It’s late in the rotation and a new set is about to come in, and people are complaining that Standard is getting stale. So, here’s something new to try.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not much of an original deckbuilder. However, every once in a while I have an idea that I think is worth at least exploring. Yesterday as I was doing errands before FNM, an idea struck me and I thought it was worthy enough to hastily try to throw it together and give it a spin. Unfortunately, FNM didn’t happen last night since not enough people showed. I did get to play the deck a few times against what I think is actually a pretty good Metalcraft aggro deck. I was worried that the deck would be soft to aggro in Game 1 and it didn’t seem bad at all.
The deck name is obviously drawn from the color combo: black and white with a splash of red. Here’s the list:
[deck title=Sin City]
[Creatures]
4 Wall of Omens
4 Emeria Angel
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Grave Titan
1 Admonition Angel
2 Sun Titan
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
3 Gideon Jura
[/Planeswalkers]
[Other spells]
3 Everflowing Chalice
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Luminarch Ascension
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Doom Blade
2 Mimic Vat
[/Other spells]
[Land]
3 Tectonic Edge
4 Marsh Flats
4 Arid Mesa
5 Plains
3 Swamp
2 Mountain
3 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Duress
2 Luminarch Ascension
2 Pyroclasm
3 Baneslayer Angel
1 Sunblast Angel
2 Day of Judgment
1 Liliana Vess
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
The deck was actually inspired, in a weird way, by Mike Flores’s Mythic Titan deck and the point he made about Luminarch Ascension and then some other thoughts I had about changes to that deck I was going to make. In particular, I wanted to add Wurmcoil Engine (because it’s amazing) and the “other white Titan,” Admonition Angel, to take advantage of all the land the deck generates. Then I realized that Emeria Angel would be good there as well, and then it occurred to me that many of those effects would be fine off fetchlands. @dcampa93 on Twitter suggested going more control and adding Wall of Omens somewhere, and that made me think about Pyroclasm as a mass removal option in lieu of (or in addition to) Day, and I realized I wanted to try something that doesn’t use the Jace-Cobra-Preordain-Mana Leak basis that makes Flores’s deck in some way just the Bant variant of BUG and RUG.
Once I decided on the color combination, and realized I’d be running eight fetches, I really wanted Emeria Angel. There have been some interesting discussions out there about using her in UW control decks as a way to protect Planeswalkers, but I think she’s actually pretty good even without a large number of Planeswalkers.
The other card I really wanted was Mimic Vat. I think this card is incredibly underrated, or maybe just underplayed. It makes your own removal better, can blank opposing removal, and is simply nuts with creatures that have ETB effects. It’s also amazing with a Wurmcoil on the table.
Overall, Sin City plays like a control deck but one that can turn aggro very quickly. Gideon is key to this ability, and the other thing I’ve noticed about the current environment is that it is, in general, light on fliers. The titans are all ground-pounders, and even most of the aggro decks are pretty much all on the ground. Bird tokens are great blockers but also can go aggro very effectively. Lavaclaw Reaches is also really aggressive in the late game if you can get their board clear or get all blockers tapped via Gideon, and of course you can finish with Lightning Bolt.
The sideboard is also really important. Against control decks, the other two Luminarch Ascensions come in with all four Duresses and Liliana. This gives you 8 cheap hand kill, 1 expensive but recurrent hand kill, and 4 Ascensions, which certainly seems like it should be good. And even if they can kill and Ascension, you can possibly get it back with Sun Titan.
Against aggro decks, you obviously take out the Ascensions and bring in the Baneslayers and Sunblast (Sunblast is great with Gideon) as well as the Pyroclasms and the two Day of Judgment. You end up with a lot of lifelink with the Baneslayers and the Wurmcoils which should give you a lot of extra clock. What else you take out would depend on the matchup. Emeria Angels aren’t very good against decks running Bolt, but they don’t die to Disfigure, so that’s at least something. Regardless, the two Days, two Pyroclasms, and all the lifelink makes you hard for aggro decks to kill.
(B/R)UG is probably one of the tougher matchups. Pyroclasm is great against the Cobras and Oracles but you only have two, and that’s not in game 1. I need to test more against this matchup; it might be the case that something like Sword of Body and Mind is called for in the sideboard. The good news is that Inquisition of Kozilek kills Lotus Cobra, Explore, and Mana Leak, which is pretty good. Unless they run Acidic Slime main (unfortunately, some do), they most likely won’t have an answer to Mimic Vat in game 1 and that can be a game-swinger but again, you only have two.
In general against anybody playing Blue I’m thinking keep in all the Bolts as an answer to Jace. You want all 8 hand disruption cards not only to keep them off things like Jace and Mana Leak, but to make sure you know when they have permission so you can safely cast your big guns.
There are a few things that definitely merit further consideration:
• Act of Treason. It certainly seems really good right now against some decks and Sin City runs the right color, but I’m not sure what to take out to run one or two copies. Except maybe:
• I’m not 100% sure that I’m sold on Grave Titan in this deck. Is that the card to cut for an Act of Treason or a second Admonition Angel or perhaps another removal spell?
• The mana base might not be quite right. Three Tectonic Edges seems like the right number, particularly since they can be recurred with Sun Titan; but because of the Titans perhaps even two would be OK. It’s great to have eight fetches, too but maybe there’s something else that would be good.
• Is there a call for Oust or Journey to Nowhere? Bolts and Doom Blades seem pretty good, but they don’t handle indestructibles or produce great results vs. things like Wurmcoil Engine, and of course neither one really handles Grave Titan, either.
Maybe it’s awful, but it seems at least feasible in concept and of course, you can build it without $300+ worth of Jace. It’s not as cheap as Boros and Vampires, of course, but if you want to play something other than aggro without Jace, maybe some version of this is an option for the next couple weeks.
I’d love to get feedback! Comment here or hit me up on Twitter, @SunByrne.