Black Cats

Thursday is the best day of the week for one reason: Magic Club. The University of Delaware has a registered student organization just for magical gatherings. The club has a casual atmosphere, but there are a few players who are more up to date on the competitive side of things.

I was talking to AJ, one of the most avid grinders at the club. The conversation started with him berating my dredge list that didn’t play dedicated dread return targets main board. He saw my list and figured that I was cutting the non-troll fatties because I thought these cards were crutches. After we discussed how terrible that argument is, I explained my real rationale (more on this later).

The conversation warped from the flaw of the phrase “it’s just a crutch” to “play the best version of what you are playing.” Here is where I realized that My American Ravings list was fundamentally flawed.

The flaw hinged on the namesake card. Desperate Ravings is just not as good as forbidden alchemy. It is that simple. Alchemy is one of the best cards in the set, what was I doing playing a deck that took advantage of end of turn draw spells without playing this card? Playing and flashing back Ravings will draw you 2 cards, and randomly loot two more card. That’s up two cards after losing 2 cards at random. Alchemy will see 8 cards, draw you 2, and you get to see what cards go to the bin. Huge difference.

The burn spells were just too cute. After tuning the deck a little more I decided that day is the better mass removal spell. With the slag storms gone the “burn you out” plan got a little worse. I found myself trading snapcasters and brimstone volleys for big creatures that would have killed my otherwise. The games where the army of 2/2 cats needed burn to seal the deal were few and far between. The cats would eventually be enough, or you lost. In such a cut and dry situation it was wrong for me to keep trying to go deep with makeshift lava axes.

I was playing a bad red draw engine, and bad red removal. Time to pick up the colors the big boys are playing. I give you the next white sun zenith deck:

Black Cats

// Lands

    1 Darkslick Shores

    1 Swamp

    2 Plains

    2 Seachrome Coast

    2 Nephalia Drownyard

    4 Drowned Catacomb

    4 Isolated Chapel

    4 Glacial Fortress

    6 Island

// Creatures

    4 Snapcaster Mage

// Spells

    2 White Sun’s Zenith

    1 Go for the Throat

    1 Timely Reinforcements

    1 Dismember

    1 Tribute to Hunger

    1 Blue Sun’s Zenith

    2 Day of Judgment

    3 Dissipate

    3 Oblivion Ring

    3 Doom Blade

    4 Mana Leak

    4 Forbidden Alchemy

    4 Think Twice

// Sideboard

SB: 2 Purify the Grave

SB: 3 Azure Mage

SB: 2 Sword of Feast and Famine

SB: 2 Divine Offering

SB: 1 Witchbane Orb

SB: 2 Celestial Purge

SB: 1 Flashfreeze

SB: 1 Timely Reinforcements

SB: 1 Day of Judgment

 Same basic principal as the decks I have been playing in this format. Out draw your opponent, don’t tap out, kill em with instant threats, and have the best snapcaster mages.

The deck and board seem very intuitive. Only weird card is blue sun zenith. It allows you to outdraw your opponents, and even kill them after the drownyards go to town on your opponent’s deck. I don’t know if I like my removal package yet. The format is really stretching instant speed removal out thin. Tributes has its moments, and dismember kills turn 1 dork, but both get laughed at by grave titan. It could be right that doom blade is just the best choice. I’m going to fumbling around with the removal numbers.

This is the deck I would have played in states today, if I could have attended. It has decent agro matchups, dominates control mirrors, and can stop wolf run pretty well.

I hope you guys dominate your states!

John