Bonus: There will be elephants!
I created the U/G singleton deck back during my summer in South Dakota when I had nothing to do on weekends but MODO. I won the first event I played with it, then placed 2nd, 4th, and 1st in the next three weeks. Since coming back to school, however, I haven't had opportunity to play until this past weekend, so it was time for an update.
I initially wanted to rebreak the format, as I had done with U/G, and Grixis before it. Since the past two weekend's PE's both included U/G comprising the majority of the Top 8, and eventually winning both events, I looked to a U/R deck to exploit weaknesses in the shell. Primarily the red cards would fight the green cards, and the blue portion would be necessary to not run out of gas.
Step One: Identify the Metagame
With the rotation of Alara Block, the popular Naya and Grixis archetypes have nearly died out. The loss of Bloodbraid Elf, Elspeth, Ajani Vengeant, Cruel Ultimatum, Sedraxis Specter, and Mind Shatter have pr oven to be crippling for the two archetypes. As a result, U/G is now the dominant deck, taking up over 50% of the field, and definitely over 50% of the Top 8. The other deck that exists is Monored, though it is played in lesser numbers.
Step Two: List the Strengths of the Best Deck
A more in depth look reveals that I identified the main issues U/G presented as fast mana, usually provided by creature accelerants, card advantage via control magic effects and blue card drawing, and the ability to protect the accelerated endgame by using countermagic.
Step Three: Attack the Weaknesses of the Best Deck
I looked to red cards such as Arc Trail, Pyroclasm, Forked Bolt, and Cunning Sparkmage to generate advantage against the green acceleration, locking out Lotus Cobra, Birds of Paradise, and their friends. The burn would also be useful in counteracting various planeswalkers.
Step Three Corollary: Incorporate the Strengths of the Best Deck if Possible
However, I did not want to be monored as it was apparent from the past weekend's results monored couldn't win the tournament. I thought the problems with monored were primarily the inability to deal with control magics and the lack of draw-filtering. To counteract this problem heavy hitters such as Foresee and Jace the Mind Sculptor would be brought in to give the deck longevity as well as the ability to dig to specific answers. In addition, blue allows the ability to fight Mind Control with Mind Control.
Step Four: Build the Deck
With all that figured out, I ultimately didn't have time to put together a list before the event due to multiple school projects, so I showed up at Gandhi's to play with an updated U/G list. Having failed to execute step four, I instead chose to evolve an existing deck.
I figured it would be sufficient to make adjustments due to the rotation ACR and M10 to have the best U/G list in the format. And besides, I would always have the advantage in the mirror due to having the superior build as well as knowing exactly what the important spells are. Not to mention knowing how to mulligan properly.
On mulliganing: this deck plays out very similarly to the old Mythic deck. You cannot keep a hand without acceleration in the mirror. Almost to the exclusion of anything else, mana advantage decides the winner. A hand with See Beyond into Beleren into Domestication will almost certainly lose to any accelerant if on the draw and any turn 1 accelerant on the play. The main reason this occurs is that while Domestication is strong, it will not help fight any Planeswalker your opponent plays, nor will it deal with an accelerated finisher such as a Titan or a Baloth. In addition, it is very possible they will have 2 accelerators to your zero, and your Domestication won't do enough to prevent a loss. Many of my opponents in the tournament did not do anything relevant on turn 1 or 2, and proceeded to get crushed. Don't let this be you. Know the matchup, know what's important.
Let's take a look at what was lost with the rotation:
Noble Hierarch, Rampant Growth, Master of the Wild Hunt, Time Warp, Mind Spring are the main losses from the maindeck.
Rampant Growth is of course easily replaced by Harabaz Druid and various mana myr, but the others are much more difficult to replace.
I think it is best to let Noble go, instead of trying to replace her with a weaker alternative like Llanowar Elves. Having 3 mana on turn 2 isn't very important, the main goal is to get to 4 mana on turn 3, as that is where the first cluster of powerful spells lies.
Master of the Wild Hunt was very useful in fighting the mirror, as the ability to take out mana guys at no additional mana investment was huge, and it was a very good finisher for its mana cost. I considered Molten-Tail Masticore in its place, but decided against it as the upkeep cost was not irrelevant and more importantly it cost 4 mana to use. The void left by Master is currently unfilled, and is an important difference between the post-rot and pre-rot decks.
Time Warp is irreplaceable.
Mind Spring, while almost always ending every game it resolves in, has a suitable, if weaker, substitute in Jace's Ingenuity.
With that out of the way, let's look at strong additions to the core of the deck. The most obvious place to look is Titans, including Wurmcoil Engine. I liked Frosty a lot in later testing, as it proved a complement to mana denial against control, was very hard to Volition Reins in the mirror, and avoided Mark of Mutiny most of the time. Primeval was less useful, as simply getting more lands in play past 6 mana did not directly correlate to winning the game, so he should've been left in the board. Unfortunately I didn't test sufficiently before the event and thus didn't make the swap until later. Wurmcoil Engine is really good against red, but pretty useless in the mirror, which is much more important so he is also in the board. Terastodon was a late addition to the board, but had I done more testing he would've definitely been maindeck as he ends every he resolves in.
On Venser: I don't know why no one else has been splashing this. Venser is absolutely obscene with Titans and landfall triggers, specifically Rampaging Baloths and Avenger of Zendikar. The -1 ability is also incredibly relevant as it allows a kill against any position. Venser is also one of the few cards that can beat a Jace one on one, as he raises loyalty while providing card/positional advantage and can threaten ultimate before Jace. Not to mention the tricks you can do with Mind Controls :)
On Roil Elemental: How no other list had this guy maindeck is beyond me. The majority of the format has no removal outside of control magic and Jace 2.0, making sticking this guy equivalent to ending the game.
On Precursor Golem : He seemed pretty good against red, as Searing Blaze doesn't trigger him, and he is a 5 drop in a deck with few strong 5's. However I would not play him main as I don't want to get Slice in Twain'd. And I really don't want to get Rited.
I was quite pleased with how the deck performed in the Top 8, and were it not for my lack of practice against monored, failing to play properly around Mark of Mutiny and Fling, I would've won the event.
For anyone interested in the decklist, it is available here.
Thanks for Playing
P.S. I promised Elephants, here you go.
This was my turn 6. After he had Don'd 3 of my lands. :)
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