Hey All, Dills here again with a sweet new brew for SOI standard! First and foremost be sure to check out all my current projects into SOI Standard for detailed guides, tips and inspiration in your own endeavors. Comments and +1's as always are encouraged an appreciated, I do my best to answer each comment/question as well as return feedback to other decks/projects.
UPDATE 1 4/7/2016 ~ Testing ~ Show
testing began 4/5 through 4/7 and Will be written in this evening. There is a LOT of informaiton to process and write out here tonight so please be patient and I will try to refresh with results from each deck as they are finished.
The main board revisions listed this evening include some personal adjustments and suggestions made in the comments this will continue to change slightly keep an eye out for these.
First off lets talk about the changes we've made to the deck both main and side board and why.
Changes
- 3xNegate Moved to Side board
3xDispel Moved to Side board - Both This and Negate we're moved entirely to the board mainly to boost aggression from the pre-board list. Originally we were 4 Dispel 4
Invasive Surgery
and while the thought of 8 spells to deal with non-creatures spells that may threaten TiTi's seemed nice but really results in dead cards in hand more times than not, mana that could have been spent more efficiently on other spells. As these are Reactive spells and a big goal in making these revisions was to increase pressure and add a bit more uumph! to the deck. These will be used as needed in more reactive rounds when we can better tailor the card counts to our opponents specifically and individually.
-2x
Fiery Impulse
at the moment this card is CUT whether that changes remains to be seen (moar testing). Orignially suggested to the list by Latobius this card is great, hit's TONS of relevant stuff but the underlying problem is like Dispel or
Invasive Surgery
depending on the deck these can be seriously dead cards. The difference with being able to expedite a random creature for a card and a more "Versitle" effect allows us more potential situations where our hand is relevant (i.e.
Fiery Temper
). This may require more testing against heavy creature decks like R/B Vampires, CoCo lists and or WW/GW decks and unfortunatly I haven't had the chace to get serious time into these archtypes and are obviously where this becomes a great card. Perhaps a premature cut and definitely still a sideboard option.
+1x Titan's Strength - See Below
+4x Rush of Adrenaline- damage output was a bit underwhelming for a few reasons, some mentioned above.. such as too many "Situation/Reactive" cards in the main board leaving us without targets and slowing us down. most importantly we were losing Stormchaser Mage prowess triggers constantly popping a majority of our spells during opponents turn. Increasing these numbers helps us punch over and through creatures and really shortens the opponents clock to unanswered SCM.
+3Just the Wind originally suggested by n4pesto just the wind really does nicely for us. Originally the Slot belonged to
Clutch of Currents
and was replaced mainly to override the sorcery text. The madness strain was apparent and our draw was overall a bit underwhelming so I ended up adding additional Jace as he counteracts both of these issues while being otherwise amazing.
+2Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
for the aforementioned reasons, (look up)
Welcome to our first write up! where else to start than possibly one of the scariest match-up's out there... why? lets get into it!
We'll start by taking a look at our opponents "Big" creatures.
so Basically beat these cards and it's GG right? no? their 4 of's? some can start coming down as early as turn 4? and every turn afterwards... so what do we do? Well! first off we need to be mindful of our opponents pre-board interactions, now these are virtually nonexistent outside of their fatties.
This is our saving grace in the match-up
Forget
Hedron Crawler
ignore Explosive Vegetation and CLOSE THE GAME. Game one in just about every game i've played befor and after revision is a race to the finish. we do not have the power to stop ALL our opponents threats and they can absolutely swing the game in a single turn. Instead dig for Abbot/SCM, pop Expedite for prowess triggers and cards asap, and tack on Titan's Strength or Rush of Adrenaline whenever possible. race em' to the finish where we can sideboard and sit in a better place.
Boarding
In's
Out's
-3 Just the Wind - with our opponent pulling value on every creature we would want to bounce excluding dorks this card get worse the longer you have it and really only helps your opponent abuse ETB's
-4 Thing in the Ice
- this card is just TOO slow for us to run. seemingly awkward in a deck centered around it but the time it will take us to establish and flip will not beat the speed of worldbreaker, atarka, chandra etc. pulling them out leave the opponents Dragonlord Atarka with fewer targets and help prevent us from flip+bounce'ing aforementioned creatures back to hand for yet another ETB.
-1
Abbot of Keral Keep
our slowest creature and only real other option for the full 8 packagewe need to run.
To be written following "G/R Ramp Match Results"
To be written following "W/B Control / W/Bc Eldrazi Variant"
~ Vanilla Decklist ~ Show
Constructive criticism is ALWAYS appreciated, please be mindful this in your comments! I'm all too happy to discuss inclusions, exclusions and alternative card choices.
The Core
The Idea of the deck is to jam thing in the Ice and the utilize cantrips to both protect and flip him as quickly as possible. I would consider this deck Tempo as it wants to close out quickly but the deck is also VERY reactive using cards like Dispel and
Invasive Surgery
. however with creatures like Stormchaser Mage and
Abbot of Keral Keep
we absolutely will be making early advances whenever possible. without further ado... the breakdown...
Creatures
4x Thing in the Ice
- the bread and butter of the deck and shining star, we're looking to play this early (but cautiously) and sit back!
4x Stormchaser Mage - very solid creature plays really well on curve with the ability to follow up an Abbot/Peel for (very likely) prowess or a Thing in the Ice
with available counter magic which also seems fine.
3x
Abbot of Keral Keep
plays well on our curve, helps us dig and usually means turn 3 creature and ice counter (with thing in play) or the missing land drop. Prowess body to top things off makes it a great creature to have / see but again not as crucial as finding our Thing / Stormchaser's early as such... 3x copies.
2x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
just an all around rock star in this list but not something I want to rely 100% of the time. The draw is absolutely necessary and provides us with two outlets to turn on
Fiery Temper
on top of the 26 instants and sorceries that we can potentially flash back when Flipped. However because we are not looking to draw out games any longer than needed, have other ways to satisfy the draw/madness issues.
Instants
4x Dispel Easy inclusion, our first line of defense for Thing in the Ice
and an all around disruptive card, keepin' it low to relieve stress on the mana base and melt dat ice!
4x
Invasive Surgery
the final number has yet to be seen, again important for the same reasons as dispel, but also stops cards like languish, declaration in stone, and planar outburst all of which can be absolutely devastating more testing needed but in the meantime with the abundance of prime white and black removal i'd rather not be caught with my pants down.
2x Expedite essentially this card is an ice trigger + a card. however
Abbot of Keral Keep
+ Expedite is also very real and quite nice tempo on turn 3. A couple in here to boost our spell count and increase our draw.
3x Titan's Strength Pretty self explanatory in a "Prowess" Based Aggressive Deck. This is very likely a 4 of over a copy of
Invasive Surgery
or perhaps
Fiery Temper
More testing is needed.(would absolutely love to hear your thoughts/ results on this!)
4x
Fiery Temper
+ 4x Lightning Axe again trying to stay low to the ground gives us a response to problem creatures and or a way to bolt our opponent for a quick 3 damage and up to 2 ice counters. 4 Lightning Axe, 2 Tormenting Voice and 2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
gives us 8 ways to turn on Madness Bolt.
Sorcery
3x
Clutch of Currents
creature bounce to keep problem creatures gone, open the field for swings and of course melt ice. The awaken is worth noting, although I do not expect TOO many situations where the awaken will be "Best option".
2x Tormenting Voice Chose to use tormenting voice specifically because of Temper / Jace. We can reap huge benefits from this card including prowess trigger, ice counters, cheap draw and madness activation. we arnt looking for too many as we do not want to be stuck pitching important cards like Dispel,
Invasive Surgery
or god forbid Thing in the Ice
. On the flip side we can net some additional value from cards as well as minimize the downside of voice with a flipped jace pitching/flashing back things like Expedite for a quick card, Titan's Strength for extra damage or lightning Axe to turn on a
Fiery Temper
in hand.
Land Base
First and formost, you do NOT want to be playing tapped lands in this deck anymore than you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO. Turn 1 Wandering Fumarole is fine as we are not going to begin our set up until the following turn. I cannot stress enough how important both turns 2 and 3 untapped colored land is, which leads me to Holdout Settlement. Seemingly going against what we are trying to do.... right? well lets think about it... my cards that like this land are Thing in the Ice
and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
both of these come in turn 2 without needing a second colored mana and both can also be tapped if needed to pump off early disruption. I'm not sure I want more than on on the field but none the less can provide us with 2 additional untapped U/R Sources.
Shivan Reef
is a must for all the reasons listed above and beyond that is as simple as we can get with a mountain heavy basic split.
Sideboarding - in progress
4x
Fiery Impulse
- as Suggested by Latobius a great option for creature heavy match ups as X/2 seems to be the place to be! spell mastery is an easy activation in this list and should help in lists that have very little interaction with our board state.
Negate - for the opposite side of the spectrum, decks playing very few creatures can make cards like Lightning Axe feel awkward or even dead. gives us the ability to fall back into a more reactive role.
Consider it
as suggested by Latobius if you find yourself having trouble punching through damage or deal with lots creature heavy decks such as token lists that go wide and consistently drop weenies to eat damage. Consider Rush of Adrenaline over Titan's Strength or even as a side board option to play tricks!
Fevered Visions - personal suggestion I was given, and while I love just about everything in this card. I'm really afraid to run these as a draw engine over say Tormenting Voice due to the abundance of GOOD permanent exile effects. any results or feedback into this would be greatly appreciated, as i said everything about this card screams Izzet agro.
This is my newest project currently and due to work have yet to get real testing behind it, please check back soon for updates including tweaks, side boarding and post match results/discussion.
As Always thanks so much for taking the time to check out the deck, comments and +1's are greatly appreciated!
