So Miracles stays. Thank you for not making a mistake, WOTC. I am inexplicably excited that it has stayed (not being sarcastic). But enough of that: are you now looking for a way to beat Miracles or the Eldrazi menace? Today I’ll be featuring another really fun deck that plays massive creatures-only this time, you are hard casting your [card]Emrakul, the Aeons Torn[/card].
TwelvePost – Boston Schatteman
[deck]
[Lands]
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Cloudpost
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
4 Glimmerpost
1 Island
1 Karakas
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
3 Vesuva
[/Lands]
[Spells]
4 Show and Tell
2 Candelabra of Tawnos
3 Expedition Map
3 Pithing Needle
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
3 Crop Rotation
4 Force of Will
1 Repeal
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
4 Primeval Titan
1 Trinket Mage
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
[/Creatures]
[Sidebaord]
2 All Is Dust
1 Crop Rotation
1 Flusterstorm
2 Krosan Grip
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Pithing Needle
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Swan Song
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Trinisphere
[/sideboard]
[/deck]
Let’s get this out of the way first: [card]Cloudpost[/card] is a broken card. The original core 12 Post manabase consisted of 4 [card]Cloudpost[/card], 4 [card]Glimmerpost[/card], and 4 Vesuva; however, current versions of the deck has become more of a 10-11 Post manabase. The main goal of this deck is to hard cast spells that other people like to cheat into play, because we are legit. [card]Cloudpost[/card] is the main culprit for all this mayhem with its sidekicks of [card]Glimmerpost[/card] and Vesuva. [card]Cloudpost[/card] adds 1 colourless mana to your mana pool for each Locus in play. It so happens that [card]Glimmerpost[/card] is a Locus and Vesuva can copy [card]Cloudpost[/card] (which is also a Locus) without any cost like Thespian Stage. Getting Locuses into play will make your mana snowball out of control.
What We’re trying to Hard Cast
[sbplan]
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Primeval Titan
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
[/sbplan]
You will be able to hard cast these guys when playing this deck. Pretty cool, right? Having multiple Locus Lands will allow us to make a lot of mana. For example, 1 [card]Cloudpost[/card] will make 1 mana. 2 [card]Cloudpost[/card]s will make 4 mana. 3 [card]Cloudpost[/card]s will make 9 mana. 4 [card]Cloudpost[/card]s will make 16 mana. That’s a lot of mana. Casting these guys will get you very far ahead or end the game. Emrakul is [card]Time Walk[/card] on a 15/15 stick. Kozilek is a better [card]Ancestral Recall[/card] on a 12/12 stick. And Ulamog is 2 [card]Vindicate[/card]s on a 10/10 stick. This deck can not only hard cast the Eldrazi titans, but also occasionally cheat them into play.
Not as Fair as You Thought
[display]
Show and Tell
[/display]
[card]Show and Tell[/card] is also a very broken Magic card. This card was another serious mistake, but Wizards likes to keep it around because it makes Legacy more diverse. Sometimes we need [card]Show and Tell[/card] to speed up our game plan if our hand is not capable of producing 6 mana quickly enough. Be careful though, for if you are playing against other decks with [card]Emrakul, the Aeons Torn[/card] or [card]Griselbrand[/card] they can attack first.
Combo Time!
[display]
Primeval Titan
[/display]
“Prime Time,” we call this guy. [card]Primeval Titan[/card] is the one-card combo of the deck. Once a [card]Primeval Titan[/card] hits the board the game can end on the next turn or the turn after.
Start the combo by getting Prime Time on the board. Go and find [card]Eye of Ugin[/card] and Karakas or get another [card]Cloudpost[/card] if you don’t have enough mana to use your Eye and cast what you find with it.
When you have the mana, activate the Eye and find [card]Emrakul, the Aeons Torn[/card], then hard cast Emrakul and take an extra turn. If you haven’t found Karakas by now, find it by attacking with your Prime Time. Once you have Emrakul and Karakas you have infinite turns and your opponent has no more fun.
More Mana?
[display]
Candelabra of Tawnos
[/display]
Yes, we just like to make so much mana-so much so that we can find [card]Emrakul, the Aeons Torn[/card] and cast it in the same turn! We can do that with enough [card]Cloudpost[/card]s or we can just use this cheap artifact. Think about it: untapping our [card]Cloudpost[/card]s using [card]Cloudpost[/card]s. Now you are getting multiple uses out of each [card]Cloudpost[/card], netting a heap of mana. This artifact helps us get double green for [card]Primeval Titan[/card] or cast our high end Eldrazi.
Finding our Mana
With only 12 key cards, you’ll need some ways to find them. [card]Trinket Mage[/card] is here to find [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card], [card]Expedition Map[/card], or [card]Candelabra of Tawnos[/card]. The rest of our card filtering is here to find your Post lands to make more mana. [card]Brainstorm[/card] and [card]Thirst for Knowledge[/card] can also double to find your protection spells. These cards and the number of them are in the deck because the deck is naturally slow and inconsistent and we need some way to improve its speed and consistency.
Utility Lands
[SBplan]
Crop Rotation
Bojuka Bog
Karakas
[/sbplan]
[card]Crop Rotation[/card] is instant speed and can get any land. It can get [card]Bojuka Bog[/card] to damage graveyard-based decks, [card]Glacial Chasm[/card] to hose decks that win with damage and don’t play [card]Wasteland[/card] like Burn and Infect, or Karakas to stop giant legendary creatures like [card]Griselbrand[/card] or [card]Emrakul, the Aeons Torn[/card] that fit in decks like Reanimator or [card]Show and Tell[/card]. Karakas can also bounce [card]Thalia, Guardian of Thraben[/card] to release some of the pressure she can put on you.
Protection
Since this deck doesn’t run a high density of counterspells, [card]Cavern of Souls[/card] is a great way to auto-win counter wars. Normally you get [card]Primeval Titan[/card] through with Cavern, but sometimes you also use it for Eldrazi or [card]Trinket Mage[/card]. When you need to resolve a spell and can’t use Cavern or there’s a threat you need to deal with, [card]Force of Will[/card] and [card]Flusterstorm[/card] are there to fight for you. [card]Repeal[/card] and [card]All Is Dust[/card] can remove almost anything from the board. [card]Pithing Needle[/card] is only here to shut down [card]Wasteland[/card], which can seriously damage your strategy by blowing up merely a single [card]Cloudpost[/card]. Other great names for Needle after [card]Wasteland[/card] are [card]Rishadan Port[/card] or [card]Sneak Attack[/card].
Game Plan
Early Game (Turns 1-3): During the first three turns of the game you will be setting up your mana. Find [card]Cloudpost[/card]s and Vesuvas with your [card]Brainstorm[/card]s, [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card]s, and [card]Crop Rotation[/card]s to start making large amounts of mana, and try to protect that mana with [card]Pithing Needle[/card].
Mid Game (Turns 3-6): These are the turns that you spend casting [card]Primeval Titan[/card], [card]Show and Tell[/card], or Eldrazi. These turns will likely dictate the game if it is not already decided.
Late Game (Turns 7+): The late game for this deck isn’t very weak. By now you want to be attacking with your massive Eldrazi or ending the game with Prime Time, unless you’ve been disrupted by [card]Wasteland[/card], [card]Rishadan Port[/card], or taxation effects like [card]Thalia, Guardian of Thraben[/card], or you’ve developed your board slowly to protect threats like Prime Time.
Variants of 12 Post
Mono Green 12 Post
Mono Green 12 Post cuts most of the cantrips and [card]Show and Tell[/card]. In turn it gets to ramp not with just Posts, making it less vulnerable to [card]Wasteland[/card] and [card]Rishadan Port[/card]. The deck uses [card]Oracle of Mul Daya[/card], [card]Veteran Explorer[/card], and [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card] in combination with [card]Dryad Arbor[/card] as an additional ramp package, sometimes also with Explore and/or [card]Exploration[/card]. This version more commonly runs sweepers such as All is Dust and [card]Oblivion Stone[/card] and uses [card]Ancient Stirrings[/card] to find them plus post lands, Eldrazi, or [card]Candelabra of Tawnos[/card]. It usually also runs the [card]Dark Depths[/card] and [card]Thespian’s Stage[/card] combo in the deck to have another way of winning. None of the cards involved in the combo hinder the performance of the deck, because [card]Thespian’s Stage[/card] can just become another [card]Cloudpost[/card] and the deck generates enough mana to use [card]Dark Depths[/card] manually pretty quickly.
MUD
MUD is is a colourless prison deck that aims to have very explosive mana through [card]Cloudpost[/card] and pieces like Sol lands, [card]Grim Monolith[/card], and [card]Metalworker[/card] to power out [card]Kuldotha Forgemaster[/card] and [card]Blightsteel Colossus[/card]. It also runs a variety of lock pieces like [card]Chalice of the Void[/card], [card]Trinisphere[/card], and [card]Lodestone Golem[/card]. The only real similarity between MUD and 12 Post is the mana base, so MUD is a deck for another article.
Tips and Tricks
[card]Crop Rotation[/card] is instant speed. This means in response to a reanimation spell you can crop rotate for a [card]Bojuka Bog[/card] to fizzle the spell, giving you a good shot at winning the game. You can also get Karakas to bounce [card]Griselbrand[/card], Iona, or Emrakul, or get [card]Glacial Chasm[/card] to stop a massive [card]Price of Progress[/card] or a game-winning [card]Craterhoof Behemoth[/card] attack. Use [card]Crop Rotation[/card] in response to [card]Wasteland[/card] to keep all your lands intact.
[card]Repeal[/card] can pick up your [card]Candelabra of Tawnos[/card] so that you can re-play it and use it to untap more lands again, all while drawing a card.
Use fetchlands, [card]Expedition Map[/card], or [card]Crop Rotation[/card] to shuffle away bad [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card] spins or the two cards you put back with [card]Brainstorm[/card].
[card]Brainstorm[/card] serves three purposes in this deck: finding mana, finding the cards that progress your game plan, and finding cards that protect your game plan. Specifically in 12 Post are the roles of [card]Brainstorm[/card] so opposite that you must make sure to always [card]Brainstorm[/card] optimally.
Best names for [card]Pithing Needle[/card] in the blind are [card]Wasteland[/card], [card]Wasteland[/card], and [card]Wasteland[/card]! Sometimes you can name fetchlands to mess with an opponent who is not playing [card]Wasteland[/card].
Matchups
Miracles: Very Favorable (80:20)
Miracles is the deck you will most often find and most often crush. Being a control deck, it relies on answering threats instead of racing them, using the Counterbalance/Sensei’s Divining Top soft lock as a crucial part of its counter magic suite. Beyond that, it runs 1-2 [card]Counterspell[/card] and 4 [card]Force of Will[/card]. 12 Post can ignore the Counter Top lock with all the Eldrazi you will be casting. Just hope they don’t flip Terminus to your [card]Primeval Titan[/card]. Even then, you have [card]Cavern of Souls[/card] to ignore all their counter magic and stick [card]Primeval Titan[/card], and (as I said before) if a Prime Time hits the board you are a heavy favorite to win. Otherwise, your Eldrazi have massive impact even when they are cast, so their counter magic only stems the bleeding.
Sideboarding
[card]Trinisphere[/card] and [card]Chalice of the Void[/card] are good against Miracles as they shut off some of their subtle card advantage created by being able to cast multiple spells per turn. [card]Krosan Grip[/card] can take out [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card], hindering their draws and stopping instant-speed Terminus or [card]Entreat the Angels[/card]. You can also use [card]Surgical Extraction[/card] to take out [card]Force of Will[/card], [card]Swords to Plowshares[/card], or Terminus if you are feeling greedy.
Eldrazi: Favorable (60:40)
Eldrazi aims to play somewhat like a Delver strategy that disrupts you after sticking a threat-except Eldrazi plays one piece of disruption, then starts dropping [card]Thought-Knot Seer[/card]s, [card]Reality Smasher[/card]s, and large [card]Endless One[/card]s. Their [card]Chalice of the Void[/card] and [card]Thorn of Amethyst[/card] can be annoying and disrupt your early development but they don’t stop your big stuff. [card]Thought-Knot Seer[/card] is also a problem. It can take your [card]Show and Tell[/card]s, [card]Primeval Titan[/card]s, or Eldrazi before you get a chance to play them. From there, Eldrazi pressures you with some large creatures and can close out the game pretty fast. However, you are a deck built to stave off quick starts with [card]Glimmerpost[/card] and [card]Glacial Chasm[/card] to give yourself a cushion to withstand the speed of aggressive decks in the format. [card]Show and Tell[/card] is one way of just going faster than them and getting [card]Primeval Titan[/card] or an Eldrazi titan to mop up. From there you can generally capitalize on your narrow escape from getting crushed by a swarm of Eldrazi by throwing down the Eldrazi Titans Emrakul, Kozilek, and Ulamog to close out the game.
Sideboarding
You want to find [card]Glacial Chasm[/card] or multiple [card]Glimmerpost[/card]s as quickly as possible in this matchup. The last [card]Crop Rotation[/card] is great for finding [card]Glacial Chasm[/card] as well as the other big sideboard card in this matchup: [card]The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale[/card]. Tabernacle can pressure your opponent’s life total if they are using [card]Ancient Tomb[/card] to pay it given that there are many cards that Eldrazi plays that cause them to lose life. Tabernacle also hinders their ability to deploy threats if they want to keep cards on board. [card]Ensnaring Bridge[/card] will almost always mean certain victory if you can empty your hand.
Shardless BUG: Unfavorable (30:70)
This matchup looks much better when you write it out. In reality, it is pretty bad. Shardless BUG can throw [card]Thoughtseize[/card] and [card]Hymn to Tourach[/card] at you over the first few turns, stripping you of your developmental pieces and your business spells. The deck also plays 2-3 [card]Wasteland[/card]s to attack your manabase. It can then start deploying [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]s, Lilianas, and [card]Shardless Agent[/card]s and use [card]Ancestral Vision[/card] to refill and deploy more threats and disruption. Most Shardless BUG lists also play [card]Maelstrom Pulse[/card] which can stop your fun with [card]Primeval Titan[/card] or your Eldrazi that aren’t Emrakul. Since 12 Post’s optimal game plan hopes that the opponent lacks disruption, you are not favoured in this matchup.
Sideboarding
[card]The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale[/card] can tax the Shardless BUG player and also tax their [card]Wasteland[/card]s. [card]Flusterstorm[/card] can aid in defending your hand and thus defending you mana as well. All is Dust is a great reset button to let you to gain some breathing room and start deploying [card]Primeval Titan[/card]s and Eldrazi.
Storm: Unfavorable (30:70)
Your ANT matchup is abysmal. They can slow you down with [card]Cabal Therapy[/card] and [card]Duress[/card] so that they have time to set up and go for a certain [card]Tendrils of Agony[/card] for lethal. You just aren’t fast enough to kill them before they kill you. The TES matchup is different, though, since they usually go off via [card]Empty the Warrens[/card] and it is harder for them to get a lethal Tendrils. This gives you a chance to stick a [card]Primeval Titan[/card] quickly (likely through [card]Show and Tell[/card]) and grab some [card]Glimmerpost[/card]s to get out of reach of several goblins. Still, the matchup is not great.
Sideboarding
[card]Trinisphere[/card] and [card]Chalice of the Void[/card] are your best friends in this matchup. With these you will be able to capitalize on your opponent’s now over-costed spells and win with [card]Primeval Titan[/card] and Eldrazi. [card]Mindbreak Trap[/card] and [card]Flusterstorm[/card] are also all-stars in this matchup, being able to stop an entire stack of [card]Tendrils of Agony[/card] or [card]Empty the Warrens[/card]. If you are playing against TES you could also board in [card]The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale[/card] to trim down a horde of goblins to only a few.
Burn: Unfavorable (40:60)
Burn is a deck that you may think you have absolutely no way of beating. However, it is very possible to beat it. With the way your mana is set up you can get to your [card]Glimmerpost[/card]s quickly enough to stay alive. This will help soften the blow from cards like [card]Price of Progress[/card] and [card]Fireblast[/card]. You can also can use a turn 3 [card]Show and Tell[/card] to get [card]Primeval Titan[/card] or [card]Emrakul, the Aeons Torn[/card], both of which can easily trump the Burn player. In this matchup you want to save your [card]Crop Rotation[/card] to get [card]Glacial Chasm[/card] in the face of lethal burn or a big [card]Price of Progress[/card].
Sideboarding
The recurring theme of [card]Trinisphere[/card] and [card]Chalice of the Void[/card] continues. [card]Flusterstorm[/card] and [card]Swan Song[/card] are great for countering Price and [card]Fireblast[/card]. They can also catch some early stuff so that you can try to capitalize on your opponent’s lack of progress. The extra [card]Crop Rotation[/card] comes in to get [card]Glacial Chasm[/card].
Death and Taxes: Slightly Unfavorable (45:55)
Death and Taxes is designed to bottleneck your mana, and the cards they use to do that can prove very effective against 12 Post. [card]Wasteland[/card] and [card]Rishadan Port[/card] are potent at attacking your [card]Cloudpost[/card]s, effectively corking your mana. However, [card]Pithing Needle[/card] is an all-star in this matchup, letting you shut off [card]Wasteland[/card] and [card]Rishadan Port[/card] and unleash the crazy amounts of mana this deck is able to produce. Death and Taxes is the aggressor in the matchup and they will be able to play a Delver-esque game plan disrupting you as well as attacking, so you will be pressured to get your mana online fast. The [card]Show and Tell[/card] plan is relatively effective against Death and Taxes because they don’t have anything to put down that competes with [card]Primeval Titan[/card]. Also, they can’t do much to stop [card]Show and Tell[/card] unless they can prevent you from casting it.
Sideboarding
The 4th copy of [card]Pithing Needle[/card] is a lock to come in against Death and Taxes to protect your mana from disruption. All is Dust can come in to tear through four creatures on the other side of the board, giving you a lot of breathing room and time. [card]The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale[/card] along with an extra [card]Crop Rotation[/card] can come in to downsize your opponent’s board as well. [card]Krosan Grip[/card] can chew up equipment found by [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] and give you time and breathing room. You also want to bring in [card]Swan Song[/card] to stop a possible [card]Cataclysm[/card] that would surely destroy you.
Sneak and Show: Very Favorable (80:20)
This is hilariously a great matchup for 12 Post. Your [card]Pithing Needle[/card]s get their [card]Sneak Attack[/card]s and their [card]Show and Tell[/card]s are pretty risky because you will be able to attack with your [card]Emrakul, the Aeons Torn[/card] first. That said, you should refrain from casting your own [card]Show and Tell[/card]s for exactly that reason. With your [card]Pithing Needle[/card]s and your own giants to abuse [card]Show and Tell[/card] with you are playing a role in this matchup very similar to Death and Taxes, which can shut down [card]Sneak Attack[/card] and prevent their opponent from casting cantrips and [card]Show and Tell[/card] by heavily taxing them.
Sideboarding
You will want [card]Trinisphere[/card] again to force your opponent to play with overcosted spells. You will also want [card]Swan Song[/card] for insurance against a well-timed [card]Show and Tell[/card], a “Sneak Attack” that is not under a [card]Pithing Needle[/card], or the death sentence of [card]Blood Moon[/card]. Speaking of [card]Pithing Needle[/card], you will want to bring in the 4th copy of it to get [card]Sneak Attack[/card] and redundant ones can go towards hitting fetchlands or [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] as some lists play him. [card]Flusterstorm[/card] also comes in to help win counter wars against stuff like [card]Show and Tell[/card], [card]Blood Moon[/card] or Jace. [card]Ensnaring Bridge[/card] is a hard lock if they don’t have alternate win conditions.
Delver Variants: Even (50:50)
Delver decks can throw a lot of disruption at you while putting you on a quick clock. It’s a matter of if you can overcome their disruption in time. While Delver is not as equipped to disrupt your mana as much as Death and Taxes is, it is more equipped to deal with your spells. We can make our Eldrazi and [card]Primeval Titan[/card]s resolve through [card]Cavern of Souls[/card] and that will likely end the game.
Sideboarding
After board we get [card]Trinisphere[/card] again; if it sticks, it is devastating against Delver decks. [card]The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale[/card] can heavily disrupt them and slow them down. [card]Flusterstorm[/card] can help us resolve our big spells and end the game.
Thank you for reading my article on 12 Post. Remember, you can catch me at Face to Face Games Toronto on Friday nights and at the Legacy Sunday Showdown on August 7th playing some sweet Legacy.
See you around,
Boston Schatteman
