Annotation

It is the end of November, and the long-long winter will come within days and will be filled by many Standard battles, starting from a Clash of Kings (also known as SCG Invitational at Charlotte) in a matter of weeks and ending with Pro Tour Honolulu in the midst of February. Lord Tywin LSVnister and his men have just seized the Magic Kingdoms in the battle at San Francisco; only the intrusion of sir Junya Iyanaga saved the Worlds. You must pay respect to LSVnisters, whether you like them or not; their Tempered Steel has proven a good enough weapon in the capable hands. But there are many other Houses to choose in this Game of Thrones, so my story will be devoted to people who have the Kessig Wolf Run banner: House Stark.

Prologue

Here’s a quick look at this gigantic creation of the almost legendary king Brandon the Builder… I mean Zak Dolan, the very first Magic World Champion.

Stasis by Zak Dolan, 1st at Magic Worlds 1994

Stasis

Zak Dolan

Test deck on 11-27-2011

Casual

Creatures (11)

Lands (15)

Spells (34)

Sideboard

This building looks clumsy, but it was not intended to look elegant; there we have raw power and ancient spells. Don’t ask anything; just look at this thing with due respect and then think a little about the progress in deckbuilding since that time. Great, don’t you think so? But times come and go. There was a time for the very first World Champion, and there is a time for the last “real” World Champion, Junya Iyanaga.

Wolf Run Ramp

Junya Iyanaga

1st Place at Worlds on 11-20-2011

Standard

Creatures (14)

Lands (26)

Spells (20)

Sideboard

Without drastic changes in Organized Play policy, this list will one day become as legendary as the very first one: a true manifestation of titanic power and inferno fire. And, before the eternal glory, for the entire, long winter, this list, alongside Brian Sondag, will be known as one of the most notable ancestors of all the members of House Stark. Winter Is Coming, so keep your Kessig Wolves running.

Varys

LSVnister’s strike will without doubt change the metagame of Standard, especially in the short term, until people realize that Steel still is not a particularly good deck (this process probably will take more time for local metagames because wow-factor normally prevails over analysis). I’m really impressed by how Iyanaga’s performance was overshadowed by Steel’s record. In fact, only two things impressed me more: the absence of Japan’s team photo anywhere on the Mothership (am I right that Makihito Mihara is the second man after Jon Finkel to win both individual and team Worlds?) and the amount of innovation that came into a presumably well-established format from different sides of the globe.

Speaking about innovations, there are fine (very different) U/W/x Control decks from good deckbuilders, including a sweet-looking old-school list from Andrew Cuneo (I’m just curious why he didn’t play Serra Angel) and a completely different list with Lady Olivia Voldaren of Asshai. Her king Pat Chapratheon was beaten, but it doesn’t make the deck worse. There were no control decks in the top 8, but it was because of the tournament’s mixed structure, so don’t fall into the bear trap of the presumption that control is weak now.

Before Worlds, the primary deck to beat was Illusions. By the way, Illusions has a slightly positive matchup against Tempered Steel. And Mono Red has a reasonable matchup too. And… oh, data from Worlds says otherwise? I’ve seen that data too. Jaime Vitor LSVnister is probably the most talented general right now, and Conley LSVnister (who is often called “twiceman” because of his size and who usually gets less respect than he deserves) has finally proven himself as extremely talented and skillful. But you know, even the best general just cannot win the battle when his army is not good enough (epic drama 300 Spartans 2: Conley vs. Junya coming soon). In fact, the main weakness of Tempered Steel is a prepared opponent with just about any given deck. This is the reason why LSVnister’s team’s chances were significantly lower in “best of 5” matches. When you’re going into Worlds with such a fragile deck, you can be successful because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, but a week after… everybody will be prepared, so I clearly don’t recommend you play Tempered Steel. A little bit later, this deck will be a legitimate choice again (the LSVnisters almost perfectly caught the metagame with its pants down without artifact hate, so why can’t you?), but not now, believe me.

Eddard Stark

I wrote about R/G Ramp when Innistrad had just released, and there were a lot of musings about the adaptation of Block Constructed decks. Obviously, early versions of my R/G Ramp even included maindeck Ancient Grudge. Later the role of Innistrad cards increased, and Ancient Grudge became less useful, so the final version had three Grudges in the sideboard. I sat on the Inferno Titan in an aggro-heavy metagame, but I had no knightly fortitude to play a full eight Titans, using cheaper threats instead of heavy cavalry.

That list looks a little bit… outdated right now, but there are some things to learn from our predecessors—honor, coura… oh, Batterskull and Phyrexian Metamorph.

Phyrexian Metamorph is good in Titan-on-Titan clashes because you have an answer for the opposing Titan and some additional action because Metamorph is cheaper. One of the critical problems of Valakut mirrors was that whoever landed the Titan first usually won. Even if you answered with your own Titan, you’d be forced to trade, leaving your opponent with two more lands and a full turn closer to Valakut activation. This is why I for a long time preferred to play Memoricide: it is cheaper than a Titan, so it was possible to leave the opponent without any Titans before he could cast them. But now there are no fetchlands to find a Swamp and, more importantly, since the modern ramp decks have additional threats (say, Inferno Titan or Garruk, Primal Hunter), one Memoricide is just not enough.

Enter Tumble Magnet. A well-sharpened weapon from the past; it does a great job of keeping opponent’s Titans from attacking. And, as I said earlier, Tumble Magnet with Phyrexian Metamorph allows you to create your own threat and answer an opposing Titan. Maybe it is too cute (and it is definitely not there instead of Beast Within—just because of Liliana of the Veil), but I feel that Phyrexian Metamorph is underrated in mana ramp decks, especially if you are willing to play for an advantage in the mirrors.

Jon Snow

One more artifact threat is Batterskull, but I don’t think that it is underrated, so just remember to have it among your seventy-five. But remember that with these Metamorphs and Magnets you don’t normally want to increase your artifact count drastically to make Ancient Grudge worth sideboarding against you.

But, speaking about artifact count, I can’t avoid mentioning our poor bastard. I’m not sure if Travis Woo looks similar to Jon Snow (what do you think: who are Jon’s real parents?), but Wolf Run Brown (clearly the albino direwolf among its brothers) is still a real Stark without any doubt. The recent build piloted by Corbett Gray to the top 4 of SCG Open Las Vegas is:

Wolf Run Brown

Corbett Gray

4th Place at Star City Games Standard Open on 11-06-2011

Standard

Creatures (20)

Lands (26)

Spells (14)

Sideboard

I notice twenty-two artifacts maindeck and four more in the sideboard: Ancient Grudge and even Creeping Corrosion will definitely come in against this deck. But why am I even speaking about it if anybody would pack Ancient Grudges because of Tempered Steel?

First, because there are many decks that can’t play Ancient Grudge, even though Patrick Chapratheon named his deck “Four-Color Control” because he fell into a Reflecting Pool once and now splashes Grudge’s flashback cost with Shimmering Grotto. By the way, don’t you know whether Patrick splashes a fourth color with Shimmering Grotto in his draft decks?

The second point for considering Wolf Run Brown is its acceleration. I really loved playing sixteen two-mana acceleration spells in Valakut; with all the Rampant Growths, Khalni Heart Expeditions, Lotus Cobras, and Overgrowth Battlements, I was almost certain to land my Primeval Titan before my opponent could cast his. There is no pleasure in playing such cards in Standard now (And in Modern, they’ve banned Valakut! Bastards!), so Birds of Paradise and Sphere of the Suns should be used. I never really liked creature acceleration (play Birds of Paradise into Palladium Myr and get Arc Trailed), but if there are no other ways, I’ll use this one. My little foil folk is going to battle!

In fact, Wolf Run Brown plays much more like a true combo deck: you just do things, ignoring the opponent (if you can). If you’re at low life, search for Glimmerpost when another ramp player would pray for Slagstorm. Normally opponent’s creatures just get Arc Trailed, but we’re playing Myr, so it’s hard to justify Slagstorm. And, more important, if lands are used to keep our life total high, removal slots could be used for additional acceleration! So, we’ll finish with an almost sixty-permanent deck that just plays acceleration and then lands threats until the opponent extends his hand; that is all an honest and straight human being really needs to win. Just draw seven cards and do what you’re obliged to do. As an added bonus, most of the watchmen are colorless and thus immune to things like “protection from all colors” and “protection from black and green.”

Wolf Run Brown

Valeriy Shunkov

Test deck on 11-27-2011

Standard

Creatures (18)

Lands (26)

Spells (16)

Sideboard

Okay, the idea was fine, but reality is more complicated, so there is finally some place for Galvanic Blast; I heard that Others fear fire (no, not Blazing Torch!), and it’s usually good to shoot a bird that can summon a Titan. I’m not really sure if cutting all copies of Beast Within from the maindeck is right, but there are not many open slots. I also cut some more expensive threats in favor of Batterskull because it’s very good and with all our acceleration, it’s easy to bounce it. Buried Ruin of Winterfell is probably a must for many reasons; the most important of them is that there is no fear of Ancient Grudge, but some preparations are vital.

Robb Stark

The Night’s Watch straight deck is good if you have no fear, but to become a good king, you should care about many things, including intrigues, dynastic marriages, etc. If the game of Magic is a battle, deckbuilding is the true game of thrones. A great example of this sort of the deck—a happy family of Ramp and lords of Birthing Pod—was made by Bing Luke.

Wolf Run White

Bing Luke

100th Place at Worlds on 11-20-2011

Standard

Creatures (23)

Lands (26)

Spells (11)

Sideboard

Looking at this deck, I remember the last actual tournament when I played Valakut. We were about halfway from the PTQ to the train station when my teammate Victory said: “So, Valakut is rotating out. Is it the end of mana ramp?” I answered her: “No, why? There are many powerful spells in Standard, so ramping may be worth it. I can imagine some Green-White deck with Primeval Titan and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Hmmm… maybe using Birthing Pod to convert Titan into Praetor.” There were many things after that, and I almost forgot that dialogue, but Bing created the exact deck I imagined (and with Kessig Wolf Run, which wasn’t printed at that moment).

The problem is that the deck is unfocused and has not enough acceleration. Viridian Emissary is normally good in Birthing Pod, but you’ll never see him in multiples in mana ramp because it is too slow and situational. In fact, it’s very hard to mix pod and ramp, getting the good sides of both decks, not the bad ones.

Moreover, I don’t really understand the lack of Clone effects and the lack of Sun Titan in white Birthing Pod decks. There are many tweaks available, but I’m afraid that they will not solve the main problem—despite being brave and good-hearted, Robb Stark was not really focused on state affairs, so he never became a good king (Oh, did I spoil something? Hope you’ve read the books).

Arya Stark

Josh SiLSVestri’s quote about Tempered Steel: “One of the biggest advantages Steel currently holds is the sheer number of evasion creatures the deck has access to.” So, it’s good to have something to deal with this problem. Etched Champion is partially fixed by our own colorless creatures, but all these flyers are harder to deal with (especially Glint Hawk Idol and Inkmoth Nexus who are immune to sorcery speed removal). But House Stark has a direwolf to deal with them: Arya Stark, Daybreak Ranger. She can take care of numerous fliers, even if Tempered Steel is involved; nothing can save a bird from an angry Nightfall Predator. Additional sweet targets are annoying creatures like Chandra’s Phoenix, Midnight Haunting tokens, and literally any non-Titan creature if Arya somehow flips (although she is pretty sweet in the light of day).

Next step to build our own Stark’s army is to lower the mana curve slightly. I really dislike the idea of playing eight Titans (despite the fact Junya’s three Titans per game were great), so I’d play five-mana threats instead of Inferno Titans. Possibilities are Batterskull (that is worth maindecking in my local metagame, which tends to be Mono Red-filled), Urabrask the Hidden (I still like this card—it is hard to kill, and it is threat by itself, not speaking about combinations with our Titans), Garruk, Primal Hunter (obvious one), and Precursor Golem. Exact reasons why Golem is good are well explained in Patrick Chapin article, and I have no reasons for rebuttal. Golem is relatively hard to kill in this format, and it can provide a lot of damage even without Kessig Wolf Run.

The removal package is tweaked because I really wanted some Beast Withins (and I already have Daybreak Ranger): five Galvanic Blasts are fine in some matchups, but they are probably excessive. So, my final attempt at Wolf Run Red is the following:

Wolf Run Red

Valeriy Shunkov

Test deck on 11-27-2011

Standard

Creatures (14)

Lands (26)

Spells (20)

Sideboard

The deck may not look so brutal, but it is flexible, well adapted to the expected metagame, and very fun to play (especially to the person who played Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle for two years), so let’s run with the wolves!

Epilogue

“Iyanaga cast a Sphere of the Suns and activated both copies of Inkmoth Nexus. He didn’t attack with them though, instead choosing to cast Galvanic Blast to put Richard to 12 life. Another one made it 8 life. Richard laughed a little as a third Galvanic Blast came his way. When the fourth came, he had no response at all but to scoop up his cards.”

P.S. I’m a little bit disappointed that I wasted the “Song of Fire and Ice” theme on non-Werewolf deck, but I hope that somebody will match my fault by writing an article named “Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn” about Olivia Voldaren (and hopefully Bloodcrazed Neonate).

Valeriy Shunkov

@amartology