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Main » Articles » Positively Midrange

Positively Midrange

Michael Flores
Posted on January 22, 2019
 Reddit

New set; new deck ideas.

These are the decks I am most interested in for Ravnica Allegiance Standard (and Modern).

First Standard: B/W Knights

B/W Knights | Allegiance Standard | Michael Flores

Catalyst: Basilica Bell-Haunt

I initially missed Basilica Bell-Haunt. My Top Level Podcast partner Patrick Chapin really twisted my arm (and my aged, stiff, brain, it seems) on this card.

Basically, Basilica Bell-Haunt compares pretty well to some "best creature in the format" creatures of times past, including Loxodon Hierarch and Siege Rhino. It's a tiny bit smaller than Loxodon Hierarch (and gains a tiny bit less life) but gets the opponent for a full card.

Similarly, Basilica Bell-Haunt is -2/-0 smaller than the mighty Siege Rhino, but trades the specific effect of Lava Spike (or more specifically, the front side of Bump in the Night - more on that later) for card in hand. That card enables specific synergies that make this card especially powerful with The Eldest Reborn.

Let's talk about that big-big synergy before dropping down to the lower curve stuff.

Basilica Bell-Haunt and The Eldest Reborn as four-ofs in the same main deck present much more discard than we have seen in Standard for some time. This isn't a "Discard Deck" per se... But it has an annoying amount of discard. If you're a Red Deck, this amount of discard can make it difficult for you to stockpile your end game limited resources; and maybe it's worse if you're stuck on three, waiting for the mana to get going on Rekindling Phoenix and Experimental Frenzy. This is especially bad if the rest of your hand is super fast and you're specifically waiting for land #4.

The one-two (or rather four-five) punch of Basilica Bell-Haunt into The Eldest Reborn can make planning very difficult for any deck with big permanents. It's not that you can't sandbag for your Carnage Tyrant or Teferi, Hero of Dominaria at all... But you certainly have to do some planning if you don't want to get caught by Chapter Three on turn eight. Obviously in sideboarded games when this deck is nothing but card drawing and discard it is playing a very different game than any currently plausible Standard deck.

Okay let's talk about the low end of the deck:

Knight of Grace
Knight of Malice
History of Benalia

Knight of Grace into History of Benalia Boros decks were popular at the onset of the last Standard but fell in popularity as Tocatli Honor Guard rose as a main deck 2-drop in reaction to the popularity of Golgari Explore creatures.

I am hazarding that Knight combinations will become not only viable but actively popular given the addition of Godless Shrine to Standard.

Now you can play the one-two (or rather two-two) punch of Knight of Grace and Knight of Malice. Everyone is big; no one is getting shot at. It's great. There is no deck in pre-Ravnica Allegiance Standard that can present the Knight of Malice-into-History of Benalia offense. There is just a good amount of redundancy that can lead to powerful offense. Here's the weird thing: You can angle away from the removal of most decks with one of your two 2-drop Knights. A good amount of the time, it's 3 power because either you or they (or both) have the proper color of permanent. Not very many decks can actually contend with a 3 power creature in combat in the first three turns of the game.

Now mix in History of Benalia. It's bad enough when the Knights are four-three. Who the heck beats five-three Knights? Five-three Hexproof?

Okay: Cards on the table... This deck isn't tuned.

Right now you can get these hyper offensive Knight draws. Other times your deck is positively midrange. Treasure Map, Mortify, Vraska's Contempt; big enchantments.

That's not bad. Or at least it's not bad-bad. The reality is, you probably win a wide variety of games as the midrange version of the deck. It's probably also puzzling to play against. But it's uneven.

I'm not really sure how to resolve that yet. I like all the cards in this deck. I think that between Wilderness Reclamation and Experimental Frenzy, you kind of need to play Mortify even though it's "too expensive" for an aggro deck. I actively want to turn into a deck that can interact with a Jeskai or Bant deck's projected permanents after sideboarding... Wilderness Reclamation; Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin; and of course Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. That means you want all these Mortifies and Vraska's Contempts even though they're more expensive than a deck of this style might typically want.

An active weakness of this deck at present is that it's not auto-win against Mono-Red.

When I looked at Basilica Bell-Haunt, I was thinking "Okay, time to pick a new color." But this version will actively lose to either go-wide draws from Mono-Red or an unchecked Experimental Frenzy.

Wouldn't it be weird if the solution to Mono-Red were cutting some copies of Lyra Dawnbringer?

Yeah, that's too weird.

I think that I'd try Ethereal Absolution first.

B/W Knights (lower curve) | Allegiance Standard | Michael Flores

Ethereal Absolution is the Orzhov The Immortal Sun. Rather than drawing an extra card each turn, this card just erases the opponent's strategy. Think for a second what kind of pre-emptive uppercut Ethereal Absolution is to Heroic Reinforcements, Legion's Landing, or even the Plan B on a Rekindling Phoenix.

But... It's six. This version trades the enormous go-long power of the six mana enchantment for the speed of the one-mana one. Still, a work in progress.

The thing I like best about this strategy is its ability to turn into a ridiculous anti-deck after sideboarding. Against the Boogeyman-to-Be, Bant, you can turn into all discard, card drawing, and Mortifies... But you're the threat deck. It's unclear what the mature Wilderness Reclamation / Nexus of Fate archetype deck is going to look like, but if it's based on enchantments, Teferi, and having a positive life total... Orzhov should have tools.

As you probably know I'm not a big believer in Moment of Craving against Mono-Red. If I were playing a dedicated sideboard removal card, it would more likely be Ravenous Chupacabra (which still trades with most of their guys with its 2/2 half). Right now I'm embracing the non-bo of Tocatli Honor Guard. Tocatli Honor Guard is really underrated against Red Aggro. It essentially humiliates poor Viashino Pyromancer, covering both its 2/1 body and proposed 187. It's clearly atrocious with our own Basilica Bell-Haunt... But you gotta figure they have to deal with the Honor Guard anyway, which just turns on the Bell-Haunt. None of these cards have to function at 100% if all they're doing is keeping us alive long enough to tap out for Lyra Dawnbringer.

Rakdos Aggro | Modern | Michael Flores

Were I a different top deck designer, I might call this Next Level Boros ;)

Catalyst: Skewer the Critics

At present, there is no absolutely essential reason to play a second color in Modern Red. All the traditional White cards (Deflecting Palm, Boros Charm, Lightning Helix, any of the anti-strategy sideboard cards) are nice. But none of them are essential. People do stuff like cut a Lightning Helix for a main deck Shard Volley all the time. I mean I think this is insane, but people do it. With a straight face, even.

Boros Charm is the first card I sideboard out in a ton of matchups; like any matchup that's predicated on the battlefield... It's one of the only cards that does four damage instead of three... But Boros Charm actually has a poor mana-to-damage conversion ratio; almost everything else is 1:3 and it is 1:2.

Oh yeah. We basically don't need to dedicate slots to Kataki War's Wage or that other 1W 2-drop that doesn't actually deal damage any more. Not that that has much to do with our decision.

The more Boros I watch the more I am convinced that the games Burn loses are just about when it draws too many two mana spells. The solution?

Just don't play any!

So overlap those two circles: Not caring about particular White spells, and wanting to play all one mana spells. I came up with Rakdos, but maybe there are other solutions.

Bump in the Night is just Lava Spike 5-8. It has some additional features, but most of the time Bump is just more Spikes. That's okay. That's more than okay. Some might argue that its mere presence in your deck will nigh double your correct plays... At least Game 1.

The only two mana spell is Eidolon of the Great Revel; which is the best card in Modern, so we are willing to make an exception for it, clearly. On balance, we get a new card advantage engine in Bomat Courier, as well as an additional 1-drop haste attacker; and the opportunity to play 18 lands instead of 20.

There are three play pattern implications. One is inspiring, one is exciting (but kind of bad), and one is the main reason I wouldn't switch from Boros to Rakdos, at least not yet.

  1. Inspiring - I was inspired to move in this direction after the last time I played Boros. I lost in Top 8 of a PPTQ to a former World Championships competitor (who I actually bested once for my own first PPTQ win). I walked into the room before the tournament and watched him kind of smile and add two more Timely Reinforcements to his 75. He played five in our three games, and two in both the games he beat me. The play patterns in Rakdos are going to make it much easier to passively outmaneuver Timely Reinforcements. You have fewer mana producing lands. So you have to search up untapped Blood Crypts more often. It's just how it is.

  2. Exciting - That, of course, it because this deck has Death's Shadow. How has no one ever paired Eidolon of the Great Revel and Death's Shadow before? These guys are super best friends when they're in opposing decks. How is this not the most obvious Batman and Robin one-two punch in the history of Modern? The good thing is that you get a ton of new, different, and actively powerful plays that the traditional Burn decks never had. The bad thing is that removal suddenly becomes good against you. At the end of the day, Death's Shadow is a really good Wild Nacatl... But it's just a big old Wild Nacatl. All the reasons Jund (or Affinity) players used to think they were good against Naya Burn get turned on suddenly by playing a card that doesn't automatically punish sorcery speed removal. On the other hand you just kill people and basically erase any illusions of symmetry on Eidolon of the Great Revel, so... Worth a slot.

  3. But Why Not? My friend Joey Pasco asked me to explain the Affinity matchup to him with [Boros] Burn. It's the same as the Humans matchup on the fundamentals. Affinity and Humans have good threat creatures. But they just draw one card per turn for the most part. Both decks are [creature] removal-poor. That means that in sideboarded games, you just go positively midrange and destroy them. I have played both decks dozens of times and the outcomes are really consistent. You stick a Grim Lavamancer. At this point, as long as you have operating mana, you can answer them one-for-one as both of you peel the top card off your deck; you're constantly getting the better end of it. The biggest threat in a Humans deck is a Mantis Rider. That matches up really well with a Searing Blaze. Affinity is similar except you also have Shattering Spree and Smash to Smithereens for more card advantage / Searing Blood-type action. It's all one-for-ones because your deck has no Boros Charms or Skullcracks or Eidolons after sideboarding... Only cards that affect the board. They are mostly guys. You're mostly advantage-bearing removal. Grim Lavamancer breaks the parity, so you're ahead. So what's the problem? This version cuts all those awesome two mana removal cards. There are subtle things, like Fatal Push turning on an Affinity trigger when Chained to the Rocks wouldn't... But it's mostly giving up the awesome "I have Grim Lavamancer / Ha ha dead Elf" game plan in favor of super focused offense.

The Rakdos deck, for what it's worth, is pretty exciting, isn't it? But given this week's banning, I'm not sure that makes it the automatic best choice to play.

Kor Firewalker

Hey sexy.

LOVE

MIKE

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, analysis, decklists, modern, michael flores, ravnica allegiance, #mtgrna, allegiance standard, 01222019

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