Getting people’s attention is never easy, and sometimes you have to resort to cheap ploys to do so. As you can guess, this article is not going to be about your mom (hurray).

It is instead going to be about a new archetype for standard, Naya Vengevine, a deck Pascal Maynard and I have been toying with since the Pro Tour Paris. We both finally decided against playing it, as its match-up versus Valakut was less than enjoyable, but other than that, it was doing well against other mid-range or fast aggro creature decks and quite well versus control decks, like UW Cawgo and UB. Valakut ended up, once again, as the most popular archetype in Paris and the deck I decided to play once more, for the last time. I did not do so well, but Samuel Tharmaratnam, with my list, managed to make the top 50. Anyway, now that a new king of the hill has risen, Cawblade, and that Valakut struggles against it, the popularity of the explosive Titan deck is declining and the metagame may be more open to slower midrange decks, like the [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] deck.

In this article, I will share with you a decklist of what I intend to play for the next premium events in Standard. I hate it when writers offer half-baked decks that have not been tested at all, as their value is only based on speculation, where I prefer to believe in real play-testing results as it provides proper empirical data. I have tested the deck for weeks on Magic Workstation and in small local tournaments and have put out good results with it. Let’s see the decklist to know what we are talking about and then let us analyse the different options and the way to go with the deck.

[deck title=Naya Vengevine by Pascal Maynard and Vincent Thibeault]
[Lands]
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Raging Ravine
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Mountain
3 Forest
3 Plains
4 Arid Mesa
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Vengevine
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Kor Skyfisher
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Mirran Crusader
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Arc Trail
2 Gideon Jura
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Basilisk Collar
[/Spells]
[/deck]

The creatures: The deck is a [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] deck and it often wins once you have a Shaman online and you start fetching [card]Vengevine[/card]s, which beat quite fast and can be recurring threats. There are a few one-ofs and that is the toolbox part of the deck, a concept I will go back to and elaborate a bit further in this article. It is also a [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] deck with three equipments maindeck, the [card]Sword of Body and Mind[/card], the [card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card] and the [card]Basilisk Collar[/card]. The deck can be quite skill-intensive to play as you have a lot of choice once a Fauna hits the table. Will you get a [card]Vengevine[/card] and beat? Will you get a [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] so you can fetch one of your equipments? Will you get one of your silver bullets, a one-off card in your toolbox that is particularly useful in specific match-ups? Or will you get a [card]Squadron Hawk[/card], so you get plenty of cards to discard for your next [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] activations? With so many possibilities you have to calculate precisely and make a clear game plan that will win you the current game you are playing. So let us talk about each card in the deck:

The [card]Vengevine[/card]s are your main win condition. They are recursive threats that you enjoy discarding to your [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] or your opponent’s [card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card]’s triggers. You can even discard them on the second turn once you play a Squadron Hawk and end up with more than 7 cards at the end of the turn. You do not mind overextending when playing a [card]Vengevine[/card] against decks with mass removal, as they tend to respawn right after.

The [card]Squadron Hawk[/card]s are ideal for carrying Swords (as most of you must know by now) and they are excellent blockers. They are an excellent Shaman target as they allow you to have more cards to discard and, if the mana is available, getting one allows you to bring back Vengevine from the graveyard.

The [card]Birds of Paradise[/card]s provide acceleration, color-fixing and sometimes you just need a one casting-cost creature to be able to play two creatures and recur you know who. They allow you to play a Sword on the second turn and swing with it on the third turn, which can be devastating against some decks.

[card]Fauna Shaman[/card] can beat, but that is not their primary use. They are to be activated, as they can fetch most cards of the deck including the equipment cards through the [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card]. Essentially, they are the soul of the deck.

[card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] is the new defining card of the standard metagame and its ability to play the Swords for cheaper without the opponent being able to counter them is key to their success.

The [card]Cunning Sparkmage[/card]s are really well-positioned now and are one of the main reasons why we play red in the deck. Solid in several match-ups, they can ping away Hawks, Planeswalkers and players, and once you have the [card]Basilisk Collar[/card], they become a universal solution to most creatures. As the [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] allows you to fetch the two parts of the combo, you end up with it quite often. Also, once you have 5 mana and your opponent has played a [card]Day of Judgment[/card], you can play it, equip it with a Sword and swing thanks to its haste ability. Overall it’s a great creature, giving you an edge versus other creature decks.

I used to play with [card]Lotus Cobra[/card] in the deck, as a way to get more explosive draws, but I ended up removing them recently, for several reasons. The top of the deck curve is 5 mana, which is easily reachable, and Cobra often doesn’t do much beside being a [card]Goblin Piker[/card] that cannot block a creature with a sword on it. With [card]Arc Trail[/card] and [card]Cunning Sparkmage[/card] popular right now, they are very vulnerable. Also, with all the Hawks around, more often than not, they tend to trade with the popular bird, which is not much of a value proposition. So out the Cobras went, despite the fact that they allowed you at times some sick plays, like playing a Sword on the third turn, equipping it and swinging, thanks to a fetch-land. I used to play to more fetchlands in my mana base to increase their utility (a [card]Marsh Flats[/card] and a [card]Verdant Catacombs[/card]), but I replaced them with two manlands, smoothing in the process the mana base and giving me a better late game plan.

We are getting to the point of the deck that is more up to debate; let us talk about the toolbox. A deck with a toolbox is a deck that has some tutor effects and few situational cards that you can search for. These cards are situational because they can be brilliant in specific situations and a bit ordinary in others. The expression, “toolbox,” is a metaphor that is understood in the way that you can get the tool you want to deal with a given problem. Legacy decks with [card]Cunning Wish[/card], for example, have several one-of instants in their sideboard that are only good in some match-ups, as well as a few different kill cards that can be used depending on the game state. The toolbox in the [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] deck is in the maindeck and you can post-board enter the one-of tools you need to improve certain match-ups. The downside of having a toolbox is that in trying to maximize it, you may be tempted to put several cards that are very situational, cards that could be almost useless in some situations, and as a consequence cost you a game. Ideally you do not want to put cards that are too narrow in the maindeck unless you make a metagame call and decide to include a certain card due to the prevalence of a tier 1 deck in a given metagame.

Let’s talk about all the options I considered for the deck and the reasons why I decided to play the ones that are in the deck.

[card]Leonin Relic-Warder[/card] can deal temporarily with an artifact or an enchantment. To have the option to fetch it is often very handy, as you can remove a Sword, a [card]Journey to Nowhere[/card], a [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card] or an [card]Everflowing Chalice[/card]. It is not totally useless against Valakut as you could, in theory, remove a [card]Khalni Heart Expedition[/card], even though it never happened to me in testing. It can be a beater but it is sometimes better to play around spells like [card]Condemn[/card] if you play against Cawblade.

The [card]Sylvan Ranger[/card] can fix your mana, can carry a Sword and it is often what you need to fetch with the Shaman, allowing you to have enough mana to cast your high casting cost dudes without really over-extending when playing against decks with [card]Day of Judgment[/card].

[card]Kor Skyfisher[/card] can be fetched to bring back [card]Vengevine[/card] from the graveyard and you can sometimes bounce a [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] for more value. Its evasion ability is good with the swords.

[card]Thrun, the Last Troll[/card] is there as a hard treat to deal with. It can be regenerated after a [card]Day of Judgment[/card] and it cannot be bounced by am opposing Jace. It tends, however, to get blocked quite a lot by puny hawks and is on the short list of being voted off the island…I mean the deck.

The [card]Mirran Crusader[/card] is amazing when wielding a Sword and beats quite fast. It is however vulnerable to [card]Lightning Bolt[/card], [card]Arc Trail[/card] and a lot of other red spells, and so I decided to play it as a one-of. Some people like it as a 4-of or as a 2-of. The thing is, it can be tough at times to get your two white mana sources early and the Crusader hanging out in your hand without getting on the battlefield and doing its job can be a really annoying sight.

What else can we consider in the toolbox? Some options will definitely go into the sideboard, and others ended up getting cut.
So there is the [card]Phyrexian Revoker[/card], a [card]Pithing Needle[/card] on legs. What are its potential juicy targets? Planeswalkers, obviously, like Jace, Gideon, and Tezerret. [card]Birds of Paradise[/card] and [card]Overgrown Battlement[/card], as it works on non-land mana abilities. Swords and [card]Tumble Magnet[/card]s, also. Often, though, it is going to be a simple 2/1 artifact creature, fragile as artifacts can be, especially post-board with so much artifact hate in sideboards everywhere. So it did not make the cut.

Another one that was considered was [card]Molten-Tail Masticore[/card]. It gave the deck some reach but the upkeep cost can be annoying when you are not discarding [card]Vengevine[/card] and it could be too mana-intensive for the deck, as you rarely have tons of mana to spare. It turned out to be unimpressive in testing.

[card]Tuktuk, the Explorer[/card] seemed a bit goofy at first, but its haste ability worked well with the equipments and it was the perfect chump blocker against aggro decks. The fact that it became an artifact creature was good against decks relying on [card]Go for the Throat[/card] as removal. In the end it was cut as it seems more cute than anything else.

[card]Precursor Golem[/card] is seeing some play and I thought that we could include one. It is a team on its own and does not die to [card]Go for the Throat[/card]. Five mana is a bit steep for a deck that wants to be fast, and I probably prefer Gideon, even if I cannot fetch him.

[card]Baneslayer Angel[/card] could also be in the deck and it is a problematic card for some red decks. It is very fragile and seems to get blocked a lot by the omnipresent hawks that seemed to have invaded the format.

[card]Manic Vandal[/card] and [card]Viridian Corrupter[/card] both seem to be good silver bullets to fetch, but they seemed more like sideboard options as we already have the [card]Leonin Relic-Warder[/card] maindeck. The Vandal is probably the guy we need as it is non-green (useful when your opponent is playing the Swords) and it is not Infect.

Other cards could be considered, like [card]Linvala, Keeper of Silence[/card]that will go for sure into the sideboard, [card]Goblin Ruinblaster[/card], [card]Acidic Slime[/card], [card]Inferno Titan[/card] which can finish the game on its own and is pretty good in the current metagame due to the abundance of small dudes, [card]Hero of Oxid Ridge[/card], [card]Spite-Shot Elder[/card] and [card]Sun Titan[/card].

So what about the spells? I play two [card]Lightning Bolt[/card]s and two [card]Arc Trail[/card]s, which shows how torn apart I feel about these 2 burn spells. So many Jaces and first turn [card]Goblin Guide[/card]s died to my Bolt that I cannot forget how loyal they have been to me. [card]Arc Trail[/card] on the other hand can often be a 2 for 1, which is every magic player’s wet dream, and it gives you an edge against all the other heavy creature decks. However, no matter my emotional attachment to both of them, I believe that both are useful and have been satisfied with that ratio.

The two [card]Gideon Jura[/card] are not my idea, as I read an article of Brad Nelson last week on SCG where he was brewing a deck that came dangerously close to the deck I had been playtesting with. Nelson was bragging about how great and amazing Gideon was in that format and I had always been slightly frustrated when my Cawblade opponent played it and proceeded to keep it on the battlefield for what seemed like a few millennia. Why not include it in Naya Vengevine, if the card is so good? It allows you not to overextend against UW and UB decks and gives the deck some creature removal able to deal with the dreaded fatties. It can also beat and carry Swords, which is just beautiful. And that part of his diet is often constituted with Jace is just the cherry on top of the pudding (note to self : I need to find metaphors that are a bit more refined).

The equipment package is also a toolbox, where we have the two Swords that, if left unanswered, are enough to win you the game on their own, and the [card]Basilisk Collar[/card], that combos with Sparkmage, as the general public has been made aware of months ago. The Collar also gives the deck some lifegain which is key against fast aggro decks, and gives Deathtouch to your countless puny creatures that can now trade with more size-gifted monsters. A [card]Squadron Hawk[/card] or a [card]Sylvan Ranger[/card] with a Collar on blocking duty is a pretty sight and can inspire all sorts of complicated emotions to the open-minded fellow. I considered other equipment cards as well. [card]Bonehoard[/card], which I ended up putting in the sideboard, is a great late game card and can be a trump in winning the long creature-on-creature battles. [card]Sword of Vengeance[/card] used to be maindeck as it allows you to deal damages past blockers and, as such, can be used to deal with Planeswalkers. It can help you out to beat the other Swords and is often quite helpful. Its high activation cost was the reason why it got axed in the end. [card]Mortarpod[/card] has seen some play in Cawblade sideboards and I thought it could provide spot removal against certain decks and some reach too. It could be ok as it gives your [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] the option to fetch a removal spell, but still seems unimpressive.

At last, let us talk about some serious matters: the sideboard.

[cardlist title=The Sideboard]
1 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Arc Trail
1 Bonehoard
3 Kor Firewalker
1 Manic Vandal
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
3 Journey to Nowhere
2 Goblin Ruinblaster
[/cardlist]

When testing for Pro Tour Paris with the Canadian crew, we came to the conclusion that the deck was really strong except for one thing: its Valakut match-up. What could be done to address this fundamental flaw? We tried different plans, but it seemed almost impossible to beat a fourth turn Titan. The last plan I tried was to put a swamp and 4 [card]Memoricide[/card] in the sideboard and thanks to the [card]Lotus Cobra[/card] and the two other fetch-lands I had in the deck, I could often cast the [card]Memoricide[/card] before it was too late. That did not, however, assure that I would win and sometimes I just did not get the black source. Another plan we tried was to put some [card]Overwhelming Stampede[/card] in the sideboard, with the [card]Hero of Bladehold[/card] to produce tokens and hopefully win. That was not consistent enough. I thought about playing some [card]Mark of Mutiny[/card]s (and maybe even [card]Teetering Peaks[/card]) but again Naya Vengevine does not often kill the opponent very fast, it is more of a slow grinding deck, so it was not enough to get there. The problem is that Valakut tends to be a lot faster than Naya, and it has access to both [card]Pyroclasm[/card] and [card]Slagstorm[/card], spells that will always leave you with a burning sensation and a bitter aftertaste, like, nevermind…

[card]Leyline of Sanctity[/card] could be another plan, but it does not seem it would do too much, as the Valakut player will only remove your creatures and Titan you to death with regular attacks. The [card]Journey to Nowhere[/card]s were needed as they can deal with threats like [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card], [card]Sun Titan[/card] and [card]Baneslayer Angel[/card], which can be hard to survive otherwise, and they give the deck more spot removal against fast aggro decks like Red Deck Wins, Goblins or Boros. The [card]Arc Trail[/card] are money too in a lot of match-ups, as mentioned earlier. The sideboard can for sure be improved as it is currently in a situation when you often have more cards you want to bring in than cards you want to get out of the deck, which is the sign of a sideboard that is not optimal. I considered bringing in [card]Creeping Corrosion[/card] if the Tezzeret decks gain in popularity, which does not seem to be the case if you look at the latest results, and would involve some potential negative synergy with your own equipment. If [card]Creeping Corrosion[/card] was so good in that match-up as to be an auto-win card, it could still be worth playing it. If you have any suggestions on how to improve the Valakut matchup considerably post-sideboard, feel free to leave your ideas in the comment box below, as I am ready to find some space in the sideboard for it (5 to 6 cards would be fine).

I believe I found most of the pieces that could fit the puzzle that is the Ultimate Vengevine deck, a deck that would be finely tuned to the metagame and with the right amount of toolbox and aggression. The deck, though, has a lot of potential and once the correct configuration is found, its rogue element and its aggression may allow it to rise to the top. A lot of different cards can fit into it and many different strategies can lead you to victory, and the reflection starts mostly with the first [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] activation. The [card]Vengevine[/card] plan remains the default option, with [card]Squadron Hawk[/card] backups to respawn the [card]Vengevine[/card]; other plans to victory can be followed as well, giving you a lot of control and choices on what is going on.

Anyway this is the results of my reckless and uninhibited pondering on a deck that is fun to play but can as well beat Cawblade, even though it remains a long and difficult enterprise every time. I intend to play it in premium events in Montreal and may take it to Toronto for the Tcgplayer event this weekend (19-20 of March). Until then, enjoy your matches and your life to the fullest and may you successfully crush all and every undeserving opponents. Or, if you do not feel too much of an alpha male, enjoy yourself moderately and have fun playing matches without being too results-oriented.