The major differentiating element is that this deck plays Rhox War Monk over Kitchen Finks, which is sometimes worse but sometimes quite dramatically better (for example, Jamie ran all over Tsuyoshi Ikeda in the Top 4 gaining tons of life with Spiteful Visions in play).
The super tech was Bitterblossom in the sideboard. Jamie rode his awesome blossoms to beat Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa in the deciding game of his Top 8 match.
Here’s the obligatory video…
I actually had to go back and edit that just now. I think the opponent (playing what looked like Michael Jacob’s B/W Tokens deck) actually missed a kill the turn I tapped out for Oona. Yay us?
For anyone who hasn’t seen the new B/W Tokens decks in Standard, Michael Jacob used a version to help knock down the 2008 Worlds team title in favor of the good old USA.
Michael Jacob’s B/W Tokens
4 Bitterblossom
3 Marsh Flitter
4 Terror
2 Thoughtseize
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Ajani Goldmane
4 Cloudgoat Ranger
4 Glorious Anthem
2 Knight of Meadowgrain
1 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Spectral Procession
sb:
2 Head Games
2 Thoughtseize
3 Stillmoon Cavalier
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Wispmare
3 Wrath of God
This deck has some unusual choices…
[Only?] Two copies of Thoughtseize on one… but these compliment the full set of Tidehollow Scullers on two.
Black two mana spells include tons of Terrors, but also possibly the most powerful spell in the deck, a quartet of Bitterblossoms. This is the kind of deck — along with Blightning Beatdown — where I can really appreciate Bitterblossom. It’s obviously a strong card… I just hate the fact that it is Faerie-stamped.
The only “true” three mana spell in Michael’s deck is Glorious Anthem. I saw a similar innovation in a deck that Andre Coimbra showed me before Worlds. Andre was testing my Blightning Beatdown pretty heavily and was losing badly to B/W tokens. So he decided to brew up some mirror innovations for the B/W deck, and Glorious Anthem “to win the tokens fights” was one of the things he came up with. It looks like Jacob had the same idea.
Regardless, Glorious Anthem has killer synergy with token creatures in general… It can help to make 1/1 throwaways into [more] legitimate threats.
One thing that struck me as a little odd in this deck was the White Planeswalker in the main, that is, the “other” Ajani [Goldmane]. Yes, you can increase all tokens with Ajani, simiar to Glorious Anthem, but Elspeth Knight-Errant actually makes tokens. Her “to the air” attack is about as devastating as you can get with a Knight of Meadowgrain early. Do you realize that a ten-point life swing on a stick actually increases Elspeth’s loyalty?
Offense is rounded out by multiple “make three or more guys” guys… Marsh Flitter, Cloudgoat Ranger, and Spectral Procession. In the following video, I get my Spectral Procession stolen on turn two, but the other two token generators make quick work of Game One.
This one is kind of like a Who’s the Beatdown? redux.
It wasn’t really intended that way… The first part especially is about the Reflecting Pool Control deck Mike McGee used to make Top 8 of the Star City Games $5,000 event. But game play gave us a rare opportunity to observe the control deck switching roles.
I guess it all came down to turn one, where the opposing beatdown deck played Ghitu Encampment. Because I was on the play, this let me Remove Soul his first play and buy a ferocious amount of time.
Then it was Kitchen Finks, Kitchen Finks against an opponent with no creature set up to block.
Normally a deck like Red Deck Wins or Blightning Beatdown is a challenge for Reflecting Pool Control. However instead of playing a sit-there attack-acceptance strategy where we would win (hopefully) after a lifetime of draw-go Magic, I saw multiple Finks as an opportunity to attack.
A lot of the readership (viewership?) has been asking for full matches. So we will probably be following this one up with Game Two… and why we didn’t side in something that would seem obvious to most of you.
Until then… Don’t get played.
LOVE
MIKE
P.S. Oy! Mike’s deck list:
2 Island
3 Remove Soul
4 Wrath of God
3 Condemn
2 Cascade Bluffs
2 Flooded Grove
2 Cloudthresher
4 Cryptic Command
3 Jace Beleren
2 Mulldrifter
4 Vivid Creek
3 Vivid Grove
1 Vivid Marsh
4 Vivid Meadow
1 Negate
2 Ajani Vengeant
2 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Esper Charm
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Mystic Gate
2 Sunken Ruins
4 Reflecting Pool
It’s a redux of Vengeant Reveillark aka the Brian Kowal Boat-Brew.
Our good friend Osyp Lebedowicz just scored Top 8 at the Star City Games $5,000 tournament in Philadelphia with Brian’s deck, which he considers one of the top two decks in Standard (alongside the Fae).
For those of you who haven’t seen the most recent list, here it is cut down to a manageable 60 cards:
Sideboard:
4 Guttural Response
4 Stillmoon Cavalier
4 Voice Of All
3 Wrath Of God
The Boat-Brew is just chock full of great cards; Osyp was close to saying that Bantoine Ruel (Ranger of Eos) is his favorite card in Standard, but his final vote goes to powerhouse Planeswalker, Ajani Vengeant.
The deck is very robust against the majority of the Standard field, though there is a potential soft spot against Faeries. Faeries with four Sower of Temptation is very difficult to overcome, particularly because Sower of Temptation is just the scariest possible prospect when you are laying out 4/3 Reveillarks.
Osyp took the time to talk to me about some potential changes for the deck, along with justifications.
1) The deck already cut the first Murderous Redcap; Osyp wants to do away with the other three, plus one Kitchen Finks, and replace that quartet with Spectral Procession. Spectral Procession is a known quantity in Windbrisk Heights decks. It is also probably better against Red Decks than Kitchen Finks because the tokens can block a Demigod of Revenge while still getting damage in.
2) Swap the main deck Burrenton Forge-Tender for a Flamekin Harbinger. Flamekin Harbinger might seem like a strange choice for a deck with… What? Three elementals? But think about it like this: With Flamekin Harbinger, you can get Reveillark with Antoine Ruel, meaning Ranger of Eos gets better and better. If you can get your 1/1 killed (not hard) look to be able to set up more than one Reveillark. Osyp feels the Red Deck matchup is strong enough to justify this change, and the following video does nothing to change this opinion:
MichaelJ is sick! No voice! Please forgive me, but I wanted to do a video on the deck I am playing at the Star City Games $5K before, you know, the Star City Games $5K.
I wanted to pretend-play eight matches on MTGO, pretending I was in a PTQ or whatever, but I went 6-1in the first seven, and I got a “draw” … However I wasn’t playing real Magic so the draw was irrelevant. So I just played the eighth (basically the nightmare matchup of Kitchen Finks, guys with large toughness, and Wilt-Leaf Liege for my Blightnings) … and got there easily. This solidified my choice of Blightning Beatdown for the $5K.
This is how I described the match on November 24:
8. G/W Little Kid
Game One – You probably know I made a deck with all G/W cards and Wilt-Leaf Liege for Block that won one PTQ (that I know about). I actually started thinking about this strategy again for Standard just because Wilt-Leaf Liege is so good against Blightning and Cruel Ultimatum. So basically, alongside Kitchen Finks and better guys than are in my colors — let alone my deck — this is the nightmare match.
Luckily he had a slow opening, which was my only saving grace. One too many lands came into play tapped so he couldn’t overrun me with superior forces. I stuck a Blightning that was pretty ironic. A turn or two later and I would have been eating 4/4.
Anyway he got out a ton of 4/x and 5/x creatures (with Liege boosts) but I had a late Bitterblossom to get in for a tiny amount of damage… eventually burned him to death.
Game Two – I side out Blightnings (obviously) for Everlasting Torments.
I luck out that his third land is a Mosswort Bridge, meaning my Figure of Destiny is 4/4 before he has a Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers in play. This is just what I need to get in -one too many times-. Then it’s all Hell’s Thunder and burn to the face. No sweat, thanks to his stumble.
And this here is the corresponding video:
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DON’T FORGET!
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I said way up top (and if you read the previous post) I am sick as hell. Meaning my voice is like cigarettes ground into gravel. Forgive me this one time, I really wanted to get the content out to you.
Wherein Michael J. Flores further discusses the one thing that matters most in the Reflecting Pool Control mirror match and displays a long back-and-forth battle between competing Stage Three strategies (possible spoiler: the one from Shards of Alara wins).
Last week in Top Decks I described a frustration with the Reflecting Pool Control mirror matches which was instrumental in my switching to Jund Mana Ramp for the New York State Championship.
That frustration was / is that the Reflecting Pool Control mirrors generally come down to State Three, where one player resolves Cruel Ultimatum and eventually wins… regardless of what either player did or how hard the other player fought during State Two.
After identifying this, I simply decided to switch from a paradigm of mana efficiency and card advantage in Stage Two (where most “Magic: The Gathering” is played) to a strategic game revolving around beating my opponent in Stage Three, that is, saving my Cryptic Commands for his Cruel Ultimatum even if if meant falling behind his Mulldrifters (or at least not scooping up some juicy Mulldrifter targets) during the second Stage.
This, I believe is still right.
The problem is that especially in sideboarded games, the crafty Reflecting Pool Control player can just play to force his Cruel Ultimatum regardless; for example he can wait until eight mana and play Cruel Ultimatum + Gutteral Response, or set up with a Vexing Shusher. It is basically impossible to outsmart this strategy. Like even if you sit back with double Cryptic Command on eight mana you will fail if they simply went first. Grok?
I know you grok.
Even in Game One situations, he can wait until nine mana to cover with a Negate.
So I just decided to avoid this dance entirely and play a more proactive Mind Shatter + Gutteral Response strategy at the New York State Championship.
So speaking of the New York State Championship, I made a video based on our reigning Champion Stephen Carpenter’s Reflecting Pool Control deck. Here is the aforementioned Reflecting Pool Control deck:
Reflecting Pool Control
1 Adarkar Wastes
4 Vivid Creek
3 Vivid Meadow
3 Vivid Grove
4 Reflecting Pool
3 Mystic Gate
2 Flooded Grove
2 Sunken Ruins
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
4 Mulldrifter
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Cloudthresher
So interestingly, I immediately got into a Reflecting Pool Control mirror match where my opponent outdrew me on Cryptic Commands and got a slew of two-for-ones on me. Yet I was able to win it in State Three because he blew three Cryptic Commands on Cloudthreshers and Esper Charms and was out when it came down to the one card that really matters in the Reflecting Pool Control mirror: Cruel Ultimatum from Shards of Alara.
This was a really interesting back-and-forth battle. I hope you like it.
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PS I won Game Two very quickly with three Kitchen Finks on offense so it never came down to Stage Three shenanigans.
Brian David-Marshall wrote about a UK Champs winner he dubbed “The New Girl” (after my win with the Brian Kowal designed “This Girl” at New York States a couple of years back). I decided to make a video about The New Girl as part of a post-Champs Standard discussion for the mother ship.
This is it:
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The New Girl, Gravesend UK Champs Winner, by Ian Walters
Brian Kowal designed a new R/W homebrew creature deck that he used to win a recent Game in the Gulf “boat” Qualifier. His deck hybridizes Ranger of Eos selection with a Reveillark end game. It comes out fast and has a deceptive amount of power.
sb:
4 Gutteral Response
4 Vithian Stinger
3 Runed Halo
4 Wrath of God
Vithian Stinger seems a little loose to me, but I really like how the deck has played out so far.
If I were to change anything, I would add some spot removal — probably something along the lines of Lash Out or Condemn in the sideboard — because Brian told me not to play any spot removal in the main deck.
Irony of ironies, Brian won his Cruise Qualifier by swinging with a bunch of Siege-Gang Commander tokens, tripping Windbrisk Heights, and popping Wrath of God. For reals! Then he followed up with Ajani Vengeant to lock out the end game (opponent was Kithkin).
Anyway, give this one a whirl. It is interesting to play and quite different from basically everything else in Standard.
Brett Blackman just won the 2008 Pennsylvania State Championship with Faeries, battling through three Faeries mirrors in the Top 8. In this video, Brett outlines his strategy for winning the Faeries mirror as well as changes he would make to his State Championship-winning deck list.
Here is Brett’s Pennsylvania State Championship-winning deck list:
The key cards are Bitterblossom and Thoughtseize. Bitterblossom is the true threat, and Thoughtseize is there to steal the opponent’s Bitterblossom. Brett advocates aggressive mulligans to obtain these strategic cards or proxies for therm.
On the play only, you can keep a hand with Broken Ambitions so as to counter the opponent’s turn two Bitterblossom.
Ponder allows you to keep otherwise weak hands, and even hide a Bitterblossom one deep, so that the opponent’ can’t Thoughtseize yours.
Should you find yourself up against a Bitterblossom with none of your own, the 2008 Pennsylvania State Champion suggests using Agony Warp to set up a two-for-one in the hopes of putting the opponent behind on the board.
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I know this video is a little different, but I hope you liked it. Thanks and congratulations to the newly-minted 2008 Pennsylvania State Champion!