*Warning: M12 spoilers within*
By now everyone should be aware that the banning of [card]Frantic Search[/card] has completely rocked the world of pauper. With the former powerhouse now crippled, what new hero will take its place? Which format will [card]Frantic Search[/card] be banned in next? Will wizards go as far as to ban my column, Fran-tic Search?
Alright, I may be trolling a bit. Trolling aside, by now everyone should be aware that [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] and [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] are banned. With Cawblade officially dead, we have ourselves an entirely new format, with an entirely new metagame. The two elephants in the room out of the gates are Splinter Twin and Valakut. Some writers have been saying that the format will start out as a Rock, Paper, Scissors Metagame (if you missed my article last week about metagaming check it out here), with Splinter Twin being paper, Valakut being rock, and scissors still being a question mark. The reason Splinter Twin has the edge over Valakut is because Valakut is traditionally a deck that taps out on its own turn a lot in order to ramp and play fatties, and tapping out leaves Valakut completely vulnerable to Splinter twins combo.
Coming into a Rock, Paper, Scissors Metagame we have to give respect to the top 2 decks, Valakut and Splinter Twin, when building decks. Here are some potential decks for the new format that include M12 cards where possible.
Rock: Valakut
With Cawblade no longer in existence, Valakut should be a huge player in the new standard format. Outside of its natural enemy, Splinter Twin, Valakut should have fairly strong matchups across the board, especially against random aggro decks, and unfocused decks. Here are is a potential decklist, as well as some card explanations:
[deck title=Valakut by Francis Toussaint]
[Lands]
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Evolving Wilds
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Forest
12 Mountain
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Overgrown Battlement
2 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Acidic Slime
4 Primeval Titan
2 Avenger of Zendikar
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Explore
4 Rampant Growth
4 Cultivate
3 Beast Within
4 Green Sun Zenith
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
4 Combust
4 Slagstorm
3 Obstinate Baloth
2 Acidic Slime
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Beast Within
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
[card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card]
Without Cawblade, Valakut should have less counterspells to play against, making [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card] stronger than [card]Summoning Trap[/card]. GSZ has a lot more utility than [card]Summoning Trap[/card], as well as essentially being an extra 4 [card]Primeval Titan[/card]s.
[card]Rampant Growth[/card]
The return of [card]Rampant Growth[/card] in M12 is huge for Valakut. [card]Rampant Growth[/card] is an important role player for Valakut, because it is guaranteed mana acceleration as oppose to the frailties of [card]Overgrown Battlement[/card] and [card]Lotus Cobra[/card] having to stay alive, and have additional land. [card]Rampant Growth[/card] is also arguably strictly better than [card]Explore[/card] because it fixes your mana, doesn’t require you to play more lands in your deck like [card]Explore[/card] does, and doesn’t require you to have, or draw, the extra land like [card]Explore[/card].
[card]Beast Within[/card]
Has a lot of utility against the mirror and Splinter Twin. In the mirror, it can be used as land destruction, or to destroy opposing [card]Primeval Titans[/card] or [card]Oracle of Mul Daya[/card]. Against Splinter Twin, it can be used to keep them off their red source, destroy opposing [card]Jace Beleren[/card], or disrupt their combo. [card]Overgrown Battlement[/card] and [card]Obstinate Baloth[/card] can conveniently block the token you give them.
[card]Obstinate Baloth[/card]
One-of for [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card] for Mono Red or aggro opponents.
[card]Acidic Slime[/card]
One-of Green Sun target for destroying opposing Valakut players’ lands, or dealing with equipment.
Paper: Splinter Twin
Splinter Twin takes a big loss with the banning of [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card], but hey, at least its tier 1 now that tier 1 isn’t fully occupied by Stoneforge and Jace. In my opinion, Splinter Twin players will take 1 of 2 paths building without [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card]. They will have to either a) replace [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] with [card]Jace Beleren[/card], and continue doing what they were doing before, or b) go back to playing the [card]Pyromancer Ascension[/card] combo alongside the Splinter Twin combo. I am of the opinion that Grixis is not the right way to go with the archetype.
[deck title=Splinter Twin by Francis Toussaint]
[Lands]
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Tectonic Edge
10 Island
8 Mountain
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Deceiver Exarch
4 Sea Gate Oracle
2 Consecrated Sphinx
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Preordain
4 Mana Leak
4 Into the Roil
4 Jace Beleren
4 Splinter Twin
[/Spells]
[/deck]
This is the configuration of Splinter Twin that I prefer. I never really liked [card]Pyromancer’s Ascension[/card] all that much, it seems kind of gimmicky to me. It’s nothing special, pretty much just replaced [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] with [card]Jace Beleren[/card].
Scissors: Mono Red?
You may not have all heard yet, but Mono Red is back to the top baby! And it’s all because of this guy:
[card]Grim Lavamancer[/card]
Unfortunately, I haven’t had the pleasure of playing [card]Grim Lavamancer[/card] in Standard (yet), but from my experience playing it in Extended and Legacy, it is completely nuts. The great thing is that we are fortunate enough to even have the fetch lands to fuel him.
I think that an aggressive deck, with sufficient removal, like Mono Red, could be the Scissors to take down Paper, A.K.A. Splinter Twin.
Here is my list:
[Deck title=Mono Red by Francis Toussaint]
[Lands]
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Teetering Peaks
8 Mountain
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Goblin Guide
4 Kiln Fiend
4 Ember Hauler
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Burst Lightning
4 Incinerate
4 Searing Blaze
4 Shrine of Burning Rage
4 Stagger Shock
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
4 Dismember
4 Tunnel Ingus
3 Act of Aggression
4 Arc Trail
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
What I wanted to do with this list is make the curve lower by cutting Koth and land, so that we have room more for more burn spells. Having more burn spells makes [card]Shrine of Burning Rage[/card], [card]Grim Lavamancer[/card], and [card]Kiln Fiend[/card] all more effective. I believe having all those cards benefit from having fewer lands, and more burn spells, makes it worth it not having Koth, however that’s not to say that some sort of Koth build couldn’t be great too.
I think Mono Red will be a huge force with M12 giving it [card]Incinerate[/card] and [card]Grim Lavamancer[/card], on top of now having [card]Dismember[/card] to deal with [card]Kor Firewalker[/card]. On a similar note, I think Goblins has huge potential to be great post M12 with the addition of [card]Goblin Grenade[/card].
Beating Rock, Paper, and Scissors
With my picks for potential Rock, Paper, and Scissors, I think that a tuned UW control deck could take a shot at beating all 3 of the projected top decks. Here is what I have in mind:
[Deck title=U/W Control by Francis Toussaint]
[Lands]
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Tectonic Edge
1 Inkmoth Nexus
6 Island
4 Plains
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Wall of Omens
3 Sun Titan
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Preordain
3 Spell Pierce
3 Dismember
4 Spreading Seas
4 Mana Leak
3 Into the Roil
4 Jace Beleren
3 Day of Judgement
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
1 Sun Titan
4 Spellskite
1 Day of Judgement
2 Negate
3 Celestial Purge
4 Kor Firewalker
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
While putting this list together, the two decks that I was actively attempting to beat are the top 2 decks, Splinter Twin and Valakut. One of the large weaknesses of the deck is its game 1 against Mono Red, but there are a lot of cards in the sideboard for Mono Red to help with that issue.
For the Valakut matchup, the plan is to counter as many of their ramp spells and [card]Primeval Titan[/card]s as possible, kill, or postpone, their creature mana acceleration with [card]Dismember[/card] and [card]Into the Roil[/card], and disrupt their mana with [card]Tectonic Edge[/card] and [card]Spreading Seas[/card]. Of my projected Rock, Paper, and Scissors Valakut is the strongest matchup.
For Splinter Twin, the plan is to disrupt them as much as possible with counter spells and creature removal. The awkward thing about this matchup is that our endgame of [card]Sun Titan[/card] puts us in an odd spot because we have to tap a lot of mana for him. Game one we aren’t the strongest, but the 4 [card]Spellskite[/card] out of the board help a lot, especially if we have [card]Sun Titan[/card] recurring them.
Against Mono Red, like I said, game 1 will be really tough, but post-board games should be pretty good against Mono Red. The [card]Kor Firewalker[/card]s won’t be as strong now that Mono Red has [card]Dismember[/card], but we will have [card]Spellskite[/card] to jump in front of the bus, and [card]Sun Titan[/card] can recur fallen Firewalkers. Having 12 cards to bring in for the match up should make it much better.
Conclusion
Well, that’s all I’ve got for our new Standard format for now. Personally, UW Control is where I’m going to start. It should have game against almost any deck, even if we have to rely fairly heavily on the sideboard for Mono Red. The format is much more wide open than I set it out to be, so if you have an idea for a deck, go for it! Just keep the metagame in mind. Happy brewing, and thanks for reading!
Francis “Franstar” Toussaint
