Magic the Gathering

Constructed

Off the Beaten Path — Devour This!

By Sam Feeley ⋅ October 30, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

It’s been a year and a half since I left Gainesville, Florida to get my life and edu­ca­tion in order back home in the Boston area. Since then I’ve kept in touch every now and then with my friends down south, hop­ing some­day I can head back there if just for a week­end. I asked them about stan­dard post–Zendikar, and one good friend, Jon Gat­son, showed me his pet project that he’s been work­ing on with his friend Steven Keys. It has won him five stan­dard tour­na­ments, includ­ing three FNM’s since the begin­ning of the month. Here it is, neo-Angelfire.

Gat­son told me he wanted to find a deck that could beat Jund and Vam­pires, and came up with this. And it worked out — he won those three con­sec­u­tive FNMs in a room full of Jund. When things work out the way you expect them to, it’s easy to under­stand why he has fallen in love with his con­coc­tion. When I asked him about another red-white-blue con­trol deck, Calosso Fuentes’ Lumi­narch Ascen­sion deck (seen here: http://mtgurl.com/2U3f )

Gat­son felt Fuentes relied too much on mass removal in a Jund-heavy metagame. When you look at the aver­age Jund “aggro” list, it runs only 15 crea­tures. (Four Putrid Leech, four Blood­braid Elf, three Brood­mate Dragon, and four Sprout­ing Thri­nax pop­u­lated Jack Wang’s win­ner in Philadel­phia.) So what’s the point of mass removal if there aren’t that many masses to remove? Of course, Jund is not all there is to fear. Lest we for­get there are decks with nearly twice the crea­tures Jund packs in this for­mat, such as Vam­pires and Bush­whacker. So, not obliv­i­ous to this caveat, Gat­son pointed out a key change in his list: he cut two main deck Jace Bel­eren and one Ajani Gold­mane for an addi­tional Sejiri Refuge and… Magma Phoenix. Hoo boy. Trade with one vam­pire, kill all the oth­ers. Way to be.

Aside from the con­cept of Ken­tucky Fried Vam­pires, what I really love about this deck is that in addi­tion to Banes­layer Angel and Ajani, this work of art (yes, I said it) is chock full of cards that are nearly invis­i­ble on the stan­dard radar, and unjustly so. Have a look at some of the more eye-opening choices.

Guardian Ser­aph
Such an under­rated card in my view, and the most under­rated card in stan­dard accord­ing to Gat­son. What part of “four mana for an offen­sive threat and a defen­sive jug­ger­naut that’s out of Light­ning Bolt range” do peo­ple not under­stand? Yes, it dies to Path to Exile and Doom Blade, but so does 95% of any­thing ever printed in this game.

Sphinx of Lost Truths
Much like Conqueror’s Pledge, in no way do you have to kick this spell in order for it to be effec­tive. If you don’t have at least four cards in hand on turn 5 (or when­ever you plan on cast­ing the Sphinx sans kicker), you’re obvi­ously not play­ing control.

Dou­ble Neg­a­tive
In most cases Dou­ble Neg­a­tive is just an even worse Can­cel. But remem­ber what Angelfire wants to beat — Jund. Also remem­ber what spe­cific cards are typ­i­cally in Jund — four Blood­braid Elf and two Bitu­mi­nous Blast. Nice two-for-one.

Magma Phoenix
Again, when faced with Vam­pires, Bush­whacker, or any creature-heavy aggro deck, Phoenix tells the oppo­nent “Roll over and play dead while my air­borne bud­dies smash your face.” Phoenix wasn’t orig­i­nally going to be in the main deck until more Bush­whacker and Vam­pire decks started show­ing up. Talk about good reads.

Mind­break Trap
One of those cards that, despite its true call­ing against storm decks in Legacy and Vin­tage, is still ran­domly good in Stan­dard. And not just against Great Sable Stag. This uber-counterspell saved Gat­son from los­ing to a Pyro­mancer Ascen­sion home­brew when his oppo­nent cast Bane­fire for 7 with two coun­ters on the red enchant­ment — when Gat­son was at 14 life, no less. Remem­ber, kids, you don’t need to pay the trap cost to make a trap effective.

For the bud­get player, this deck is dif­fi­cult to pull off with eight fetch­lands and four Banes­lay­ers, and maybe the two Day of Judg­ment in the side­board. If you can get that far, though, the rest of the deck is much eas­ier to put together. (Thank heaven for no more Reflect­ing Pool and Vivids, huh?) What­ever your deck of choice, don’t for­get Zendikar Game Day this week­end at stores across the coun­try. And remem­ber, if you have your own pet project you want me to dis­sect, shoot me an email at samuraientertainment@gmail.com

Until next time, stay under the radar.
–Sam

Sam Fee­ley is a Timmy-Spike and PTQ semi-regular orig­i­nally from Con­cord, Mass­a­chu­setts. He enjoys Magic, sports, cook­ing, and writ­ing. He maintains two blogs, Samurai Entertainment on news, games, and nonsense; and Samurai Sports, about interior decorating. And by interior decorating he means sports.

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