Every once in a while, I like to surf over to happymtg.com and click around until I see some Magic: The Gathering decklists. You’ll see the website is in Japanese, but Google Chrome can automatically translate that for you. Well, “translate” might be a bit much for what it does. It can replace the Japanese words with English words. Whether those are picked at random or have an actual link to the word that was there in Japanese, you may never find out.

Anyway, here’s why I like doing that: not only do you run into the funniest translations of card names that Chrome can come up with (guess which cards “Muslims chopped Rakdos of” and “ghost around shouting” are!), sometimes you find some awesome tech or deck, like this one:

[deck title= “Oops, Hit another Wurm” – Ando Kotaro]
[Creatures]
4 Elvish Mystic
2 Kiora’s Followers
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Sylvan Primordial
4 Worldspine Wurm
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Unexpected Results
3 Xenagos, the Reveler
2 Nissa, Worldwaker
1 Vraska the Unseen
2 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
4 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
1 Blast of Genius
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Forest
4 Breeding Pool
3 Mana Confluence
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Temple of Mystery
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Mizzium Mortars
1 Rest in Peace
2 Detention Sphere
4 Nylea’s Disciple
1 Assemble the Legion
1 Liliana Vess
2 AEtherling
1 Garruk, Apex Predator
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Isn’t that cool? This deck is one hot, steaming mess, with 61 cards, a bunch of seven- and 11-drops with only three Unexpected Potential, and 23 lands. This player went *deep*. I think, though, that by showing a little bit of restraint, this deck might actually be a lot of fun to bring to an FNM (if, you know, you have an infinite amount of money to spend on all the planeswalkers this deck requires). To see if we can streamline this deck a bit, let’s take a look at what the deck intends to do.

If we look at the creatures, we see a bunch of mana accelerators:

4 [card]Elvish Mystic[/card]
2 [card]Kiora’s Follower[/card]
4 [card]Sylvan Caryatid[/card]
4 [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card]

(I know Courser is not an accelerator per se, but it helps making land drops)

… and some finishers:

4 [card]Sylvan Primordial[/card]
4 [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card]

[card]Sylvan Primordial[/card] is a card so powerful it’s banned in a format where [card]Sol Ring[/card] is legal (yeah, let that one sink in), and [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card] is the biggest, baddest creature we’ve seen in Standard since Emrakul, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, was tearing the Aeons.

Now, even with that pile of mana creatures, I doubt Ando was trying to hardcast creatures that cost eleven mana, so he has some ways to cheat the above creatures into play and some more ramp in the form of planeswalkers:

3 [card]Unexpected Results[/card]
4 [card]Garruk, Caller of Beasts[/card]
3 [card]Xenagos, the Reveler[/card]
2 [card]Nissa, Worldwaker[/card]

Playing only three [card]Unexpected Results[/card] I find fairly curious. Does its potential to get stuck in your hand justify playing one fewer copy of your cheapest way to dump giant things into play? Perhaps it does, but I am skeptical. Garruk seems awesome here, finding your Wurms and other creatures, while letting you dump them into play if you have them already.

Nissa and Xenagos are less reliable ramp spells in this deck (you need either a bunch of forests in play, or a bunch of permanents), but they help by influencing the board as well. It’s very possible you win as many games by just ramping into these guys as you win by unexpectedly putting a 15/15 into play.

We then finish out the deck with a couple of extra planeswalkers in our fourth and fifth colors, and another spell that synergizes with [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card]:

1 [card]Vraska the Unseen[/card]
2 [card]Elspeth, Sun’s Champion[/card]
1 [card]Blast of Genius[/card]

Out of these, I’m surprised there is only one [card]Blast of Genius[/card]. This seems like the perfect card to get rid of some superfluous 11-drop, it’s one of the few cards that can function as removal, and it digs you towards more combo pieces, while potentially killing your opponent by dealing him a ton of damage. The other planeswalkers are castable at times, and I’m sure it’s sweet to hit them off of [card]Unexpected Results[/card], but they are the most suspect inclusions in this deck, in my opinion.

The sideboard probably needs a complete overhaul, as half these cards are already barely castable, let alone once you start shaving colors. How often do you expect to cast [card]Detention Sphere[/card] on turn three with this deck? Or turn five even? Not very often, I’d wager.

So, if we cut the white and black spells, we free up three slots. If we turn those into a second [card]Blast of Genius[/card], a third Nissa, and a twenty-fourth land, we can redo the mana base to potentially even fit in a [card]Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx[/card], to help generate mana to cast Garruks as early as possible, or potentially even hardcast [card]Sylvan Primordial[/card]s and [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card]s.

The sideboard also needs some work. I imagine this deck has some problems against fast aggressive decks, and Mono-Blue in particular. [card]Mizzium Mortars[/card] might help, but I doubt we can reliably overload it. To do that by turn six, you’d need about twenty sources of red mana, which we only have if we count our [card]Sylvan Caryatid[/card]s, [card]Kiora’s Follower[/card]s, and Xenagos as red sources. [card]Anger of the Gods[/card] might be a better option if we can get about 17 red sources in the deck. Otherwise, some [card]Magma Spray[/card]s could also be a useful to slow down faster opponents.

Judging from the old sideboard, the UW Control matchup could also use some help, which is probably why the AEtherlings and Liliana are hanging out on the sidelines. AEtherling we can still use, but the Liliana will have to turn into something else.

All right, let’s put something together:

[deck title= “Oops, Hit another Wurm” – Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
4 Elvish Mystic
2 Kiora’s Followers
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Sylvan Primordial
4 Worldspine Wurm
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Unexpected Results
3 Xenagos, the Reveler
3 Nissa, Worldwaker
4 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
2 Blast of Genius
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Forest
4 Breeding Pool
1 Mana Confluence
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
2 Shivan Reef
4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Temple of Mystery
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Magma Spray
1 Mizzium Mortars
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Nylea’s Disciple
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Jace, Memory Adept
2 AEtherling
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

This already looks a lot cleaner to me. No longer five colors, but a more respectable three, an extra land, and an extra spell that works well with our big Wurms. I chose [card]Blast of Genius[/card] over the fourth [card]Unexpected Results[/card] since I removed a removal spell in Vraska, and I’d like to give the benefit of the doubt to Ando. It takes some balls to cut the fourth copy of a spell that seems to be integral to your deck’s performance, so perhaps he had better reasons than I can think of.

As for the sideboard, we’re still a little short on red mana to go all-in on [card]Anger of the Gods[/card], so I split it with some [card]Magma Spray[/card]s and a [card]Mizzium Mortars[/card]. Against aggressive opponents, I think you just become a ramp deck, and cut all the “go gigantic” spells. Something like this, perhaps:

Out:
1 [card]Sylvan Primordial[/card]
4 [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card]
3 [card]Unexpected Results[/card]
1 [card]Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx[/card]
2 [card]Garruk, Caller of Beasts[/card]

In:
3 [card]Magma Spray[/card]
1 [card]Mizzium Mortars[/card]
2 [card]Anger of the Gods[/card]
4 [card]Nylea’s Disciple[/card]
1 [card]Chandra, Pyromaster[/card]

Cutting all the “go gigantic” stuff doesn’t exactly work, since you don’t have a 30-card sideboard, but you can cut the cards that rely on that plan and shave a [card]Sylvan Primordial[/card] and some Garruks. I favor keeping in an extra Primordial over an extra Garruk, as you do need something to kill them with.

Against slower decks, you can probably afford to cut some ramp and shave some of the combo, because you’ll have more time to find pieces and won’t need to cast them immediately. Hopefully your enormous density of threats runs the slower decks out of answers, or simply overpowers them.

Out:
3 [card]Sylvan Caryatid[/card]
1 [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card]
1 [card]Unexpected Results[/card]

In:
1 [card]Chandra, Pyromaster[/card]
2 [card]Jace, Memory Adept[/card]
2 [card]AEtherling[/card]

I take out Caryatids because the Elves and and [card]Kiora’s Follower[/card]s can attack, which is more relevant than Hexproof when your opponent’s removal is going to be pointed at your big creatures and planeswalkers, or when it comes in the form of sweepers like [card]Supreme Verdict[/card] and [card]Planar Cleansing[/card]. Against Black Devotion decks, you might want to board in an [card]Anger of the Gods[/card] or two as well, cutting an extra ramp spell and perhaps another [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card]. This way, you have an answer to [card]Pack Rat[/card], which otherwise probably just kills you if it comes out on turn two. [card]Mizzium Mortars[/card] could also work, but getting to triple red on time might be difficult, especially if you are cutting Caryatids. Perhaps in that matchup you take out [card]Elvish Mystic[/card]s instead.

I hope you give this deck a run at your next FNM and slam some Wurms on the table. I bet your opponents never see them coming!

Jay Lansdaal
iLansdaal on Twitter and MTGO