by Ian Baker

Ian Baker asks the question: to jank or not to jank?  That is the question.  In today's article Baker heeds the advice of Mike Flores and posts some constructed decklists.  With one, a tweak to a proven archetype, he may be on the right path, but it's hard to imagine his second list, a more consistent combo deck inspired by a Magical Christmas land infinite loop, is quite what Flores had in mind.  Isn't deckbuilding grand?!

Well, deckbuilder extraordinaire, mothership columnist, and occasional Eh? Team podcast guest star Mike Flores has thrown down the gauntlet. Over on his floresrewards.com page, he has started a series of blogs detailing what he feels is necessary for a successful magic blog, at least in terms of content. So far, he’s suggested that sites should de-emphasize limited content and tournament reports, and emphasize constructed content and post more decklists. I see where he’s coming from. This puts me in an awkward position, though. I talk about limited a lot more than I talk about constructed. Jared is Broken City Magic’s “Constructed Guy.” I don’t want to step on any toes, right? (Editor's note: step on any toes that get in your way – step the shit outta' them!). Still, I feel like I’ve got at least a little bit of room to talk about constructed. This here article will go over one deck that I like and is well positioned andone deck that I like and is full of jank…and I will post both decklists. Yes, two decklists.

I’ve still been playing a lot of the old UB Control online, and I’ve made a number of changes to the deck since I last talked about it, so I figured I’d post my latest list, because people like decklists! It is probably somewhat similar to lists you may have seen in other places, but I’d like to get the list out there for discussion, and talk about the changes I’d made since last posting. Here’s the list:

U/B Control:

Alright, the changes:

Abyssal Persecutor
I’ll admit that I was definitely a bit late to the party here. I was somewhat skeptical of persecutor for some reason. Persecutor is amazing against anyone. Against aggro, he blocks pretty much anything, and helps you stabilize as soon as turn four. Against control, if you can stick him, he can win a beatdown race, and same against ramp. He just has a board impact way sooner than any other 6/6s. Initially I was a bit worried about having enough cards to get rid of him, but I was going to play Jace anyways, Into the Roil is another good card against a lot of matchups, and Trinket Mage can find Brittle Effigy to get rid of him if it’s a game winning situation, giving you nine effective ways to get him out of the way.

Duress
I have really been enjoying Duress, especially in control matchups. It is rarely a dead card, and not only does the glimpse at their hand give you an insight into how they plan on winning the game, Duress lets you screw with that game plan right away. A turn-one Preordain is usually a bad call (although is occasionally right) but a turn-one duress is almost never bad.

The Sideboard
The sideboard is quite different from when I last talked about the deck. I have noticed a resurgence of aggro online, and have been playing against a lot of Boros, RDW and B/R vampires. The four Disfigures are a response to that, as well as the extra Consume the Meek. Disfigure is also really good against Oracle of Mul Daya, who you usually don’t want to counter, and against Fauna Shaman. There are a lot of good creatures out there right now with only two toughness. The maindeck Memoricide was a bit awkward, but three in the board has been solid. I’ve also moved the Elixir of Immortality to the board to make room for more maindeck cards, because while it is excellent against aggro, it’s not great against control.

So there you have it, a decklist and explanation of updates to U/B Control. But about now you’re probably wondering about that other Janky decklist I talked about. I don’t want to be one to disappoint….

Take Off Your Pants.dek

This deck was inspired by Broken City Magicer Kyle Bailey’s (props!) you tube video:

As you can see, the deck uses Mindslaver to take all of your opponent’s turns. Kyle’s version is faster, but is less consistent. I upped the consistency here, by running a Trinket mage/Chalice package, adding some counterspells to protect your combo, and adding a heap of dig, to be able to find the combo pieces.

The sideboard is focused to fight aggro, and contains a transformative sideboard package where you take out a bunch of counterspells and the mindslavers, and board in Wurmcoil and Kraken Hatchlings. The plan against aggro is just to survive with the Hatchlings until you play a Wurmcoil and then stabilize. There have been times that I have just won the game with blue weenies, though.

I’m not going to claim that you should make this decklist online and go out and attempt to crush 8-mans with it, but it does showcase a few things. Firstly, that Grand Architect is a real card. It is definitely on the rise, and especially once the next Mirrodin set is released, I can see him taking center stage. There are already good decks with him, and Jared has a brew that I hope he’ll be talking about soon. Secondly, that an infinite Mindslaver combo is out there, and “only” requires two cards and ten mana. I feel like Prototype Portal actually has more constructed applications and could be a combo piece in a lot of decks, but I’ll leave speculation like that to the Johnnys out there.

Anyways, there you have it. My first column with two standard decklists in it. You all have Mike Flores to thank.

-Ian “The Doctor” Baker

Kar Yung Tom

Kar Yung Tom (KYT) is the Digital Content Manager for Face to Face Games. He oversees the F2FTour.com and Magic F2F websites. He is also the lead host of the First Strike podcast.