White Light: a Scapeshift Tournament Report

Hey folks!

Today I played Bring to Light Scapeshift to a Top 8 finish at a GP Trial for Melbourne. I had a great day and I was very impressed with how the deck performed, even though I got knocked out in the quarters.

Here's a little report of how I went, and what I thought of it. Any thoughts and insight is appreciated!

First off, here's the list.

***

Round 1 vs UR Eldrazi.

Well, I wasn't looking forward to this. Lost the die roll and I'm staring down a Mimic on turn 1, I play a tapped land and pass. Turn 2 he lands a Thought Knot Seer, sees my land light hand and takes Anticipate, bashes for 4. It carries on like this for a few turns, throwing Steves under big Mimics until he kills me on turn 4. Not a chance.

Game two is a little better. I bring in Fog, which is my tech for Eldrazi, and some more lifegain effects, but I flood out after keeping a safe three-lander and don't see any action. Cryptic Command can only buy you so much time. Dead on turn five. There's forty minutes left in the round so I go get breakfast.

0-1

Round 2 vs Naya Burn.

Shaking off the woeful first round, I lose the die roll and feel pretty gutted when my opponent plays turn one Nacatl off Stomping Ground, so it's either Burn or Zoo, both of which are bad for me. Thankfully he misses his second land drop twice in a row and I decide I need to race, so I tap out turn 3 for Hunting Wilds, go to six lands, he untaps and takes me to 6 with a flurry of burn spells and kitty attacks. I untap, play my seventh land, and Shift for 18 for the win.

Game two, I bring in a ton of Lifegain: three baloths and two pulse of Murasa.

I'm here to tell you that Pulse of Murasa is nuts in this deck. He leads off with a goblin guide, I reveal a land and it helps me ramp into my first Baloth. His Guide hangs back on defense for a while, he tries to throw some more bolts at my face but I'm able to Cryptic, counter and bounce his land, putting him off more spells per turn. Baloth number two comes down. I'm 8 life up. He has an insane turn and double Charms me down to 1, passes, I untap and play Pulse of Murasa gaining 6 and returning Steve. Same turn, I cast Eternal Witness, getting back Pulse. I'm on 7. I bash with Baloths, he blocks and bolts one, killing it. I pulse again, gain 6 return Baloth. He scoops.

1-1

Round 3 vs Elves

Feeling a bit better now, I sit down for my third match and win my first die roll of the day. I start off with suspended Search for Tomorrow into Steve next turn, he plays a few Mystics and Visionaries and on turn 4 he just goes nuts, plays a bunch of Sentinels and Elites and starts gumming up the board. He has about eight bodies on the board. I untap and immediately BTL for a Supreme V. He picks up his dudes before the Verdict even comes down, expecting the wrath. Turn six I combo off and kill him.

Game two is quick. He floods the board with dudes and starts chaining Chords into Visionaries into Elites, lands a Shaman otP and throws me down to 5. He bashes me a few times, fighting through a bunch of Cryptics, and I can't hold them off or find a BTL to get my boarded-in Anger or the maindeck Verdict.

Game three, I draw way too many mountains and a Valakut too early, so I start trying to beat down with a Baloth but he sets up a massive board state and I have to stay back on defense. Next I see Inferno Titan, tap out to play it and kill two of his dudes with the Titan's ETB damage. I start slow-rolling the Valakut triggers once my volcano is online, playing a mountain each turn and turning his dudes into elf-toast. He hits back with Ezuri, I block and he pumps him, making him a gigantic 7/7 thanks to a Lord, gobbling up my Titan. Next turn I see Scapeshift, so I sac just two lands for my last two mountains and fry him.

2-1

***

***

Round 4 vs Abzan

Dude is playing stock Abzan with a light red splash, not entirely sure why but he's a solid player. Things go swimmingly for me as he plays a Rhino and not much else, tries to get a Resto Angel on the field to blink it but I Cryptic it, drawing into Hunting Wilds, which is just gravy because he's at 21 thanks to Rhino. I go Wilds to accelerate into seven lands; next turn he plays another Rhino, goes to 24 and bashes me right down to 3, but I combo out with enough damage to kill the people playing two tables down from us.

Game two he leads strong with birds, turn 3 rhino, but I'm waiting with Remand. Next turn I cast Pulse of Murasa, returning my fetch land, and then Eternal Witness, returning Pulse. He casts Kolaghans Command, choosing discard and shock my Witness. Baloth laughs as he is discarded and lands on the battlefield, gaining me a healthy 4 life buffer. My opponent can't believe it. As luck would have it, I manage to naturally draw Shift with seven lands in play, closing in for the kill.

3-1

Round 5 vs Melira company.

This matchup worries me thanks to its natural game plan of trying to gain heaps of life. Like most decks, if they resolve the combo, I can't win. However thanks to our pairing, we can ID safely and decide to do so, locking us into top 8.

We play a couple of casual matches anyway, and I end up taking the win in both games 1 and 2. Game 1 I set up my ramp with a S4T turn 1, Steve turn 2, Farseek turn 3, hold up Cryptic to stop the Company he is representing, combo off next turn. Game two goes forEVER, we each find what seems like EVERY land in our decks and there's just no action as we have both flooded out. Eventually I find Eternal Witness and I start chaining Pulse of Murasa into Witness into Pulse into Witness into Pulse, gaining an absurd amount of life. He tries to start beating down with some creatures but he can't keep up. I end up sandbagging a few Cryptics and Remands, he fights his way through a few and finally sticks two Finks. Untap, rip Anger off the top and exile them both, along with a few birds. He finds company, gets Viscera Seer and Melira. I slam Inferno Titan next turn, obliterating the Seer and Melia, both of which he sacrifices and shoves something to the bottom. I'm pretty sure I've got him at this point. I pass, he untaps, draws, slams down Anafenza, but the Titan kills her upon attacking and I pump him five times to hit for 11 and kill the opponent.

3-1-1

Quarterfinals vs Kiki chord

I go into the Quarterfinals feeling pretty positive, but I'm seated lower so I'm on the draw. He leads with a birds and passes. I start off wary after seeing the Resto Angel (Remanded) so I know he has the potential to combo if I tap low, though his combo takes more setup than mine. He chords for a main deck Fulminator, destroying my Valakut which I was forced to play as a third land. Anticipate finds me a replacement land but he chords for a Finks next and puts himself above seven-land threshold. I start to panic and tap down his team a few turns in a row (double Cryptic, trying to draw my lands). Ghost quarter. My Hallowed Fountain is gone, shutting me out of double white. I find a basic plains to replace it so I can BTL for four, but of course I draw Supreme Verdict with no way to cast it. And then I really screw up. I play my second Valakut from my hand, and cast Scapeshift - but I miscount how many lands to sac by one (no idea how) and I can only get four mountains. I have five mountains total. No triggers. He kills me next turn.

Game two is horrendous. I'm fuming at my stupid mistake and it puts me off my game. I lead with S4T but he comes out of the gates too fast with a turn 3 Crumble to Dust, taking all of my Stomping Grounds. Thankfully I've boarded out a Shift to make some room for Baloths and Titan, but he Fulminators my Steam Vents and I can't find a third blue for the two Cryptics in my hand. He starts beating down with Angel and I can't get rid of it fast enough. Finally I'm able to bounce it (as much as I hate doing so) but the damage is done. He sticks Pia and Kiran and fills up the board with threats. Desperately, I cast Hunting Wilds for its kicker cost, tapping a groan-worthy 8 mana to do so. I find my two Breeding Pools and turn them into 3/3s to stave off my attackers. I have to block with something or I'm dead. Sadly though it's the last non-land card I see. He swings in with mum & dad, I block and he sacs a thopter to kill the land. My other land blocks a Voice of Resurgence, killing it and he gets a huge elemental token. Next turn, I have a hand full of land, and he's blowing them up faster than I can lay them down. I finally concede to a wall of attackers with just a single blocker.

***

So that was the end of my GP Trial. I'm still kicking myself for screwing up the first game of the quarters, but my opponent was a good player and had tight game so I'm glad he won.

I enjoyed the deck I played and I've heard various people saying they prefer the black splash over the White, for Slaughter Games. I tested black the other day and I much prefer white. Even though our only splash is Supreme V, I think it's better positioned in the meta right now thanks to the abundance of Eldrazi Decks floating around, and the "cannot be countered" clause is great - often, opponents will let us resolve BTL and wait to see what we want to cast off it. This lets us "gotcha" our opponents and ensure we get our wrath in when it matters.

I was stuck with Verdict in hand with no WW on board once or twice, but usually we just BTL for it and it doesn't matter. I don't want to add any more W to the deck as we want our splash to be as minimal as possible, but just a thought.

I'm also trying to think of ways to improve the deck. Here are my initial thoughts from today:

- It would be nice to include an "alternate threat" in the main board that helps us win if Scapeshift isn't an option. What about Mina and Denn Wildborn? They may not seem so impressive at first glance, but they let us play two lands in a turn (faster to either ramp into Shift or polish off wounded opponents with extra Valakut triggers), and they can even return a land to our hands to get more triggers. The 4/4 Body isn't so bad either. Am I crazy, or could the Elf pair be a good addition? By the way, we can BTL for them too. Another option (though not "Bringable") is Pearl Lake Ancient. Near impossible to kill, and we get to reset some more lands for Valakut.

Natural Valakut happens more than you'd expect, so these ways of getting additional triggers sound like an appealing way to kill off our opponents post-Shift.

- I would like to try a single Sphinx's Revelation in place of the Fourth cryptic command. Four commands is good but can be a little clunky at times; Rev gives us a lot of breathing room to dig for Shift and we already run white. 

- It may be correct to run a Temple Garden instead of Hallowed Fountain. Garden fetches off of a Hunting Wilds, but lowers our U count. Then again, we could always switch out the only-sometimes-useful (but sometimes Game saving) Alchemist's Refuge for a third basic Island.

- I like how the deck can race to its combo if needed. Although we are a control deck, we have the ability to go fast into a Shift thanks to S4T on the play and Steve. Even though it's a one-of, Hunting Wilds is a beast of a card, ramping us from 4 to 6, and we can BTL it for acceleration. However, the deck also gets to play the long game with Cryptic and Eternal Witness/Snapcaster. I've heard of some lists running a singleton Gifts Ungiven for value, which I'm not totally unopposed to.

- I didn't really get to cast Electrolyze much today, but I think it needs to stay in the deck. It clears away annoying creatures like Clique and Lingering Souls tokens, and pings out opponent down to 18 if we need to Shift them for lethal; I could also see Bolt in this slot, however.

- Chaining Witness into Pulse into Witness is just busted. If you can keep the "combo" going, it's very hard for opponents to keep up with you. Basically you're just trying to stall out until you can shift for lethal, and this little interaction is amazing. If there was room, I'd jam a copy of Pulse into the main.

- Supreme V in the main over my original Anger of the Gods (now in the side) is definitely the correct call, but it's a meta thing - Anger is better vs Melira, Supreme gets the Merfolk (and can't be Countered) when they're big enough to ignore Anger. I prefer SV at the moment, but they're switchable.

***

Thanks for reading, and I hope this has offered some insight into how the deck plays. Often I found I could safely go down to quite low life totals when I knew I could combo off easily the next turn, but other times, I found that I had to carefully position my life total so as to not be caught out. It's a balancing act, but a rewarding one. I can't wait to get more experienced with the deck and I think it will pay off immensely.

I think BTL Scapeshift White is a very good call at the moment, with only some really bad matches in Burn and Eldrazi. Thankfully Burn is on the down-low at the moment, due to Eldrazi, and the 'Drazi matches aren't unwinnable. Apart from that, this deck has a lot of inevitability and game against the field, and I will definitely be taking this deck to Melbourne GP next month.

See you next time!

Matt

The Evolution of Bant Midrange

Planeswalker (8):
3x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
4x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Creature (12):
4x Sylvan Advocate
3x Wingmate Roc
3x Reflector Mage
1x Archangel of Tithes
1x Den Protector

Enchantment (13):
4x Oath of Nissa
3x Oath of Gideon
1x Oath of Jace
3x Silkwrap
2x Stasis Snare

Instant (2):
2x Secure the Wastes

Land (25):
2x Forest
4x Plains
4x Windswept Heath
4x Flooded Strand
2x Wooded Foothills
3x Canopy Vista
2x Prairie Stream
3x Lumbering Falls
1x Blighted Steppe

Sideboard (15):
1x Dromoka's Command
1x Hallowed Moonlight
3x Surge of Righteousness
1x Archangel of Tithes
2x Den Protector
1x Planar Outburst
3x Negate
2x Valorous Stance
1x Dragonlord Dromoka

--

Hello there!

Today, I'd like to do a bit of a deep dive on a particularly tasty deck I've been tuning over the last few months: Bant Midrange.

If you know me at all, you know it's rare for me to stick to a particular deck. It's probably quite detrimental to my ability to play tight Magic, and I don't know why I do it to myself; perhaps it's the allure of a new and exciting deck each week, the natural incentive to brew... which I then take, unpracticed, to FNM or a GP Trial, go terribly because I haven't put in enough reps with the list, and then decide that I'll have to make a new deck... yeah.

It's a vicious cycle.

And then came Bant.

--

Origins

--

The decklist presented above is my current Standard obsession. It owes itself in part to Sam Black's monstrous Bant Tokens deck from Pro Tour Battle For Zendikar, which had a ridiculously high win rate but failed to make a showing on coverage (due to a poor limited record). Sam's deck played more like a GW control build, favouring cheap removal and blockers until it could finally "combo off" with a bunch of landfall triggers and Retreat to Emeria. It truly was a sight to behold. The deck could sit around and seemingly do nothing for 10 turns, until, all of a sudden, it would generate 20+ damage out of nowhere and kill you.

The list I have been piloting to reasonable success differs substantially from Sam Black's Bant Tokens. Yes, it still packs a punch with four Gideons. Yes, it sports a deep token theme, combining generators with anthems. This list, however, is more focused on playing a midrange game rather than control: lock up the early game with bounce and removal, and then close out the match with powerful Planeswalker effects and top-end flying creatures.

Bant Tokens was strong because the decks played at the time couldn't fight it. Dark Jeskai was king, and Crackling Doom was everywhere. Bant Tokens boasted a natural resistance to spot removal, and when even your strongest creature trumps the best removal spell in standard (Wingmate Roc simply gets to sacrifice his twin token), you get to generate a lot of value simply by playing your own game plan.

But Jeskai has since fallen out of favour, giving rise to even bigger decks (Ramp) and faster decks (Atarka Red). Rally is still huge, and Abzan Aggro is back with a vengeance, often splashing Blue for Reflector Mage and more control. With such a varied array of decks to keep at bay, the slower play of Black's Bant Tokens felt too sluggish. That's why I wanted to devise a list that felt more "classic" Magic: a larger suite of creatures, a slightly lower curve, a smoother game plan.

You could say Bant Midrange deck is, first and foremost, a Planeswalker deck - which is not only super fun as a concept, but also fairly effective against the field. It is also, however, an evolution: an amalgamation of several ideas and concepts, changed and updated through a turbulent standard environment, tweaked and re-tweaked. For the first time, it's a deck I have stuck with, and as my familiarity with the cards grows, so does my confidence in its performance.

(... it also gets to run a bunch of our Walkers' namesake Oaths, which is super flavourful! But enough about that...)

--

Changes

--

The deck went through multiple changes before ending up as the list you see above. For a while, I toyed around with less Gideons, more Archangels, less enchantments, more instant speed removal... Hangarbacks came and went almost daily. Dromoka's Command made frequest visits before being banished to the sidebaord. Finding the correct removal suite for the deck became quite the mission: on one hand, I felt so helpless playing so little instants, but it soon became apparent that the deck's axis teetered carefully on the presence of its top end threats - you often didn't have to remove the odd Rhino or Heir of the Wilds with a spell; this is tokens, after all - stick enough bodies in front of the problem and it goes away. Still, Silkwrap and Stasis Snare have since become all-stars of the deck. Between them, you can remove almost every threat you need to to survive.

Here's what the list used to look like, before its most recent changes:

Planeswalker (5):
1x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
4x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Creature (15):
4x Hangbarback Walker
3x Wingmate Roc
4x Archangel of Tithes
4x Warden of the First Tree

Enchantment (10):
4x Oath of Nissa
4x Silkwrap
2x Stasis Snare

Instant (4):
2x Secure the Wastes
2x Dispel

Land (26):
3x Forest
6x Plains
4x Windswept Heath
4x Flooded Strand
2x Wooded Foothills
3x Canopy Vista
2x Prairie Stream
1x Lumbering Falls
1x Blighted Steppe

Sideboard (15):
3x Hallowed Moonlight
4x Surge of Righteousness
2x Den Protector
1x Planar Outburst
2x Negate
2x Valorous Stance
1x Linvala, the Preserver

As you can see, there are a number of problems with this prior iteration.

1. We have far too many Archangel of Tithes. It's a good card, and useful to stack those combat taxes together, often making it impossible for your opponent to attack, but too many awkward opening hands meant that dropping the Angel to a more sensible amount became very likely.

2. We are running Dispel, as per Sam Black's old list, with no real reason. Dispel was so good in Black's list because it protected his "combo" - Retreat to Emeria was incredibly soft to Dromoka's Command. Here, though, we aren't running that enchantment, and we would rather not dilute our game plan with Dispel in the maindeck.

3. Twenty six lands is way too much, especially with four Oath of Nissa in the deck. Oath of Nissa helps us fix shaky opening hands, which means we have some protection against flood - however, we are better off shaving a land and using Oath to find us one, rather than ship three to the bottom.

--

... taking these points into account, what did the deck need to change?

Lower curve. Looking back up to our final list, you can see that we've had to protect our early game against some of the meta's faster threats, so we have knocked off some top end in favour of a more tempo-driven low end: bringing in Reflector Mage and Sylvan Advocate means we can curve more aggressively and keep our opponents on the back foot while we set up a secure board state. 

We've also gone down to 25 lands, as stated above.

Sylvan Advocate comes in to tap out Hangarback Walker - while there are many, many arguments for running the Construct over our Elf Ally, I found HBW to be far too slow in the current build. Yes, he synergises much better with Nissa than Advocate does, but playing on curve means we miss too many Hangarback Level-Ups, which is something I wanted to avoid. It helps that Advocate is just so strong in its role - he can attack and still defend our Planeswalkers' loyalty, and he makes our Lumbering Falls gigantic (5/5 hexproof, anyone?). 

Card selection. The newest addition to the deck was an interesting one: a singleton Oath of Jace. And I've gotta say, it's a star. While it may seem lacklustre at first, I quickly found that OoJ gave us a little extra draw power and a lot of extra card selection in the late game. In a deck where it's trivially easy to land between one and three Planeswalkers a game, Scry 1 or Scry 2 on upkeep is absurdly powerful. Like Thassa in Theros block, finding what we need when we need it is crucial to keeping our train going - and Oath of Jace works wonders when we're online with Gideon and friends.

More Planeswalkers. Taking advantage of our high-density of Oaths means playing more Planeswalkers. Our Planeswalkers are our mid-game haymakers, so we want to maximise their impact and the chance of getting them on curve. You'll also notice an unexpected visitor in our refined list: Sorin! I experiemented with adding B producing lands for a long time, but found it too taxing on a manabase that wants GG and then WW on turns 3 and 4. But here's the sweet part: you don't need B to cast Sorin. With four Oath of Nissa in our deck, Sorin becomes a breeze to get into play, and paired with Oath of Gideon, he's a nightmare to deal with: Oath of Gideon in play and a plus on Sorin puts our solemn friend at six loyalty immediately, meaning he is ready to ultimate the very next turn. This is something many decks in the format simply cannot deal with, and the emblem will often just win games.

"This deck needs... re-vamping."

The last obvious change we have made is moving a Den Protector to the mainboard, which eases the pain of discarding to Oath of Jace, and gives us some longevity.

--

Evolution

--

Bant Midrange is a deck I am always excited to play with - and sticking with the deck for a period of a few months has allowed me to study how it plays, how it wins, and how it loses, and tweak the list as needed. As I played it more and more, I noticed my win percentage go way up, as it would for anyone who familiarises themselves with a deck.

I feel like the extended relationship I have had with the deck has allowed me greater success, ironed out some piloting issues I was having with other, less familiar decks, and given me a chance to really appreciate the archetype from several new angles. Bant Midrange isn't at the top of the tiers, but it is powerful enough to duke it out with the big boys, and I believe it will stay relevant as we move into a Khans-less standard come April.

What does the future hold for Bant? Shadows Over Innistrad is likely to bring some serious graveyard interaction with it - along with Madness, one of my favourite mechanics - so perhaps it's time to reintroduce Deathmist Raptor and her Megamorphin' friends to the family. Linvala, the Preserver could always make a return - she doesn't seem super well positioned right now, but given the right context, I could see her making the team.

If you are usually the type of person who jumps from deck to deck, I'd like to encourage you to do as I have done and stick with a list for as long as you can. Do you like control? Play control! Are you an aggro player? Play those burn spells! The allure of the new deck is tantalising, but if you hone your skills in a certain area, I guarantee you your win percentage will go up too. As someone who jumps around from deck to deck each week, I have rarely had the chance to master a certain list. I would love to know what that feels like, and each time I revisit this list and strive to perfect it, I inch my way closer to that feeling. Sure, playing the same deck can get a little boring at times, but stick with it, and I promise you you'll see results. All the pros say the same thing - practice makes perfect!

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions on the deck.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time.

Matt

Brewt Force: Ayli Control

Brewt Force! Geddit??

Amazing puns aside, hello and welcome to Brewt Force, where I'll be taking some more obscure ideas from our Magic card pools and expanding upon them to come up with new and interesting decks.

This week: Ayli Control, the competitive lifegain deck for Standard!

Wait, what?

A competitive lifegain deck in standard? Give me a minute; allow me to explain. I promise I'm not crazy.

I, like many others, loved the idea of a lifelink-style deck back when I first started playing Magic. And, like many others, I was soon conditioned out of the notion - lifegain-based strategies tend to lack a real game-plan, as they don't deal with the increasing number of threats presented by the opponent. They don't do anything to actually get the opponent dead, or get their creatures off the table. It's a stall tactic, and one that inevitably runs out of steam sooner than the player would like.

There have been somewhat-competitive lifegain decks in Modern, such as Soul Sisters - a deck that congratulates players for having large amounts of life thanks to cards like Serra Ascendant. So, why hasn't there been such a deck in standard? The answer: before now, there hasn't been much - if any - payoff for gaining lots of life, outside of merely padding yourself against creature beatdown or the Atarka Red matchup.

I've been testing the following deck to reasonable success and I'm happy to say that, finally, it may be time to start brewing with lifegain in a competitive light once again.

So, let's jump right into it!

What is Ayli Control?

Ayli Control is a deck I've designed that leverages high-density lifegain with board control and efficient Abzan beaters. It's a more controlling take on the traditional Junk list that has been present throughout Khans standard. Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim is the core of our deck, and the namesake of our strategy.

Ayli gives us early protection against creatures thanks to her Deathtouch ability, meaning she trades with almost anything. She also has a nice X/3 toughness, which can protect her against a fair chunk of the format's removal, and many cheap threats. But what she really does is gain us a lot of life, and, once we hit 30, we can start erasing the opponent's board and begin to take over. She is an essential piece of hardware and she is super easy to get online. This deck is trying to do two things throughout the game:

1. Put our life total out of reach. This is an effective strategy against many of the more popular decks in the format right now: it gives us lots of breathing room vs Rally triggers, means we can't get one-shotted by the rampaging R/B Dragons deck haymaker (read: Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury), and it is hilariously good against Atarka Red, which is surging in popularity thanks to Reckless Bushwhacker and friends taking advantage of the slower decks in the format.

2. Set up our board. The deck wins via a combination of a repeatable Vindicate effect and a mass of tokens, which can often simply alpha strike a win out of nowhere. Wall of Resurgence often buys us so much time in the early game, even against the biggest, baddest beaters of the format, such as Reality Smasher and Rhino, that we can set up our army without fear of getting run over by larger threats.

We can also sneak out wins with the very cute but still very effective Felidar Sovereign, though this isn't preferred - it's mainly a way to break through stalled board states and occasionally nab a game once an opponent's kill spells have been exhausted.

So, in a nutshell: Ayli Control is an Abzan variant that tries to lock up the early game and then eventually overwhelm the opponent with a mass of value-generating creatures, repeatable kill spells, and an unreachable lifetotal.

Why play Ayli Control?

More specifically, your question might be, "Why not just play Abzan midrange?"

1. Ayli Control has better game vs Aggro. Game 1 is a lot easier for us with 3 mainboard Feed the Clan and our ridiculous amount of lifegain. Atarka's Command is a beating, but that card is good no matter what, and we still pack a higher density of life gaining solutions.

2. Ayli Control has better longevity. It is quite easy to "soft lock" the opponent out of the game with Alyi + Gideon's constant stream of tokens to sacrifice. Our walls block almost all of the threats that Abzan Aggro can deploy, with natural immunity to Abzan Charm to boot.

On top of these two big reasons, we can simply just play an Abzan Midrange game as the situation calls for it, as we still run many of the major Abzan threats that our midrange cousins employ: we are a synergistic deck that doesn't sacrifice power for our combo, and that's what keeps us competitive.

The Deck.

Here is the list I have been testing and tuning. The most recent iteration is as follows.

Creatures
4 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
4 Wall of Resurgence
4 Siege Rhino
4 Hangarback Walker
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Lantern Scout
1 Felidar Sovereign

Spells
3 Abzan Charm
3 Feed the Clan
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Secure the Wastes
2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor

Lands
1 Blighted Steppe
3 Canopy Vista
4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
2 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
2 Sandsteppe Citadel
4 Shambling Vent
2 Sunken Hollow
2 Swamp
4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard
3 Orator of Ojutai
1 Infinite Obliteration
2 Silkwrap
1 Negate
3 Surge of Righteousness
2 Languish
1 Exert Influence
2 Den Protector

Let's go through some of the card choices.

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim.The staple of our deck. Legendary, but we want to see her always, and early, so we run 4. Don't underestimate how powerful her second ability can be: exiling nonland permanents, often generating value at the same time (sacrificing a Hangarback or a free token via Gideon) and not using a card is what puts this deck over the top in the late game. You'll often get to the point where you can activate her twice in a turn.

Wall of Resurgence. A fat 0/6 blocker that puts itself in front of nearly every relevant ground-based threat in the game. Early on, we like to avoid making our lands killable, so I would advise against just slamming down counters on your only B source every time you play your wall; however, late game, getting some counters on our Shambling Vent and turning it into a 5/6 Lifelinking beatstick is no joke. WoR is also one of our primary targets for Ayli's sacrifice effect: block an attacker, sacrifice EoT and gain 6 life is the fastest way to accelerate into Ayli's second ability outside of a supercharged Feed the Clan.

Siege Rhino. I don't really have to explain why Rhino is here, do I? He applies pressure, he's another source of lifegain, and he turns on our ferocious Feed the Clan, which is one of our most important spells.

Hangarback Walker. Second best target for Ayli's sacrifice effect. Gain some life, make a bunch of flying blockers!

Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Taz gives us another way to get Feed the Clan online, survives post-board languish, roadblocks a bunch of ground threats in the format, comes down for B, and draws us cards: he's the definition of a resilient control threat.

Lantern Scout. Establish a board and then slam down a Scout for a temporary Sorin effect - this little guy can either be fantastic or a waste of a turn, so make sure you're working around him and you plan to get a big turn out of his ability. Leagues better if you can pair him Gideon, as the Allies Gideon provides offer a constant Lifelink buff to your team.

Felidar Sovereign. Too cute? Maybe. But if you're stalled out and the game goes long, offering your opponents an "Answer this or die" situation isn't out of the question. He also has a nice body and works towards his own win condition, which is gravy. It's not a big ask to get to 40 life with this deck, so the Cat Beast is staying for now, even if he's just a one-of.

Abzan Charm.Super versatile and powerful kill spell/draw spell/pump spell, rolled into one cheap package.

Feed the Clan. One of the more surprising inclusions in any maindeck; in this shell, it's right at home. Turning on Ferocious isn't too difficult, as we have Rhino, Anafenza, and mid-combat Gideon to do the trick (Sorin + Lantern Scount also gets us there). Necessary card to push us over Ayli's threshold so we can start exiling things and then it's lights out for our opponent.

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Big Giddy himself. Gideon wins game, plain and simple. In this shell, he gives us the added bonus of offering us free Ayli fodder. Not much else to be said here.

Secure the Wastes. a.k.a. Instant-Speed Elspeth. We can often finish the game with a big X of 6-7 and then swing in with a Gideon Emblem or Sorin +1 in play to go wide. Fantastic insurance against boardwipes. Provides lots of food for Ayli.

Sorin, Solemn Visitor. If Ayli is the engine of this deck, Sorin is the fuel. His team-wide Lifelink boost often gains us absurd amounts of life and he can often sit behind a couple of [card=Wall of Resurgence]Walls[/card] and win the game with an Emblem much easier than in other decks, where he might be a little more vulnerable.

Matchups

It is my genuine opinion that Ayli Control has great game against most of the field. Through several rounds of testing, tuning the deck, and making subtle changes to the core of our list, here is what I've found:

vs. Atarka Red: Favoured
Scoring game 1 vs Red is a huge boon, and we have a much easier game 1 than most vs. Standard's premier aggro deck, for obvious reasons: our absurd amount of Lifegain puts us way out of reach and Abzan Charm gets rid of massive 10/10 Double Striking Swiftspears, and whatever else they can throw at you. If we start off too slow we can get unlucky, but for the most part, stealing game 1 is huge for us.

vs. Abzan Aggro/Midrange: 50/50
Abzan Aggro can curve out beautifully and sometimes, they just have all the kill spells. If they kill our walls and get through with a Rhino or Gideon, it can be hard to recover, but generally speaking we should be able to stabilise if we can land a Sorin early and start outclassing their threats.

vs. R/B Dragons: Slightly Unfavoured
With such a massive amount of flyers, R/B Dragons can often come out of the gates too fast for us to put ourselves out of reach of the dreaded Kolaghan Dash Attack. Thunderbreak is a beating, and even Flamewake Phoenix and get in 2 two many points of damage and put us within lethal of the alpha strike. Game 2 get a whole lot better for us, when we bring in Surge of Righteousness, Orators, and Den Protector to recur our efficient removal and lifegain.

vs. Eldrazi Ramp: Slightly Favoured
Though I didn't believe it myself at first, beating ramp simply comes down to playing Abzan midrange like Abzan midrange does. Present a fast clock and apply pressure, and you should be okay. Game 2 gets a lot easier as we can streamline our process, dropping Walls for Negate and Infinite Obliteration.

vs. Rally: Favoured
Rally takes a while to get going, and playing a larger mass of tokens means we have natural resilience against Reflector Mage and targeted removal. We can often get ourselves up and beyond 30 life well before they're ready to combo off, even with Zulaport chipping in each turn for a few points.

***

Ayli Control is a new and interesting take on Abzan and I encourage you to give it a try. It is easy to dismiss a lifegain strategy as a cute janky deck without much competitive appeal. Combine that strategy, however, with a payoff card like Ayli, and you end up with a control list that has some serious game against the big boys of standard. Sleeve it up and give it a go, and may the brews be with you!

As always, I'd love to hear your constructive feedback and suggestions as I continue tuning the deck.

Thanks!

Resisting Reflector Mage in Standard

Today, I want to talk about standard's newest poster-child.

Reflector Mage
1WU
Creature - Human Wizard

When ~ enters the battlefield, return target creature an opponent controls to its owner's hand. That creature's owner can't cast spells with the same name as that creature until your next turn.

This thing is everywhere. From local PPTQs to the SCG Open, Reflector Mage has been dominating the battlefield, and for good reason: it's one of the best tempo plays you can be casting at the moment. Let's talk why, and, more importantly, how you can play a game that's resistant to this sneaky little 2/3.

Reflector Mage poses the biggest threat when he appears at instant speed, but even at sorcery speed he can throw games in just a few turns. The most common ways players have been casting R-Mage have been off of Collected Company and Rally the Ancestors. Thankfully, we can combat these decks the way we always have - Dispel and Hallowed Moonlight provide us with two cheap interactions to combat instant-speed creature flood. We saw how potent these strategies have been over the last weekend, when both 4c Rally and Bant Company quickly became a Reflector Mage mirror. Shutting an opposing threat down for not one, but two turns, can be back-breaking.

Here's what you can do to lessen the Wizard's impact on your board.

1. Punish their choices. Thunderbreak Regent is a strong choice against creatures that rely on targeting effects like Reflector Mage. Bolting your opponent for targeting an efficient threat like Regent will keep pressure on your opponents' life total.

2. Play a "residual value" game. Creatures that leaves tokens or bodies
behind upon leaving or entering the battlefield (not death triggers!) are inherently better against bounce triggers, as you retain residual value. Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Thopter Engineer, Wingmate Roc and Catacomb Sifter are all value bodies that leave behind a token upon entering, meaning that, even if they get Reflected, you still have a token left behind to either ramp you (Scion) or pressure (Thopter/Bird).

3. Get value out of ETB and Cast Effects. I don't really have to convince anyone here to play Siege Rhino. Similar to point 2, playing creatures with ETB and On Cast effects, even if they don't leave a body behind, means that Reflector Mage pilots will have to consider if bouncing your creature - even for two turns - is worth what its recasting will bring about. This is especially true of ramp's hardest hitters, such as World Breaker and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.

    

4. Morph creatures. Morph creatures have a sort of "get out of jail free" card up their sleeve when it comes to card-names-matter effects - casting a creature as a 2/2 means it doesn't retain its face-up name as you play it, so bouncing a Den Protector or Raptor isn't the end of the world. Even if they Reflect a face-down morph creature, you can still cast the face-up or face-down version of it again, because the morph creature doesn't have a name (it's a nameless, typeless 2/2 creature) and therefore can't have this particular casting restriction placed upon it. That said, GW Megamorph and decks in that vein have a rough time against instant-speed decks such as CoCo and Rally - but if Abzan Blue starts to kick up again, with its 3-4 maindecked copies of R-Mage, you may find that keeping your cards face-down is the way to go.

5. Don't overcommit. Playing a Hardened Scales or Counters-based deck opens you up to getting super out-valued when it comes to bouncing creatures. Hangbarback Walker loses all its counters, making those turns spent building up useless. Overcommitting to a beatstick with counters or enchantments is rarely a viable tactic in competitive environments outside of special circumstances (infect gets Rancor, which returns itself to your hand, and Bogles uses Hexproof threats coupled with Totem Armor that stick around after board wipes). If you're a fan of such strategies, like the Hardened Scales deck, be aware that you're going to lose a lot of time when Reflector Mage sends your 5/5 trample with 10 counters on it back to your hand.

6. If you can't beat them... perhaps one of the more potent ways to beat Reflector Mage is to play it yourself. Playing a deck at instant-speed such as Collected Company or Rally variants means that you can often play around the Mage ("put a creature onto the battlefield" is not casting it) and get bounced creatures back down fast. Andy Ferguson recently piloted a slick Bant Company deck to 2nd place success at the SCG Open in Columbus with 4 copies of Reflector Mage (alongside 4 copies of Bounding Krasis) to act as his "disruption package". As I'm sure you're aware, it kinda worked out for him.

This may seem like a lot of discussion around just one card - you can't play around everything all of the time - but with the sheer numbers this little Wizard has been putting up, I think it's beneficial to look at ways to resist its impact.

Until next time!

Opening Hands

Hey there!

Bolt Snap Bolt is my new little corner to write about anything Magic: the Gathering related, with a focus on strategy, card reviews, deck reviews, competitive learning, and player improvement. I hope you like it here.

I've been playing Magic for just over a year, and, as such, I'm still quite new to the game - I began playing as Khans was about to drop, sat in on my first FNM at the end of Theros/RTR standard, and played a horrible, clunky, hilariously bad UB Mill deck. As a friend of mine so aptly put it, my first experience of playing Magic beyond the kitchen table was, "brutally educational".

Soon after, I was hooked on becoming better. I wanted to push myself into the competitive realm, learn from the best, play against the best, beat the best. But I had - and still have - a long, long way to go. That's why I made this blog. I wanted to have a place to vent my thoughts, leave comments on new cards, discuss possibilities and interactions, judge rulings, interesting mechanics, and other such bites of information. Bolt Snap Bolt is a place for fellow Magic: the Gathering enthusiasts to discuss the game on the competitive level, and have fun doing so.

As such, I'm going to have a bunch of guest writers submit articles for this site, and I'd love to hear from you if you would like to contribute. MtG is a community driven game, and we can all learn from one another. Shoot me an email if you want in, and I'll do my best to get back to you ASAP.

My hope is that this blog promotes healthy discussion and debate, offers insight, and provides a new look at some of Magic's most compelling aspects.

Shuffle up. Let's begin.