Visions from Beyond- Back to Basics
Hello once again readers! This is Samuel Wells, bringing you another Vision From Beyond. I am back with yet another deck primer. This week I will be being going back to a deck that was a house in the last standard and has been getting coverage now.
It seems like everyone has talked about monsters as a deck, it was just a matter of what the flavor is. Do I stick with Jund and use the most powerful removal in the format? Is Temur monsters finally viable now that we have Sagu Mauler and Savage Knucklebalde? Does Naya get to slip in with Elspeth? I do think all of these decks do deserve this speculation, and I certainly have participated in this speculation. But I am most excited to go back to basics and work on a GR monsters list. One thing that I was struggling with consistently with all of the three color variations was what I could include and what I needed to cut. I always felt limited and that I was leaving out cards that felt vital the deck’s strategy. Just as an experiment I decided to go with just two colors and see where that went. The deck started coming together very quickly and what’s more, the deck felt like I got to play everything I wanted and I wasn’t trying too hard find the cards to fill the last slots.
Without anymore hesitation here is the deck;
*Note, the “?” in the decklist are 4 Xenagos, The Reveler. Tcgplayer was not cooperative tonight.
This deck really acts as an all in type of strategy that really is not trying to interact with the opponent, but rather trying to force the opponent to interact with me. I cut down on the spells that interact with the opponent down to just 4 lightning strike and 2 setessan tactics in the main. The rest of the main deck are threats and creatures tat help you ramp to your threats. This deck is very slim and wants to play a linear game one, preferably a linear game two in the best of matchups.
The thing that sets my deck apart from most other monsters list, is the number of planeswalkers in my deck. I am running a full ten in the main deck and can side into another 3. This deck is trying to win by setting up an engine of card advantage that all of the walkers combine to provide. The vast majority of my slots for threats are dedicated to planeswalkers. I think this gives an aggro deck a distinct advantage against decks that are relying on removal to stop the aggressive decks. Besides Hero’s Downfall, there are not a lot of easy ways for decks to get walkers off the board. That is a huge bonus when you are trying to force your opponent’s actions.
I will go into the specifics of the inclusions for the deck now. There is the obvious 12 cards that make up the mana package that has become the norm for most green ramp decks. That being 4 Elvish Mystics, 4 Sylvan Caryatid, and 4 Courser of Kruphix. These cards are must includes and make all the difference to the success of the deck.
Next are the eight creature threats with Polukranos, The World Eater and Stormbreath Dragon. Both of these cards are the namesake to the deck. They are the monsters to play. And the best place to be with the creatures in standard currently.
I want to go into detail for each of the planeswalkers. Each of them help in some facet of the game and can attack on some level. First I have Xenagos, the reveler as the only 4 of walker in the main deck. He puts so much pressure on the board by himself, just getting to create a Satyr token each turn. It adds up very quickly. The other aspect to Xenagos is his +1 is subtly very key to letting your monsters over the top. Getting 3 or more extra mana in the early turns sets up for a back breaking Polukranos activation. Having this other mode can be vital when the board is stalling out in creature matchups. Sarkhan, The Dragonspeaker is an exciting addition to the deck. Sarkhan in many ways is Stormbreath Dragon 5 and 6. This is something that is very nice to have in the deck. I see this format really stalling out with a bunch of high toughness creatures clogging up the ground. Getting to have a threat in the sky gives a very reasonable avenue to victory without having to be too concerned with what the opponent is doing. Once again, Sarkhan has another mode that can be incredibly powerful. He is able to burn a creature for 4 damage. Four damage is a relevant number, that is enough to take out courser. That should not be underrated. Sarkhan is able to kill almost all of the key creatures in standard currently. This is a very nice back-up plan on one of your threats.
Next we have Chandra, Pyromaster. She has been a one-of inclusion in many monster’s variants well before Khans of Tarkir came out. In control and midrange matchups she is the best thing to be doing. She is the best consistent card draw source in standard. Giving this to an aggro deck eliminates one of the biggest conceits that aggro decks normally have to make. Chandra almost assures you get to play the rest of your threats and spreads your opponent’s interaction too thin, to a point that they can no longer keep up. She also is able break parody with her +1 acting as a falter ability. As I have been saying all of this standard, this is a format defined by midrange and board stalls. If you ever have a method to break this in any form, you should use it. This let’s your big dumb creatures not get blocked by your opponent’s big dumb creatures. There is a reason that I have another copy of her in sideboard.
The last walker I included is Nissa. I wanted to run her to go bigger and help with the midrange and control matchups. Being able to go bigger and spam 4/4s does not give much time before the opponent is dead. She is a grade A threat if given any time to set up. The choice to run Nissa does commit me to playing a longer game that is not trying to win in the first 5 or 6 turns. Often in this slot a GR monsters list could be running a much faster threat that gets on the board early in the game. The best option currently in these colors is Goblin Rabblemaster. You will notice that I did not include the goblin horde on a stick in my list. This was a conscious decision on my part. I do not think my deck can back up a Rabblemaster plan without making other concessions in the deck. The card is very powerful, and I would liked to find a home in the 75, but I could not find a slot that felt right.
That is the main deck, I think it is a very lean list that stays away from a lot of bullets. I think the deck is very consistent due to this and will just be able to string threats together until the opponent is dead.
Going to the sideboard, I really gave the deck two plans post board. I tried make the deck better at going long and better at handling decks that come down quickly. I included cards like Nylea’s Disciple and Anger of the Gods that really shut down certain decks and let you stabilize from decently down. They are just the best cards to be running against the beatdown decks right now. I then added another 2 Setessan Tactics because they are so good against any and all creature decks. This can very quickly just lead to becoming a one-sided board wipe that opponent is just dead to the next turn. It had been an all-star since it was printed and this has not changed in that time.
On the other hand, I have a lot of tools that let me play a longer game. This mostly takes the form of jamming another 3 walkers in the deck postboard to assure I will be able to chain threats every turn. There is one more card that I will be bringing in for the longer games. That is Ashcloud Phoenix. This is a card that people have already dismissed as another unplayable Phoenix. My interests have been peaked though. Looking at the stat line is all it takes. 4 for a 4/1 haste flyer is pretty good. As I said earlier, there are matchups where I just want a dragon to close out the game. This one comes with a pretty big upside as being a mana dump that just keeps coming back. I get to bash in and if they use Downfall, she comes right back as a morph. Then I can unmorph her and the opponent has made no progress. This card will be incredibly annoying to the black removal and the courser plans. I think this card being overlooked could allow you to sneak in and catch a lot of opponents off guard.
So that is everything I have until next week, this has been Samuel Wells with another Visions From Beyond.
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