Introducing: Puerto Rico

Features

jkarnes

9 August 2012

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Objective for this Article

My previous articles explored the possibility of building a Golgari Rock style deck which took advantage of the midgame. We ended up with a fairly solid deck with answers to a vast majority of the metagame until AVR was released. Frites gained access to Griselbrand and my time became highly occupied with work. As a result, I didn't bother to update The Rock 2012 to metagame trends.

I have been working on a deck for Summer Magic that I feel is itching to break out and dominate the metagame from an unexpected angle. I give you the concept for Puerto Rico

What is this deck doing?

This deck is a U/B control deck that is designed to attrition our opponents to death. You will notice that the deck does not use Nephalia Drownyard. I did this because I believe that because of the presence of Flashback spells which do dangerous things (Lingering Souls and Unburial Rites) the priority of this deck should not be to deck the opponent. More often than not you will win on the back of Wurmcoil Engine and this is an acceptable outcome.

When I saw Trading Post printed I knew that this card would be bonkers in a long game. The ability to convert a card in your hand into any resource (provided you have an artifact) is very powerful. The key to busting the Trading Post is to have artifact creatures so that you can cycle between the third and fourth abilities it has. It also can randomly make a 0/1 blocker and buy you some time if it is necessary.

You'll also notice that this deck isn't playing Counterspells in the main deck. This is because most of the popular decks in the metagame are running Cavern of Souls. While non-creature cards can be dangerous, most of the threats we would want to counter are creatures so this was, in my mind, simply not an option.

Why the name Puerto Rico?

If you've ever played the game Puerto Rico you'll understand the name quickly. Puerto Rico is about planning your resources ahead of time and the way to win is to find a resource chain that you can exploit. Even though this is modeled to be a control deck, it fishbowls very effectively as well as plays interactively. You'll often find that your landbase explodes after you hit land 4 because of Solemn Simulacrum and Trading Post. Getting to 10 is very fast.

Maindeck card choice explainations

Lands

Darkslick Shores & Drowned Catacomb are pretty obvious here. We're running U/B so we want access to Double Black for Black Sun's Zenith without sacrificing our ability to hit early game Ponders and Treasure Mages.

Phyrexia's Core is a utility land that helps us sacrifice Ichor Wellsprings early and nets us a life in the process. If our Trading Post gets blown up, it also helps sacrifice Wurmcoil Engines in response to effects that would remove them from the game.

Sorceries

Black Sun's Zenith: Mass removal option. Seeing this is almost never bad in the current metagame. Most often you'll cast this for X=2 on turn 4 if you absolutely have to. 3 of because it reshuffles and we don't want to draw a large amount of them

Ponder: Helps us keep fringe hands that have gas. Helps in the mid-late game more than early by deciding what option gets us the most benefit in 2-3 turns. 4 because drawing Ponder is never bad at any stage of the game.

Instants

Go for the Throat: With zombies and non-artifact creatures making up the meta-game, this is a nobrainer. 2X because our most common play is to BSZ for X=2 and kill the board. We can bring in Murder from the board in cases where spot removal is an issue.

Enchantments

Curse of Death's Hold: Negates Lingering Souls, kills Delvers in the midgame, prevents Inkmoth Nexus from animating, wipes elves if you stop their momentum, Snapcasters die on entry, etc. Much more useful than you would think. 1 of because overcommiting to this slot is bad. Can bring in more from the board in matches where it will be useful.

Artifacts

Ichor Wellspring: Cantrips and eventually draws us a card. Works as a great commodity to trade with the Trading Post to get back Wurmcoils and Solemns. 4 of because it's desireable to draw more cards always.

Sands of Delirium: Singleton in the event that our opponent has some weird damage-control deck. Blows the control mirror right out of the water G1 if you get matched against it. Fun times with Liliana's Emblem.

Staff of Nin: Easily fetchable with Treasure Mage. Kills 1/1s and draws extra cards. Also puts a clock on our opponent. Seems bad on paper, functions much more strongly than you would think on the battlefield. 2 of because we're almost always going to fetch it.

Trading Post: The namesake of the deck. This card is almost as bad as Staff of Domination in this shell. Makes all kinds of shenanigans possible. 4 of because we built around it.

Creatures

Solemn Simulacrum: Accelerates to 5 and draws a card if he dies. Returning this guy with Trading Post is a game breaker as we thin out the deck and re-cantrip. Blocks with 2 power to kill early problematic aggressors. 4 of because accelerating to 5 (and then 6 with a land drop on the next turn) gets Wurmcoils and Staves out faster.

Treasure Mage: Blocks with 2 power and gets a Wurmcoil / Staff. Functional cantrip.

Wurmcoil Engine: Infinite Wurmcoils is scary. 3 of because we're likely to fetch one and drawing another is only better later.

Planeswalkers

Liliana of the Dark Realms: I know this is where I'm going to catch a great deal of heat. Before you decide to flame me for this selection over Liliana of the Veil hear me out.

LotDR does something unique for a PW, especially for a control deck. She guarantees you a land drop every turn. In addition to that, she's going to thin your deck for you and increase the chance of drawing a non-land card with every successive turn she's out. Her -3 ability can kill randomly indestructable creatures and should not be underestimated.

Perhaphs her greatest function is to search for two swamps and take 4 damage. If you have a blocker, she'll get 3 swamps and maybe live longer. She buys time and accelerates us towards our critcal mass of 6 mana.

Liliana of the Veil in comparison makes us discard cards (which in a control deck isn't really a good thing) and would make our card selection sub-optimal. If I were building with LotV in mind, I would have things like Think Twice, Forbidden Alchemy, and Lingering Souls... but that's not the direction of this concept. We're going to win through attrition because it's generally a more sound strategy than trying to overpower your opponent.

In addition, most decks ARE playing those Flashback spells, so LotV is simply not an optimal inclusion.

The Sideboard

Curse of Death's Hold: This becomes more important in matches where Moorland Haunt and Lingering Souls exists. Also helps against the random elf deck.

Tamiyo, the Moon Sage: Very important to bring in for Agro matchups. She takes the place of Liliana against agressive decks to buy time. Will almost never activate for her Emblem because there are no cards in this deck which can be reused ala Gutshot.

Trinket Mage: Comes in against Zombies, Pod, Frites, and Solar Flare as a method of fetching Grafdigger's Cage

Murder: Spot Removal when necessary. Generally comes in against Agro with Tamiyo.

Devastation Tide: Against Elves and Tokens this card is nuts. 2 of because we don't want it in our opening hand and we usually don't want to draw it unless we ponder it.

Playing the Deck

Your goal here is to simply outlast your opponent. Once you get to 10 mana you can start pitching Islands and Phyrexia's Core to Trading Post to regain life if you have to.

Your strongest plays will be to use Trading Post to generate incremental card advantage forever. Creature removal is not effective against Puerto Rico because the Trading Post allows us to sacrifice a creature to return an artifact (which makes up 54% of the creature base)

Be patient and grind out wins. Do not rush things. Because of the raw volume of semi-cantrip spells you will find that you almost always have 5-6 cards in your hand. By the time you get to 2-3 cards, you should have a Trading Post or a Staff of Nin and refil somewhat quickly.

If I get time I will be happy to post match results and sideboarding tech against standard top decks; however, I don't think I will get it as my daughter has recently learned how to move around the house.

Best of luck to everyone at FNM this week.