Five With Flores

At long last, the post-Zendikar mana base for the Mono-Cascade deck… Will Seaside Citadel be the answer to our post-Reflecting Pool / post-Vivd Crag mana base woes?

[Also a bonus You Make the Play!]

Okay, let’s start at the end. This is the current version of the Mono-Cascade deck (at least how I have been tuning it):

Black Baneslayer version 2.2

4 Bituminous Blast
4 Blightning
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Captured Sunlight
4 Deny Reality
4 Esper Charm
4 Enlisted Wurm

4 Baneslayer Angel

3 Arcane Sanctum
2 Arid Mesa
4 Crumbling Necropolis
4 Exotic Orchard
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Jungle Shrine
2 Mountain
2 Plains
1 Rootbound Crag
4 Savage Lands
2 Seaside Citadel
1 Swamp

sideboard:
2 Obelisk of Alara
2 Duress
3 Ajani Vengeant
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Lightning Bolt

So that’s the new mana base.

Without boring you with too many details I have found the deck to win essentially every matchup as long as its mana comes out.

That is not idle smack talk… It’s just a fact, and a dual-edged vulnerability. I have been trying to figure out what is “wrong” with this deck. In the best terms, the strategy has one of the deepest Stage Ones of any competitive deck, ever. The deck almost can’t make a play before turn four, and I have lost games where I hit my first six land drops and never played a spell!

This is very clearly a Stage One problem.

It has only gotten worse with the transition from Vivid lands and Reflecting Pool to the current mana base.

Because I recognized the Stage One issue, I pulled Enigma Sphinx in favor of more Seaside Citadels (previously the aforementioned Sphinx and one Sunpetal Grove). I am still not 100% happy with the mana base. Not at all, but it has certainly gotten better (that said, Rootbound Crag should probably be packing up his desk if you know what I mean).

I played many matches last night in the Tournament Practice Room (not playing tournaments until I can get my own side of the street relatively garbage-free), and lost matches that I found inexplicable.

I lost to one of those new-fangled [almost?] permission-free four- or five-color control decks, which I think Cascade should be a heavy favorite. I hit turn three Blightning and turn four Captured Sunlight into Blightning… and then stalled on four for the next four turns while he went from crippled to dominating position by topdecking Esper Charm and Jace. Any land drop would have been game, I think (I had three copies of Deny Reality in hand, and he had already discarded one of his Cruel Ultimatums). After I recoverd somewhat and put myself once again in a decent position he pulled Cruel Ultimatum; I held back Enlisted Wurm over Deny Reality… and flipped into Bituminous Blast with no targets on board.

One thing I will give him… His strategic game was admirable. I stalled on three in the last game, and he drew three copies of Thought Hemorrhage. He immediately went for Esper Charm… and unfortunately I had two copies in hand. He saw I had two Obelisks of Alara in hand, too, and made his second Thought Hemorrhage a six-point Blightning, and when I started to recover, he just named Blightning itself.

The Obelisk of Alara naming made YT a victim of opportunity, but the other two plays were superb because they cut off the bottom of my Cascade chain. So once I got finished being manascrewed, I had the privilege of playing with a buffoonish Talruum Minotaur and about 1/3 the value of a Loxodon Hierarch for the same mana cost. Even in-matchup breakers like Deny Reality get really unexciting with the threes cut (though you can flip Ajani Vengeant and that is pretty awesome). Anyway, didn’t win.

I had some frustrating losses like the above early in the evening, but after adding another Seaside Citadel and cutting the Enigma Sphinx, results improved over the course of many, many matches.

One of the excuses I have for not updating this blog as much in the past couple of weeks is that I have been playing almost nothing but Black Baneslayer / Mono-Cascade. In more than 15 years of Magic I have never had this experience before… As you probably know I have deck ADD. Even during the term when I was designing decks like Critical Mass and Jushi Blue I could not stay loyal and focused. I was always branching to Wild Gifts, then URzaTron, and even G/W and R/W creature decks. I just love to design decks and I just can’t help myself… Or at least that’s how it was.

There is a true joy that comes with playing this deck that I have never experienced before… Not even with a Napster or a Masques Block White deck.

It’s really rewarding to be able to plot out how the next X turns are going to go; as long as you have a spell to cast, some amount of the next turn is predictable. Yeah, he starts to beat on you with his Putrid Leech and Sprouting Thrinax, but you can confidently empty his hand before moving to the Baneslayer Angel phase of the game, or you just keep chaining him with Cascade spells, generating incremental advantages that lace and loop together until the opponent falls further and further behind that victory becomes unimaginable.

One deck that Black Baneslayer absolutely, positively, always beats is Pyromancer’s Ascension. I played against that deck half a dozen matches last night, including mulligans to five and I think even four, faced off against multiple Mind Springs for six or thereabouts, and failed to drop a match. I wasn’t keeping great attention but I don’t think I dropped a game. Basically their deck doesn’t do anything disruptive, nor does it ever pose a remote chance of killing you before Pyromancer’s Ascension comes online, so you have all the time in the world to get your mana straight. Blightning is great, per usual, and even though I don’t recommend actually pointing Esper Charm at Pyromancer’s Ascension, you can if you have to, and it’s fine. Usually through the middle turns you Deny Reality their only X, and / or Pyromancer’s Ascension (which will force counters resets) and eventually you can kill them with Enlisted Wurm or Bloodbraid Elf or whatever.

So there is the new mana base.

Plus there is some griping about not hitting land drops.

And here is a minor You Make the Play…

So this was an epic battle, at least so far as preliminary mana testing in the Tournament Practice Room goes.

Game One he played a turn two Lotus Cobra and utterly demolished me with it. Bloodbraid Elf, Baneslayer Angel… I kind of lost track but it was brutal.

I sided in Lightning Bolts for Game Two but his opener was Knight of the Reliquary, and it was immediately in 4/4-ville. I could see where the game was going but I hit my lands and played super tight.

… And by super tight I mean I played the cards I was given.

The only play that mattered whatsoever was when I had some “exact mana” multiple spell turn laid out, but I forgoed (forwent?) it in favor of a potentially loose life gain move.

Then I realized he could topdeck Bloodbraid Elf and I could very well be dead. So I played Captured Sunlight (the only one I had in my deck that game) instead (which pained me), because I accomplished half of what I intended to do.

Of course he flipped Bloodbraid Elf and I realized what I genius I am

It was a nailbiter but I managed to win Game Two on one life.

So here’s the shot for Game Three:

He openend on Knight of the Reliquary again.

I had the hot draw with the ability to actually play my spells, heavy on the threes.

I hit turn three Blightning and already have turn four Blightning mana queued up.

The only question is, given my hand of:

Blightning (about to be put on the stack)
Esper Charm
Baneslayer Angel
Exotic Orchard
Forest
Savage Lands

Which land should I play?

Look at the game state; how many cards does he have in hand? How big is his Knight? How big is it likely to become soon?

Think hard about this one.

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: The Book of Lies

Inspired by Ben Botts’s deck list, I decided to try some Deny Reality action in the Cascade Control. Here’s the updated deck list:

Black Baneslayer Cascade Control

4 Bituminous Blast
4 Blightning
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Captured Sunlight
4 Deny Reality
1 Enigma Sphinx
4 Enlisted Wurm
4 Esper Charm

4 Baneslayer Angel

4 Exotic Orchard
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Mountain
2 Plains
4 Reflecting Pool
1 Swamp
4 Vivid Crag
2 Vivid Creek
1 Vivid Grove
2 Vivid Marsh
4 Vivid Meadow

sb:
3 Ajani Vengeant
4 Hallowed Burial
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Primal Command

As should be medium obvious I have become a super devotee of the mono-Cascade Cascade strategy over the last few weeks. It is literally all I am interested in playing. This version literally has 21 Cascade cards, 4 Baneslayer Angels, and 8 discard spells to finish Cascade chains. In case you haven’t been paying attention, every Cascade chain ends either with a Baneslayer Angle (Enlisted Wurm or Enigma Sphinx), or your discarding two cards.

This kind of deck requires a greater amount of discipline to play than most decks of any stripe. As Thomas Dodd pointed out in his guest blog post last week, this style of deck requires a lot more racing and resource management than decks with more conventional removal suites. Your “defense” a lot of the time is just putting down one or two guys, or going nutso with Bloodbraid Elf in the Red Zone, or hoping to win the Cascade lottery. That’s okay… The deck was literally designed to win the Cascade lottery.

The main difference from the last version is the inclusion of Deny Reality, per Benjamin’s take on the deck list. Instead of cutting a Cascade spell, I decided to approximate Primal Command and cut the one Obelisk of Alara that Thomas didn’t like anyway. I cut a land in recognition of the additional Cascade spell (Cascade spells tend to facilitate mana flood in long games), and the fact that I had just lowered the curve. Vivid lands had to be shuffled a mite bit as well.

So far the deck has been very nice, including in tournament play. Tonight I won a couple of nail biter queues, including over Mono-Black Rogues (!) and Fae… Both LWW wins. In the case of the Fae deck, I didn’t even sideboard (I was planning to lose)… But when you design your deck to get lucky and always flip over Cascade spells (especially when they are Bloodbraid Elf into Blighting), miracles can happen.

I am planning to play a variation on this deck in the upcoming Star City tournament in Philadelphia (we’re going, right Josh?) … I figure there is no way I am going to have four Lotus Cobras in time, so might as well get lucky with Cascade instead of with Landfall

The challenge for the ’09-10 version is going to be the mana base. We can’t count on Vivids any more, and filters are going the way of The Dojo as well. So that leaves us with tri-lands and sac duals. I am leaning back towards 28 just because sac duals, you know, eat up all your lands along the way. Does 12 tri-lands, 7 sac duals, and 9 basics sound about right?

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Wonder Woman: Circle

I met Ben Botts (aka @Bottsthoughts) on Twitter. He reached out to me and said that he had a nice finish with the Cascade Control deck, so I extended him an invitation to write a report. After you’re done reading this, tell Ben what a great job he did –m

---

Hey guys my name is, Ben Botts. I’ve been into Magic since 2002. I was first introduced to the game by a close friend of mine, Ernest. He showed me the game. And another of his friends, Little Jon, showed me combo/control decks. Ever since then I have had a healthy addiction to those archetypes. And I do not plan on attending therapy.

Moving on to the present — I recently played in a standard tournament at my local card shop. I’ve followed the top deck builders/writers/theory crafters for quite some time, and I always enjoy taking an idea of theirs and putting it to physical application. With that said I caught up on Flores and his current projects in deck building. Contacted him via Twitter, and told him that I had recently top 4′ed with his deck. He then replied (Which was an AWESOME honor) asking me if I’d like to post a tournament report. Of course I naturally had to standstill, ponder my demands, mulldrifter over my stipulations …

Are you kidding me? I replied quicker than a virgin during his first time… with a girl.

Without further banter here is the deck I played along with a tournament report.

Enjoy.

Cascade Control v 1.5

1 Obelisk of Alara

1 Enigma Sphinx
4 Enlisted Wurm
4 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Baneslayer Angel

4 Deny Reality *
4 Captured Sunlight

2 Primal Command

4 Esper Charm
4 Blightning

3 Reflecting Pool **
2 Exotic Orchard **
1 Graven Cairns
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Wooded Bastion
2 Island**
2 Plains
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Vivid Grove
4 Vivid Meadow
4 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Marsh **

sb:
4 Ignite Disorder
4 Grixis Charm
3 Hallowed Burial
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Primal Command

* Deny Reality was the only maindeck change. Bituminous Blast was taken out in favor of non-specific permanent bounce. Since a majority of the players were running Kithkin I didn’t want to risk throwing a BBlast at a creature only to have a Forgetender give up it’s place on the board to prevent removal, or have a Harms Way litter my dome for 2 while saving their creature.

** The mana base was shifted slightly only because Deny Reality is a U/B spell whereas Bit Blast is a R/B spell. (I know that was mundane, but some people may see that and be like “Wow … good call”)

And also I could only find 3 of my Tempest Reflecting Pools …

Date: September 12, 2009
Place: Cardz-N-Things of Fayetteville, NC
Owner: Al Archibeque
Type 2 Tournament
19 People present

Round 1: I think his name was Josh, he had a Mono-U Control deck

Game 1: I win the roll. I start off with a Vivid. He plays an Island. This is the pattern for the first 5 turns. He had not played any threats – so I assumed he was gripping a variety of Essence Scatter/Negate or Cryptic/Unsummon. I was not about to barrel out the gates against him since I wanted to force him to discard, or make a play mistake. The unfortunate design flaw of running Mono-U in this format is there are not any efficient beaters to couple w/ counters. Anyways this game was pretty much over when I cast Bloodbraid which flipped an Esper charm (at him). Next turn Deny Reality targeting my own Bloodbraid ~ flipped a Captured Sunlight ~ into a Blightning. He was rather disgruntled, and shrugged for a few more turns. He never played a single creature. And I never saw a Cryptic. 4 blightnings later and 2 red zone dances with my Bloodbraid & Enlisted Wurm turned sideways and it was off to game 2.

Game 2: He literally never made it past 3 lands. He swore up and down he had 24 in his deck. I saw 3 this game, and it was a no-brainer goldfishing affair. Bloodbraid~Esper. Deny Reality~Bloodbraid~Blightning. Enlisted~Baneslayer. He scooped.

1-0 Match (2-0 games)

Round 2: Piper was his last name, and Bant was his tune.

First off – this kid – awesome personality. He and I spent the first 7 minutes of the round shuffling, ribbing each other, and make jokes about horrible cards like Bloodbraid, Rafiq, and Broodmate Dragons and what not. Apparently his good nature won him the die roll.

Game 1: He comes out way faster than I could manage. A Timely Essence Scatter backed with a Negate on my Cascade shennanigans ended this game before I could spell WURBG with my trade binder.

Game 2: Different story. -4 Blightnings, +4 Grixis Charms. I was on the play. So on his turn 3 he successfully tapped out for an Eslpeth. EOT – Grixis Charmed that pretty lady back to his hand. On my turn 4 I played a BBE ~ Esper Charm, discard 2. Turn 5 was a beast turn for me. Deny Reality on his Eslpeth, once again ~ BBE ~ Grixis his tri-land back to his hand. He was playing catch-up after that for the rest of the game. I never over-extended beyond my enlisted worm and my 2 BBE that ended up carving his life total to a nice zero.

Game 3: Let me say that this game was my favorite. Piper was on the play. It was Land, Noble Hierarch, go. Mine consisted of the redundant power play of a Vivid, go. For time and constrant of a broken record my next 3 turns were as my first. And Piper’s were a crazy mess of turn 2: land, Jace, draw, go. Turn 3: Land, Jace Draw, Rafiq, swing with Hierarch (18 to his 20). On my turn 4 I dropped a BBE ~ Grixis … killed his Rafiq. Didn’t matter for him. He proceeded to drop a second Noble Hierarch along with another Rafiq. Turn 5: Instead of playing a Deny Reality (Which I thought would be a mistake) I cast a Captured Sunlight instead (putting me back to 22), and opted to draw off my Esper Charm. On his Turn 6: He had access to 8 mana … I was contemplating the worst … and he played Ajani. Rolled him down to 3 Making Rafiq and company pretty thick skinned. He played his Elspeth, pumped Rafiq an additional +3/+3 … making him a 7/7 before Exalted triggers. Exalted Triggers and he is now a 10/10 with a cute ability … Piper drops me to 2 – satisfied that I will be scooping upon my draw phase. I rip my Hallowed Burial. Do a silent fist pump. Chandler dancing ensues, and I drop the baby on to the field. He shrugs – says a few unpleasent things about my H.B. And I bought myself 1 turn. That was all I needed. Next turn for me resulted in a Baneslayer, or as I’ve come to call her Barn’slayer, from my trusty Enlisted Wurm. And I began the long climb back from 2. Piper extended his hand after another turn, and commented on the deck I was playing. I told him to thank Mike Flores for the deck build. And to thank WotC for the concept, and cards.

2-0 Match (4-1 games)

Round 3: Kithkin # eleventy billion … seriously … name need not be smeared.

I know by now you would be expecting another amazing round summary to follow this previous one. But sadly I went up against an empty chair across from me. Sat there for 5 minutes, and thought surely this guy was going to be showing up soon. It’s a casual tournament, and I’m not a rules shark. So I won’t be slamming down game losses unless an act of grievous misconduct took place. I won the die roll (Now this is not very often for me to win the die roll – I tend to favor the luck of Ravnica draft die rolls – where going 2nd meant game for me. No jokes)

Game 1: Typical Kithkin horde. “ME KITHKIN, ME SMASH FACE, ME READY TO LOSE TO SIDEBOARD GAMES 2 AND 3!”

game 2: -4 Blightning, -1 Enigma Sphinx, -1 Obelisk of Alara, +3 Firespout, +3 Ignite Disorder.

Now let me just state: Yes. Ignite Disorder. Come on – I played grixis Charm. Under-rated, and they smash face.

Game 3:
The game was never close. I managed to keep the “I hate Kithkin” hand in my opening grip. Turn 3 Firespout (He missed his Forge Tender drop). followed by a turn 4 BBE ~ Ignite Disorder. This proceeded to be the game plan. Primal’s kept me above the curve on Life to dmg per turn. After a few Enlisted Wurms brought in another BBE and a BSlayer … He said Game 3 should be better.

And it wasn’t. I simply rinsed and repeated game 2 amidst his complaints and frustrations with, “Who plays Ignite Disorder?! Who?!?” goodbye Sprectral Procession tokens.

3-0 Match (6-2 games)

Round 4: Good friend John (Kitchen # zzzz ….)

We ID since we both were 3-0. And neither of us wanted to spend 50 minutes of see-saw when we could be relaxing for the top 8. I myself enjoyed a great EDH game with another friend of mine, but that is another topic entirely.

Top 8:

I am paired up against another friend, Charles, who is playing … you guessed it: Kithkin.

I won the die roll (I took each of these as a sign that this coming weekend will not show me the same courtesy. As is my luck w/ die rolls mentioned beforehand)

As with the previous match-up against Kithkin the same story is told without typing it out. But I will note that he started both games 1&2 with slow openings; slow enough for me to take board position. After I resolve 2 BBE’s ~ Esper/Grixis it really wasn’t difficult to stay ahead of the curve both games.

He scooped Game 2 when; 4 straight turns; I threw Esper Charms at his hand repeatedly.

The Top 4 was less then stellar … All of us (Friends) chose to split (Preferring strong drink over cardboard. Would you disconcur?). A total of 60 packs amongst the four of us. I would say for being able to play for free I banked a nice dividend.

Oh … right … the deck list in question; well it is a Flores Original. The only thing I did that was eschewed from the original build were the Bitumanous Blasts – replaced w/ Deny Reality’s in the maindeck. As well as the Ignite Disorders and the Grixis Charms in the side.

The reasoning behind the Deny Reality, Ignite Disorder, and the Grixis Charm was simple. We have a huge Aggro market here at my shop. So to counteract the efficiency and dominance of said archetype I bring in Ignite Disorder simply because for 2 – or Cascaded it is capable of roasting a few weenies. Where as the Grixis Charm gives me a number of choices that don’t have to worry about a Burrenton Forge-Tender. Return Target permanent was amazing for me. As was the Target Creatures gets -4/-4. Only once, and only because it ended the game did I pick the third module on Grix Charm. I pumped both my BBE’s to 5/2′s.

Grixis Charm to me?

UBR – Instant … choose either Boomerang, Death Pulse, or Path of Anger’s Flame.

I would’ve said Sudden Death in place of Death Pulse, but unfortunately Charms don’t have split second. And I didn’t want to hear about this typo later on because I am sure this post is rife with them as is.

Verdict?

The deck is simple, effective, and played straight through rough patches. Hopefully Zendikar will give us a few new things.

Remember when you cascade past a Baneslayer, and your opponent sighs with relief … just remind them that you have 3 more in the deck that are closer now. And watch them panic every time you cascade with an Enlisted Wurm.

Thank you,

Ben Botts
@Bottsthoughts on Twitter