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Good Game: Evolving BorosBy Andrew Hanson on November 27th, 2009 · Filed in Good Game, Standard (Type 2) · 32 CommentsGood Game: Evolving Boros Gimme the cash! What does this mean for the average FNM warrior (or even for those getting ready for PT San Diego)? Well, it means you don't have to shell out the cash for Maelstrom Pulses or Broodmate Dragons. And, thankfully, it also means you don't have to shell out the big bucks for Baneslayer Angels. If you take a close look at the top eight, you'll notice that five out of eight decks ran white, yet only two of those decks ran the fifty-dollar Angel in their maindeck (though two others did dabble with the Angel in their board). What it really means is that there actually is room to explore the metagame. Though Jund is still a concern, it is by no means unbeatable. You don't have to play a slow, midrange deck to compete. I mean, look at that top eight. Two of the decks featured Goblin Guide. One of those decks, it makes me happy to say, was Boros Bushwhacker. Why does this make me happy? Because it's the deck I've been testing with recently. I was a little worried that after Worlds it would become clear that in order to compete I'd have to run Broodmate Dragons. That's not the case, though. We don't have to be railroaded into slow decks. We can play fast, aggro decks. Yes, we can. So for today, I'm going to go into some of my testing with the Bushwhacker deck, and top off the article with a little blurb about my rogue-ish deck I've been messing with since rotation. Let's begin with this:
Let me begin by saying this how you do not build Boros Bushwhacker. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. This build was terrible. Why? A number of reasons. First and foremost: its mana base is atrocious. I mean, 22 lands. In a deck that absolutely, positively needs to hit land drops for the first four to five turns. Also, notice that lopsided distribution of red sources to white sources? That's no bueno. This deck must have a white source or a Goblin Guide on turn one, or else it suffers a crippling blow to its tempo. Not exactly awesome, but critical. Which brings me to the Bushwhacker. Three of them? I mean, some people were trying that, but why? Well, my thought was that I could get some cool turn threes, where I drop a one drop and then the Bushwhacker. How cool is it to Bushwhack without the Ranger of Eos? Plus, this increased my chances of living in Magic Christmasland: turn one, Steppe Lynx. Turn two, land, hit for 2 or 4, then Plated Geopede. Turn three, Steppe Lynx number two, fetchland, crack it for another red source, Goblin Bushwhacker, swing for 18. A turn three kill. But the Bushwhacker is a terrible top-deck. At least, he's terrible when you have no dudes down. In the early turns, he's not the best card in hand either—I mean, this isn't limited. Sure, an early Bushwhacker can lead to some beatings in that format, where it can be really hard to reverse tempo. It's not so hard in Constructed. You pretty much want to reserve Bushwhacker for when he comes down for the win. With that in mind, you see him a little too much with three copies. Really, you just want to tutor for him via Ranger of Eos. Oh yeah, the Ranger. Only three? That's because of my terrible land base. Mistake. Four Rangers, minimum. The End. This guy is just too good. I was trying too hard to make my two-drops the focus—as evidenced by twelve of them—where they should just be the frosting on my one-drop cake. As for the board, the Luminarch Ascension was supposed to be a cute way of beating the Blue/White/X control decks floating around. The problem? If it's not in your opening hand, it doesn't do much. You really want to play it turn two, or it becomes a moot point, as the opponent probably has a way of pinging you for a turn or two in the late game—which gives them the time they need to drop their win condition and jack you for a crap-ton. Either way, unless it's in your opening seven, the Ascension will probably never go live. As such, probably no good in the board of this deck. I didn't play this version of the deck very long. In fact, I just played it one night, where I went completely defeated. That's right, no wins. Well, that's not entirely true. I got the bye in the last round. But that humiliating thrashing did teach me a few things about the deck: it needs more white sources; it needs to play a turn one threat; Ranger of Eos is nutty. My next build of the deck was pretty much a cloning of a friend's list, save a few changes in the sideboard:
Now, the landbase had enough white sources to reliably see one on turn one. And I had enough one-drops to make it relevant. As for the two-drops, the reasoning is like this (not my reasoning; I was going by my friend's logic): Plated Geopede is okay, but he's kind of slow for the deck, so you never want to see him past turn two, and he's terrible as a top-deck; Hellspark Elemental is better than Geopede because it's a better top-deck and it can fight control decks so much better; Kor Skyfisher can be good, especially around turn five, but you don't want a hand choked with them because that will screw up land development too much. I mean, it sounds reasonable. Good kitty. The next time around, the deck did much better. Or maybe I did much better with it? One of things about Boros is that you don't try to fight an attrition war and then bank on top-decking bombs. Merfolk did that when I boarded in Reveillark and Jund can play that game against a faster deck and bank on Bloodbraid Elf and Double Dragon to see it through. But Boros Bushwhacker can't play that game. Why? Because it is the fast deck that strategy is used against. It's much better to hold your dudes back than to start trading. Build your board up (but don't overcommit into a board sweeper), and then just win with a big Bushwhacker play. It's amazing how much people allow this to happen. They'll swing into you, thinking you can't get a tough enough board to kill them on your next turn, but they don't anticipate two other creatures coming down with the Bushwhacker, which often puts your alpha well above the lethal range. But, at the next tournament, I went three and one, beating a Jund and two Vampire decks, while losing to a monowhite strategy. The monowhite deck was an interesting homebrew build, running Soul Warden, Elite Vanguard, Knight of the White Orchid, Kazandu Blademaster, Kor Skyfisher, Baneslayer Angel, Conqueror's Pledge, Honor of the Pure, Ajani Goldmane, and, of course, Path to Exile. It's actually kind of a nightmare to go up against as it develops its board just as fast, but then makes it bigger via Honor of the Pure and Ajani Goldmane. That coupled with the fact that Boros Bushwhacker doesn't have time to build up a board because, first of all, they can swing into your creatures without fear as theirs are bigger, and second, Baneslayer Angel. It's a lot of pressure to be under. So after that tournament, I went back to the think tank. Mostly, I wanted to change the sideboard a little. Ajani Goldmane and Honor of the Pure were brutal to go up against. That, and I realized that I just didn't have any way to deal with my opponent's artifacts and enchantments, which is really an iffy spot to be in—especially at FNMs, where rogue decks are common. This is even more true now, with the metagame starting to open up. So what could I play? Well, taking a hint from the monowhite deck's sideboard, how about Kor Sanctifiers? They're a creature that kills problem cards, which seems really good for Boros Bushwhacker as it doesn't want to play cards that don't contribute to its overall aggressive style of play. But what to cut? Well, first things first, I cut the Ascensions. I still really didn't like them, and felt playing three was probably worse than four. Also, the range of decks they're useful against is pretty slim. But I still needed something to battle with control decks, so I upped the number of Ajani Vengeants to four. But since I wanted three Sanctifiers in the board, I still needed to cut one card. Since I've never been a big fan of singletons, I went after that Journey. Also, while pondering the deck (I had a  available to me), I realized something else. First strike is hard to fight against, and, on the flip side, it's great having my own first striker swinging in. Plus, having a 5/5 swinging in on turn three is just nutty. Thus, I wanted to up my Plated Geopede count.What I didn't like all that much were the Hellspark Elementals. Sure, they could get in for some good damage, but I hated seeing more than one of them. It meant I had fewer creatures staying on the board, providing a constant threat to my opponent. So I cut one Elemental for a Geopede.
I took this deck to the next two tournaments, going three and one, then three and two. At the first tournament, I lost to Jund in round one, then beat Red/White/Blue Control, Vampires, and then the mirror (though that match was a total luck-sack on my part). At the second tourney, I lost to Magic Chistmasland in round one, then lost to a Naya deck in round two (almost had him game three, but he made a Baneslayer play I just couldn't answer). After that, I beat a homebrew milling deck, then a Naya-colored Ally deck, then got to go up against Rob Dougherty's monowhite weenie deck. That match was pretty intense. Well, at least, game one was. It went a long time, with me at very little life and both of us trying to build up a board that could be lethal. I got there first via Hellspark Elementals. Both of them were actually quite dead that game... until I had enough Geopedes and Lynxes down that his first strikers were busy blocking 5/5s and 4/5s. Of course, if they were just any creature, they would have been just as good in that situation, since I was swinging for the win. Game two, he managed to get all eight Plains in play (with only one of them provided by my Path). Enters the battlefield tapped... can actually be an impediment. One of the things that I love about playing this deck is that if you have just a two-land opening grip, you can keep (barring a hand without any action in its non-land cards, of course). And being able to keep is even more important for Boros Bushwhacker than it is for most other decks. At six cards, you can get there as long as the draws are decent. At five cards, you're not getting there unless you draw like a god (or your opponent lets you goldfish). But, there are times where even a two-lander is iffy. Those times are when one of the lands is a Teetering Peaks. Don't get me wrong, the Peaks can be really good, but you don't usually want it to be in your opening grip. I mean, when you go turn one Lynx, turn two Peaks, hit for 4, but play nothing else until turn three, you'll find yourself wishing that the Peaks was a regular Mountain just so you could keep laying threats. And nothing else makes you wish a Peaks was a Mountain than when you already have three Mountains in play, and nothing to fetch with a Scalding Tarn. Oi, how embarrassing. I've had to keep enough hands where the Peaks slowed me down to believe that one should be cut for an extra Mountain. It really sucks not being able to play a Ranger until turn five because of a Peaks. Both of those changes—pulling the Elementals for a fourth Geopede and X, pulling a Peaks for a Mountain—were things I was planning before I saw Bram's top eight deck list. But I would be lying if I didn't say that because he made those changes I'm definitely doing it now. What I'm not so sure about is Elspeth, Knight-Errant. Don't get me wrong; the planeswalker is gravy. Sometimes, when I ran her in Merfolk, she was a blowout. But then, sometimes she was just okay, and sometimes she just made the deck clunky and was more of a liability. I feel she'll operate similarly in Boros Bushwhacker. And if there's one thing this deck doesn't need, it's the possibility for being more inconsistent. Of course, how many times have I made top eight at Worlds? Nevertheless! I do not wish to try Elspeth, and I still have a maindeck slot open. What do I put there? Well, I could put in a third Burst Lightning. It can be really good, especially if I'm on the draw against something running Lotus Cobra or Noble Heirarch. But it's pretty bad against Jund and Baneslayer Angel. So what else could I put there? Well, I have an idea, but let me show you the list:
Terri--- tech. The question: is it "fic" or "ble"? Better yet, your opponent plays a turn five Baneslayer and thinks they've got your alpha strike covered. You play Hookmaster and Bushwhacker kicked. Bam. Pow. Zap. Am I living in Magic Christmasland (that's the third time I've used that phrase; damn you Conley Woods!)? Maybe. Maybe not. Rob Dougherty swore by these guys. And I really like them as an answer to Thrinax and Baneslayer. But onto the other change: Burst Lightning in for Celestial Purge? Celestial Purge? Perhaps the best color-hosing sideboard card in the format? Yeah. Why? Well, let's go through it. What is the best use of the Purge? Sprouting Thrinax. Now, I've got Hookmaster to handle that. Do I really need the Purge? I mean, it can also hit Putrid Leech, Bloodbraid Elf, and half a Broodmate Dragon. But that's where the list ends (unless I go into Vampires, but there's only two there worth mentioning and that's the Vampire Nighthawk and the Vampire Nocturnus). What does Burst Lightning kill, though? It doesn't really kill a Leech (unless your opponent is a newb). I mean, if you kick it, it can kill the Leech, and half of the Broodmate. But that's a five mana spell. Of course, it can be aimed at a face, which I find pretty important in certain match ups, actually. Those match ups are any one in which I'm bringing in the Manabarbs. Why? Because those come in against any deck that waits a long time to develop threats on the board, and usually bank on removing your own creatures in the early game. Therefore, you want to rush in, hit for some good damage drop Manabarbs as early as you can. They'll have to take damage to deal with your board (hopefully, they take 4 when they cast their Day of Judgment), and then you can just finish them off with burn spells. But the Burst Lightnings are more than just cheap burn. They also kill Lotus Cobra and Noble Heirarch, as mentioned above. Look at the top eight of Worlds. There were as many players running Noble Heirarch as there were players running Jund. And Lotus Cobra even made a top eight appearance, not to mention video coverage with Conley Woods. The decks that feature the Snake show how, if he lives to turn three, he makes the game incredibly one-sided. A turn three Acidic Slime? That's hard to come back from. Even something as "weak" as a turn three Bloodbraid Elf is insane—especially since it comes at the cost of zero card disadvantage. Both of those cards are problem accelerants that need to be killed quickly—Burst Lightning increases the number of good answers in the deck from four to seven (Path to Exile is not a good answer to either of these creatures). One thing to keep in mind: I'm not saying these latest changes are the sickest tech for Boros Bushwhacker. They're experimental. It'll take a bit of testing with them to see how well they do, and (most likely) next time I'll give you some real feedback on them. My Bad Jund The title of this section is tongue-in-cheek. I don't actually think my version of Jund is bad. In fact, quite the opposite. I think it's pretty good. But I've talked about it before, and people posting in the forums didn't have faith in it. And some of the people at the shop seem to think poorly of it, too. But it keeps putting up decent finishes at FNM and Tuesday Night Magic (X-1) whenever my wife runs it, and even my friend who's pretty new when it comes to Magic put up a winning record with it. Here's the list:
This is simply a much faster version of the Jund deck. Instead of playing a slow, controlling game based around two-for-ones, it plays a pretty fast creature suite with the best removal and hand destruction cards. It actually plays in an interesting spot, tempo-wise. The Golden Gobbo. As for those Broodmate Dragons, they are a concession that, first, Double Dragon is a powerhouse; and second, that not all games can end that fast. This isn't Boros Bushwhacker, and sometimes it has to go to a late game. The Dragon makes for a gravy top-deck in that case. And if you're thinking, "But the deck only runs 23 land. There's no guarantee that if you draw the Dragon late you can play him," you're not thinking about this deck's game plan. If it hasn't drawn six lands by the late game, then it's been drawing gas, and it probably didn't go to the late game in the first place. Of course, if you get stuck with both Dragons in your early hand, that can be problematic, though the slower version of Jund has that same problem. Some changes that may be coming are the addition of a single Oran-Rief, the Vastwood in place of a single Forest, and replacing one Hellspark with one Hackblade. The Vastwood just seems so good—putting a +1/+1 counter on a Bloodbraid Elf cascading into a Jund Hackblade, or putting counters on a trio of fresh Saproling tokens, complimentary of Sprouting Thrinax. As for the Hellspark/Hackblade switch, the reasoning there is that multiple Hellsparks don't compliment each other, but multiple Hackblades do. It's really savage when your opponent taps out to clear your board, and you answer on the very next turn with a double Hackblade drop. Magic Christmasland (reference number four; I need something new...)? Maybe. But if the deck is good enough to win without the god-hand, what happens when you actually get those draws? Good game. By Andrew Hanson on November 27th, 2009 · Filed in Good Game, Standard (Type 2) · 32 Comments |
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