Showdown #10: Splash!!

Showdown

Spootyone

28 November 2013

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Hello all and welcome back to another episode of Showdown where I pit my current standard deck against other standard builds that have been sent in to me. This week we have a requested (by me) battle against the very well-known Mono-Blue Devotion deck, or MUD as some are happily calling it. Can my new version of the deck hold up against such a powerhouse? It's hard to say. Without further ado, here's Behgz deck:

deck-large: you-can-has-froglizard

This is essentially the deck that won the last pro tour so I'm obviously worried for my chances here. I'm hoping I can fend off the attackers long enough to stabilize with my bigger creatures. This should be much easier after sideboarding and I honestly expect a loss in the first game. Let's see how it goes!

Game 1

Behgz wins the flip and chooses to be on the play. He keeps an opening hand of 2x island, Mutavault, Frostburn Weird, Nightveil Specter and 2x Master of Waves. Assuming we draw just one island, we're in serious business here.

Spooty mulligans a beautiful hand that simply hand no green mana (seriously, it would've been a beaut). The kept hand contains forest, plains, Temple Garden, Selesnya Guildgate, Voice of Resurgence and Celestial Flare. It's not perfect, but at least it has playable spells.

B1: Island. Pass.

S1: Draws forest. Plays Selesnya Guildgate tapped. pass.

B2: Draws Cloudfin Raptor. That's always awkward. I feel like since we're on the play we can afford to play the raptor now and then play a Mutavault to go with it for later. Casts Cloudfin Raptor. Plays Mutavault. Pass.

S2: Draws Selesnya Guildgate. Ugh. That's always incredibly frustrating. Plays plains. Casts Voice of Resurgence. Pass.

B3: Draws Cloudfin Raptor. Wait, seriously? Okay.. Well, now I wish I hadn't played the Mutavault yet so I had more available blue mana. I also feel like we need to give pressure now. Plays island. Casts Frostburn Weird. The raptor evolves and becomes a 1/2. Swings with the raptor. (s 19/20 b). pass.

S3: Draws Loxodon Smiter. Finally some gas! Plays forest. Casts Loxodon Smiter. Pass. I could leave mana open for Celestial Flare, but I think that's more valuable later in the game than for a potential 2/3 raptor.

B4: Draws Rapid Hybridization. This is a fairly strange situation. The opposing smiter is a real threat, especially without 3 blue mana to make the Frostburn Weird a 4/1 blocker. I think we should use the kill spell now before we end up getting...smited? Casts Rapid Hybridization on Spooty's Loxodon Smiter. It is destroyed and a 3/3 frog lizard token enters the battlefield. Cloudfin Raptor #1 gets in for 1 damage (s 18/20 b) and a second one is cast post combat. Pass.

S4: Draws Selesnya Guildgate. You know, something I've found with running gates is that you always draw all of them. Every. Time. Plays the guildgate. Racing the opponent with my hand seems like a bad idea, but the truth is we really have no blockers right now anyway. If we play the Celestial Flare as a means of ridding ourselves of the Frostburn Weird, however, we keep the opponent way off devotion, and that's a big deal. Swings with the voice and 3/3 token. The weird attempts to block the 3/3 token and in response Celestial Flare is played. Behgz sacs the Frostburn Weird. (s 18/18 b) pass.

B5: Draws Nightveil Specter Booooo....No one likes you specter. Be an island. Seeing as we have nothing to play, we attack with the 1/2 Cloudfin Raptor as well as an activated Mutavault for 3 total damage. (s 15/18 b). Pass.

S5: Draws Selesnya Charm. This might be useful if Thassa ever shows up, but he doesn't have her obviously. Because I have a Voice of Resurgence, I can tell he probably has no plays at all in his hand and is mana screwed. And with aggressive play being my only real out for the moment, I think I'll play this charm as a guy at the end of his turn. Swings in with the voice and the 3/3 token. The Cloudfin Raptor chumps the 3/3. (s 15/16 b). Plays out another gate. pass.

B6: Draws island. There we go! Time for some action. Plays island. Casts Nightveil Specter. Cloudfin Raptor evolves. Swings with the 2/3 raptor (s 13/16 b). Pass. No good playing the Selesnya Charm as Spooty now. We need it for combat shenanigans.

S6: Draws Temple Garden. Gross. Swings with the voice and the 3/3. As Behgz, I can almost guarantee the opponent has something up his sleeve, so I don't block (s 13/11 b). Plays Temple Garden tapped. Pass.

B7: Draws island. Plays island. Casts Master of Waves and makes 5 elemental tokens which become 2/1s. Swings with the Cloudfin Raptor and Nightveil Specter (s 9/11 b). Pass. EoT Spooty makes a 2/2 knight token with the Selesnya Charm.

S7: Draws forest. And we're dead on board. Concedes.

Behgz Wins Game 1!

Sideboard tech with Spooty: That was a messy game. Mulligan into lots of land draws will normally mean death against an aggro deck like MUD (Mono-Blue Devotion). As for sideboarding, we have lots we need to bring in to make this a fair fight. A playset of Last Breath is key here is ridding the opposing board of almost all threats, as well as my other 2x Celestial Flare. 3x Mistcutter Hydra will serve as a good win-con while also avoiding spells like Rapid Hybridization. As for what we're removing, I've taken out the playsets of both Experiment One and Sylvan Caryatid. We are NOT the aggressors here. EO doesn't do almost anything for us. He can't block very well and easily gets stopped by Frostburn Weird. The most he can do for us (when not being aggressive) is trading with a 2/1 elemental token. We don't want to get to that point anyway. And he gets eaten up by Ratchet Bomb, which could come in since we have tokens and likely the hydras. Likewise, the Sylvan Caryatid don't block anything very well until Master of Waves enters the field, and I'm not wanting him to stay around. The mana is nice, but this game is hopefully going to go long enough that I won't need it. Lastly, I've taken out one copy of Gideon, Champion of Justice. I don't think Gideon is fantastic in this matchup as a win-con since my opponent will probably have lots of chump blocks, but his +1 really shines here. Add to that a Selesnya Charm for trample and we might make it work. Plus, I really want to see his strengths since he's a new addition.

Sideboard tech with Behgz: As stated in Behgz description of the deck, 3x Ratchet Bomb is a must coming in from the side against any green deck with access to tokens and/or Mistcutter Hydra. For it, I remove a single Cyclonic Rift and the 2x Judge's Familiar. The latter is nearly useless against a creature-heavy deck and as for the rift...I just needed something else to take out.

Game 2

Spooty is on the play and keeps an opening hand of 2x forest, 2x plains, 2x Loxodon Smiter and Selesnya Charm. I hope I can draw into some of my removal quickly, here.

Beghz keeps an opener of 3x island, Ratchet Bomb, Frostburn Weird, Tidebinder Mage and Cyclonic Rift. Looks good!

S1: Plays plains. Pass.

B1: Draws Tidebinder Mage. Not bad. Plays island. Pass.

S2: Draws Voice of Resurgence. Plays forest. Casts the voice. Pass.

B2: Draws island. Plays island. Casts Frostburn Weird. I want to save the mages for bigger threats if I can. Pass.

S3: Draws Advent of the Wurm. Plays plains. Swings with the Voice. As Behgz, I can see there's something up here, so no blocks. (s 20/18 b). Casts Loxodon Smiter. Pass.

B3: Draws island. Plays island. Plays Tidebinder Mage and taps the opposing Loxodon Smiter. Then swings with the Frostburn Weird and pumps it once for two total damage. (s 18/18 b). Pass.

S4: Draws Temple Garden. Plays Loxodon Smiter #2. Plays Temple Garden tapped. Pass.

B4: Draws Master of Waves. Nice! Plays island. Casts Tidebinder Mage #2 and taps the second smiter. Attacking with the Frostburn Weird here can allow me to get in damage or kill the voice, but the resulting token would be a big issue. For that reason, I decide to play Cyclonic Rift on the voice. Then I attack for 3 with the weird and the first Tidebinder Mage. (s 15/18 b) Pass.

S5: Draws Selesnya Guildgate. Grr... These stupid gates. I desperately need my removal spells right now. If we don't replay the voice here we will be showing that we likely have an Advent of the Wurm (which we do). Similarly, if the opponent plays Master of Waves on their turn, we desperately need to have blockers coming up after. Plus, we need blockers for the other creatures out there. Casts Voice of Resurgence. Plays the guildgate tapped. Pass.

B5: Draws Mutavault. Not bad. I think we just play the master here. If the opponent has Last Breath, they have it. There isn't much we can do about it. That being said, I think they'd have played it by now if they did have it. Plays Mutavault. Casts Master of Waves and makes 7 elemental tokens. Pass. EoT, Spooty makes a 2/2 knight token with the selenya charm

S6: Draws forest. Yuck. Where's my removal?? Plays forest. Passes turn.

B6: Draws Ratchet Bomb. Plays island. Animates the Mutavault. Swings with all the elemental 2/1 tokens, the Frostburn Weird and the now 3/3 mutavault. Spooty casts Advent of the Wurm and makes a 5/5 wurm token. The wurm blocks the Frostburn Weird, the voice blocks an elemental token, and the knight blocks an elemental token. The two tokens are destroyed. The Frostburn Weird is destroyed. The knight token is destroyed and the voice is destroyed. an elemental token enters Spooty's field. (s 2/18 b). Pass.

S7: Draws Celestial Flare. It's not Last Breath and it's now too late. We're dead on board. Concedes.

Behgz wins the match!

Afterthoughts

It's clear that MUD is a force to be reckoned with. Without a ton of removal, any deck can easily crumble to an onslaught of flyers or a well-placed Master of Waves. I knew going into this matchup that my mainboard was not sitting favorably against this type of deck, but I also figured that I'd be okay after sideboard and possibly come out with a 2-1 victory. However, not drawing into those removal spells disallowed such to happen. I'm starting to wonder if Banisher Priest is something I should take advantage of, since it provides yet another means of removal against decks like this and last week's MRD deck that I was also destroyed by. It's something to think about. I might take a Celestial Flare or two out for Banisher Priest, as well as possibly a couple other things. We shall see!

I also didn't get to test out Gideon, Champion of Justice in these matchups, so It's impossible to tell whether or not he should remain in the deck. For now, I'll leave him in. I would love to do a third match here against this deck for fun and to continue the testing, but as we all know it's Thanksgiving weekend so I don't have hardly any time. Hopefully this can tide you all over til the next installment? :P

Many thanks to Behgz for his entry and thank you to everyone else who entered decks for this article. If I had had more time, I probably would've done another double-feature to test out against a more out-there deck. Keep 'em coming! You never know when you might be the chosen entry! And as always, thanks for reading.

The Question of the Week (QOTW)

Celestial Flare is a card that has the amazing title of being one of the very few white removal spells in the current standard metagame. Being WW for a casting cost, many decks forgo it unless they are heavily white in mana. Players have ridiculed the spell for its inability to select which creature to remove, but other praise it for its ability to remove certain big threats in the metagame such as Blood Baron of Vizkopa and hexproof or indestructible creatures. Banisher Priest on the other hand is spot removal on a stick. This Fiend Hunter "remake" can come down and get rid of anything that isn't hexproof or pro white while being a threat to the opponent's life total. But in this world of Doom Blade and Mizzium Mortars, one can easily see that creatures coming right back onto the battlefield.

So what do you think? Which is better right now? I want your brutally honest opinions.

Did You Know?

One of the staples of MUD and MRD decks right now is Frostburn Weird. Not only does the cold-bodied creature fend off aggro, he adds good amounts of devotion to your respective god. But did you know that R&D originally had him panned out differently? This common creature was originally set at a cost of 1 colorless and one U/R, but proved to actually be too powerful due to its ability to be in almost any deck out there are the time. So they bumped up the mana cost to be double U/R. Who'd have thought this never-played common would see constructed play some day?

Magic Trivia

Last week I asked you to tell me which creature was the predecessor to the ever-famous AEtherling. The answer is, of course, Morphling. Morphling saw play at its prime and was a very difficult card to beat. But when going to a "reprint" it's was found to be very lackluster in the current metagame. Thus, they created the new and "fixed" AEtherling. Shapeshifters!

If you'd enjoyed this article, please let me know! I love feedback as long as it's constructive. And don't forget that if you want to be in the next Showdown, place your deck in the comments below!

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