So, on the occasional Tuesday night, my local game shop, Montag’s, runs a Standard-for-a-box tournament. Normally this isn’t a good night for me (my kids have piano lessons on Tuesday night) but sometimes it’s my wife’s turn for piano and I am not completely stomped at work and can actually play on a weeknight.
As it turns out, I needed 18 packs. My brother is coming for a visit soon and we usually do a 1-on-1 Sealed for kicks, and I wanted three packs each for my kids’ Christmas stockings. So I was well-motivated, particularly since last FNM I was expecting draft and we played Standard and the only vaguely reasonable deck I had on me was a really bad build of Valakut, and it was simply awful… I went 1-3.
Now, the last deck I had good success with was RUG. The problem I have with RUG is that it’s soft to both Flashfreeze and Doom Blade and sometimes you just ramp land like crazy into… nothing. So, I thought the right solution might be BUG. Doom Blade is better than Bolt against other Titans (except Grave, of course). And black provides another amazing, non-Blade-able use for all that land… Ob Nixilis, the Fallen. And, of course, that color combination also gives access to a full 8 relevant fetches. It’s a wicked fun deck to play, like a cross between RUG and Valakut, as well as some excellent sideboard options.
[deck title=BUGger Off]
[Creatures]
4 Lotus Cobra
3 Oracle of Mul Daya
2 Grave Titan
1 Frost Titan
1 Primeval Titan
2 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
[/Planeswalkers]
[Other spells]
4 Preordain
1 Disfigure
3 Doom Blade
4 Explore
4 Mana Leak
[/Other spells]
[Land]
4 Forest
3 Island
3 Swamp
4 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Halimar Depths
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Drowned Catacomb
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Acidic Slime
3 Obstinate Baloth
2 Spell Pierce
2 Consume the Meek
2 Disfigure
3 Memoricide
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
12 people, so four rounds of Swiss into top 4… obviously, for a box.
Round 1: Alan, playing UW
Alan isn’t a Montag’s regular, but he’d been there before and we had played each other at least once before this. Game 1 was a long, slow, drawn-out playing-around-each-other’s-Mana Leaks kind of event, assisted by my slow draw and his getting stuck on four lands. But ultimately, the threat density was high enough in my deck to get past his Leaks and Tumble Magnet. It took a very long time, though, but eventually I stuck a Titan and he went all the way. However, we didn’t have much time to get into game 2. He had an advantage and got a Colonnade going but I Bladed it. I got a Primeval Titan, and he Clone’d it and fetched up another Colonnade. I Bladed the Clone, but he came back with Day. I got Jace, which he didn’t kill with the Colonnade (he had to try to kill me instead), but that didn’t work when I got an Acidic Slime. He got another Colonnade, but I bounced the Slime with Jace and re-cast it. That was his offense, and we drew on time.
1-0 matches, 1-0-1 games
Round 2: Joe, playing UB
Joe is a Montag’s regular who I’ve played many times and, frankly, who I had not beaten in a very, very long time. Game 1 did not go very well, as he got an early Mimic Vat through and I have no main-deck ways to handle an active Vat other than a Frost Titan. I actually did get one out, but he managed to Blade it and that was it. Game 2 I managed to get an early Ob plus a fetch, managed to clear out his only blocker, and that was it. Game 3 he got a slightly slow start on land, stuck at 4, and I got an early Frosty and then locked it up with Jace to keep him off drawing any more. Holy crap, I beat Joe!
2-0 matches, 3-1-1 games
Round 3: Victor, playing Elves
Both of these games were dumb. I got an early Lotus Cobra in both games, and then not very much else. Game 1 I did Disfigure a Fauna Shaman and then Bladed a second, but he got a Vengevine and I never got enough in the way. Game 2 I got to a state where I had two Cobras on the board, five lands in play, and two Titans in hand… but I couldn’t cast them, and did not manage to draw another land or anything I could cast. Ugly.
2-1 matches, 3-3-1 games
Round 4: Terry, playing UB
So, I had to win to make it forward. Game 1 was somewhat tentative on both sides, but I ultimately stuck a Grave Titan that he couldn’t kill. Game 2 he got an early Jace 1.0 and managed to draw a ton of cards off of it (he made me draw once in a while) but I managed to cast out an Ob with a Pierce backup, though he didn’t attempt to counter it anyway. He did play a Vampire Nighthawk, though, so I couldn’t swing with Ob. I did, however, have two lands still in hand and I kept drawing more (I did finally draw a Jace to kill his; not a good trade but I had to stop the one-way Howling Mine) and I got him down to 4 this way. He finally swung with the Nighthawk to get back to up 6, but I drew a fetch to end it. “Protection from Doom Blade” is an awesome special ability.
3-1 matches, 5-3-1 games
Semifinals: Alan, playing UW
Same Alan as Round 1. The other semi was Joe vs. Victor, so there was going to be a lot of repetition. Game 1 again took forever, but I eventually ran him out of permission. However, he had a Venser out and I was having a hard time doing damage to Alan since I was keeping Venser off going ultimate. He had two Mystifying Mazes out and I had a Cobra and an Oracle with his two Wall of Omens (one of which was actually a Clone) in the way. I got a Grave and then a Frost Titan out, though, but he got a Tumble Magnet. I managed to get a Jace down and that sealed it as I was able to keep him off Day and then wear him down with my guys. Game 2 I again managed to stick an Ob, drop some land, and clear away the only blocker. Ob is amazing in this deck…
4-1 matches 7-3-1 games
Victor agreed to split, so I got my desired 18 packs and all was well.
I really like this deck a lot and I generally didn’t have great draws today. In playtesting it, I was frequently getting a Cobra on turn 2 and it is, of course, amazing when that happens. However, I didn’t get that very often today, and the deck was still good. RUG was fun and I didn’t lose a match when I played it about a month ago, and it might be a little better against fast aggro decks (Pyroclasm is awesome there), but this thing feels like it really has better staying power against control decks. Ob is the bomb here; there’s nothing quite like Ob in RUG. This is a very fun and resilient deck; I highly recommend it!