DC 74 – Disrupting The Meta
Podcast: Download (13.8MB)
It’s still nice and warm in London, the M11 pre-release is tomorrow, and so it’s a great time to release show 74 onto the cables of the internet!
This week’s show is about how a deck can disrupt a metagame, using Red Deck Wins as the example in the current Standard. RDW has punched a hole in Standard, and so I look at why that is and how this could apply to any given meta.
Your comments, suggestions and thoughts on how best to freeze an ice lolly (liquid nitrogen seems quite good) are muchly appreciated at show@deckconstruct.com. Also, check out the DC forums, which have just recieved a bit of a re-shuffle.
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Thanks for listening!
- DC Pack Warriors
Music Credits
Intro: The Go! Team – We Listen Everyday
Disrupting Standard: Giuseppe Mirabella – Recordame
Outro: hisboyelroy – Yage Cameras (hbe’s fractured rework)
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Tags: aggro, rdw, red deck wins, series 6, standard
Good Podcast and very timely for me!
I’m just now getting back into Magic after a looooooong hiatus. I started building my decks when Worldwake was first released. Rather than buying a lot of expensive cards over the internet, I built a couple of average quality Agro decks for my local FNM. I’ve been able to improve those decks slowly as I pick up more booster packs and FNM cards, but usually just break even against the meta for our local FNM, which runs heavy with control and walker decks using Contructed Standard as the primary format.
I noticed, like you did, that RDW has been doing really well in T2 tourneys lately and I started deconstructing their decks and doing some analysis. I found the same things you did: I already have a big chunk of the cards already, the ones I was missing were fairly cheap to buy (goblin bushwacker and goblin guide) or I could find suitable substitutes in my library already. I think I spent a total of $15 buying cards I didn’t have and was ready to go.
I’ve been play testing this deck in MWS online and just crushing the other decks. The only times I’ve had trouble is with other RDW decks, and its mostly because I’m not running the really high dollar cards OR the ones that are about to rotate out (I wasn’t about to spend money on Ball Lightening knowing I wouldn’t be able to use it in a couple of months).
Last night was the first time I’ve been able to take that deck to FNM and against the predominantly control decks I was up against, I just killed them =-) I don’t think any of them lasted longer than turn 6.
The last match of the night was the best. The guy was running a Walls and Walker deck (I don’t know the fancy name for it because remember, I never played magic with walkers before).
He hadn’t taken a single point of damage all night and won all of his matches 2-0. I quickly beat him down before he got his walls up and I burned him with lightening bolts and burst lightening before he could get his walkers out. He side boarded pretty well against me and was able to wall me out pretty fast and didn’t get any burn spells until maybe the 5th turn. That didn’t go well for me so we were at 1-1.
The last match was the best =-)
I was getting in my quick strikes in turns 1-3 before he got a couple of walls up, then he started missing his land drops. He was stuck on 3 lands for a couple of turns when I dropped a Manabarbs on him. He ponied up a couple of lives to go milling for another land so he could do something when I dropped another Manabarbs on him and passed the turn. He thought long and hard about what to do because of the two manabarbs and him already being at 9 lives. That is where I won it. He had an opportunity, it would have hurt and left him vulnerable to a burn spell, but he didn’t take it and passed. I dropped a third Manabarbs on him, taking me down to 8 lives, but effectively locking the board. The only damage I took that game was from my own manabarbs.
Did I mention I run 4 Valakuts in this deck??? =-)
He couldn’t play anything, could attack with his walls, and we just sat there and passed turn back and forth until I had 3 Valakuts and dropped my 6th mountain. For whatever reason I was only drawing creatures and couldn’t get any lightening bolts to save my life, not that it mattered in the end! =-)
What made him the maddest was that he was running 4 Jace’s, 4 Garrucks, and 4 Elsbeths – I could use the money from selling just 1 of those 12 cards to build my deck 3 times over – Hah ha haaaaaa!!!!
When play testing this deck in MWS I went back and forth between keeping the Manabarbs in the main deck or sideboard. I kept running into those slow decks over and over and found that a ‘barb or two can pretty effectively shut them down. So opted to carry 3 in the main deck and sideboard a 4th.
I’m sure next week at FNM I’ll run into a Kor Firewalker or two and possibly another RDW deck. But until the local metagame shifts, you can bet I’m going to bring a deck full of Goblins and Burn!!! =-)
Thanks for the great podcast and timely topic!