I’d like for everyone here to take a quick second to mourn the death of my psyche.

As many of you have probably noticed, the Regionals Blog Contest is over.  It only makes mewonder if anyone else has appreciated the irony behind RBC as much as I have.  Of course, it was mostly my fault it was so ironic.  Let mere count a short story to you:

I head to my favorite Magic: the Gathering website and notice that they are holding a writing contest.  I think to myself, “Great!  I’m a decent writer, and I can kinda play Magic.  I’ll give it a try.”  Then I notice that almost every blargicle (yes, I made up a word to explain blogs trying to be articles) was based on the new set and/or Regionals. So I again thought, “If I want to stand out I have to write bout something different than everyone else.  I won’t write at all about PT Hollywood or Regionals.”  You imagine my surprise when I realize that the contest was about writing for Regionals.

And so ends my story of the ironic RBC.  Well, actually it ended with an expletive and a chuckle, but this story is a lot more down home.   The moral of the story: know the rules of any contest before you enter.

And the other moral: Magic is a contest.

Currently, there is one rule that is getting a little more attention than the others: 420.5n.

Now, based on my last statement, I’m forced to assume most of you already know what I’m talking about, but you know what they say about when you assume.  And I would never do that to you.  So here’s the rule:

From magicthegathering.com’s rule center:

420.5n If a permanent has both a +1/+1 counter and a-1/-1 counter on it, N +1/+1 and N -1/-1 counters are removed from it, where N is the smaller of the number of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it.

Sweet, so what’s this mean to us?  If nobody’s ruined the ending for you, it means that a cardlike, say, Juniper Order Ranger, makes persist guys VERY persistent.  And based on that insider information,a new deck was born.  I’ll just show you guys the version that got famous via PT Hollywood youtube videos.  Search 420.5n on youtube to find the video about it (and notice that the video series stole my handle).

Here’s what I’ve reconstructed from that video (go ahead and let me know if I got it wrong, but I’m pretty sure I got it—although the lands may be slightly off):

4 Greater Gargadon

4 Wall of Roots

4 Tarmogoyf

3 Kitchen Finks

3 Murderous Redcap

3 Juniper Order Ranger

3 Cloudthresher

2 Seige-Gang Commander

(26)

4 Into the North

3 Glittering Wish

2 Momentary Blink

2 Primal Command

(11)

2 Reflecting Pool

2 Snow-Covered Forest

1 Snow-Covered Mountain

1 Snow-Covered Island

2 Grove of Burnwillows

2 Battlefield Forge

3 Treetop Village

1 Mouth of Ronom

1 Highland Weald

1 Arctic Flats

1 Boreal Shelf

1 Fungal Reaches

1 Horizon Canopy

1 Wooded Bastion

1 Llanowar Reborn

2 Fire-Lit Thicket

(23)

SB:

1 Kitchen Finks

1 Murderous Redcap

1 Juniper Order Ranger

1 Teferi’s Moat

1 Harmonic Sliver

1 Oversoul of Dusk

1 Wheel of Sun and Moon

3 Firespout

2 Squall Line

3 Vexing Shusher

That was actually pretty hard—I had to do it without any sound, with bad resolution, and while listening to some modern philosophy.  That’s a mental workout.

As he explains in the video, the main combo is Juniper Orde rRanger, Persist, and Greater Gargadon. By activating greater gargadon as many times as you want, you can get that many comes into play abilities from your persisters.  And a huge ranger, which with blink can sometimes be a surprise win.

But as I didn’t have the money or the desire to spend $200 on a small aggro element, and as I am still a control player at heart, I went in search of a bit more inspiration. It was brought to my attention that a “Quick-n-Toast” (video also on youtube) was doing fairly well—at the time it was undefeated—so I went to check that out.  My favorite part of that deck: the mana base.  It allowed for me play my four or five colors without taking up half of the deck on mana-fixing and it cured me of the fear of going basic-less.  Taking one last glance at the PT results, I accepted that ‘lark was to be back in my life, and decided to finally try using one of the most powerful tempo cards I’ve ever been given the chance to wield.

So I made this happen:

4 Greater Gargadon

4 Wall of Roots

4 Kitchen Finks

3 Murderous Redcap

3 Mulldrifter

2 Juniper Order Ranger

1 Body Double

1 Seige-Gang Commander

2 Cloudthresher

2 Reveillark

(26)

3 Glittering Wish

2 Momentary Blink

2 Firespout

2 Garruk Wildspeaker

1 Ajani Goldmane

2 Primal Command

(12)

4 Reflecting Pool

2 Vivid Meadow

2 Vivid Creek

1 Vivid Grove

1 Vivid Crag

2 Treetop Village

2 Horizon Canopy

2 Battlefield Forge

2 Grove of the Burnwillows

1 Wooded Bastion

1 Mystic Gate

2 Fire-Lit Thicket

(23)

SB:

1 Murderous Redcap

1 Juniper Order Ranger

2 Vexing Shusher

1 Firespout

1 Teferi’s Moat

1 Wheel of Sun and Moon

1 Void

1 Curse of Chains

1 Harmonic Sliver

1 Cloudthresher

2 Mindshatter

2 Detritivore

The main differences between our two versions and my reasoning:

Tarmogoyf: He was probably thinking, “It’s one of the best creatures ever printed.  I’m playing green, might as well make that happen.”  I’m sure it wasn’t that simplistic, as he’s in the pro tour and I’m not, he probably had some killer reasons as to why he’s worth playing that I’ve just failed to grasp.  But since bitterblossom is used by the entire world, and I don’t have some chump $200 change, I decided to cut the sillygoyfs.

Reveillark: I am far from the first person to put ‘lark into this deck, but I do love it.  It can save 2/3 of your combo from the graveyard or it can net you huge card advantage with the mulldrifters I also added.  I stuck body double in to be able to combo that guy with the lark and gargadon.  Plus, primal command can get the singleton of the body double and curves nicely into an evoked reveillark.

Garruk: I think I may be the first to stick Garruk into this deck, but I admit I have a very high chance of being wrong.  My reasoning is thus, “Garruk is awesome and he’s green, might as well make that happen.”  Just playing, of course, as this deck is tight for slots, it was a tough decision that I’m proud to have made.  Garruk helps me accelerate into my bigger spells and also gives me guys after a wrath effect.  This, coupled with persist, makes my version pretty strong against many control decks.

Ajani: I don’t just have a thing for plainswalkers, I swear! Ajani was one of the cards I wasn’t really sure on.  Still not completely sold, but that’s alright.  It makes the RDW matchup go from being great to being greater, but most importantly it gives my guys +1/+1 counters.  All of them!  That’s mass pumpage for even more persistent beats.  Again, this allows for recovery and amazing 3-1 trades against creature-based aggro decks.

Vivid over Snow: Snow lands are better fixers on their own, but I prefer the combo of reflecting pool with the vivids over the snows with search.  In testing, I wanted to hit at least six mana, so thinning the deck of lands could become frustrating.  Also, the more colors I try to play, the worse the snowlands get for me, my version is running at least 4 colors.

All of that is fine and dandy, but what does this deck mean to me?  Mostly it means fun, this is a competitive deck, but not the most competitive.  You’d probably be better off taking a different deck to any big tournament for wins, but I’d rather play a fun and competitive deck whenever I can, because 8 round tournaments can be very long otherwise.

Unfortunately, my ability to test is still a little lacking,but as the school year ends soon these can get more precise in a few weeks.  Currently, all I can honestly give is techniques and speculation.

Faeries wasn’t as dominant as some people had expected at PT Hollywood, but I think that one forth of the field is still good representation.  This deck is very much still alive.  My version of 420.5n is probably a little worse off against faeries than the one we started with.  Bummer.  He said it was a hard game, but around 50/50, I’m saying it’s a hard game that is in their favor. Faeries has an easy time dealing with my plainswalkers, and has an easier time countering big spells like body double and reveillark than tarmogoyf.  Also, I chose to dedicate my sideboard spots for big mana and lark over faeries… so that’s not good either.

Reveillark (might as well continue with the hard matchups).  Lark plays like a bad mirror match.  They have less cards dedicated to the combo portion, so they have more space for those counterspells and return my land spells.  You maybe able to catch them off guard with the combo, but the going aggro route is unlikely to work out.  Luckily, primal command has a built-in anti-lark portion to it.  Also, things are meant to get better after boarding with mind shatter and detritivore.  Keeping them off of six mana is important, and forcing one of the other big spells can turn the game.  I’m going to have to test after sideboarding to let you know if it’s enough to help, but I’d say it goes from being a bad matchup to adecent one (around 50/50).

So why would anyone play this deck?

RDW I know manyplayers love red—especially at my store. It also helps that this deck is good against faeries.  It still hasn’t won big tournaments, and now that lark is back and ramp is big it’ll stop getting playing as much, BUT it’s still something I expect to play every time I go to my store.  All that being said, this matchup is a great one for me.  The only card that could possibly mess me up is magus, but that guy is weak against firespout and redcap, so I don’t forsee him being too much of a problem unless I get horrible draws and they get good ones.

Elves come in many flavors.  The toughest one has black, because discard can hurt. The easiest one is mono green, because teferi’s moat is wishable.  Elfball is something I haven’t everplayed against, so I’m not as sure what it entails, but I think I can guess it.  This deck is made against creature-based aggro, and this is the perfect example of why.  Redcaps, firespouts, wall of roots, and persist are all great things against elves.  Even the worst elf matchup is pretty favorable.

Mana Ramp is a somewhat popular deck these days. The RG version is harder to play against than the GW version as it has burn to kill your guys and at the same time it can end the game prematurely.  You’ll both spend the early turns accelerating into mana and then both decide to try and win quickly.  As they are an anti-aggrotype deck, I’d suggest trying to combo out in a turn or two instead of going aggro and winning incrementally. As most of their solutions would be killing your guys, you should probably avoid playing them until they can do something for you.  Depending on the threats they have, you have a few answers including teferi’s moat, curse of chains, void, cloudthresher, and maybe firespout. You may also be able to take the control route.  After sideboarding you gain some more control elements, and can make them discard their answers before you go off or land deprive them to slow down their ramp, and all that.

Doran is another tough matchup.  They run those difficult discard solutions, and also play creatures that are hard to deal with, and can take care of your creatures when they do come into play.  I haven’t played this matchup, but from my experience with other similar matchups, the only way I’ve seen to win wellis to surprise win with a lark or something like that.  I’ve pulled many wins out of my butt with this deck, so this isn’t that weird, but I agree that relying on topdecksis not a good game plan. Unfavorable, before and after board.

Merfolk I think we play this one half way between elves and faeries… which makes it slightly favorable?  You have more chump blockers, and with small guys, these may be trades.  Firespout still rocks. With their counterspell run I feel as though the combo is a little shot in this matchup for the benefit of tempo creatures.  Redcap is good here. And if lark can get successfully get evoked, the tempo from that may just help you pull out the win.

Quick n’ Toast is something I admittedly don’t know too much about.  I know what the list looks like, and how it plays against many popular decks, but what they’d do against me is something I think would be fun to watch on both sides of the table. They have a few counterspells, but I feel I can force spells through to combo out and use my few removal spells to stop them from smashing my face in.  I don’t think the aggro routewill work too well, but that’s tempo cards are always a good idea.

There are tons of other decks out there now, but these are the ones I expect to see most.  If I dumbed it up, let me know.  The idea with this deck is that it wins quickly against any deck if they falter, it has a decent game against some of the major deck types, and has a good game against the other popular trends.  I’m going to play this in my local tournament as it feels like a good deck for an open metagame which, despite Hollywood, we are somewhat left with today.  Also, this deck is fun.  So just like in the youtube video, I’d rather play this than faeries for that reason alone. 

-Nicholas “the_deck_tech” Weiss

Tags: Rules Project J 4205n

Related to: Magic: the Gathering

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