The Apprentice's Workshop - Episode 16

The Apprentice's Workshop

KrazyCaley

26 April 2013

1131 views

Welcome

Under the microscope today:

Bant Bombs

Standard AlexOAwesome

SCORE: 1 | 6 COMMENTS | 990 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

This is a standard deck.

If you're a frequent reader of The Apprentice's Workshop, you can probably predict what my main objection to this deck is going to be. It is in the Caley Deckbuilding Code that decks need to be FOCUSED and tend to use MORE copies of FEWER DIFFERENT cards rather than a few copies of a bunch of different cards. My previously established rule of thumb is that 12 unique non-land cards is a great number, 13 is slightly dubious but probably ok, 14 probably warrants another look to see if you're really using the most efficient combination of cards possible, 15 almost certainly means you need to cut some cards and add more copies of others, and anything above 16 is quite silly.

Now, this is only a rule of thumb. There are decks where the main idea of the deck might require this rule to be ignored. For instance, I myself blatantly violate my own rule in this deck:

I am Blue Legend

Legacy KrazyCaley

SCORE: 11 | 1 COMMENT | 2844 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

But here you can see that there's a good reason for it- this deck uses nothing but one-of legends, and then four copies of Leyline of Singularity to press home that imbalance. And further, it's a casual deck and meant more for fun than strict efficiency.

No such exceptions apply to the deck at hand, though, which has 16 unique non-land cards and an extraordinarily complicated mana base. It's going to run with amazing and frustrating levels of inconsistency/clunkiness. Let's consider why there are so many different cards.

Shake off the signal.

The reason appears to be Signal the Clans. This card also seems to be the only reason (other than Kessig Wolf Run ) why red is included in our mana base. To justify imposing these two large weaknesses on the deck, Signal the Clans would have to grant an incredibly powerful effect.

But it doesn't. It tutors (sort of) at instant speed for a creature. The "sort of" signifies that we get a randomly-selected creature out of three different ones that we pick.

This is unimpressive, especially in a 60-card deck. If we just ran more copies of fewer different cards, we wouldn't NEED to tutor because chances would be excellent that we'd already have what we needed.

So step one is to cut Signal the Clans and its accompanying red mana sources - Mountain, Sacred Foundry, and Stomping Ground. Kessig Wolf Run is also cut, as its presence does not justify the complication of our mana base when the idea of our deck seems to be to get out a bunch of nasty fatties in Bant colors. Thus Wolf Run is also cut.

Card Tryouts

Now we need to look at these other cards and find likely candidates for cutting. My suggestions:

Borderland Ranger fixes for three mana, and not very quickly at that. Cut.

Ulvenwald Tracker is removal, but there's only one copy and we are hoping to wrath our opponents' boards before casting our fatties.

Drogskol Reaver is expensive for even this deck and is somewhat inefficient with Silverblade Paladin. Cut.

Arbor Elf does not make as much sense for this deck as Avacyn's Pilgrim. If we have the mana to cast Arbor Elf, we already have all the green this deck will ever need. White, on the other hand, we need a LOT of. Cut.

Sphinx's Revelation is an excellent card, but this deck is VERY heavy on the late game. We need to be casting our fatties late in the game, and one copy of this card makes little sense.

Who will lead us in the rebuilding process?

Now let's add in stuff. We need to add 5 lands and 8 non-lands. Let's start with the actual spells.

+2x Supreme Verdict - Easy choice.

+1x Azorius Charm - We need early removal to stay alive.

+2x Avacyn's Pilgrim - We also need a bit of ramp and white mana.

+3x Syncopate - Our most serious problem in this deck is a lack of protection for many of our bigger creatures. Syncopate, the only new unique card I am adding to the deck, will help, and will also provide a slight boost against aggro decks. These three slots could also be spent on more copies of our bigger creatures with probably the same efficiency if the deckbuilder prefers it.

For lands, we need to slightly boost our contingent of white and especially blue mana given our changes, so we'll do this:

+1x Glacial Fortress, +1x Hallowed Fountain, +2x Breeding Pool, +1x Forest.

Boardin'

Finally we have the sideboard. It mostly looks great, but I have a few qualms. Selesnya Charm is probably here to deal with aggro decks, but sadly its knight token dies to basically everything aggro casts these days. Furthermore, Terminus is now redundant since we have four copies of Supreme Verdict. I think the sideboard would be more effective to cut these two cards and add 1x Blind Obedience, a great card against aggro, and 3x Negate as further protection for our creatures if necessary. Alternate choices would be to add more Detention Sphere or Oblivion Ring, since we are very weak against Planeswalkers and other non-creature threats.

KrazyCaley's Recommended Changes:

-2x Kessig Wolf Run

-1x Mountain

-1x Sacred Foundry

-1x Stomping Ground

-2x Signal the Clans

-3x Borderland Ranger

-1x Ulvenwald Tracker

-1x Drogskol Reaver

-2x Arbor Elf

-1x Sphinx's Revelation

+3x Syncopate

+2x Supreme Verdict

+1x Azorius Charm

+2x Avacyn's Pilgrim

+1x Glacial Fortress

+1x Hallowed Fountain

+2x Breeding Pool

+1x Forest

That's all from me. Let our deckbuilder know what you think below, or at his deck's page. Until next time!