baloth 2 Karn Liberated 2 Dismember 2 Phyrexian Revoker 1 Naturalize | |
Eldrazi Green is able to do some ridiculous fast ramp, and can often just overwhelm an opponent before they can do anything. I really like Lead the Stampede in these lists, with such a large concentration of creatures, you almost always hit at least 2 targets, which is pretty decent at refilling your hand for only 3 mana.
As for me, I will continue playing my Green Infect deck at FNM. Now that one difficult matchup is out of the way (Blades) I hope my win percentages increase higher, but that will obviously depend a lot on what everyone starts bringing now that their toys are banned.
Thanks for reading.
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