I have gotten a flurry of questions about my opinion on Luis Scott-Vargas’s most recent article on ChannelFireball.com about mid-range decks and Jund Mana Ramp in particular. Luis is a player who for a long time came out of the tradition of The Rock. Even when he was not actually B/G on his colors, Luis played with Loxodon Hierarchs, hand destruction, incremental advantage in general.
Though Luis had a great deal of success with those strategies (US National Champion and all that), he did not enjoy the kind of colossal Pro Tour success that he is riding today until he changed from playing The Rock to combo decks. You will remember his Extended win was with a combo Elves deck; he has since played all manner of Swans, Storm, and so on with peerless results.
This is great for Luis! We have always liked him and wish him every fortune in the world.
The emails and Tweets, though, come from another angle. Luis says that mid-range is an intrinsically flawed strategy, and argues quite strenuously against the strategy that Will Price and I like the best today: Jund Mana Ramp.
To wit:
This is a classic example of the midrange non-blue control deck. It can’t compete with the Cryptic Commands and Cruel Ultimatums of 5-Color Control, and has to settle for running much worse stuff like Primal Command and Garruk Wildspeaker. You may consider this as a 5-CC deck that doesn’t lose to aggro Red, but in return for a better (and not necessarily even good) Red matchup you are so much worse against Faeries or Reveillark. I’m not even convinced that Jund Ramp (or any non-blue Ramp) even beats Token decks.
Well my reaction to this part — which is really the genesis as that is what readers have been asking about specifically — is that it must not apply to us. Let’s look again at our version of Jund Mana Ramp:
Jund Mana Ramp
3 Makeshift Mannequin
3 Shriekmaw
4 Broodmate Dragon
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Civic Wayfinder
4 Cloudthresher
4 Gift of the Gargantuan
4 Rampant Growth
4 Banefire
3 Volcanic Fallout
4 Fire-Lit Thicket
8 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Savage Land
1 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
I have for some time been a vocal opponent of the Garruk Wildspeaker version of Jund Mana Ramp as slow and clunky and overly vulnerable to Faeries. Heads up I am not convinced that Garruk does anything … Though it is obvious that the potential for a Violent Ultimatum fueled by the Fertile Ground + Garruk + seven drop draw that only occurs on daytime soap operas is quite the boogeyman. Before I get into details (and what today’s title means), I will address Luis’s paragraph on Jund Mana Ramp…
I would agree that this deck probably doesn’t want to get in a Cruel Ultimatum fight with Reflecting Pool Control. However that has not historically been a problem, and I anticipate it to be less of a problem this coming weekend. At New York States last year, I handily dispatched every Reflecting Pool + Cryptic Command deck I played in that tournament, albeit with the help of Mind Shatter + Gutteral Response (which was like the simpler, faster, Cruel Ultimatum). Point being, I respect the Ultimatum, but don’t anticipate the matchup as being a huge issue. In fact I would have been very happy to play Reflecting Pool Control all day at States; it was in fact the deck I tested against the most and I felt like I had a superb understanding of how to dominate.
For Regionals I am not sure how to consider the comparison. For one, I think that Reflecting Pool Control is a disaster. Not a disaster for Jund Mana Ramp… like it’s an unplayable time bomb waiting to blow up in the face of whoever has decided to play it. I don’t have Mind Shatter + Gutteral Response any more because I don’t plan to have to have those cards. If I did, I would commit the sideboard space. Instead I have a much improved main deck that can torch the opponent out at will and a sideboard that features the card that I believe should extinct the Reflecting Pool Control strategy: Anathemancer.
I already said I don’t like Garruk Wildspeaker… but I grandly disagree that Cryptic Command is in any way better than Primal Command. Remember I have included Primal Command as a four-of… but a sideboard four-of that only comes in when it is an appropriate tool. I have steadily increased the number of Primal Commands in my sideboard because I really want to draw them in these matchups where I want to draw them (beatdown decks, Sanity Grinding, and the mirror). When I played Blightning Beatdown, there was nothing I wanted to play against more than a deck with Cryptic Command, whether it was Reflecting Pool Control or Fae. In both cases I felt like I was a heavy favorite, and I got to play with Gutteral Response to force mana commitments while I still resolved my threats.
Perhaps in agreement with Luis, I actually don’t think Red Decks are that easy for at least my version of Jund Mana Ramp. I feel like I have a good chance, but I would much rather play Fae or Reflecting Pool Control or certainly G/W Tokens than a Red Deck. That is why I have Primal Command. I want to grind the Red Deck into the floor, and gaining seven life while loading up on Kitchen Finks and Broodmate Dragons is the most appropriate way to do that in this format. Against Sanity Grinding, a Primal Command is actual card advantage, trading for multiple spells the opponent has played, and hwen it resolves, demoralizing the Millstone strategy. And of course in the mirror Primal Command is arguably the single strongest card, setting the opponent back on a comes into play tapped land and putting Karrthus into my hand.
I don’t look forward to playing Reveillark, but I actually think Fae is a very easy matchup for this version of Jund Mana Ramp. I lost to Fae to miss Top 8 of States, but I think that that deck — and even more this deck — were and are heavy favorites against Faeries. In fact, I think that my version of Jund Mana Ramp is a nightmare for most Faeries players. I side into eight copies of Volcanic Fallout and Cloudthresher (seven starting) and I have very little dead weight (only Shriekmaw) and no obvious targets. The paths to losing are being manascrewed or the opponent drawing multiple uncontesed Mistbind Cliques. I respect the latter, though, and am considering playing a second Terror in the sideboard specifically to help deal with this draw.
But Tokens? In our testing B/W Tokens can be competitive but Jund is the favorite; I don’t think G/W Tokens has very much of a shot. Testing online (where admittedly G/W Tokens doesn’t have Dauntless Escort yet we have yet to drop a game. Will Dauntless Escort matter? Sure! It will have a non-zero impact but we don’t tend to rely on sweeping the opponent to win, more dominating with tempo plays until we can get the opponent to concede with Broodmate Dragons.
So we’ve already decided that Luis must have not been talking about us when he made his comment. After all, he invoked the name of Garruk Wildspeaker. But would he dislike our deck anyway? I think maybe not.
You see our version of Jund Mana Ramp isn’t a mid-range control deck. I think that that is the source of the misunderstanding. Jund Mana Ramp — ours anyway — is a Tinker deck (in the sense of “Finding the Tinker Deck”). This is a deck that is full of mana and bombs. It doesn’t really seek to interact with the opponent’s cards like most mid-range control decks so much as to dominate them. I don’t want to get a one-for-one on a Thoughtseize; I want you to commit four mana to your Wilt-Leaf Liege so that I can get a two-for-one on you with my Makeshift Mannequin. Once I hit turn five or six I am going to tap out for a card every turn, each copy being more dramatically powerful (not necessarily “better”) than any card in your deck.
That is not a “mid-range” strategy. That is a power strategy.
Is interesting because Luis’s passion in argumentation comes as someone who sees himself as having “recovered” from the plague of mid-range mediocrity. I would reiterate that I very much respect his opinion and recent accomplishments, but would argue that his stiff-backed model may ultimately lead down a path of inflexibility. Mid-range can be sub-optimal in some rooms (especially formats with good Extended options), but be the absolute best deck to play in other rooms. It might tend to be wrong, but removing mid-range from our palettes in its entirety teaches us essentially nothing. Magic is a game of options, and the players who preserve their options tend to be the most successful. Mid-range (even if the deck at hand is not necessarily mid-range) is just another tool to be used or left in the drawer. I see no reason to remove it entirely.
Since Luis Scott-Vargas won Grand Prix Los Angeles (and Asher did pretty well on top), Storm has become one of if not the most popular deck in Extended. Following is a two-game match exploring the Storm mirror.
For this video I used Luis Scott-Vargas’s version of Storm, which is:
4 Lotus Bloom
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Mind’s Desire
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Ponder
4 Remand
2 Sleight of Hand
2 Electrolyze
4 Manamorphose
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
Sideboard
2 Ad Nauseam
3 Brain Freeze
3 Echoing Truth
2 Gigadrowse
3 Pact of Negation
2 Shattering Spree
Here are some things you will notice about this deck…
Luis played main deck Electrolyze. This could theoretically have been Magma Jet (which is cheaper but less versatile against the one toughness creatures in Faeries), or nothing at all (as in Asher’s deck); the Grapeshot version can just Grapeshot Gaddock Teeg to death (though not Ethersworn Canonist).
Luis killed with Tendrils of Agony. It’s tricky, but you can Remand your own Tendrils and re-play it to create a lethal out of smoke, provided you have enough Lotuses and Manamorphoses to produce sufficient Black to play and re-play the Storm sorcery.
The big one is Shattering Spree in the sideboard. One of the cards I was using to beat Storm “back in the day” (at least before the Grand Prix) with the MWC deck was Chalice of the Void. That probably isn’t going to be a solution moving forward. The White deck is probably not fast enough to kill the Storm deck before a solution to Chalice of the Void can be found, especially when the best ineractive card has Replicate.
Storm is a deck that you will want to know; it is very popular (meaning you probably have to know how to beat it at least once or twice to win a PTQ) and an elite deck against Faerie Wizards (another pretty popular deck).
Storm is a powerhouse, and as you can see in the video (if you don’t have a lot of first hand experience with the deck) it is like a bulldozer stapled to a mongoose… nigh-inexorable kryptonite-locked to fast.
The video is pretty funny, especially the Game Three situation where I have double Tendrils, Brain Freeze-Remand-Brain Freeze with the second-to-lethal Tendrils on the stack. It can play tight margin mana with Tendrils and just enough Storm copies, or with sufficient momentum will do a thousand or so damage while decking the other guy the same turn.
This one is a short analysis plus five matches with a new Zoo-ish deck inspired by The Lightning Bolt Deck.
Yesterday Luis Scott-Vargas posted an interesting deck on Star City Games yesterday.
It was based on a PE Top 8 deck by Adam Prosak.
Some of the cards I don’t love (in particular Mutavault is not something I would have started with) but I didn’t change the deck over-much until playing it some.
What makes Mutavault send shivers up my spine? I don’t like it in general but this deck is three colors and sometimes it just screws you. I guess it gets in for damage sometimes but that damage doesn’t seem particularly relevant to me. Also I hate random two-ofs as you know.
This is how I played the deck:
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Incinerate
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Molten Rain
4 Seal of Fire
2 Sulfuric Vortex
sb:
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Cryoclasm
2 Lash Out
2 Sulfuric Vortex
The original deck had a different three mana burn spell; I added Sulfuric Vortex in the slot (LSV made the same suggestion); you can’t avoid random two-ofs in a deck with twenty-two lands. Sulfuric Vortex is the strongest card in this deck. I mean Tarmogoyf is pretty good too but Sulfuric Vortex is the card that closes out games and makes them unwinnable for the opponent.
I left the Mutavaults because I didn’t know how to change things. Interestingly (especially for a twenty-two land deck) this one got flooded a bunch of times in the five matches I played. Small n, I guess.
The sideboard I made is very different from the ones posted.
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
This card is pretty good, you may have heard at some point. You kind of need it to zero out the opponent’s Jitte if nothing else.
4 Ancient Grudge
The original deck leaned more towards the Lightning Bolt deck than Zoo, but I think Ancient Grudge is more appropriate to this strategy than Smash to Smithereens (even though that is the sexier card in terms of you know, pure sex appeal).
4 Cryoclasm
I can’t cotton to playing Choke (even though I think I’ve won 75% of tournaments I’ve played lifetime with Choke in the sideboard). This deals three damage instead of giving them two permanents to blow up with Engineered Explosives after they’ve set you up with Venser. Random question… Do you think going to 8 Stone Rains is a strategy against real Zoo? They have a Plains, a Steam Vents, all kinds of Plains and Islands actually.
2 Lash Out
This card is great. Better than Incinerate against beatdown; comparable to Magma Jet, but does trips.
2 Sulfuric Vortex
Either they all come out or these two come in (more common) or you forgot to side them out.
I decided to play five matches with this deck because this is, you know, Five With Flores. I actually lost my notes from the first 2.5 matches on account of I was falling asleep last night and then my daughter decided to get up at like 5AM and play Lego Batman and I think she crashed the computer (dunno, I wasn’t up… but my document was gone when I got home).
1. Affinity (either that or Lightning Bolt Deck)
I think I got flooded in the first game, then drew Ancient Grudge in the second game, then drew three Ancient Grudge in the third game. So result: winner.
I dunno if the deck is even good or if Affinity is just bad. I mean I have always respected Affinity but I have never remotely come close to losing to it in Extended since the card Ancient Grudge was printed. I also don’t understand Affinity players who think they can beat Ancient Grudge. I mean I’m sure they have convinced themselves that they can (and have in testing) because they choose to play Affinity… But I’m just saying I have played against Affinity and never come close to losing since the card was invented. What does that mean?
I actuallycould have lost two or three (he drew a lot of Master of Etherium) but like I said, in the third I drew three Ancient Grudges and you can really only lose to all-in Atog. When I tested real Zoo (not this burn deck) I play / played Kataki and Ancient Grudge because that is the kind of person I am.
1-0, 2-1
2. Lightning Bolt Deck (or Affinity, one or the other)
I don’t remember too many details, just how one of the games ended. It was pretty cool. He played double Vortex on me with a reasonable expectation of winning before they killed him. Then I played Vortex on him. So he took six on his turn (was only banking on four). Given his hand he had more than enough to kill me with the six (and he had only planned on four) the next turn but I untapped and killed him first.
The match was really close.
I didn’t gain much if any life from Lightning Helixes or Jittes (sided out my Vortexes obviously, even though they won me the first), but I got there by having better cards. Now I guess I am remembering more (that triple Vortex affair must have been game one, logically); second I got my Tarmogoyf killed by an Incinerate due to being rusty at Tarmogoyf. I won anyway in what must have been uninteresting fashion based on the decks.
2-0, 4-1
2.5 Lightning Bolt Deck I think.
I don’t remember. I remember being down a game and falling asleep. Match 2.5: You are erased from the record!
3. Braid of Fire deck
His deck was kind of cool but had some really less-than-Tier-One cards… just had things in common that they were cool with Braid of Fire (mostly jones that pumped for Red). Nevertheless I lost the first due to mana flood.
I came back and won the next two with these Tarmogoyfs. Uninteresting.
What was interesting was Braid of Fire. I am going to try to make a Braid deck that I will update on after I, you know, make it. The card seems quite powerful due to being asymmetrical.
3-0, 6-2
4. Anti-Red White Weenie
Game One he drew two Silver Knights and I wasn’t sure how I was going to win; then I remembered I drew Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf (which I had in play and in hand, respectively). Those aren’t Red at all! Thank you LSV’s article!
Game Two he drew first turn Burrenton Forge-Tender, second turn Silver Knight obviously, and followed up later with Serra Avenger and Silver Knight. I was playing kind of loose until I realized I was on the wrong end of 8-20 or thereabouts. I eventually won with Green cards on the ground, and burn cards to face.
4-0, 8-2
5. Death Cloud Rock
In the first I didn’t realize what deck he was; he won the flip and started on Polluted Delta. He later made a Swamp and cycled Barren Moor. Then he made turn two Loam. The game was not interesting; he conceded to Vortex on turn four even though I didn’t have that much going on.
Second game I lost to my own stupid mana base. He played two copies of Thoughtseize (why is that in your deck against a Red Deck sideboarded?)… he literally played Death Cloud for three (could have been six) before I could cast the Molten Rains I had left in. No, I had three. Three on three actually… But one of them was a Temple Garden and the third was one of those pointless Mutavaults. I conceded well before it was technically over because he left two Mutavaults and it was obvious I was not going to win.
Third game I kept two spells and he Thoughtseized my Vortex. Nevertheless I played a turn two Mutavault and a keldon Marauders and started getting in there (Mutavault kind of made up for the fact that it exists, therefore offending me). I drew another Vortex and Tarmogoyf and won thanks to the best cards in my deck.
5-0, 10-3 (if you want to count the aborted 2.5, 5-0, 10-4)
My conclusion is that this deck is very good. I would consider playing it in a PTQ. It really feels like Zoo to me, so if you like Zoo… that is what it feels like; much less so than the Lightning Bolt Deck.
I would add one Tarfire, possibly cutting a Seal of Fire, just for more Tarmogoyf mizing. Most people don’t have Tarmogoyf these days so I want to maximize potential bang bang. I guess you could also cut one random Sulfuric Vortex and move it to the sideboard, maybe over the third Jitte. The deck is actually reasonably prepared for Elves with Mogg Fanatic, Seal of Fire, and potentially Tarfire on one.
And to Mutavault: You are awful. But you aren’t fired yet.
LOVE
MIKE
PS Sorry this might seem a little grumpy. I am watching the Cavs at the Bulls and the worthless Bulls dropped our starting shooting guard (Delonte West) on his head and fractured his right wrist. It was about the worst hit I have ever seen in a basketball game. Very disconcerting, especially how the season has been going, how well Delonte has been playing, and the fact that we have a back-to-back home game (risking our NBA-best 19-0 home record) against the brilliant Chris Paul tomorrow night.