Today I'm going to try something new. I'm going to use a different deck for each video to show the range Turbo Fog and some strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches as discussed in my article.
First up, I'll play the planeswalker-based RUG build. I've played this deck a few times now, and I've found that against less creature-heavy decks it can reasonably sideboard out its Fogs and become a planeswalker control deck. I've been pretty happy with how it's played.
Creatures (2)
Planeswalkers (8)
- 2 Chandra, the Firebrand
- 2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
- 1 Jace, Architect of Thought
- 1 Jace, Memory Adept
- 2 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Lands (26)
Spells (24)
- 3 Clinging Mists
- 1 Cyclonic Rift
- 4 Fog
- 4 Izzet Charm
- 2 Reverberate
- 2 Amass the Components
- 4 Farseek
- 4 Temporal Mastery
- 2 Witchbane Orb
- 2 Thragtusk
- 3 Counterflux
- 2 Dispel
- 1 Dissipate
- 4 Searing Spear
- 1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
Sideboard
The first game my draws were just awesome. The second game showed a combination of how powerful being able to topdeck a bunch of awesome planeswalkers is and the vulnerability of B/R Control to that strategy. I think the Keyrunes were still going to make the game interesting at the point when my opponent conceded, so it's disappointing that I didn't get to finish it, but I do think I was likely to win from there.
Next I'm going to play the Snapcaster Mage / Feeling of Dread list from my article:
Creatures (8)
Planeswalkers (7)
Lands (24)
Spells (21)
- 1 Cyclonic Rift
- 1 Dispel
- 4 Feeling of Dread
- 4 Fog
- 1 Sphinx's Revelation
- 4 Thought Scour
- 1 Divination
- 4 Farseek
- 1 Temporal Mastery
- 1 Elixir of Immortality
- 4 Rhox Faithmender
- 1 Thragtusk
- 2 Detention Sphere
- 2 Dispel
- 2 Dissipate
- 1 Negate
- 2 Sphinx's Revelation
Sideboard
Again, my draw in game 1 was amazing. Game 2 I got to become a deck full of cheap counters and planeswalkers, which isn't a bad place to be in the control mirror. The beginning of the game was probably one of the bigger points of divergence in terms of places where I could take very different reasonable lines, but I'm happy with how I played it. When he has a Pike, I don't think I can let him get ahead of me on the board since he can sit behind his creature and potentially win counter wars over my planeswalkers. By aggressively stopping him from having a creature, I was able to put him on the back foot, which let me resolve my planeswalkers anyway.
These matches have made me feel pretty good about the planeswalker focus in these two decks. I think that's very likely the correct direction to take this archetype, but I'd like to show the more combo-based approach with Reforge the Soul because it can definitely do really unusual things.
This is the list I'll be playing:
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (26)
Spells (30)
- 4 Otherworld Atlas
- 4 Clinging Mists
- 2 Cyclonic Rift
- 4 Fog
- 4 Izzet Charm
- 1 Reverberate
- 4 Farseek
- 3 Reforge the Soul
- 4 Temporal Mastery
- 2 Witchbane Orb
- 4 Thragtusk
- 3 Counterflux
- 2 Dispel
- 1 Dissipate
- 1 Psychic Spiral
- 2 Searing Spear
Sideboard
That was a brutal demonstration of how wrong things can go when your deck is focused on interacting along only a single axis. I just wasn't prepared to beat the things my opponent was doing.
In the comments of my article, Eric Weeden disagreed with my approach to Turbo Fog and pointed me to his Top 4 finish at Colorado States with it. His list does some interesting things, so I'll try it out here. First, I updated it to the following:
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (24)
Spells (34)
- 2 Elixir of Immortality
- 4 Otherworld Atlas
- 2 Detention Sphere
- 1 Cyclonic Rift
- 4 Druid's Deliverance
- 4 Fog
- 1 Psychic Spiral
- 4 Safe Passage
- 4 Sphinx's Revelation
- 4 Think Twice
- 4 Terminus
- 1 Pithing Needle
- 3 Witchbane Orb
- 4 Rhox Faithmender
- 1 Dispel
- 4 Negate
- 2 Jace, Memory Adept
Sideboard
This deck leans pretty heavily on Sphinx's Revelation and plays an unusually high number of reshuffle effects to keep the library dense with Fogs and card draw. Safe Passage, Detention Sphere, and Terminus help with some of the problems red can pose.
Well, that first game felt like it indicated that the matchup would be pretty good, but Liliana and Duress are pretty tough. If I were to keep playing this deck, I'd definitely cut the Plains for a Hallowed Fountain and a Glacial Fortress, then I might want to cut a Forest for a Temple Garden so that the Glacial Fortress can come into play untapped more. I'm also a bit skeptical of only 24 lands without Farseek.
In the first game, I probably should have drawn with the Atlas in response to Liliana's ultimate, but it didn't end up mattering.
Taken together, I think these games showed a reasonable cross section of the kinds of things that happen with Turbo Fog in general. Sometimes, your engines come together and your opponent doesn't have any real ways to interact with you, but sometimes, your opponent does something that your Fogs don't interact with or you don't draw enough card draw and you don't really do anything. This is why I currently like the planeswalker builds better because the planeswalkers are a reasonably proactive backup plan by themselves.
Thanks for watching,
Sam
@samuelhblack on Twitter
About Sam Black
Sam Black was a member of Team USA 2008, taking home the Team World Championship crown in Memphis. He also placed in the Top 8 of GP Barcelona and GP Singapore 2009, GP Gothenburg 2010, GP Atlanta 2012, and GP Yokohama in 2013 and made Top 4 of PT Phildalphia 2011.