Greetings everyone!
Welcome back to the third month of Testing: One, Two, Three!
Happy New Year!
This past year has been fantastic for MTGO in spite of the ever present shortcomings. Firstly, we got Weekend Challenges. Secondly, the Classic card pool grew by leaps and bounds. Thirdly, Zendikar is hedron-tastic and has about a billion playables. Oh yeah, and (drum roll) WotC introduced a new 60 Card Singleton format (100C’s lil bro, Standard Singleton!)
If you read my last article or pick up on foreshadowing (or have a Mirari-like some crystal ball to glimpse the future), then y’all know this month it’s my birthday! Hrmm, I don’t think that’s what I was aiming to debut. Doh!
Let’s try again- this month is a bit of a New Year jumble jam. Maybe I made a resolution to improve the quality and scope of my offerings (doubt it). Okay, okay- enough beating around the bush. If you’ve read my previous article, then you know this month’s extravaganza will be Standard Singleton!
Now, without a real combo deck (or even a pseudo Combo deck), I am going to have audible to Esper as Deck Three. I also have an affinity for Green-White Tokens, so I have Deck Two. Sooooo all that’s left is Deck One. Esper is pretty close to a Control deck, but I really want to highlight another counter-magic wielding stack of sixty singles. Deck One is Star-Spangled Slaughter (or Blue-White-Red in laymen’s terms).
platipus10 covered the basics of the format (article available here), and he already hit most the highly playable cards. Check it out for an introduction to the format!
A quick bulletin before we kick things off- the schedule for January is as follows:
- Sunday, January 3, 2010- Month Intro Article
- Friday, January 8, 2010- Video One
- Friday, January 15, 2010- Video Two
- Sunday, January 17, 2010- Lament and/or celebrate another year of existence
- Friday, January 22, 2010- Video Three
- Sunday, January 24, 2010- Month Summary Article
I’m going to be focusing more on video coverage this week- there isn’t a whole lot to say/type/ramble about with only five sets making up the entirety of the card pool. And… we’re off!
MONTH THREE — Red-White-Blue Control, GW Token Aggro, & Esper Control
Star-Spangled Slaughter
Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt format(To load a .txt deck into Magic: Online’s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Text Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)
Fresh off a first place victory, Red, White, and Blue Control (or as I like to remember it- Star-Spangled Slaughter… oh the days of Invasion Block!) might be the supreme counter-magic deck of the format. My list is based on bolov0′s victory deck list (UWR Control, 1st place, January 1, 2010).
As platipus10 mentioned in his article, Control decks are forced to play a ton of conditional (and therefore bad) cards. This obvious weakness is in the counter-magic suite: specifically, Flashfreeze (which seems to be the best of the conditional counters), Essence Scatter, and Negate. Luckily, my list also plays four (!) hard counters.
There is also a decent amount of conditional spot and mass removal. While it’s obvious that Pyroclasm and Earthquake are only good in certain situations, even Day of Judgment and Martial Coup are conditional in a format with creatures that regenerate. The White spot removal is pretty standard, but Intimidation Bolt offers an additional breather against the Naya, Jund, and Green-White decks that populate the aggressive ranks of Standard Singleton.
Star-Spangled Slaughter plays like a Draw-Go style deck for the early game in the sense that it doesn’t do much initially. It has a very little proactive plays beyond drawing cards, especially in the early game. It does have a lot of late threats though- Ajani Vengeant, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Rite of Replication, Baneslayer Angel, Chandra Nalaar, Siege-Gang Commander, Sphinx of Lost Truths, Sphinx of Jwar Isle, and Obelisk of Alara. Once you nullify your oppo’s early game, just string out huge threats until one sticks.
Some cards that are missing from bolov0′s list- Scepter of Dominance (I hated this card in my Esper list- too White mana intensive), Ponder (been playing a card that “does something” in its stead), and Fieldmist Borderpost (prefer a land… or a spell that does something).
The sideboard is pretty interesting, primarily the pair of Hindering Light and Swerve to teach Jund a lesson. The deck has some additional anti-Control tools (Bogardan Hellkite, Scepter of Insight, Magma Phoenix, Luminarch Ascension), a smattering of anti-Aggro and even Lavaball Trap to teach greedy decks (both with excessive colors or excessive small creatures) a lesson.
For anyone interested in playing control in Standard Singleton, I would highly suggest the Star-Spangled Slaughter list in this article. I played against this deck in the finals of the January 2nd premiere event, and my Jund deck absolutely felt helpless against it. Judging by his record, I would presume many other opponents had similar experiences during the tournament
StasisFreak, I am 3-0 in 2-mans with the deck. It feels really solid- the only thing I’m not sold on is Intimidation Bolt! It should be noted that every 2-man has been a Control deck of some sort.
Nice article and fun analysis. I’m not sure your token deck will be the best response to defeat the jund festival in each top8, but I am sure it will be a difficult deck to defeat.
P.S.: Are you a teacher? Where is your school? Can i go to your class? xD xD xD
Oh oh pick me I want to be in your class too
I had the same experience a couple months back in the 2-mans. I think I played about 6 of them and 5 were control and 1 was a naya deck.