New Phyrexia Strategies, Part 3

Posted on May 19, 2011

Hello again, readers! I’m back to the testing grind again, and without MTGO to help out, it’s been slow sailing, unfortunately. The first major results for post-NPH Standard tournaments have come in, though! And the winner is . . . Caw-Blade. Depressing, but let’s see what the rest of the Top 16 were at SCG: Orlando. Seven Caw decks, six of which went the Darkblade route on word of GerryT, and some Splinter Twin combo to round out the majority of the Top 16. Well, then, I guess we have our early metagame targets until everyone has cards and is up to speed! Today, I’ll be covering Caw-Blade/Darkblade, Kuldotha Red, and revisit some more advanced Birthing Pod decks in the wake of everyone pretending aggro is no longer a deck. Let’s get to it!

Kuldotha Red gains:

Sadly for fans of Kuldotha Red, Wizards failed to make a 0cc artifact that created three Myr tokens when sacrificed. On the bright side of things, you’ve gained the ability to run fifty-six cards, an answer to walls and Kor Firewalker for slower starts, and another gimmicky kill. Let’s start with Gitaxian Probe, which I initially had underrated outside of combo and a few other specific decks.

As Kuldotha Red players (or opponents) may know, there are only a select few cards that matter when playing the deck. Probe accomplishes two things. The first is the Street Wraith role, where you don’t have to run so many awful cards after you run all the stuff you actually want in the deck. This basically includes cards after you hit your threshold of artifact cards, Kuldotha Rebirth, and Goblin Bushwhacker.

The second thing Probe allows you to do is properly evaluate your game plan without needing to guess what answers the opponent may have in store. Knowing whether your opponent is bluffing Spell Pierce or Day of Judgment or actually has one is going to win games and give you a fighting chance in others. The fact that Kuldotha Red not only ignores its own life total in practically every match but gets so much use out of both effects the card has makes it an auto-include.

Furnace Scamp is one of those cards I hate on principle, but can see the value of in certain types of decks. This could be one of them, since 4 damage from one swing is tough to beat in terms of efficiency. The drawback is that you lose the creature, which means the twelve to sixteen pump effects you have won’t benefit it over time as it will with other creatures in the deck. It also is practically a dead card after turn two. I tried him out, and while I wasn’t impressed, I wouldn’t necessarily say you were wrong for having him in your Kuldotha deck. When he’s good, he’s great, and when he’s terrible, you’ll wish he was anything else. Story of Kuldotha Red in a nutshell.

Immolating Souleater is another interesting card; it’s a very all-in card that sucks against blockers, but you could describe the entire deck that way. The question is, if you play this guy on turn one or two, would you be willing to pump six to eight times and just go for a massive life-swing? Normally I’d say no, but in this deck, I’m actually a fan of doing so. You have cheap removal, and you play an all-in deck already. There isn’t a lot of downside here for including him in the deck, and I like him here, though not as a four-of simply because you never want to see multiples of him.

I covered Dismember in my piece on RDW, and my opinion is the same for any base-Red deck. You really want to have four in your sideboard to deal with Deceiver Exarch, Batterskull, and—most important—Spellskite! I can’t express how annoying it is to play a deck with two of these threats in them without Dismember in the deck; they all require multiple burn spells, and Spellskite can block well and be a damage-magnet later in the game. If the opponent ever successfully attaches a Sword of War and Peace, it’s also one of the few valid outs you have before the opponent attacks you.

"Kuldotha Red"

Sideboard (15)
3 Galvanic Blast
4 Crush
4 Dismember
4 Arc Trail

Caw-Blade gains:

Batterskull

Sword of War and Peace

Below are two sample Caw-Blade lists from SCG: Orlando, the first being the winner Edgar Flores with traditional W/U, and the second being fourth-place Kitt Holland.

"Caw-Blade"

"Darkblade"

Planeswalkers (4)
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Batterskull and Sword of War and Peace are the two biggest additions by far, and have also been the most talked about. I won’t give you a long rehash of what they do for the deck; the biggest thing for Caw players to get used to is when to search for them. That’s the key, really; right now, my policy in the mirror is to fetch Sword on the play and Batterskull on the draw. Why the difference? On the play, you’ll be more likely to have multiple creatures and attack with Sword before Jace bounce or a kicked Into the Roil becomes an issue. On the draw, however, Batterskull is a blocker against opposing Sworded creatures and can come out on end step if the opponent drops turn-four JTMS.

Batterskull is going to universally change how the Caw mirror plays out, and that’s already been seen in the SCG: Orlando Top 16 lists. There’s a whopping single Gideon Jura out of all seven Caw-Blade/Darkblade lists, and Day of Judgment has been largely relegated to the sideboard in small numbers until further notice. Batterskull, on the other hand, has increased in number not only to combat aggro but also to leverage against Divine Offering and simply attempt to outlast the opponent. Having multiple Swords and Batterskulls can easily beat two to three Divine Offering over the course of a long game, especially when backed by discard and Jace. In essence, Batterskull has replaced nearly any late-drops that don’t give immediate value, à la Sun Titan, Grave Titan, or Consecrated Sphinx.

Moving on, Spellskite is a card that got some press recently for use in the various Exarch-Twin combo decks. Surprisingly, though, it can be a versatile role-player as well, blocking obnoxious creatures early (including those with Swords), swinging removal away from Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, and even picking up a Sword and bashing. Just purely going by its ability, it also can be useful in a large number of niche situations such as redirecting artifact kill, Valakut triggers, pump spells, etc. It’s a lot like Mortarpod in that while there are only a few situations where you really want Spellskite, there are few times where it’s actively bad compared to any other card. If you enjoy value cards in your Caw deck, have a couple in your seventy-five.

Despise is purely for the Darkblade builds, but if you’ve seen them in action, you realize just how devastating a pair of discard spells can be. Darkblade is able to replace its counter suite with six to eight discard spells and become an entirely proactive deck and be situated far better against Stoneforge Mystic. In fact, this is one of the most powerful anti-Caw plans you can have, as you can take down Stoneforge or Jace early on before they become an issue and get around any counter short of Mental Misstep.

Dismember and Surgical Extraction both largely fall under sideboard material, but fill crucial roles in the sideboard, helping deal with Deceiver Exarch and Vengevine, respectively. Additionally, Surgical Extraction fills a role that I hadn’t originally considered in the Caw-Blade matchup. Due to the number of threats drastically declining with the removal of Gideon Jura and the move toward discard-related disruption, suddenly taking a Stoneforge Mystic or Squadron Hawk and eliminating the remainder of them from the game doesn’t sound as loose as it once did. Usually, I’m a pretty big critic of these types of plans, since they usually involve a fortuitous set of circumstances and don’t win you the game. However, in this matchup, there are so few threats involved that it typically turns into such a grind and this type of strategy is actually plausible. It isn’t necessarily any better than just boarding in additional threats and answers, but the potential drawback to Surgical Extraction is reduced due to the long-term nature of the match and quad Jace in the deck.

Finally, I want to revisit Birthing Pod, which for my money is a top-three card in the set and also one of the trickiest to build around. It isn’t difficult to make a Birthing Pod deck; in fact, any deck with loose tribal elements can run it with some success, but making an ideal build is going to be tough. Before the Orlando results, I was interested in seeing if Elves could make a comeback, and with Day of Judgment and Gideon Jura taking a backseat, I feel good about recommending the deck. None of the Exarch-Twin combo decks are consistent enough to really scare you as a turn-four or turn-five aggro deck, and the whopping two to three Pyroclasms most have in the sideboard don’t do much to deter me, either.

Here’s a basic Elves list to get started:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Copperhorn Scout

1 Joraga Warcaller

2 Sylvan Ranger

4 Arbor Elf

4 Elvish Archdruid

4 Fauna Shaman

4 Joraga Treespeaker

4 Llanowar Elves

4 Vengevine

1 Sylvok Replica

2 Myr Superion

4 Ezuri, Renegade Leader

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

2 Green Sun's Zenith

4 Birthing Pod

[/Spells]

[Lands]

19 Forest

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

You’ll note I don’t go overboard in my love for Birthing Pod in this build; I’m primarily using it to upgrade my 2-drops into Elvish Archdruid and Ezuri while occasionally turning a 1-drop into a Myr Superion. In fact, even if everyone started running quad Day of Judgment again, the addition of Pod to Fauna Shaman, Ezuri, and Vengevine make it practically a nonfactor in many cases. Batterskull as the anti-aggro measure of choice is also a joke due to the ease of finding a Green way of killing artifacts, whether it be Sylvok Replica or Viridian Corrupter. Right now is one of the best times to play Elves if you suspect players will largely swing away from Valakut toward Caw, Splinter Twin, and other new, unrefined decks.

As for other tribal decks worthy of note, Vampires is one of the best decks that can take advantage of Birthing Pod since it has Bloodghast as a recurring threat and creature to sacrifice. Not only that, but the deck already wants to run twelve 1-drops to be aggressive early, and they can easily be transformed into Bloodghast and Kalastria Highborn, forming the combo Vampire players love to see in every match. One of the big highlights for me was the built-in combo portion of Vampires, and you finally have a good way of searching them out without any real trouble. If you’ve played Vamps for any serious amount of time, you’ll notice how crucial it is to get Viscera Seer and Highborn out and active—throw in Bloodghast, and unless Highborn dies, it suddenly becomes very difficult to lose. Same goes for having an early army stymied by a Batterskull but suddenly being able to fetch up a Captivating Vampire or Sylvok Replica—that can make a huge difference. Here’s a basic B/G Vampires list to build from:

"B/G Vampires"

Spells (8)
4 Doom Blade
4 Birthing Pod

Lands (24)
18 Swamp
2 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs

While I’m not going particularly in depth on Birthing Pod strategies, the problem is that there are just so many options for them that it becomes difficult to really grasp what’s optimal and what isn’t. Throw in the fact that all these decks play vastly different with a Pod in play than without, and doing a full write-up on any of these decks would be an article in and of itself. As it stands, though, both decks have good Caw matches pre-board, and are still slightly advantaged post-board against the SCG lists. That said, things get a lot harder after they gain ways to take out your Birthing Pod, and Darkblade is a much tougher matchup due to discard than the Edgar Flores build, which is primarily designed to have the edge in the mirror. If they were to move more toward board control with Vampire Nighthawk, Grave Titan, or Gideon Jura, things could quickly change around. That’s why it’s important to develop these for the immediate future and alter them after they become a known quantity in the metagame; right now, everyone is soft to Fauna Shaman and Birthing Pod, and you need to take advantage of that if you want to play non-Red aggro.

That’s it for this week. Next time, I’ll be looking over the new set of PTQ results that are (I hope) coming soon. Until then, my best advice is to either play Caw-Blade or take advantage of their soft aggro matches and play a solid aggro deck that beats it. While Splinter Twin may seem scary, the fact is, they’ll only kill you particularly early in 15% to 20% of games against no disruption. In reality, the match against various aggro decks is far more harrowing for the combo player with the small amount of card-drawing people are currently playing. Best of luck to you PTQ grinders!

Josh Silvestri

josh dot silvestri at gmail dot com

TAGS articles, constructed, standard

New Phyrexia Strategies, Part 3

"Kuldotha Red"

"Caw-Blade"

"Darkblade"

"B/G Vampires"

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