Written by ShadowS on October 28, 2006
Standard Tech: Mana Ramp
by ShadowS
As soon as TS came out here on the league, we all scrambled for the next big deck. Just like any rogue deck builder, I had one or two or twenty ideas to try. BW aggro and Zoo were among the greater successes. But it all seemed fleeting. Zoo was inconsistent, and BW just didn't want to go the extra mile against anything that could TD a draw spell.
So after a lot of frustrating losses, I decided it was time to netdeck and get to know my upcoming metagame. The deck I had enjoyed the most was one UGW control. Unlike the dominate UW control, it played enjoyable mid-game threats along with the latter game winners and the possible dump and reanimate styling of Solar Flare. I found it to curve in an enjoyable way. Any successful rogue deck creator should be able to gain inspiration from other aspiring decks, and this was mine.
But for some reason, I was very obsessed with Farseek. The deck ran no signets and only four Farseeks, and every time I drew one the entire match was better. Not only did I get the option to wrath on turn two, but I could also drop a Loxodon Hierarch or Faith’s Fetters. While I played this deck, I still continued my rogue-deck building. En queue:
| GW Control | ||
|---|---|---|
| Main Deck | Sideboard | |
|
3 Sacred Mesa 4 Call of the Herd 4 Supply // Demand 2 Loxodon Hierarch 4 Wrath of God 4 Farseek 4 Search for Tomorrow 4 Faith's Fetters 3 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree |
2 Ghost Quarter 3 Terramorphic Expanse 4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss 2 Flagstones of Trokair 4 Plains 5 Forest 4 Brushland 4 Temple Garden |
2 Loxodon Hierarch 3 Condemn 4 Defense Grid 1 Sacred Mesa 3 Life from the Loam 2 Ghost Quarter |
I had decided to focus on the four casts and mana ramping from the standard GUW control. This was effectively the third or fourth version. The first one ran fourth Panglacial Wurms, which for some reason I didn’t like at first. The sideboard was very messy. A lot of my non-blue control decks end up with Defense Grid, but in testing, they always suck. I wanted to try a loam-quarter combo in the sideboard that would combine with my flagstones and expanses. I came across the perfect Solar flare match up, and started the engine on turn six. After removing all his basic land I still lost. I couldn’t play any threats, and his draw and signets excelled him past the LD anyways. Condemn seemed needless. The deck can deal with first turn apes with Wrath of God or by slapping down Hierarchs.
The red splash has strange reasoning behind it. It had nothing to do with the now standard four copies of Demonfire in the maindeck. It started from a single casual match with a black weenie deck, when GW control met its worse nightmare: Knight of Stomgald. He was forcing Wraths by himself. Unlike the Dauthi Slayers in his deck, Condemn and Fetters did nothing. He ran right through Hierarch, jumped over tokens, and started me on a clock from turn two. After a very brutal beat down from those weenies, one spell kept running through my head: Pyroclasm. The red splash was entirely for the sideboard initially, bu
t after some very sub-par results from Supply//Demand, I thought I’d give two Demonfires a shot in the sun.Back into the casual match ups I went. I had no problems securing my red mana with all my searchers, and every time I drew Demonfire in testing I seemed to just win. Other than mesa, it continuously ended all my games. It earned its four slots in a hurry. Land changes came after, outing the Ghost Quarters, which, since tron was never played, really did nothing. Even hitting a bounce land did such a small result that it wasn’t worth the occasional hand full of colorless mana. Then the lone Panglacial rejoined the deck as a desperation tutor tactic.
Now I was getting some real results, and after the desperate plummet my rating was taking, I was climbing my way back up. I seemed to have a decent match up against most of the metagame. Burn based weenie aggro seemed to dislike my multiple life gain, Call of the Herd tokens and the staple Wrath of God. Larger aggro disliked having to over commit because of a token creating land. Control just had no idea I was going to pull a 9/5 trampler who doesn’t care about condemn at end of turn followed by an uncounterable burn spell for eight or more damage. The results prompted me to share with my teammates, where long time friend Dv8r picked it up and tested it. Like he said, it satisfied his inner timmy. He took a real shining to the deck, and after some bad luck of his own in the new Standard and dropping to a low he had not seen for a long time, he seemed to be ramping his rating back up.
So after a t2 trial placing (he refused to draw Wrath in game two and three of the finals), a nice high place 5-0 no max win by Pollo and some long arduous discussion, a final version of Mana Ramp was made:
| Mana Ramp | ||
|---|---|---|
| Main Deck | Sideboard | |
|
4 Demonfire 2 Panglacial Wurm 2 Sacred Mesa 4 Call of the Herd 4 Loxodon Hierarch 4 Wrath of God 3 Faith's Fetters 4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss 4 Farseek 4 Search for Tomorrow 4 Temple Garden |
2 Sacred Foundry 1 Stomping Ground 1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Le 4 Forest 2 Flagstones of Trokair 2 Plains 1 Mountain 1 Pendelhaven 4 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree 3 Terramorphic Expanse |
2 Pyroclasm 2 Indrik Stomphowler 2 Ancient Grudge 4 Wreak Havoc 4 Giant Solifuge 1 Faith's Fetters |
Matchups:
Zoo/Gruul/KBBK
Pre-SB: 75/25
Post SB: 75/25
The match is very similar before and after sideboarding. The exact same strategy is applied, except you don’t waste time with acid-moss and have to deal with Solifuges. Of course, you can bring in some of your own. KBBK is even a tad easier as it tries to use land destruction on you, and it really can’t.
GW Glare
Pre-SB: 50/50
Post SB: 50/50
Before the SB, being unable to take out Glare with anything but Fetters is okay, but it still offers you the chance to win. So long as they are not too aggressive and you get some mana to get a Mesa going, you can win. Post-sideboard you have the extra Indriks to take out glare, and they can’t board in enough Krosans to take out all your threatening enchantments. The Pyroclasm also serves as strong tempo and threats. But they can do the same to you, so they reaffirm themselves as a threat.
Solar Flare/Pox Flare
Pre-SB: 65/35
Post-SB: 75/25
Solar Flare has its usual power that it always has; however, it doesn’t stop the end game Demonfires at all and is very slow to do anything about them. End of turn Panglacial Wurms can destroy flare if they decided to tap down for something silly like akroma, who may get a fetters attached to her person. You always keep flare on their toes, and acid-moss shines on bouncelands. Without drawing into a Demonfire, this match becomes much longer and painful, but because you pack four wraths and three Faith’s Fetters pre-sideboard, you tend to be able to draw into lands and fires and grab the eventual win. After sideboarding the match improves greatly because Wreak Havoc, signet destruction, acid-moss and Solifuges take over the tempo. I have never actually lost to flare yet with mana ramp.
UW Control
Pre-SB: 60/40
Post SB: 75/25
UW control is a stronger counter-control with instant speed draw. At the start game, you have to continuously lay threats and run them out of resources. The game will be very tough going in the start with most early threats easily neutralized by UW. However, any landed Mesa end game or vitu-tokens followed by a Demonfire can cause a scoop. After sideboarding the same cruelty that Flare has to put up with is applied to UW.
UG Aggro
Pre SB: 50/50
Post SB: 50/50
This match is essentially a, “Who wins the coin flip match.” A second turn Ohran viper followed by counters and constant aggression forces the win. If you go first, you are able to respond to each threat they play with a counterforce of your own and end up taking control in the end, forcing some card advantage. After sideboarding the Pyroclasms are helpful in this match up. Look to resolve a mid-game mesa and milk it if they choose not to play looter-cloak.
Dragonstorm and other Combo
Pre SB: 20/80
Post SB: 20/80
You are unfortunately a bye for them. All those good match ups had to make you weak somewhere. You have no counters, no hand disruption, and no room in your SB unless this deck starts really increasing in popularity. All you can do is try and gain a lot of life, and hope to wrath. Use ancient grudge to try and slow down their lotus. Other than that, good luck.
As you can see, other than the combo matches, this deck has at least a 50/50 match up with the metagame. Dv8r proudly top 8ed his states, losing to none other than Dragonstorm. Props to him for some added tech and to KriswithaK for the support in deck building and having faith in me. I hope for nothing than to have made my small impact on the metagame and that some inner timmys have been satisfied.
And a special mention to you rogue deck builders, one in every twenty-five jank decks you make has got to have something to it.
-ShadowS
_Gonzalo_ on 2006-10-29 00:01 EDT First!
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Craze on 2006-10-29 00:06 EDT good article, bad deck
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tprestage on 2006-10-29 00:31 EDT Third. Good article, fun and good deck.
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Pollo on 2006-10-29 00:34 EDT same thing I said first time I saw it, but rly deck is good ;/
And where is the monogreen matchup analysis heh ? you have fear to say its awful !?!? or what
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dv8r on 2006-10-29 01:36 EDT firstly, I'm going to have to disagree slightly with the ug matchup analysis, that's closer to 40/60 against, and it might be worse. also, note that the sideboard is very metagame dependant, and besides 4 solifuges, 4 wreck havoc and enough fetters/hierarch to go to 4 in total, the rest is open for your choosing, at states I ran gaea's blessing side (for countering reanimation or just reshuffling wurms late game) and wall of roots as a 2 of main, but the base of the deck remains the same, elephant beats and wurms, mesas and demonfire finishers. wurm especially is an mvp, turning your late game land search into threats and being "immune" to condemn.
the next thing to note is that the deck is primarily a demonfire deck, everything else is focused on getting your opponent within range of a demonfire, even if this means overcommitting into wrath etc. (with so much land filtering and pseudo wurm tutoring, you draw well late game)
as a rule of thumb, I think it's pretty safe to say that this deck beats aggro and control, but loses to combo, and dislikes aggro-control, so bare that in mind if your meta is heavy dragonstorm or ug fish and play something else, if not this is a great deck, and great fufn to play, just be prepared to shuffle a lot.
Pollo: mono green beats seemed like such a bad deck that I didn't bother testing it before champs, my one loss in the swiss was to mono green elves (in round 4), so maybe the deck is better than I give it credit for. maybe you should test vs it and give me tech ;)
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Linkman on 2006-10-29 01:42 EDT Also, how can you play Wrath on turn 2?
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P_P4E on 2006-10-29 02:12 EDT no pox (mono black) matchup, no boros, no french uw weenie, no white weenie, no white tron, NO TRON, no uwg counter post/flare variants, no black red aggro, no fungus fire.... you get the picture
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indie on 2006-10-29 03:53 EDT how exactly is the WU control match similar to flare match? altough i didnt test the deck I dont see how exactly can u stand a chance against UW. what is this "lay early threats" crap? you have no early threats besides hirarch, which will get countered among anything else you can possibly do. you describe the match as if it was goldfish. UW draws alot and will always have counters for your small amount of threats, fatters for your vitu-ghazy, and chances are the start beating you up with mesa/urza/akroma way before you get your demonfire. after SB they just play 3-4 ivory mask and goldfish your ass till you die.
you know, when analizing a post SB match, remember your opponent got a SB as well. for some reason most articles in here ignore that fact.
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Blah234 on 2006-10-29 06:36 EDT Well said, indie
I tried to explain to them but obviously they think the deck is tier 1. Well then again dv8r also thinks Smallpox decks and Zoo are tier 1 so you can't really take them seriously.
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Vimes on 2006-10-29 06:50 EDT by Craze on 2006-10-29 00:06 EST
good article, bad deck
I find it interesting that you are so quick to judge this deck bad, when the Fungus Fire deck you wrote an article about with Guildpact coming out did essentially the same thing. Only worse.
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DESTRUCTOR on 2006-10-29 07:11 EDT by P_P4E on 2006-10-29 02:12 EST
no pox (mono black) matchup, no boros, no french uw weenie, no white weenie, no white tron, NO TRON, no uwg counter post/flare variants, no black red aggro, no fungus fire.... you get the picture
IDEM.
You just loss against any deck that runs 8 or more counters (tron, UW, MUC, UG aggro-control and maybe UW wennie)
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Spyx on 2006-10-29 08:25 EDT nice article
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Blah234 on 2006-10-29 08:28 EDT dv8r and ShadowS reasoning is that vs Counter decks, "Oh, I have 4 Demonfire, and mana accel, I win"
=\ They obviously don't know that it's not that easy.
1. They don't have draw so they'll have to draw Demonfires manually.
2. If they draw only 1 Demonfire, they'll have to have 21 mana sources and an empty hand to win (Not to mention of the Control deck has life gain). If they draw 2 (Yea drawing 2 isn't so easy with no card draw) they'll have to hellbent both. And they expect to do this before the Control play throws down and win condition and wins the game. Also, cards like Remand and Repeal make hellbent not so easy to get.
3. Since your aggro cards are only Coth and Hierarch, you don't put much pressure on the Control player and they can easily stabilize and take over. UW Control with both U and W Control components (Repeal, counters, Wrath, etc). Tron will set u back in mana (Yea you might have mana accel but you're still set back from having lethal Demonfire or Wurm mana, and then they flash out Hellkites to rape you.
4. Fungus Fire. Ouch. They have tons of life gain so I don't think you should be counting on that Demonfire. But you prob won't even make it to Demonfire mana when they also have mana accel and recurring win condition and did I mention a tutor in Forger and the life gain?
Yea Acid-Moss can be good and it is a good tempo swing if played on turn 3-4, but since you're not really a LD deck and you're not a deck that wins fast, it isn't as damaging.
Oh yea, Flare will Persecute you for White eliminating any control sources you have and/or win conditions then beat down with a recurred beater.
Now, I heard you guys talk in the channel about how you "Omg, I never lost to Flare or UW" and "Omg I just won a mini". I say "Yea so what? Have you played a GOOD UW Control/Flare player. There's me, sui, pG, Kaesh, etc." and I also say "When did winning a M-L mini mean anything?"
dv8r also told me "OMG Wurm is invincible to Condemn and I can do EOT Wurm and win vs UW Control". I just sighed. I guess he doesn't realize UW Control runs counterspells and if they know you have Wurm mana available along with a Terramorphic Expanse why would they tap out? The same reason they don't tap out vs U/X deck with Teferi mana. And also, even if you do get it out, they can simply Wrath/Fetter it...
...Also did I mention that UW vs Ramp, since UW has card draw and you aren't that high on threats, they will draw more answers than you have threats?
I've ranted long enough. I don't wanna waste my time on this thing. Time to eat some breakfast.
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SkaTista on 2006-10-29 08:59 EDT Good article. \o/ \o/
Goods matchs. good deck. =P
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Burnin on 2006-10-29 09:04 EDT Why no Dryad? It searches land, either for you or for Forestwalk, and its an early beater which you'll probably need against Control matchups.
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kikimikejiki on 2006-10-29 11:38 EDT `Not only did I get the option to wrath on turn two
how can u possibly do this.... o and yea good deck still btw
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ShadowS on 2006-10-29 12:44 EDT You can't wrath on turn 2, lol, that is a typo. I was in a rush to make this article and I'm accually displeased with it. I should never write before I have to go out the door.
Dryad is a 3 cast, which doesn't fit so much in the curve of the deck. Also, it takes up space. What would you remove? Nothing beats acid moss.
"no pox (mono black) matchup, no boros, no french uw weenie, no white weenie, no white tron, NO TRON, no uwg counter post/flare variants, no black red aggro, no fungus fire.... you get the picture"
O.O How long you want my article to be?!
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ChristPunchr on 2006-10-29 13:22 EDT Good article. You cover the matchups well(in my opinion) and the deck is cool.
I know what you mean by a plumetting rating from trying new decks, etc.
Biggups.
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ShadowS on 2006-10-29 13:44 EDT "same thing I said first time I saw it, but rly deck is good ;/
And where is the monogreen matchup analysis heh ? you have fear to say its awful !?!? or what"
Lol, reminds me of my pre-TS UG deck I played for a long time. Damn random elf deck shows up and forests walks over you :< If a MGA starts getting popular, i'll test it =P
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FlyingFreak on 2006-10-29 14:45 EDT very nice !
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Taoofss on 2006-10-29 15:07 EDT to make your match up a tad better vs dragonstorm, why not run ivory mask in the board? or cop red?
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KajTheMan on 2006-10-29 18:21 EDT dont make it better against dragonstorm since they will lose against all other decks anyway
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Splattt on 2006-10-29 18:38 EDT hi shadow
me and dv8r both played this at states
dv8r went 5-1-1 into top 8 and lost in the quarters
and i went 5-3 (playing dragonstorm twice)
this deck is solid its only bad matchups are combo
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sc4rs on 2006-10-29 19:33 EDT ShadowS on the Dragonstorm Matchup: You have no counters, no hand disruption, and no room in your SB
According to your statistics, your sideboard helps none of your matchups (note that post board, the only matchups you get better against are the ones you're already winning 65:45 and 60:40). How and why does that mean you're going to skip boarding against one of the most popular decks in the format?
And it's not like you need to add tons of cards to your sideboard either. You should already have COP: Red for against Satanic Sligh and WWr, all you need to do is add three or four Jester's Caps to disrupt the combo. Jester's Cap against Dragonstorm removes 3 of their dragons and they can't win if you Wrath after they Dragonstorm...(most versions only play 4x Hellkite and 2x Hunted Dragon)
Aside from that small point, great article. I love the deck, have played around with it and a G/R version with Gauntlet of Power. Definitely more fun to play than any other deck in T2 and it seems fairly competitive.
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Ironicus on 2006-10-29 21:00 EDT It's 25/75 against my Solar flare! But Yeah this deck is good!
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dv8r on 2006-10-29 22:18 EDT http://www.magic-league.com/phpBB/about4810.html
there is a bit in the first 2 paragraphs about playing the deck and why there is no side for dragonstorm (although I admit I overlooked cap... damnit, why didn't you tell me BEFORE champs :P), just skip the rest of the article, it's basically match reruns and me complaining about how bad my luck is
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Man_o_war on 2006-10-29 22:40 EDT nice article.. bad deck..
enduring and dragonstorn kill deck!
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PsyK on 2006-10-29 22:58 EDT I like the deck, but 25 land seems a little high, with 12 pieces of acceleration 23 - 24 should be enough i would think.
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RemiX on 2006-10-30 03:04 EDT idk why u wouldnt play cop red.. considering its not just for 1 deck.. 4 of the top 8 decks at my states boarded cop red.. and 90 % of the decks there that ran white played cop red... the store set up there was buying cop reds for 2 bucks and selling them for 4 bucks.. so go figure...
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ShadowS on 2006-10-30 04:47 EDT You could try and change the SB up if you feel that DS comes up enough that it is worth it. If its somewhat of a 5% or lower chance, it may not just be worth it. Anything higher though, you could change some cards around.
However Cop: Red does nothing for any other match ups. Burn is often an easy win anyways, because of the lifegain. No need to make a favorable matchup any more favorable. Make the judgement based on your meta.
