With two weeks of Standard before Christmas I decided to brew a couple of new offbeat decks. It's not as if I need to worry about trying to maintain my rating anymore, so it's a chance to have some fun.
For week one I decided to try a very old-fashioned strategy that isn't seen very often in modern mtg: LAND DESTRUCTION. I used to love Creeping Mold back in the day, and now with Bramblecrush I get to play a LD spell that kills those pesky planeswalkers!
14 Forest
8 Swamp
2 Woodland Cemetery
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Llanowar Elves
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Rampant Growth
1 Mortarpod
2 Dungrove Elder
2 Sever the Bloodline
4 Bramblecrush
2 Maw of the Mire
4 Acidic Slime
1 Bloodgift Demon
1 Grave Titan
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Steel Hellkite
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Sorin's Vengeance
Sideboard:
1 Memoricide
3 Viridian Emissary
1 Creeping Corrosion
2 Massacre Wurm
1 Mortarpod
1 Dungrove Elder
1 Sorin's Vengeance
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Tree of Redemption
2 Tribute to Hunger
1 Witchbane Orb
This deck is in the style of Conley Woods Magical Christmas Land with quick mana acceleration into land destruction with big threats to put your opponent away. Note that this deck contains 34 mana sources and all of those basically only tap for mana, this means that when you play you must use your threats effectively and you should mulligan most hands that contain no acceleration.
In the sideboard it's important to be able to maintain a decent number of threats after boarding. Hence Massacre Wurm which can both clear an opponents board and beat down over something like Black Sun's Zenith.
(For once I got some playtesting in before FNM that definitely lead to some improvements - I initially had Solemn Simulacrum which were too slow, and I had too many GSZ targets)
We had 28 players at FNM, so we ran five 40-minute rounds (as well as playing I am also the FNM Judge).
Round 1: Alex playing Kessig Wolf Run (won 2-0)
Game 1 I prevent him from ever getting to six mana, and the only relevant creature he casts is Thrun which only delays his demise.
Game 2 is much stranger - I accelerate into threats and start beating down, but don't draw enough LD to prevent him from casting Primeval Titan, which then leads to a second and third (!) Primeval Titan, but I am able to win the race with my Wurmcoils despite his Kessig Wolf Runs by destroying every single red source in his deck.
1-0
Round 2: Graham playing Heartless Summoning / Remember the Fallen (won 2-0)
(This deck uses Remember the Fallen to recur things like Perilous Myr, Peace / Pierce Strider and Wurmcoil Engine)
In game 1 Sever the Bloodline does what it does and exiles his first two Wurmcoil Engines, which leaves him without anything meaningful to recur.
I board in Creeping Corrosion, Curse of Death's Hold and the two Massacre Wurms, and though I get a slow draw I am able to cast Massacre Wurm just in time to stabilise on 5 life, and after the first Wurm trades with a Wurmcoil I have a second to kill his Wurm tokens (he has Heartless Summoning). I am just able to kill him with Steel Hellkite before the Pierce Strider and Blistergrub he has recurs deal me the last five damage.
2-0
Round 3: Mike playing mono-red (won 2-0)
In game 1 Mike mulligans to a slow hand, and conveniently I don't draw any useless land destruction and am able to accelerate into Wurmcoil Engine whilst still on a comfortable life total.
I board out Bramblecrushes and Acidic Slimes for the various removal, anti-aggro and anti-burn cards in my sideboard which is looking slightly awkward when he plays a turn two Shrine of Burning Rage that I now have no answer for (oops). I start racing with Dungrove Elder and as I have more Forests in hand make the decision to tutor up a second Elder with Green Sun's Zenith rather than Tree of Redemption. My 5/5 Elders easily race his Shrine + Koth.
3-0
Round 4: Charlie playing UGR control (won 2-1)
(This is like a hybrid of the GR ramp decks and UR counterburn)
This is a very interactive matchup, where I have to try and use my LD to mess with his three colour manabase and keep him off Titan mana whilst also not running my few threats needlessly into his countermagic (ie playing round Mana Leak where possible - the game do go long).
In game 1 I resolve a quick Dungrove Elder but he has a Slagstorm before I can play my fourth Forest. I am able to Sorin's Vengeance him down to 5 (and myself up to 29) which buys me a lot of time as I've drawn both Sever the Bloodlines. I am able to sucker him into Dissipating I GSZ for 3 as he doesn't know he's already dealt with all the Dungrove Elders in my deck, and with Dissipate gone I can resolve a Rune-Scarred Demon (and search for Wurmcoil) which is too much for him to handle.
In game 2 I don't really get any pressure and don't draw a Sever the Bloodline so when he resolves a Wurmcoil Engine and then Consecrated Sphinx it's all over pretty quickly.
I get an ideal start in game 3 with acceleration into Bramblecrush, then Acidic Slime, then Wurmcoil Engine. Charlie's only answer to the Wurmcoil is double Incinerate, which works out very nice for him as he rips Slagstorm off the top of his library. The game gets rather drawn out and with not long left on the round and life totals about 20-10 in my favour I decide to flashback Sever the Bloodline to remove the Beast token (from a Beast Within) that's is preventing my Acidic Slime and Viridian Emissary from attacking. This turns out to be winning strategy.
4-0
Round 5: Jay playing UW Humans (lost 2-0)
In game 1 I don't draw Bramblecrush or Acidic Slime and am not able to get Steel Hellkite online fast enough to avoid losing to his Swords of War and Peace and Feast and Famine as he makes a Phyrexian Metamorph copy of the Hellkite to prevent me destroying his swords.
Game 2 sees him rapidly killing me with turn three and four Mirran Crusader, and it didn't help that every draw phase gave me an additional mana source after a kept a hand that already had mostly mana sources.
4-1
Final result: 4-1 (8-3 games), 2nd place.
UW Humans took first place (5-0) and I beat the other 4-1s on tiebreakers (they were Solar Flare and two Mono-red decks including my round 3 opponent).
Overall a successful outing for Land Destruction at FNM. Despite this I can't really recommend playing Land Destruction in standard, as with modern magic design it's not really very strong and it doesn't win you many friends.
Next week: SMALLPOX.
