And the winner is – SELESNYA or how many times can I play the same Thragtusk?

Rotation has come and gone and the metagame is settling.  The old deck archetypes have fallen by the wayside.  RB Zombies has puttered with the loss of Mortarpod.  Delver decks are pretty much non-existent.  RDW had its usual immediate post rotation success but now the BIG decks are surfacing.  And other than the expected Jund builds, all the successful decks have a common denominator:  Green and White. 

Naya, Junk and Bant builds are coming out of the woodwork.  They are dominating the competitive scene.  All because of a handful of cards.

One can argue that the Selesnya Charm is the most versatile of the new charms, now.  All of them have their merits, but Selesnya Charm is the New York Yankees of charms with these builds.  Exile an opponent’s big gun, flash out a blocker or go over your opponent’s creatures with trample.  The Selesnya Charm is a trooper.

 

How many times in one game can a person kill the same Thragtusk?  This monster card from M13 saw moderate play when he hit standard this summer.  In most green builds he was the replacement for our primetime friend the Primeval Titan.  Now he’s an essential part of any agro deck.  Give me life or give me a blocker.  Thragtusk hitting the battlefield is a win-win situation every day.  And what makes him so versatile is this beast’s beauty . . .

. . . The Restoration Angel.  Avacyn restored gave us plenty of good cards.  Griselbrand continues to see play in re-animator decks, the Miracle cards are still hot in any deck but the late game winner of this set has to be the Restoration Angel.  A 3/4 flyer with flash that blinks another non-angel creature when she hits the board?  And that target is usually a Thragtusk?  Thundermaw who?  Block it and gain 5 life.  My turn.  You have 10 life?  You’re tapped out?  Swing alpha for 11.  WIN.  This happens to me with RDW nearly every time I play against a build with WG. 

IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, USE THEIR GUNS AGAINST THEM, DAMMIT! 

Mark Jr & Sr, Chris Reno, Steve Wizins and I have been developing builds featuring Selesnya combos.  All the decks are similar on the fundamental level in colors and some of the above mentioned shared cards only.  My venerable WB Miracle/Planeswalker build evolved into a Junk Planeswalker and has now become a 4C Rites deck, bucking the trend of WGBR by making it WGBU . . . and taking out most of my Planeswalker pals while in the process: 

Main Deck:
2 Acidic Slime
2 Angel of Serenity
2 Armada Wurm
2 Garruk Relentless
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Griselbrand
4 Restoration Angel
2 Thragtusk

2 Detention Sphere
3 Farseek
3 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Grisly Salvage
2 Supreme Verdict
3 Terminus
3 Unburial Rites

2 Drowned Catacomb
3 Glacial Fortress
4 Hallowed Fountain
1 Isolated Chapel
4 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
2 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden
2 Woodland Cemetery

Sideboard:
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Detention Sphere
2 Nevermore
1 Sever the Bloodline
2 Stony Silence
2 Supreme Verdict
3 Syncopate 

It’s a simple build, and it gains control of the board by turn 4.  I’ll take a beat down – and in play testing have come back from the brink of death (as in 1 life facing a board full of big creatures and an opponent with 30 life!) to win.  My sideboard is designed to add some control to the game when needed and for defense against graveyard control.  This deck does not mess around. 

23 land – a little light one would say, yes? – but with 9 cards I can fetch or seek out land with, and 2 of them being instants, the deck reaches its mana curve nicely.  I held back from using Keyrunes, despite their advantage when playing Terminus, due to my ability to ransack my graveyard or seek out creatures.  Farseek also allows me to shuffle my deck after a Terminus, putting any creatures I’ve had out back into the deck.  Finally, I chose Blue over Red to be able to access not only board control, but to have a reliable and re-playable seek card in Forbidden Alchemy. 

The Magic metagame has settled until February of 2013.  May the best deck with GW win! 

Until the next time I play the same Thragtusk six times in one game . . .

 

PEACE!