Under Preconstruction – The Birdcage

Posted on May 2, 2011

What an interesting word: "rotate."

What does it mean? To turn, to spin, to cycle through. The Earth rotates on its axis, for example.

We rotate crops, we rotate tires. In Magic parlance, we say that sets rotate—but that's not exactly true, is it?

I wouldn't say my friend Kyle rotated to Texas when he got a job down there. I can't tell my son his goldfish rotated to the afterlife (though technically it did spin around when I flushed it).

No, rotation implies that what we're losing is sure to come back. In twenty-four hours, the Earth will have the same orientation that it has now, but Alara block is never coming back. When we say Zendikar block is rotating in five months, what we really mean is . . .

It's leaving Standard forever.

So we don't have much time. If I'm going to work with these precons before they fade into the irrelevant format that is Extended, I need to start now.

If you aren't familiar with "Under Preconstruction," it's a series inspired by Jay Moldenhaur-Salazar's run with "Building on a Budget." Like him, I'll take a preconstructed deck and, through trial and error, tweak it into a respectable Standard deck. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to find the deck that unseats Caw-Blade during this process, but I hope I'll find a fun, interesting deck you can go 2–2 with at FNM (I know, I know, I've got lofty goals). Sometimes I discover a hidden gem of a card that has a chance in more competitive venues. All this while keeping the deck pretty cheap. Exciting, no?

Today I'm looking at the Worldwake powerhouse Flyover, though I can't for the life of me figure out what the main theme is supposed to be. If only they put a hint in the title! Oh, well . . . I'm sure I'll catch on after a few games.

Zendikar block featured forty-one-card decks, so I'll double everything up and then trim it down to sixty. Here's the eighty-two-card mashup.

"Flyover ×2"

We don't need thirty-four land, so I'll cut nine of those. There are plenty of chaff cards worth cutting, but in the interest of experimenting, I'll leave in at least one of each card. The exceptions are the cards from M10 that are now illegal (Divine Verdict, Righteousness). Here's our starting point:

"Flyover Redux"

I played a few games in the casual room to see if I could capture that elusive, guiding theme.

Game 1 – Goblins

Turn-one Spikeshot Elder kept me from playing my Stormfront Pegasus, but a pair of Guardian Zendikon held off the 1-drop plus his Goblin Chieftain. I have very few outs to a pumped-up Elder, so the innocuous little pinger proceeded to pick off every creature I played, often with the help of burn spells. It wasn't long before he got to six lands and could kill my walls when I blocked, and a couple other Goblin creatures sealed the deal.

0–1.

Game 2 – U/W Control

Two Silvercoat Lions commenced the beat-down, at least until a Wall of Omens got in the way. Kor Cartographer came in to help out, which prompted a Day of Judgment. Luckily, I was slow-rolling a 3/3 Apex Hawks! Not so luckily, he had a Wurmcoil Engine in a couple of turns, and I was out of gas. Iona's Judgment and Pacifism refused to come and play, so the sixth Titan took it home.

0–2.

Game 3 – Blue/Green

My opponent sets the pace with a turn-two Oculus, which throws itself into my Silvercoat Lion at first opportunity. Meanwhile, he uses Silver Myr to buy a Skinwing a turn early, while I play Apex Hawks and Guardian Zendikon. Skinwing blocks my 2/2 flyer, but I have a Veteran's Reflexes to save it.

My Archon of Redemption threatens to break the game open, but his Mind Control results in a reversal of fortunes. I have Surrakar Banisher in hand, but it takes me a few turns to find a , and the Archon and Myr/Skinwing combo are taking large chunks out of my life total. Still, I manage to bounce the rare with plenty of time to recover . . .

. . . except my opponent has other plans. He deploys a pair of Pelakka Wurms, and while I have a Gomazoa to neutralize one, I have no answer for the other. My plan is to chump it and gain just enough life with the Archon to stay alive until I find a second for the Sleep in my hand. A Giant Growth screws with my math and he punches through for lethal.

0–3.

They should have called the deck "Pushover." That was more disappointing than a Carl Crawford at-bat. At least, like him, we have nowhere to go but up.

After giving it some thought, I've decided the theme of Flyover is either "inefficient dorks and bad tricks" or "stall the ground and fly over." Possibly both. Let's work with the latter.

One card I'll be sad to see leave Standard in October is Gravitational Shift. This card got its fifteen minutes of fame as a one-of in Guillaume Matignon's Standard deck's sideboard when he battled Brad Nelson for Player of the Year. I want to give it another couple minutes, and it fits the theme about as well as we could hope, so we'll try out the full four-pack.

It occurred to me while playing with glorified Wind Drakes that I may be using entirely the wrong sort of Hawks. We may not have the weaponry with which Squadron Hawks are most familiar, but Gravitational Shift goes a long way toward making these birds dangerous.

Finally, it's frustrating to test a deck with a bad mana-base, so I'm going to add a few duals.

The cuts should be easy. Gravitational Shift makes aggressive ground guys terrible, so those can go. Veteran's Reflexes is terrible, regardless of the gravitational state. Gomazoa is the weakest link from the remaining cards—the fact that it has summoning sickness makes it too slow to be a good removal spell. I'll add four Seachrome Coasts and a couple more Terramorphic Expanses in place of basic lands. Inevitably, we're going to want Celestial Colonnades, but those are pretty expensive, so we'll keep the changes at a minimum for now.

"Piece of Shift 1.0"

Game 1 – Proliferate Control

I open on what I suspect will be a very common line of play: Turn-two Squadron Hawk, turn-three Squadron Hawk, turn-four Squadron Hawk, Squadron Hawk, turn-five Gravitational Shift. That would be 15 damage by turn five—except my opponent had Contagion Clasps for the first two and a Day of Judgment to sweep up the last two. I deploy some Apex Hawks, and then kick a Marshal's Anthem to bring back a 1/1 (now 4/2!). Unfortunately, my opponent has two Tumble Magnets, so I'm not able to break through until I draw Archon of Redemption. Even then, he has a Condemn.

I keep drawing gas, thankfully, in the form of a Stormfront Pegasus and another Apex Hawks. My opponent's mana is tied up in proliferating his Magnets, but he spends a turn casting Contagion Engine. Then, he forgets to use Tumble Magnet during my attack phase, so I kill him. Judging by what was in his hand, I probably would have won anyways, but who can say he wouldn't rip the Day of Judgment next turn? Ah, well—a win's a win.

1–0.

Game 2 – Red/Black Aggro

Gravitational Shift really shone in this game. His Plated Geopedes, Memnites, and Vampire Lacerators all looked pretty silly when the Shift was on. I had a couple Hawks to boot, so the game was over relatively quickly. He had a couple of Doom Blades and Lightning Bolts to fend off my initial assault, but when I brought a 6/5 Archon of Redemption back from the dead with Marshal's Anthem, he conceded.

2–0.

Game 3 – R/U/G Mass Polymorph

I keep a mana-light hand because it has a Gravitational Shift, which ends up being my downfall. My opponent does very little for the first seven or eight turns, simply ramping up his mana and drawing cards with See Beyond. I'm able to do 24 damage, but with two Elixir of Immortality, he's still alive. There are several turns where drawing a fourth land would win it (Marshal's Anthem, Sleep), but I never do. Eventually, he has three Eldrazi Spawn tokens from Awakening Zone and Spawning Breath, and he casts Mass Polymorph. I respond with an Unsummon, so he can only flip two guys: Terastodon and Massacre Wurm. He makes the right play and destroys his own lands with Terastodon, so I'm not able to steal a win with Sleep the following turn. I die to a stampede of elephants.

2–1.

The deck is beginning to show areas of strength. Gravitational Shift is as good as advertised (at least until my opponent has her own Squadron Hawks . . .). I've only been truly unhappy with a few cards in the deck, so let's address those.

Guardian Zendikon supports our plan to stall to ground, but it is neither effective nor necessary. Gravitational Shift handles that duty just fine, and removal like Pacifism does a better job of taking out the bigger threats. Even when we want a wall, this Zendikon is just too slow, since he's only available to block on turn four at the earliest. Instead, I'm going to give his slot to his little brother, Wind Zendikon.

I thought Wind Zendikon was pretty good when it was first spoiled. A 2/2 hasty flyer for essentially 2 mana? With additional applications when used with fetch lands and Tectonic Edge? Sign me up! I neglected to think about the Stone Rain effect the card has on your development: If you want to attack, you have to give up one of your lands for the turn. When you're curving out with an aggro deck, that's the worst thing that could happen.

Still, if the card is ever going to be good, it's in this deck. In the interest of trying out underplayed cards, I'm going for it.

The next card on my shift list is Everflowing Chalice. I don't need to tell you how good this is in a control deck, but when I want to play a creature on turn two every single game, Chalice is kind of a dead card. Getting to 5 mana without it could be rough, so I'm going to play a few Pilgrim's Eyes. To make room, I'll go ahead and cut a Lightkeeper of Emeria. The 3 power of Voyager Drake is more relevant than the life-gain ability on Lightkeeper, though both cards are pretty bad. I'll be keeping my eye on them for the next round of cuts.

"Piece of Shift 2.0"

Game 1 – WB Mimic Vat Control

Foil full-art Zendikar lands deployed foil Wall of Omens, foil Condemns, and foil Day of Judgments, while my regular old Squadron Hawks and Stormfront Pegasus pecked away. I landed a Marshal's Anthem when I had a sizeable force post-Wrath, but foil Sunblast Angel came down and crippled my board. When foil Steel Hellkite joined the party, I knew the two Gravitational Shifts in my hand weren't going to be of any help. Sleep and Unsummon kept me alive, but two Wraths are just about all this deck can take.

0–1.

Game 2 – Kuldotha-ish Red

Squadron Hawk is good.

Oh, you want more? Well, my opponent played several cards and I only had to use one (which got three others) to neutralize them. More specifically, he played Memnite, Perilous Myr, Vulshok Replica, and Trigon of Rage, while my Hawks sacrificed themselves one by one to protect my life total. Then, I played Gravitational Shift, which made all of my opponent's subsequent creatures irrelevant. Archon of Redemption made sure I wasn't in burn range, and Wind Zendikon closed out the game.

1–1.

Game 3 – Tezzerator

Another mana-light hand doesn't develop well for me, while Tumble Magnet stops my Wind Zendikon from attacking his Tezzeret. Mana Leak prevents my first Hawk from assembling a squadron. Eventually, I draw land and can play my 4-drop creatures, but by then he has a Sphinx of Jwar Isle to block. Jace, the Mind Sculptor makes an appearance, but I'm already dead on the board to artificial 5/5s and a shrouded Sphinx.

1–2.

The holes in the deck really started to show after these three games. We're a deck that wants a 2-drop every game, but we only have six. Furthermore, we need better answers to big creatures like Steel Hellkite and Titans. Last, we need a way to close out games where we don't draw Gravitational Shift, or it ends up being harmful to us. Luckily, our old buddy Zendikar block offers us all of those things and more!

There's no shortage of flying 2-drops available. Welkin Tern, Stormfront Pegasus, Kor Skyfisher, Kor Aeronaut, and Leonin Skyhunter all fit the bill. While Stormfront Pegasus is much easier on the mana, the 2 toughness of Kor Aeronaut is surprisingly relevant when people are playing Arc Trail and Squadron Hawks. We'll cut the unicorn and play four of the uncommon.

Pacifism and Unsummon are much worse than Journey to Nowhere, so that's an easy switch. Now that we have reliable removal, Iona's Judgment can go in order to make room for the Aeronaut. Wind Zendikon is quite bad in multiples (hmm, should I double Wasteland myself to do 4 damage?), so I'll shave off a couple of those.

Finally, the dynamically-opposed-to-winning duo of Lightkeeper of Emeria and Voyager Drake warm the bench in favor of Emeria Angel. With a Gravitational Shift, she's a 5/3 for 4 that poops out 3/1s. Nice!

With all these White spells coming in, not to mention Emeria's landfall needs, the mana base requires some work. For starters, I'll switch the number of Pilgrim's Eyes with Apex Hawks. Here's where I'm at:

"Piece of Shift 3.0"

You pretty much always want to find Plains with your turn-one fetch land, both because you play Kor Aeronaut, and because you should be able to find by the time you need it with twenty sources in the deck. Somehow Apex Hawks keeps making the cut—I guess I just really need a flying 3-drop, and I haven't been able to find better.

This seems like as good a stopping place as any. Next week, I'll play some games with Piece of Shift 3.0, make the final changes, and try to convince you that Celestial Colonnade can exist in a budget deck (Come on! It flies and fixes mana!). I'll also look at New Phyrexia to see what kind of new toys fit in our birdcage.

Until then, make sure you appreciate what you have now. There's no guarantee it'll rotate back again.

Thanks for reading,

Brad Wojceshonek

bradwoj at gmail dot com

BJWOJ on Twitter

TAGS articles, constructed

Under Preconstruction – The Birdcage

"Flyover ×2"

"Flyover Redux"

Game 1 – Goblins

Game 2 – U/W Control

Game 3 – Blue/Green

"Piece of Shift 1.0"

Game 1 – Proliferate Control

Game 2 – Red/Black Aggro

Game 3 – R/U/G Mass Polymorph

"Piece of Shift 2.0"

Game 1 – WB Mimic Vat Control

Game 2 – Kuldotha-ish Red

Game 3 – Tezzerator

"Piece of Shift 3.0"

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