Metagame Check- Spirit Bonds
with Samuel Wells
Hello people of the internet.
I am Samuel Wells, back with another Metagame check.
Last week I teased what card I was going to highlight in this article. I have set my eyes on Spirit Bonds this week. To give context, this was the card that I predicted to be one of the biggest impact cards coming in M15.
Spirit Bonds is a card that calls back to the Aristocrat decks of last standard. The concept of making 1/1 spirits to grind out the game and out value the opponent while still playing quickly to the board. Spirit Bonds even provides its own form of protection for the rest of your creatures. Truly does everything that an Aristocrats deck could want short of having Blood Artist’s text box as well. When I saw this card, I immediately went back and looked at what tools remained from the Aristocrats in the current standard. And I found a number of tools that seemed to synergize well with this card overall. Without further ado, here is the decklist:
Instead of strictly adhering to the Abzan or Mardu (GWB and RWB respectively for those who haven’t seen the wedge color names from Khans) decks of last standard I streamlined the deck to only two colors for three major reasons. The mana is worse this standard and there would be a real struggle with playing all of the cards on time if I went three colors. And there is not a lot to be gained by adding a third color to the decks now. Green adds things like Voice of Resurgence, which is great in the deck generally, but splashing for a two drop when there are perfectly strong cards to fill that slot otherwise. Red really adds nothing, I don’t want to be using any of the boardwipes like I did with Blasphemous Act with cards like Reckoner in the deck. And I am missing the raw power of synergies that could exist by adding red. There is no Falkenrath Aristocrat running around in standard right now. Finally, going BW let me focus on another powerful synergy that has fallen off the map in standard for quite a while. I get to run a BW humans list trying to abuse Xanthrid Necromancer. This alongside Cartel Aristocrat and Spirit Bonds have become the heart of the deck. These three cards come together to assure that the beats will keep coming from all of my random weenies.
Spirit Bonds, as I have already alluded to, is probably the best card in several match-ups. Against aggro strategies it lets me grind out the game. I am able to make two creatures that are able to block each turn. It assures that am able block one-for-one and still have cards at the end of it to close the game out. This is already sounding great, but my favorite thing that Spirit Bonds does is against Mono-Black and some UW control lists. Spirit Bonds completely ruins decks that are very passively trying to one-for-one and get into a top deck war. Bonds assures that I am able to maintain pressure after a Hero’s Downfall or a Detention Sphere. It gives me the power to choose if I want to protect my random weenie or just leave myself with a spirit. Getting this power rather than hoping to fade removal for the first 3-4 turns makes a huge difference. I get to force my opponent to rely on his boardwipes, which are already mediocre against Bonds and open mana, but even when he kills most of my dudes with a supreme verdict I get to rebuild quickly when every creature I draw comes with a 1/1 spirit. Any card that provides utility against aggro and control is a card that I have to consider building around. Spirit Bonds was no exception.
Once I figured out what I wanted to do with Spirit Bonds, I looked to see what other cards fit into that strategy. I fairly quickly latched onto Cartel Aristocrat after beginning the search. Aristocrat does a lot of the same things that Bonds does. It is a pain to attack into for an aggro deck. Instant speed protection from any color is not a fun card to attack into with a Firedrinker Satyr and an Ash Zealot. It is unlikely that you will be making profitable exchanges or even getting in damage. Aristocrat also acts as a very reasonable attacker when I get to be the aggressor. He is a pain to remove from the battlefield once I get him to stick with one other creature. When my plan is to attack for 2-4 points of damage each turn and whittle my opponent away, Aristocrat is the perfect card for that plan.
The final card in the trio of reasons to play the deck is Xanthrid Necromancer. He fills a slightly different role. He is the deck board wipe insurance that I can muster. It is common for me to have two to four humans chipping away at the life total. I get him to the point where my opponent needs to boardwipe, but when I have a Necromancer out the board will only upgrade the power of my creatures. He is an immediate must respond for the Verdict decks which is great to have in that type of match up.
With cards like these making up my 75, I have a solid plan against the vast majority of decks in standard right now, being good against both Doom Blade and Firedrinker Satyr is not an easy task, but that deck is up for the challenge. There is one notable match-up that is very bad. That is Jund Monsters. Monsters is just able to go over the top too quickly for me to kill my opponent with my 1/1s and 2/2s. That is where my sideboard comes in.
Out of the board, I have two transnational plans to sure up the weaker match-ups. Against monsters, I turn into a smaller midrange deck with a glut of creature removal. Against most Jund monsters lists I am able to handle all of their threats with my two and three mana removal spells without them getting to taxed or my plan becoming too diluted. The other match-up that I chose to sure up was control, namely Cleansing Control. Cleansing Control generally has a good match up against me because I am not able to kill before the first boardwipe and I can’t lean on Spirit Bonds as my post boardwipe plan. That leaves my Necromancers overtaxed in the match up. I mitigate this by adding a pile of targeted discard and add threats like Blood Baron of Vizkopa that ask for a boardwipe by itself and take out all the random dudes that get swept away by Verdict.
Overall I think this deck has everything it needs to be a real threat in standard for the next few months. I would not be surprised to see people start to pick it up if the meta heads to a polarized format full of the two extremes of aggro and control.
I want to thank you for reading. This has been Samuel Wells bringing you the metagame check.
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