DonRoyale
Get on my choppa!
- 1,723
- Posts
- 16
- Years
- Age 34
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- Seen Nov 5, 2012
So my local store owner is whipped on 2HG for some reason. About a month ago, me and three friends completely tore up the event. My friend ran Jacob Van Lunen's original list from his Building on a Budget article here for Infect Week. I built a red/blue combo deck that helped my friend get her creatures' damage through. My two friends brought double-Mono Red.
Understandably, we both made it to the finals. Our matches each lasted about five minutes, mostly because we would consistently have them dead by turn 4 and my friends'd have them dead by turn 4 or 5.
We'd tested the matchup extensively the day before. It was a pretty even matchup, but it was completely luck-based on both our parts. We'd win if she drew a 2-mana Infect creature and enough pump, and I'd drawn at least four counterspells and a Distortion Strike. They'd win if they drew enough Lightning Bolts.
So we played, and guess what? Luck favored them, and they won.
So when, last week, the TO explained that there'd be a 2HG Standard tournament, I was initially skeptical (mostly because I wanted to test a regular Standard deck I made which I'll post later), but I figured we'd just not fix what wasn't broken and try it again.
But there was a problem; how do we beat the innocuous Lightning Bolt, and in general, fast, aggressive decks? I went to brewing, and eventually figured it out.
My list:
-38- Other Spells
-4- Dispel
-4- Withstand Death
-4- Spell Pierce
-4- Mana Leak
-4- Unsummon
-4- Preordain
-4- Distortion Strike
-4- Assault Strobe
-4- Pyroclasm
-2- Lightning Bolt
-22- Lands
-4- Copperline Gorge
-4- Soaring Seacliff
-3- Misty Rainforest
-3- Scalding Tarn
-5- Island
-2- Mountain
-1- Forest
My friend's list:
-18- Creatures
-4- Blight Mamba
-4- Ichorclaw Myr
-4- Necropede
-4- Corpse Cur
-2- Cystbearer
-20- Other Spells
-4- Giant Growth
-4- Vines of Vastwood
-4- Groundswell
-4- Emerge Unscathed
-4- Refraction Trap
-22- Lands
-4- Razorverge Thicket
-4- Sunpetal Grove
-4- Teetering Peaks
-10- Forest
The execution of this deck is simple: On turn 2, my partner will drop one of her 12 two-drop Infect creatures. I will spend their turn countering the first two removal spells our opponents will attempt to throw at us. If the opponents fail to destroy our creature, we untap, use an evasion effect of some sort, and win via pump spells. If our opponents think their removal is cute, they've forgotten that we were allowed to untap and I was allowed to play a third land. My deck runs 12 counterspells and 8 'counterspells' (Withstand Death and Unsummon), and my partner (now) runs 8 'counterspells' (the white spells). It's pretty hard for us NOT to be able to protect our creatures.
The decks used to use the following fixes:
I think the changes were for the best. I observed, in testing, that I'd more than often just sit on an untapped Mountain with a one-mana counter in hand while my opponent was trying to resolve a Bolt. The green mana / Withstand Death package does a little bit of justice to help that; I mean, 95% of the time, that fetchland will find an Island, but there will be situations where I'll sit on Withstand Death with a Misty Rainforest in play, which is why there's just one Forest in the deck. Copperline Gorge is best for this, as it lets me play both Withstand Death and Pyroclasm if I need to.
Other things I noticed were, if our two-drop Infect creature died, we died with it. Often times, my partner would have one mana up, and attempt to use a pump spell to save her creature, and we'd be sitting on no pump spells to win with. And there wasn't much I could do to help this situation. The Corpse Cur package really helps with this, as Corpse Curring a Corpse Cur means that eventually, our opponents will run out of removal spells, and I use Pyroclasms and Bolts to ensure our opponent's creatures are kept in check.
Our biggest problems of all, though, were Ember Hauler and Spikeshot Elder. If either of those resolved, we were doomed, as both offer uncounterable ways to remove our two-drops. Pyroclasms replaced two of the Bolts and two of the weaker, 2-mana counterspells to deal with not only them, but the Goblin Guides, Kargan Dragonlords, Kuldotha Rebirth tokens, etc., etc. ; RDW dies hard to that card.
So, I've tuned the decks to specifically improve the matchups against the red decks, which I feel are the best in this format. If only we could sideboard...
Anyway, let me know what you think! =D
Understandably, we both made it to the finals. Our matches each lasted about five minutes, mostly because we would consistently have them dead by turn 4 and my friends'd have them dead by turn 4 or 5.
We'd tested the matchup extensively the day before. It was a pretty even matchup, but it was completely luck-based on both our parts. We'd win if she drew a 2-mana Infect creature and enough pump, and I'd drawn at least four counterspells and a Distortion Strike. They'd win if they drew enough Lightning Bolts.
So we played, and guess what? Luck favored them, and they won.
So when, last week, the TO explained that there'd be a 2HG Standard tournament, I was initially skeptical (mostly because I wanted to test a regular Standard deck I made which I'll post later), but I figured we'd just not fix what wasn't broken and try it again.
But there was a problem; how do we beat the innocuous Lightning Bolt, and in general, fast, aggressive decks? I went to brewing, and eventually figured it out.
My list:
-38- Other Spells
-4- Dispel
-4- Withstand Death
-4- Spell Pierce
-4- Mana Leak
-4- Unsummon
-4- Preordain
-4- Distortion Strike
-4- Assault Strobe
-4- Pyroclasm
-2- Lightning Bolt
-22- Lands
-4- Copperline Gorge
-4- Soaring Seacliff
-3- Misty Rainforest
-3- Scalding Tarn
-5- Island
-2- Mountain
-1- Forest
My friend's list:
-18- Creatures
-4- Blight Mamba
-4- Ichorclaw Myr
-4- Necropede
-4- Corpse Cur
-2- Cystbearer
-20- Other Spells
-4- Giant Growth
-4- Vines of Vastwood
-4- Groundswell
-4- Emerge Unscathed
-4- Refraction Trap
-22- Lands
-4- Razorverge Thicket
-4- Sunpetal Grove
-4- Teetering Peaks
-10- Forest
The execution of this deck is simple: On turn 2, my partner will drop one of her 12 two-drop Infect creatures. I will spend their turn countering the first two removal spells our opponents will attempt to throw at us. If the opponents fail to destroy our creature, we untap, use an evasion effect of some sort, and win via pump spells. If our opponents think their removal is cute, they've forgotten that we were allowed to untap and I was allowed to play a third land. My deck runs 12 counterspells and 8 'counterspells' (Withstand Death and Unsummon), and my partner (now) runs 8 'counterspells' (the white spells). It's pretty hard for us NOT to be able to protect our creatures.
The decks used to use the following fixes:
Spoiler:
I think the changes were for the best. I observed, in testing, that I'd more than often just sit on an untapped Mountain with a one-mana counter in hand while my opponent was trying to resolve a Bolt. The green mana / Withstand Death package does a little bit of justice to help that; I mean, 95% of the time, that fetchland will find an Island, but there will be situations where I'll sit on Withstand Death with a Misty Rainforest in play, which is why there's just one Forest in the deck. Copperline Gorge is best for this, as it lets me play both Withstand Death and Pyroclasm if I need to.
Other things I noticed were, if our two-drop Infect creature died, we died with it. Often times, my partner would have one mana up, and attempt to use a pump spell to save her creature, and we'd be sitting on no pump spells to win with. And there wasn't much I could do to help this situation. The Corpse Cur package really helps with this, as Corpse Curring a Corpse Cur means that eventually, our opponents will run out of removal spells, and I use Pyroclasms and Bolts to ensure our opponent's creatures are kept in check.
Our biggest problems of all, though, were Ember Hauler and Spikeshot Elder. If either of those resolved, we were doomed, as both offer uncounterable ways to remove our two-drops. Pyroclasms replaced two of the Bolts and two of the weaker, 2-mana counterspells to deal with not only them, but the Goblin Guides, Kargan Dragonlords, Kuldotha Rebirth tokens, etc., etc. ; RDW dies hard to that card.
So, I've tuned the decks to specifically improve the matchups against the red decks, which I feel are the best in this format. If only we could sideboard...
Anyway, let me know what you think! =D