Say what you will about Mike Flores, but when the man is hot, he hits hard. If he makes a deck in one of those windows where he knows what the format does, he doesn’t just hit it—the dude nails it.

Let’s rewind a little bit, to the first weekend that New Phyrexia was legal. Flores wins a TCG Player tourney in New York City with a new brew of his, featuring the Deceiver Exarch + Splinter Twin combo. Beats noted Caw-Blade aficionados David Shiels and Edgar Flores on his way to the top spot. Claims his deck features the most powerful thing you can do in Standard.

Says the Top 8 he ran roughshod through was harder than the average Grand Prix Top 8.

It’s worth noting that if I’m jumping into a format blind, I start with Mike Flores articles and then go from there. If he happens to do well in a premier tournament that season, it becomes impossible to get me off his deck.

Shortly after Morningtide was released, I stopped paying attention to Magic because Kithkin are stupid and I discovered alcohol and women with questionable morals, as college freshmen are wont to do. I still have no idea what any cards in that block do other than the ones in Lorwyn. I came back to Magic to draft Alara block, which I liked because it was like drafting Invasion, but not retarded. Then I transferred to a school in Oswego, New York, shortly before Zendikar dropped, and couldn’t find a group of Magic players in the city, and dropped out of the game again. I also have no idea what any of the cards in Zendikar block do, still. If they haven’t been in a Tier 1 deck, I don’t even know they exist. Ignorance is whatever the opposite of bliss is.

During the Rise of the Eldrazi spoiler season, which I was completely unaware of, my buddy Brad, who currently resides in South Jersey, calls me up and tells me to gear up for Grand Prix: D.C. that summer. We have a house to stay in about twenty minutes from the venue, and, being very aware of my ignorance of the format, he tells me we’ll go out to the house in Virginia the Tuesday before the Grand Prix and play-test all week.

Thanks to my irrational hatred of flexible mana bases, I wanted to punish the Shards-block-enabled decks. After a quick browse of the Standard-legal cards in Gatherer, I started brewing R/B lists running Blightnings, Goblin Guides, and some other serious jank that I am clearly blocking, backed up by Terramorphic Expanses, Evolving Wilds, Tectonic Edges, and basic lands.

Initial testing did not go well.

Very despondent, I hopped on Flores’s blog, hoping to just get something to hang my hat on. And I found that in his Grixis deck. I ran his exact seventy-five at the Grand Prix, and got knocked out of Day 2 contention by fucking Vampires. The next day, I ran the deck at the PTQ in D.C., and received a game loss, when, after pile-shuffling, I riffled a couple times, then riffled once towards myself, and then presented the deck to my opponent. The second my deck hit the table, my opponent called for a judge with a smirk of grim satisfaction on his face. I was actually spoken to away from the table, told the judge that, yes, I riffled toward myself and that was the last thing I did before presenting my deck, and I was given a game loss for my trouble. I probably should have appealed, but I had no idea you could even do that at the time, and just dropped from the tournament after getting mana-screwed in Game 3. I hope that guy gets hit by a mail truck.

Before that, I played Ghost Dad for its entire legality. I don’t think I need to expand on that.

It’s been a sordid love affair ever since.

When someone goes into a premier event armed with, at that point, a homebrew, and beats not only the best deck in the format, but the two people who have very strong claims at being the best pilots of that deck, it’s difficult to ignore.

The deck had a very strong position against Caw-Blade, and any other deck: U/R Twin can win at any time, even through counterspells. If your opponent taps out, he’s just dead. Vialing out a Batterskull with Stoneforge Mystic’s got nothing on just winning on your main phase. And while his Tectonic Edges are dead, yours are very much live, often exposing his shaky all-my-lands-come-into-play-tapped-and-are-nonbasic mana base.

But you knew all about that.

I was sitting at that convention center, too, U/R Twin firmly in hand. After that first second, people started roaring. There was definitely a sense of “You guys, we won!!” in the air, and I can’t speak for Gerry, but it definitely made me feel uncomfortable. The deck that I had a very comfortable matchup against was what people were cheering against. Are people just too lazy to try and figure out how to beat a deck anymore? And when did everyone stop trusting Flores?

My list turned out to be a little outdated, as Caw-Blade with the Splinter Twin combo built in won the entire shebang. If anyone asks, I always refer to that deck as Sling Blade, because it’s retarded good. But here’s what I ran that day:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Inferno Titan

4 Deceiver Exarch

[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]

2 Jace Beleren

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]

2 Dismember

2 Spell Pierce

4 Into the Roil

4 Mana Leak

3 Gitaxian Probe

4 Preordain

4 Splinter Twin

[/Spells]

[Lands]

10 Island

7 Mountain

4 Scalding Tarn

4 Tectonic Edge

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

2 Manic Vandal

3 Dragonmaster Outcast

1 Jace's Ingenuity

2 Dispel

2 Negate

4 Pyroclasm

1 Island

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

Yup, that’s three Dragonmaster Outcast, and it’s the best card ever printed. If I could do that tournament over again, I’d run four, and I’d run them all main-deck. They’re just a beating in this deck, an absolute backbreaker in both the Caw-Blade matchup and the mirror, the only two matchups I cared about going into the tournament.

A quick rundown of my SCG: Baltimore experience:

Round 1, I beat a kid who tapped out for a Tumble Magnet Game 1. Game 2, I have no idea what to put him on, but I assumed he was on some sort of Rock homebrew. I literally only saw a Swamp, two Forest, and a Tumble Magnet. Expecting a lot of removal, I boarded in my Dragonmaster Outcasts, and got there the turn after he tapped out for a Sheoldred, Whispering One, by bouncing his Birds of Paradise on his end step and getting in there for exactly lethal with dragons.

Round 2, I played against Elves. Game 1, a Gitaxian Probe showed me a Naturalize, so I waited until I had Spell Pierce backup before going for the combo. Game 2, he tanked and ended up keeping a fast hand featuring Ezuri, Renegade Leader. The Elf Legend ended up getting countered, and a late Gitaxian Probe showed that I could’ve won years ago. After the match, he lamented about wanting to have been paired up against Caw-Blade after winning his first round, and I legitimately felt bad for the guy.

Round 3, I played against Mary Jacobson, who meandered over to the table lamenting about how she hated the deck she was playing. Sounded like a Caw-Blade player to me.

Mary Jacobson, as you may know, made Top 8 in, I think, the SCG Legacy open in Edison, New Jersey, with Zoo. She faced off against the now-banned Michael Pozsgay in the quarterfinals, and he played his Lands deck at a snail’s pace. Illicit drugs may have played a part in it, but either way, I felt bad for her. She got dispatched in two games that took a damn eternity, and it happened on camera.

I’m pretty sure the only thing that elicited any pity from me was probably some subtle sexism on my part. Suffice it to say that I no longer feel sorry for her.

She led off with Plains, and I led with Island, Preordain, content to let her think this was the Caw-Blade mirror. She then went, Forest, Overgrown Battlement. I felt my eyes roll, independent of my brain.

Cute.

Mary knew what was up when I played my third land, a Scalding Tarn. My lands were Island, Island, Scalding Tarn.

“Aaaaaawww, you’re running that deck? Why are you running that deck?”

A turn later, I bounce her Overgrown Battlement with a kicked Into the Roil on her end step:

“Oh, jeez, I hate that deck, I really do. I mean, why even play that deck? It doesn’t even interact with your opponent, it just sits there and wait until it kills you. Do you just not like to play Magic or something?”

[trying to keep things light, beyond all good sense] “But I just interacted with you! I bounced your wall!”

[pause] “Are you done yet?”

“It’s your turn.”

“Oh, right. Go.”

Just all the bad tricks you see twelve-year-olds at FNM run. Trying to get me to say “go” too early, trying to get me to skip my phases, etc.

It’s worth mentioning that I don’t hate light banter during a match, but what Mary was doing was clearly intended to annoy. Clearly. She’s good enough to know that if I’m bouncing an Overgrown Battlement instead of playing a Deceiver Exarch on her end step against a G/W Eldrazi deck, that I’m digging; I don’t have the win in my hand, and I need to find it before Primeval Titans come down through Mana Leaks and start stomping mudholes into me.

Please, if you’re going to try and tilt me, the least you can do is be creative. The fact that she was trying to tilt me at all, and in the least imaginable way possible, is probably what annoyed me the most. In the game of “Try to Tilt Jon Corpora,” criticizing my deck of choice ranks near telling me my hair is too thick, or my smile is too winning. Didn’t you hear, Mary? Mike Flores won a premier event with this deck! You’d have to pry this particular stack of Magic cards, however noninteractive, out of my dead, cold hands.

I ended up winning that game pretty handily; Game 1 really does not favor G/W Eldrazi, methinks. So much for making me think you’re playing Caw-Blade.

Game 2 she drops a Linvala, Keeper of Silence on me. By the time I was able to deal with that, I was getting run over by Primeval Titans.

“That’s what you get for playing that deck, man. Stupid deck. I hate it. I hate it. Hate it hate it hate it.”

Game 3 she has another Linvala, Keeper of Silence. I have the choice between Mana Leak and Dismember, and I Mana Leak it. Next turn, she happily plops down a Primeval Titan, searches up an Eye of Ugin and a Mystifying Maze, and I stare at the Dismember in my hand like it had just killed my parents. I drop a Deceiver Exarch on her end step without tapping the Primeval Titan, hoping maybe to draw a Splinter Twin—I do not, so I attack with Deceiver Exarch into her untapped Primeval Titan, hoping to elicit a block—I mean, hey, someone bad enough to use completely obvious shenanigans to get me to put her on Caw-Blade will probably bite on this, right? But to her credit, she took her 1, and proceeded to roll me with a second Primeval Titan off the tizzy.

She was a much better conversationalist when she was winning, which was even more annoying than when she was trying to berate me. She complimented my Dragonmaster Outcast tech like a father congratulates his son for putting hotels on Baltic Avenue. So did the idiot next to us in aviator glasses. The dude was rocking hyperreflective aviator glasses, indoors, at a Magic tournament. And he was 2–0! In that moment, I wanted to die.

Round 4, steaming from the last round, I behaved pretty abominably. I’m not actually obligated to admit that to you; as the author, I get to shape the world however I want you to see it. However, as Dumbledore says (he’s now legally allowed to get married in New York!), the truth is generally preferable to lies.

I was a total dick to this kid.

Game 1, he’s on the play, and he’s got a Plains. He goes Swamp, Stoneforge Mystic, searching Sword of War and Peace. Sensing a Batterskull in hand for him, I have the Dismember on his end step, and, like an idiot, I assume it’s fine to tap out for a Jace Beleren. I have an Into the Roil, it’s all good. He untaps and casts Spellskite. Game 1.

Again, independent of any signals my conscious brain sends, I feel my right palm connect with my forehead with a smack. My opponent laughs politely.

I exhaust a lot of resources trying to keep that stupid Spellskite off the table, and I can’t draw the combo before he gets a second Stoneforge Mystic and destroys me with it.

Game 2, I just get mana-screwed. Every play he makes is making my eyes bug out of my skull. I’m praying for death by the time he connects with a Squadron Hawk wearing Sword of Body and Mind. He nets three Deceiver Exarchs and three Splinter Twins in one mill, his first. I’m holding neither card. Reality hits.

A few turns later:

[taps out for a Batterskull] “Batterskull?”

“What’s your matchup against Caw-Blade like?”

[nervous laughter] “What?”

“What. Is. Your. Matchup. Against. Caw-Blade. Like?”

People are starting to stare at this point.

“Uhh . . . fine?”

“Really?”

“Uhh, yeah.”

“Really?”

I haven’t broken eye contact the entire exchange. I am clearly livid. He shifts in his chair and mumbles something about his Caw-Blade matchup being “fine.”

I don’t condone what I did. I realize this makes me complaining about Mary Jacobson look hypocritical. It’s definitely never correct to be obnoxious, but I couldn’t believe it—the difference between Mana Leaking or Dismembering a Linvala, Keeper of Silence is the difference between being 3–0 or walking into a buzzsaw at the X–1 tables, a buzzsaw incapable of ever beating Caw-Blade.

Then again, I saw him in a feature match later that day, so who knows? Maybe his deck was better than I thought. I’ll do anything to not blame my losses on play skill, I guess.

The next turn, he drops a second Spellskite, and that’s the ball game.

Round 5 I get the unloseable matchup, the mirror: Keep three lands and never see a fourth Game 1, mull to five on the play Game 2. My heart was never even it after the two preceding rounds.

Success at anything but an FNM, a prerelease, or a money draft has eluded me. I’ve been playing a long time. I went to the Invasion prerelease. I’ve been at it a while. This flame-out was just one more of many. I’m not in love with the way I behaved, but it’s done. Some points about the deck.

• It’s pretty soft to aggro, Vampires in particular—four Pyroclasm helps shore things up a little bit, but it’s still an uphill battle.
• The life deck is basically unwinnable, barring an act of God. It gets even worse in the sideboarded games, when they bring in Brave the Elements.
• The Island in the sideboard serves a few purposes—in the mirror, you bring out a Tectonic Edge for it, since any nonbasics in that matchup become huge liabilities. Against aggro decks, you bring out all your Gitaxian Probes, so you need that twenty-sixth land.
• Dragonmaster Outcast is still the best card ever.
• Dismember is not super-great. Two is the right number. In a deck sporting Black mana sources, Dismember is a fair card. In a deck without Black, casting one is very good. Casting two is mostly abysmal; that’s already spotting your opponent 8 life. They always come out against aggro decks.
• Jace's Ingenuity is just a way to draw their countermagic in the control mirror.
• Dispel is the real deal. Card is insane in the control mirror. Negate is worth a look as well if planeswalkers continue to be a concern in Standard.

Post-M12, this is what I’d run:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Inferno Titan

3 Grim Lavamancer

3 Sea Gate Oracle

4 Deceiver Exarch

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

2 Dismember

2 Spell Pierce

3 Into the Roil

4 Mana Leak

1 Preordain

3 Gitaxian Probe

4 Ponder

4 Splinter Twin

[/Spells]

[Lands]

10 Island

7 Mountain

4 Scalding Tarn

4 Tectonic Edge

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

2 Manic Vandal

1 Into the Roil

3 Surgical Extraction

4 Flashfreeze

4 Pyroclasm

1 Island

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

I expect the top two decks in this format to be Valakut and any Splinter Twin combo decks. What this means is that, to be viable, any decks will have to be able to beat those two combos. What the control version of a Splinter Twin deck has over Valakut is its ability to run for Flashfreeze in its seventy-five. RDW is going to be a deck. Between Lightning Bolt, Incinerate, Grim Lavamancer, Shock, Koth of the Hammer, and Shrine of Burning Rage, you can bank on RDW being a force in months to come. Between RDW, Splinter Twin, and Valakut, Flashfreeze is definitely a card you want to have. I wouldn’t wanna even consider rolling to a tournament without four in my seventy-five.

Thanks to the rise in multiple combo decks, Surgical Extraction has found lots of utility. It’s good after a Tectonic Edge activation against Valakut, and it’s good after you counter a Deceiver Exarch.

Sea Gate Oracle’s comeback to the main deck is simple—I expect a fair amount of aggro in the upcoming metagame. No more Batterskull germs, no more Squadron Hawks flying over them. This card is good again.

Grim Lavamancer is kind of a bummer, because it completely destroys any chance Dragonmaster Outcast had of catching on. They’re two very similar cards—they’re both Red 1-drops, they’re both 1/1’s, and they both break control mirrors wide open. The difference is that Grim Lavamancer is much more obvious at this than Dragonmaster Outcast, while also hosing Dragonmaster Outcast. Which sucks, because I was saving up for that Dragonmaster Outcast tattoo.

That’s just a list for the control version; I’m sure different types will pop up. However, if you like playing control, and you like pissing off Mary Jacobson, this is a good place to start. I know I’m excited about M12; any format where mono Red is unreal-good is all right with me. Happy brewing!

Jon Corpora

Pronounced ca-pora

@feb31st