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Main » Articles » Learning Through Brewing

Learning Through Brewing

Chingsung Chang
Posted on March 5, 2012
 Reddit

So, I was going to write a different column today, but I found myself in a brewing mood on Thursday, so I decided to put down some preliminary work on a new deck. There are two reasons I like doing this periodically:

  1. It’s fun.

  2. I learn things about the format and cards by brewing new strategies. You can frequently discover strategies that are very close to being good or individual cards that perform above and beyond expectations. This information can then turn around and help you take the real format by storm.

So, I wanted to talk a little bit about my most recent brew. Standard right now is a pretty mediocre format, and I felt like brewing up something I felt would be a little more fun and off the radar but that would still have some game. It’s always good to keep brewing muscles working for when new sets come out, and with Avacyn Restored not horribly far off, there is definitely a new format to look forward to.

I’m also sick of seeing the same decks in Standard, and I wanted something a little bit different to fool around with—a change of pace if you will. I had no delusions of breaking the format, but I definitely wanted to be able to at least compete at FNM-level events. Perhaps my overall percentage wouldn’t be great, but playing something off the wall is enjoyable in and of itself.

Right now, Delver is the king of the format, and I wanted to make sure that my matchup there was solid. There are two ways of going about taking down a deck: playing a strategy that has superiority over it or playing cards that are strong against the deck. The deck that has strategy superiority over Delver is mono-red, but Timely Reinforcements exists, so that is out. However, there are cards that are strong against the deck. I made a short list in roughly descending order of strength:

So, looking at this list, red is obviously a must. I could play Huntmaster, but that would just be Wolf Run Ramp, and that’s boring, so I set my sights on another color combination: R/W. This allows me to play Lingering Souls and Elesh Norn. Black would serve as a splash to flash back the Lingering Souls.

The logical place to start is a control shell since the strongest cards are 6- and 7-drops. Individually, very few cards blow Delver out as badly as Elesh Norn, Massacre Wurm, and Inferno Titan, and ideally, I would like to play two if not all three. Three is probably a bit greedy, though, as the mana will definitely be stretched thin with Massacre Wurm’s bbb requirement. If we cut that, ww is much more reasonable to obtain.

I decided that a R/W shell similar to Boat Brew of a few years back was probably the best way to go. Play some sweepers, spot removal, Lavamancer, and a few finishers, and call it a deck. Splashing Unburial Rites for added value strengthens Faithless Looting as well, which seems like a solid card overall. Having made an initial sketch idea, this is the deck I came up with:

”R/W Control”

I decided to run this up against both Kibler’s Wolf Run list and Matt Costa’s recent GP-winning Delver list. I chose not to test against Finkel’s Delver list because it should be weaker against me than Matt’s. Matt’s list negates many of my good cards with things such as hexproof creatures and Sword of War and Peace, whereas Spirit Delver allows most of my cards to function at full effectiveness. My individual cards are much more effective against Spirit Delver, and thus, it should definitely be a better matchup.

It quickly (like after three games) became evident that I needed a way to deal with Sword of War and Peace. The original plan was to kill all the mens, but Wrath effects happen at sorcery speed, and opponents can just equip in the same turn. Oops, brain fart. So, quickly going back to the drawing board revealed Torch Fiend as a potential answer. Ancient Grudge and Shatter are basically the same card since I want to avoid a fourth color, and Torch Fiend’s 2/1 body is probably not irrelevant. Also, as an added bonus, Unburial Rites might allow me to reuse my Torch Fiends. Thus, the quick and dirty changes were: ?3 Arc Trail, ?1 Devil's Play, +4 Torch Fiend.

With that change, the deck came together quite nicely. The change was immediately visible against Delver. With Torch Fiends around to kill opponents’ Equipment and attack them, Delver folded in many games to simply more powerful spells. The Delver player was forced to burn Vapor Snags and Dismembers on Torch Fiend just to potentially protect his Equipment, but often, I could kill the creature anyway, thus preventing him from attacking with it for a turn and allowing me to recast or unbury Torch Fiend. Overall, Delver felt like a solid matchup after I made the Torch Fiend change.

Unburial Rites was also extremely strong, allowing me to put down fast Inferno Titans while using it as a card-advantage engine in the mid- to late-game, forcing a counter out of the opponent on my 6- or 7-drop, then casting Unburial Rites proved to be useful. Surprisingly, Unburial Rites on Torch Fiend proved to be critical a number of times as well, as my initial wave of Torch Fiends would sometimes be sacrificed or Dismembered.

The big takeaway for me playing against Delver was how strong Torch Fiend actually was. I thought it would simply be a stop-gap measure, but it proved extremely effective—even when backed by a slow clock. This is the kind of thing you only find out by actually playing with the card. Upon initial examination, Torch Fiend may seem to be a pretty innocuous card, but it proved its worth time and time again when backed up by red reach and other random dorks. Inferno Titan and Lingering Souls did most of the heavy lifting, but Torch Fiend ensured that I got there. It’s a perfectly maindeckable card since it’s a 2/1 for 2, and the fact that it completely messes with Delver’s Equipment package is a great bonus.

The next step was to run it up against Wolf Run. The matchup here felt extremely swingy. It revolved largely around Titans (obviously) and Wolf Run’s ability to get ahead of me in mana. Sometimes, this mattered, as Wolf Run could just chain multiple Titans and kill me. However, sometimes I dealt with the first opposing Titan, played Slagstorm to clear the rest of the board, and then proceeded to kill him with a Chandra and a Lavamancer. The big thing here was that Unburial Rites shone once again. The ability to make a turn-four Inferno Titan or Elesh Norn was sometimes enough all by itself, not to mention my ability to slap down Lingering Souls before said turn-four Elesh Norn. Overall, Wolf Run didn’t feel particularly advantaged either way. The matchup appears to favor Wolf Run slightly, but not by enough that I would be particularly concerned.

I knew Unburial Rites plus Faithless Looting was a strong interaction, and this shell only proves its power. Elesh Norn is the best thing to reanimate fast right now, and either Grave Titan or Inferno Titan is a close second. The thing that this deck showed me was that the interaction doesn’t have to be part of something like Heartless Summoning or a dedicated reanimator deck to be extremely powerful. Elesh Norn and Inferno Titan are powerful enough to stand on their own. I mean, it’s perfectly okay to cast both cards and use the Unburial Rites for added value.

What I Learned

There were two main takeaways other than what I mentioned above:

Solemn Simulacrum Was Sub-Par

I remember playing with Solemn Simulacrum the first time it was Standard-legal, and it was pretty good. The value it provided was awesome because the 2/2 body was highly relevant. In the modern Standard format, however, I’m not sure how true that is. The format is dominated by large 6-drops and small flyers—in addition to Geist of Saint Traft. The 2/2 body on Jens just isn’t really that great anymore. Sure, it still finds you a land and draws you a card, but a cantripping Rampant Growth for 4 just isn’t quite good enough. I do think the card fulfills a necessary function, but I don’t think running the full set is right.

Faithless Looting Is Pretty Good Even When You Aren’t Trying to Abuse It

Faithless Looting, on the other hand, proved to be better than I expected. Without any huge ways of taking advantage of it, I expected to have far more awkward choices than I did. The fact of the matter is the ability to filter your bad cards into good ones is often worth the investment of a card and a mana—especially if the card-loss aspect is fairly well mitigated. With Lingering Souls, Unburial Rites, and Grim Lavamancer, dumping cards into my graveyard often proved profitable enough to make that part of Looting’s cost painless. Thus, the filtering proved to be quite strong.

If I were to continue working on this deck, this is where I would start:

”R/W Torch Control”

I can’t recommend taking this to a PTQ, but if you’re looking for a change of pace at FNM or just feel like brewing, I don’t see why you couldn’t run this and still be successful.

Talking about the card changes now, the Shrine of Burning Rage was a random addition that I hoped would be useful but ended up not really adding anything to the deck. As I said earlier, the Solemns were also underwhelming, so I decided to cut two, leaving me with three open slots. Chandra proved herself to be solid, but drawing multiples was frequently awkward, and I rarely actually needed her to win, so going down to two was reasonable. The four slots that I vacated opened up space for Phyrexian Metamorph and Brimstone Volley.

Metamorph seems like a really solid card right now. Not only does it copy the plethora of good creatures and artifacts in this format, but it is also an out to Geist of Saint Traft and Thrun, the Last Troll, two of this deck’s biggest problems. If Phantasmal Image can do that for control decks, I’m perfectly willing to pay a little bit more for the extra stability.

Brimstone Volley came in because, despite being control, this deck frequently finds itself in racing situations. Thus, Brimstone Volley is a great addition because it is a decent piece of spot removal that doubles as an excellent finisher. Morbid triggers quite a bit in this deck, so dealing 5 with of the Volley shouldn’t be a huge issue. Keeping the mana curve low because I was cutting Solemns was also a consideration. Putting in 3-mana spells allows me to still have action while running a little bit less mana.

Conclusion

The big things I realized playing this deck:

Torch Fiend Is Actually Quite Good

This card genuinely surprised me. The 2/1 body proved hugely relevant in the Delver matchup. Getting a couple points in here or there while Delver durdled around frequently allowed me to finish the Delver player off with Inferno Titan triggers, Lavamancer, and/or Slagstorm. The fact that I could hold off Geist of Saint Traft with it was excellent as well. Simply leaving up a single red mana and a Torch Fiend meant that Geist had to stay home.

Torch Fiend is definitely an under-the-radar card that is very strong. When supported by good reach, both halves are highly effective. The 2/1 is relevant in combat, and the ability to destroy artifacts is definitely important today with all the Equipment running around. Inkmoth Nexus is also an artifact—just sayin’.

You Don’t Have to Center Your Deck Around Faithless Looting to Generate Excellent Value from the Card

Almost every application of Faithless Looting I’ve seen tries to maximize the card. While I don’t have issues with that approach, it is nice to know that you can use the Looting simply as added value. The card is strong enough that you don’t have to center your play around your graveyard—only be able to take advantage of it as a resource. Lavamancer, Lingering Souls, and two Unburial Rites were more than sufficient to make Faithless Looting a good card.

It is interesting to note that a stricter B/R build with Massacre Wurm and maybe Grave Titan would be better suited to taking advantage of Faithless Looting, but I’m not actually sure that is the correct route. I know that Forbidden Alchemy would be great, but in order to play Alchemy, Unburial Rites, Faithless Looting, and Lingering Souls, you are solidly in four colors with pretty terrible mana. I can see adding Alchemy if the fixing gets better, but right now, it’s just not there.

The comparison of Faithless Looting to Desperate Ravings is an interesting one. The benefit of Ravings is that it nets you cards instead of costing them, but the ability to control what you discard to the Looting is a huge part of the appeal of the card. The fact that you can pitch combinations such as Unburial Rites and a fattie or simply a land and a Lingering Souls is very powerful.

Delver, Although Resilient, Still Has Substantial Holes to be Exploited

The main thing here is that Delver is actually very slow for a tempo deck. Note that a deck such as Merfolk in Legacy or, for those of you old enough to remember, Miracle Grow back in the era of Invasion block Extended, can kill very quickly. They can exert a large amount of pressure very early in the game.

Outside of Delver of Secrets, Delver really can’t apply that much pressure in short order. This gives you time to set up interactive threats like Slagstorm and Torch Fiend, which can continue to delay Delver’s push. One of the most critical aspects of playing against tempo decks is not letting them get ahead on the board, and that is actually easier than it looks against Delver.

Spirit Delver mitigates this problem much better than Geist Delver, but it still takes a little bit for Lingering Souls to hit critical mass. The presence of Drogskol Captain greatly increases Spirit Delver’s alpha-striking capabilities, however. Still, I feel that even Spirit Delver is slow enough to allow decks such as the one I built on Thursday to exploit its speed—or rather, lack thereof.

This is not to say that Delver isn’t a good deck; it is. However, it does have a huge flaw in its deployment speed, one that can be exploited with a strategy similar to what this deck tries to implement: early-game interactive defenses (Torch Fiend, Slagstorm, Lavamancer) into late-game trumps that Delver is ill-equipped to handle (Elesh Norn, Inferno Titan). This is a simple, fundamental strategy that can be implemented in other colors.

 

The thing to remember when brewing is to build decks with strategic and/or format goals. Even if the brew isn’t successful, you can still learn interesting information on the way to help you with future brews.

Remember: There’s always something to learn.

Chingsung Chang

Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO

Khan32k5 at gmail.com

TAGS articles, standard, theory, constructed, deck lists, dark ascension, chingsung chang, wisdom, brewing

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