Standard: Naoki Shimizu's Bant Flash

Of the PTQ winners in the last post, probably the coolest deck is this thing by famous UG master Naoki Shimizu:

2012-style Bant Control decks had, like, Thragtusk and Farseek. Shimizu's deck plays 4 Advent of the Wurm and 3 Unsummon instead of those cards.

There are some defensive creatures in the sideboard, but the maindeck uses only 5 sorcery-speed cards (2 Supreme Verdict and 3 Augur of Bolas). Basically, Shimizu played a dedicated Snapcaster Mage deck to qualify for the pro tour:

  25 lands (with no "ability lands")
  15 card draw (counting Snapcasters and Augurs)
  5 creatures
  12 removal (including 4 bounce effects)
  3 counterspells

Shimizu beat a Zombie deck in the finals of a PTQ near Kobe. Here's a fun sample hand:

Standard: PTQ Theros win scoreboard

Compiling the winning decks from this page, here's a scoreboard of what decks have won the most spots at PT Theros:

Deck	W	Places
Junk Rites	8	South Carolina, British Columbia, Maryland, Kansas, Florida, MTGO, Ontario, New Hampshire
Jund	8	Mississippi, Connecticut, Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Washington, Nebraska
Gruul	6	New York, New Mexico, Alberta, Ontario, MTGO, Washington
UWR Flash	5	MTGO, MTGO, Arkansas, California, Massachusetts
BWR Aristocrats	5	Texas, Ontario, Oklahoma, Montana, British Columbia
Red	4	MTGO, California, MTGO, California
Bant Auras	4	New York, Maine, Virginia, Oregon
Big Naya	3	Japan, Tennessee, Iowa
Naya Humans	2	Alberta, Manitoba
Esper Control	2	North Carolina, Michigan
UG Quirion Dryad	1	Arizona
Humans Rites	1	Japan
Bant Flash	1	Japan
Rakdos	1	Nebraska
GB	1	Idaho
Junk Aristocrats	1	MTGO

Notably few PTQ wins for Big Naya or Junk Aristocrats. All 8 of the recorded "Jund PTQs" were in the States.

Modern: Spanky kc's Restore Balance

A cool deck from these DE results:

This works a bit like the Living End deck -- the ideal plan is to suspend a Greater Gargadon, use a cascade spell to get Restore Balance, and then sacrifice all your permanents before it resolves. (The cycling creatures, which get reanimated in the Living End deck, are only here as "draw a card" spells that you can't cascade into.)

You could play this instead of Living End if you think destroying all the lands is better than getting a bunch of 3/4s, but you need to be luckier with this deck and draw one of 4 Greater Gargadons for the plan to work. This looks like a budget deck and weak to Remand, so we'll see if it keeps winning.

Finance: Grading the M14 Mythics

(modified from the great MythicSpoiler.com)

There are 10 new mythics and 3 reprinted mythics in Magic 2014. I ranked the new ones by their chance of being good in standard:

Chandra (60%). The point of this would be to +1, survive to untap, and then start getting a free card a turn. It wouldn't go in a 19 mountain aggro deck, and the +0 doesn't interact well with counterspells or Bonfires. Probably a Farseek deck is best; Jund could be adapted to play some cheap blockers -- Elvish Visionary?

Shadowborn Demon (50%). I had this much lower until I read Owen Turtenwald's M14 piece. "Destroy target creature" less powerful in current standard than it sounds, but Owen points out that sacrificing creatures is pretty easy.

Scourge of Valkas (25%). Obviously this does nothing today, but if, say, two good cheap dragons are printed in the next block, Scourge of Valkas will start looking real.

Garruk, Caller of Beasts (25%). A sideboard card for a hypothetical Bant. I don't know if people will want more than two copies.

Archangel of Thune (10%). You'd need, like, Sol Wardens and Soulmenders to make this work -- creatures that can gain life for zero mana.

Kalonian Hydra (5%). Wolfir Silverheart is underplayed, but this does so much less than Wolfir Silverheart.

Rise of the Dark Realms (1%). I'm not sure how much play 7BB for "Win the game" would see.

Devout Invocation (1%). If you have seven mana and a lot of untapped creatures, there are other cards that just win you the game.

Windreader Sphinx (1%). It's tough to see where this does more than Angel of Serenity / Sphinx's Revelation / Aetherling.

Primeval Bounty (0%). You'd have to be playing a very slow deck with a lot of creatures in it somehow.


The "good mythics" are Chandra and Shadowborn Demon, which will open at (rightfully) high prices.

The mythic I might speculate is Scourge of Valkas -- I'd want to buy low in August and then hope for a Dragon deck in standard by 2014. But the price might not go low enough -- Scourge of Valkas has casual appeal and other people might be making the same play as me.

My plan for now is to sell every mythic rare I open.

Pauper: Rebel Post

Rebel Cloudpost decks have started showing up in the Pauper DE results:

This deck by xin30hp was the first to appear, and so far it's the only 4-0 list we've seen. It breaks down into 24 lands + 7 mana artifacts, 13 searchers, 7 removal, 1 Standard Bearer, and 8 rebels you don't really want to draw. The creature curve lines up at 4 / 10 / 8.

Rebels and Cloudposts have always been legal in Pauper, but, as Carlos Gutierrez points out, it's only since Modern Masters that Bound in Silence has been a common.

(For reference: forum threads from 2012 discussing early Rebel decks with Cloudpost and Kaervek's Torch, thread from 2013 worrying about the Temporal Fissure matchup.)

The idea is to play t1 Cloudpost, t2 searcher, t3 Glimmerpost and search. I could see fast decks losing to Aven Riftwatcher every turn, and I could see slow decks losing to the card advantage of getting, like, 10 creatures into play without depleting your hand.

The price of MTGO Cloudposts doubled this week.

The Prophetic Prism / Kaervek's Torch package hasn't been seen in other rebel decks (many run Bonesplitter) but it sort of shows off how perfect the mana-base is here. It should be fun to see if Syncopate Rebels or Faith's Fetters Rebels or Dawnglare Invoker Rebels ever catches on online.

Limited: M14 common synergy and strategies

UPDATE: Instead of this post, please try reading pick orders by Frank Karsten and Owen Turtenwald. Karsten and Turtenwald are top pros who wrote based on a lot of experience; the post below is just my guesswork from reading the spoiler before the set was released.

GW Slivers: Probably the best three common slivers are Predatory Sliver, Sentinel Sliver, and Hive Stirrings.  There are common Slivers in red, but they are not as good.

RB Aggro: There aren't many "bears" in M14, but the best ones are probably Child of Night, Corpse Hauler, and Goblin Shortcutter. Those plus Festering Newt should go well with Lightning Talons and the red finisher commons (Lava Axe, Act of Treason, Seismic Stomp).

Auramancer and Quag Sickness.

Trained Condor and Scroll Thief: Drafting Condor is probably harder than drafting Tricks of the Trade was, but this is still cool.

UR Archaeomancer: Stuff like Essence Drain and Murder made Archaeomancer best in UB for M13, but M14 doesn't have as many common black targets for Archaeomancer. It can still recur stuff like Chandra's Outrage and Lava Axe.

Pick this early.

Blue Control: The general weakness of the creatures in M14 means "durdle cards" like counterspells and Divination are good, and it makes Disperse good by forcing people into auras like Mark of the Vampire and Trollhide.

Big Green: There isn't anything like Timberpack Wolf or Centaur Courser at common in M14; the best green cards are the Llanowar Elf, Hunt the Weak, and Sporemound. Rootwalla instead of Yeva's Forcemage also makes green a mana-hungry colour. Verdant Haven should be very playable now.

Things I don't recommend:

- 5-colour green. The fixing is there (Verdant Haven and Shimmering Grotto), but there are no gold cards, so all the bombs in this set cost heavy coloured mana and aren't really splashable.
- UW flyers. This strategy works better when there are exalted creatures in the set. In M14, UW flyers will just mean attacking for 1 with Seacoast Drake and Griffin Sentinel. The best blue common (Trained Condor) encourages you to play a bunch of non-flyers.
- GR Advocate of the Beast. There are only two common beasts in the set.
- White weenie. Master of Diversion will make people try this deck, but the common white attackers are pretty bad in this set.

Nice Play: Hetrick casts turn-two Snapcaster

I think it's widely known that turn-two Snapcaster should be played more often, but I don't think many people know when to do it. Here's when to do it.

"Yeah, I think I'm on the Snap plan."

M1G2 of these videos, stuck on two lands, Michael Hetrick plays his 2/1 flash creature on his Scapeshift opponent's EOT. It's a chance to rule the board against a nearly-creatureless deck, and it's a potential third land via Path to Exile. Good play.


In M3G2, Hetrick makes another nice play by waiting to use Tectonic Edge on his opponent's upkeep.

The opponent was playing the "Sharfman version" of Scapeshift, with Peer Through Depths and no Primeval Titans. On Hetrick's turn, he played a Tectonic Edge and considered the opponent's open mana.

"I'm sure he has, like, Peer Through Depths, so it's not entirely an extra tun [gained by land destruction]. I think it's worth it.

"We're gonna pass, though, and do it on his upkeep, depending on if he Peers."

[Pass turn. Opponent plays nothing. Opponent's upkeep, use Tectonic Edge.]

"He didn't Peer. I just wanted him to not know if we were gonna do it, if he did cast the Peer."

Limited: M14 Common Instants

Creature pump:

Get ready to play around this thing.

W Pay No Heed
1W Show of Valor

2W Fortify

1R Thunder Strike

G Giant Growth
G Ranger's Guile

Removal:
WW Celestial Flare
1U Disperse
2U Frost Breath
B Wring Flesh
R Shock
2RR Chandra's Outrage
1G Plummet

Flash creatures:
B Vile Rebirth
3U Nephalia Seakite

Counterspells:
1U Negate
1U Essence Scatter

1UU Cancel

Other things:
1B Altar's Reap

R Smelt

G Fog

1G Naturalize

(To scan card texts quicker, consult this Gatherer search + Nephalia Seakite.)

Modern: Composition of Melira Pod

Using decks from the last two Modern GPs, this pre-Kansas PE, and a random LSV 4-0 list, here's a grid comparing recent Melira Pod maindecks:

Breakdown of a normal Melira deck:

• 23 lands (3 Gavony Township, 8 fetch, 8 dual, and 4 basic)
• 8 mana creatures (4 Birds of Paradise, 3 Deathrite Shaman, 1 Wall of Roots)
• 7 creature tutors (4 Birthing Pod, 3 Chord of Calling)
• 6 persisty creatures (2 Voice of Resurgence, 4 Kitchen Finks)
• 10 combo creatures (1 Viscera Seer, 2 Melira, 1 Cartel Aristocrat, 1 Witness, 1 Metamorph, 2 Redcap, 1 Ranger of Eos, 1 Reveillark)
• 3 disrupty creatures (1 Qasali Pridemage, 1 Spellskite, 1 Orzhov Pontiff)
• 2 disruption spells (Abrupt Decay or Thoughtseize)

This totals 59 / 60 slots that are quite consistent in all the Melira Pod decks listed.

Distinctions of certain Melira Pod lists:
- Dan Macdonald's list predates the "Pardee template," missing Voice of Resurgence among other stuff.
- The 60th card in Sam Pardee's list is the 2nd Viscera Seer. Pardee has Abrupt Decay instead of Thoughtseize main.
- Pyromaniac4290 played Pardee's 60 cards from GP Portland.
- LSV's version played the 4th Deathrite Shaman over the Wall of Roots, 3rd and 4th Voice of Resurgence over Spellskite and Qasali Pridemage. He played Thoughtseize instead of Abrupt Decay. His 60th card was a Varolz.
- VFS played 2 Abrupt Decay and 2 Thoughtseize, cutting a Deathrite Shaman. He also ran the 2nd Viscera Seer over the Cartel Aristocrat and an Entomber Exarch over the Ranger of Eos.

Distinctions of Manfield's list:

- Dual land over the 3rd Gavony Township.

- Abrupt Decay instead of Thoughtseize.

- 60th card was the 3rd Voice of Resurgence.

Melira Pod decks are all pretty similar right now.

Breakdown of Ari Lax's Kiki Pod deck:

• 23 lands (2 Township, 7 fetch, 12 duals, 2 basic)
• 9 mana creatures (4 Birds of Paradise, 4 Noble Hierarch, 1 Wall of Roots)
• 6 creature machines (4 Pod, 2 Domri Rade)
• 9 combat creatures (2 Voice of Resurgence, 1 Tarmogoyf, 3 Kitchen Finks, 3 Restoration Angel)
• 8 combo creatures (1 Phantasmal Image, 1 Fauna Shaman, 2 Deceiver Exarch, 1 Redcap, 2 Kiki-Jiki, 1 Zealous Conscripts)
• 5 disrupty creatures (1 Spellskite, 1 Qasali Pridemage, 1 Izzet Staticaster, 1 Linvala, 1 Glen Elendra Archmage)

This is the same template but basically all different spells, beyond the Bird-Finks-Pod shell. Two big differences: Noble Hierarch instead of Deathrite Shaman, Restoration Angel instead of Chord of Calling.

Standard: Composition of Jund decks

Here's a table of successful Jund decks over the last couple months. The four decks on the left are Reid Duke from GP Miami, Paul Cheon and Jose Francisco Silva from this PE, and Owen Turtenwald from his last Jund article. (The other decks in the table are pre-Voice of Resurgence.)

Here are the common elements of our four "up-to-date" Jund maindecks:

   25 lands
    (20 duals + 2 Kessig Wolf Run + 3 other)
   7 "small spells" (4 Farseek + Arbor Elf / Rakdos Keyrune / Ground Seal)
   14 creatures
    (2 Olivia + 4 Huntmaster + 4 Thragtusk + 2 Garruk Primal Hunter + 2 other)
   7 removal spells
    (1 Tragic Slip + 2 Putrefy + 4 others)
   3 Bonfire of the Damned
   1 Rakdos' Return

This formula sums to 57 slots; most of the decks spend the last 3 wildcard slots on "big spells" -- the last Bonfire, extra Olivia or Rakdos' Return, or the potentially-big Mizzium Mortars.

We can say 25 lands / 7 small spells / 7 removal / 21 big spells is the usual formula for standard Jund.

Duke's Miami deck follows this formula the closest:
- His 2 "other" creatures were Vampire Nighthawks.
- His 4 "other" removal were 2 Pillar of Flame, 1 Abrupt Decay, and a 2nd Tragic Slip.
- His 3 wildcard spells were Bonfire #4, Olivia #3, and Rakdos' Return #2.
- His manabase was 22 duals, 2 Wolf Run, and 1 Cavern of Souls.
- His "small spells" were the 4 Farseek, 2 Ground Seal, and 1 Rakdos Keyrune.

Of the four decks we're looking at, Cheon's is the outlier -- it plays 2 Liliana, 2 Arbor Elf, and 3 Forest, which are all "throwbacks" to pre-Voice of Resurgence.

The patterns are a bit different if we look at players' 75s instead of their 60s:

Counting sideboards, our Jund decks all need access to 3 Ground Seal, 2 Vampire Nighthawk, 2 Liliana, and 3 Pillar of Flame, plus some mixture of 5 discard spells. The average sideboard is mostly taken up by filling out those quotas, with a few slots left for big creatures or extra removal or Underworld Connections. Our formula of 25 / 7 / 7 / 21 expands to something like 25 / 10 / 11 / 24, leaving only 5 flexible spaces for sweet sideboard tech.

Reid Duke is really running a "modest" Jund deck here -- he skips out on stuff like Sire of Insanity and Mizzium Mortars, but he includes all 4 copies of Ground Seal and Tragic Slip. The most glamourous thing about the deck was probably that it had 2 Ruric Thar instead of Vraska or whatever, but the Ruric Thars never even made it into the text coverage.

Probably the "big mana" engine makes sideboarding more important with Jund than with other standard decks -- if only 28/60 of the deck is action spells, swapping out 6 cards can make a big difference in what the deck does (unlike in a deck with 40 creatures).