Locations
Hello again, folks, and apologies for my absence last week. I was all set to revisit the official coverage, but unfortunately university reared its ugly head once again. I did write over six thousand words last week, but the topic was the Roman Eastern Frontier rather than Magic: The Gathering. Normal service is restored this week, and we will be starting to consider new candidates for SOM block constructed now that we have the cards available for testing on MTGO. Before I get into that, though, I just want to say that Girl Talk lives up to the hype. Various pros on Twitter have been carrying on about this one dude with a laptop and a huge catalogue of music samples, and after finally giving in, I am loving his album Feed the Animals. Never did I think I'd enjoy a song with the lyric "top notch hoes," but there you go.
First up is a familiar face from the new Standard format: Kuldotha Red. For those of you not familiar with this deck, it's a hyperaggressive, mono-Red deck centered around the Scars of Mirrodin common Kuldotha Rebirth. It might not be obvious at first why getting three dorks for 1 mana and two cards is good, but it is the cards with which we're able to surround these three dudes that makes the deck work—and when it does work, it is a sight to behold. Before we go any further, let's take a look at a standard list. Petr Brozek is one of my favorite pros for his dedication to and obvious ability with Red decks, and he went 8-2 across the Standard rounds at Pro Tour: Paris with the following:
[cardlist]
[Creatures]
4 Memnite
4 Signal Pest
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Guide
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Mox Opal
4 Flayer Husk
4 Chimeric Mass
4 Devastating Summons
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Galvanic Blast
2 Lightning Bolt
[/Spells]
[Lands]
15 Mountain
4 Contested War Zone
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Flame Slash
4 Jinxed Idol
4 Arc Trail
1 Koth of the Hammer
[/Sideboard]
[/cardlist]
You can see Petr's article about the deck over here.
So along with our three dudes, we have a few broad categories of support cards. First, we have extremely cheap creature cards in Memnite, Signal Pest, Goblin Guide, and Goblin Bushwhacker. While these cards don't produce multiple bodies like Rebirth, they do add to the general plan of flooding the board with creatures on the first few turns of the game. Devastating Summons, Flayer Husk, and Chimeric Mass also fit in this category; though they aren't creatures themselves, they either produce creatures when you play them or can turn into a creature with an activated ability.
The second category is cheap artifacts that allow us to cast Kuldotha Rebirth on the earliest turn possible, ideally on turn one. To help us here, we have Mox Opal, Memnite, Signal Pest, Flayer Husk, and Chimeric Mass, most of which pull double duty as creatures or pseudocreatures. This large suite ensures that we will rarely have a Rebirth hand with no way to cast it, and even without a Rebirth, these aren't dead cards.
The third category is the anthem effects, which is the reason we are playing all of these cheap, crappy guys in the first place. Contested War Zone, Signal Pest, and Goblin Bushwhacker all give our guys a pump on the attack and can allow the Kuldotha Red deck to win on the third turn with a surprising frequency. One such sequence is:
Turn 1: Mountain, Mox Opal, Chimeric Mass (for zero), Memnite, Signal Pest, Kuldotha Rebirth (sacrificing Mass).
Turn 2: Contested War Zone, attack and activate CWZ, hit with four 3/1s and a 1/1 Pest. Opponent at 7.
From here, you can see that without an immediate sweeper—on turn two—the opponent is just dead. While this is a Magical Christmas Land scenario, it is basically what we are aiming for, and the high level of redundancy in the deck—in that most of the cards can substitute for each other—means that turn-three and turn-four goldfishes are the norm. Much like the old Extended, Legacy, and even Vintage deck Dredge, Kuldotha Red can just steamroll the opponent in Game 1 before he ever gets set up. There are—fortunately for the health of the format—many strong cards against K-Red that can be sideboarded in, especially the colorless Ratchet Bomb that goes in any deck and neatly answers the Red deck's nut draws with an activation for 0.
So while this strategy has been explored in Standard by many of the game's finest players, block is not something those players are concerned with at the moment. It falls to the likes of us to prod, push, and test the boundaries of block, and the best place to start seems to me to be with potentially the fastest gun in the West. A lot of the key cards exist in the smaller format, so the deck is certainly a possibility. Let's take a look at what we lose by cutting out M11 and Zendikar block:
We also lose most of the sideboard, but since we are going to have to answer a different set of decks, that is not a particular concern at this stage. So we're losing one of our anthem effects, two of our cheap creatures, and one multiple-creature producer as well as the fifth and sixth Galvanic Blasts. As one might expect with an artifact block, we aren't down any of our cheap artifacts. Let's take a look at what other potential options we have to replace these cards in Scars block.
Anthems: Goblin Wardriver
This guy was rejected by Petr as being too slow, which might surprise you with a Red 2/2 for 2 that pumps your team, but this deck really is about stepping on the gas right from turn one. Missing Bushwhacker, though, I don't think we have any better options than this guy, and so I will slap four straight in.
This card is pretty crappy, but with only two sets and one color under consideration, we have to consider some pretty crappy cards. I don't think we want to play this, but it is worth noting.
Four mana is stretching it since we are working with nineteen lands, but Hero of Oxid Ridge has a delightful text box—Haste, Battle Cry, and a not-irrelevant special ability when we are expecting our opponents to be relying on mana Myrs, Origin Spellbombs, and Grand Architects to be doing their defensive work. We certainly won't want to include the full four unless we radically overhaul the deck and put more mana in—it's all about finding the right balance between early-game explosiveness and late-game reach.
Dorks: Goblin Gaveleer
While we do have a single equipment in Flayer Husk, this guy's second ability is not exceptionally relevant. Trample is certainly nice to have when we are trying to get his power up to 3 or 4 and battle past the opponent's dorks. Gaveleer is a poor substitute for Goblin Guide when you consider the two head-to-head, but in such a small format, we can't rule out anything that fills our criteria—in this case, a cheap body.
Now, this is an interesting ability. Three mana is not a cost this deck is well-equipped to pay, but it is well-equipped to boost the Elder's power through Battle Cry, meaning we can get in some good value reach in the late game (i.e., on turn five). Certainly makes the short list.
It's a cheap body, and it's a cheap artifact, but that doesn't necessarily make it worth playing. As noted, we aren't losing any of our artifact-enablers, so this is not an especially persuasive characteristic to draw us to the Asp over either of the previous two candidates.
This is interesting. Though 2 is the top end of our curve, this guy replaces himself after death, giving us some small resistance to sweepers like Black Sun's Zenith or Slagstorm, which will be our bane. It was mentioned on Yo! MTG Taps! last week that some pro or another is using these in his Standard sideboard for that very reason, and they may be able to step it up to the main deck in block.
I feel compelled to mention him, but I really hope he is not the answer. Moving on . . .
I love this little guy! I have used him as an annoying blocker in a number of previous block decks, and he can make things awkward for your opponent. He also helps against sweepers, as does the Sire, by shocking the opponent on the way out. Definitely in the frame.
In a format that has previously been dominated by Koth decks, Planeswalker decks, and Grand Architect decks supported by any number of mana Myrs, Spellbombs, Tumble Magnets and equipment, a Pithing Needle on legs is a godsend. A definite four-of in the sideboard that may be up to main-deck duties.
I am not going to go past 2 CMC for our dorks, as that is the current top end of our curve, and stretching it will cause trouble with the tight mana base. If I have missed anything obvious, please let me know in the comments!
With all that in mind, here's the list I started testing with:
[cardlist]
[Creatures]
4 Signal Pest
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Goblin Wardriver
1 Perilous Myr
4 Memnite
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Mox Opal
4 Chimeric Mass
4 Flayer Husk
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Arc Trail
[/Spells]
[Lands]
15 Mountain
4 Contested War Zone
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
[/Sideboard]
[/cardlist]
The sideboard included a few experimental cards I wanted to try, like Molten Psyche and Myr Sire.
We don't have the extra-explosive potential provided by Bushwhacker and Summons, but I hope that in the smaller environment, that won't be such an issue. Even turn-five wins will shake the dust off the slow, big-mana format that existed prior to Mirrodin Besieged. I took the deck for a spin in the practice room, and learned a few lessons.
- Choking Fumes is an incredible blowout against us.
- The deck is a lot slower than its Standard cousin. Without the redundancy of Devastating Summons, you have to keep much slower hands or risk mulliganing into oblivion. I did win one game on a mulligan to four in which I didn't draw a second land until turn six, though!
- Mana flood in this deck is about the worst thing ever. When all your threats are so poor on their own and your curve stops at 2, extra lands are not what you want to see. I would consider cutting a Mountain with this in mind.
- Phyrexian Revoker has a lot of targets. Tumble Magnet seems to feature in every deck as a twelve-of.
- Twisted Image kills Signal Pest dead.
- Chimeric Mass is a miserable card in multiples. I will consider cutting one just so they don't come up so often.
- The Blasts are so good. Four-ing people with Galvanic Blast is amazing, and the Molten Psyches are really just because I want a Lava Axe in this deck. The shuffling thing may randomly screw people, but it is probably just as likely to randomly fix their draws.
- Conversely, the Arc Trails are pretty poopy. People have been facing Arc Trails for months and have built their decks to avoid getting blown out, so usually you have to resort to shocking the face, which is not very exciting.
I played about a dozen test games just to get a feel for the deck, and I won eight of them, usually because my opponent wasn't doing much of anything and I just presented a clock. I did lose a Standard game I accidentally joined against a Tezzeret/Knowledge Pool deck, of all things, though it was a close run. Standard tip of the week—Tezzeret/Knowledge Pool is not the new hot tech.
I didn't get any god draws as such, though any time you cast Kuldotha Rebirth on the first turn feels a bit like a god draw. Most decks spend the first two turns doing absolutely nothing, except maybe putting down an Origin Spellbomb and cracking it for value. I think aggressively mulliganing is going to be important taking the deck forward, as past those first few turns, every other deck is much better than yours. An apparently reasonable hand like Mountain, Contested War Zone, Mox Opal, Goblin Wardriver, Phyrexian Revoker, Chimeric Mass, Galvanic Blast is a trap, as your damage output is very low during the crucial first few turns.
Though I had a winning record over these few games, the Planeswalker matchup is a total dog, at least with the current configuration. They have plenty of ways to slow you down, with Contagion Clasp, Tumble Magnet, Origin Spellbomb, and Glimmerpoint Stag all very problematic. Having your War Zones stolen by a Vigilant creature is very depressing. Once they reach their late game, all their cards are incredible against you, Elspeth and Sunblast Angel especially.
I think going forward that I will move the cards that don't directly contribute to the game plan to the sideboard or out of the deck entirely—Revoker and Arc Trail, to be precise. Revoker always seems to have a target, but it wasn't always terribly relevant, and a 2/1 for 2 is not very explosive. Blade-Tribe Berserkers is a potentially interesting finisher, though it is in the same slot as Hero of Oxid Ridge. I will definitely test the Heroes next, but I am pretty sure the price will be dropping further this week online as release events continue, so I haven't got mine yet. Spikeshot Elder is also next in line. Next week, I'll give you an update on my progress with this deck and explore another new potential block strategy. Let me know what you think of this deck in the comments, and if you've been testing your own new block decks, I'd like to hear about those too!
