Greg Nilsen wrote:

Hi there

 

My name is Greg and I’m from Durban, South Africa. We’ve got our Regional Championships coming up soon and I’ve spent quite a bit of time working on the deck below that I want to run at the champs. The deck runs quite well and is fairly consistent with good results against most of the arch-types, but it just seems to be lacking a bit of cohesion. It’s definitely a beat-down deck with quite a bit of removal to get rid of pesky chump blockers, and then might of oaks usually finishes the game a turn earlier than normal. The sideboard transforms the deck into more of an agro-control variant that tries to blow up any rush/weenie decks and then drop a bit fattie and ride that out to victory. I’ve tried replacing BoP with Llanowar Elves to give it more early game aggro, but the BoP guarantee a turn 2 watchwolf and turn 3 Hierarch and I just feel they give the deck more options. Anyway, any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Here is my decklist:

 

Main Deck (60 Cards)

 

Creatures (25)

 

4 x Birds of Paradise (G)

4 x Sakura-Tribe Elders (1G)

4 x Watchwolf (GW)

4 x Loxodon Hierarch (2GW)

2 x Giant Solifuge (2 R/G R/G)

3 x Kodama of the North Tree (2GGG)

2 x Arashi, the Sky Asunder (3GG)

2 x Yosei, the Morning Star (4WW)

 

Spells (9)

 

4 x Putrefy (1GB)

2 x Mortify (1WB)

3 x Might of Oaks (3G)

 

Artifacts (6)

 

3 x Sensei’s Divining Top (1)

3 x Umezawa’s Jitte (2)

 

Lands (20)

 

4 x Temple Garden

4 x Brushland

2 x Overgrown Tomb

4 x Forest

3 x Plains

3 x Swamp

 

Sideboard (15 Cards)

 

4 x Faith’s Fetters (3W)

4 x Wrath of God

3 x Ivory Mask

2 x Naturalise (1G)

1 x Arashi, the Sky Asunder

1 x Yosei, the Morning Star

 

Kind regards

Greg Nilsen

Well, Greg, I'll do what I can.  Your main complaint, "lacking cohesion", could mean just about anything, but I'm chalking it up to your mana base.  I was surprised to see you splash black for Putrefy and Mortify, even if they are good cards.  I'm gonna recommend taking out those two cards along with your black mana sources (besides the Birds).  Replace the removed lands with 3 Forest and 2 Plains.  Replace Mortify with Naturalize.  And as for Putrefy, I think the best removal you can get would be Faith's Fetters.  Move them up from the sideboard, they're a lot better than anyone originally thought and are making life gain a tournament-viable strategy.  I know, they aren't as beatdownish as you want maindeck, but we can make up for that.  First, replace Yosei with his brother Jugan, a much more aggressive choice.  But leave the Yosei in the sideboard(maybe even add another copy, so you still have two in case you want to trigger both their graveyard abilities). 

One last thing you may want to do is replace one copy each of the Birds, STE, and Watchwolf with 3 Skarrgan Pit-Skulk.  Why on earth?  Because, if you play Might of Oaks on the Pit-Skulk, he becomes an 8/8 that can't be blocked by creatures with power less than 8.  And how many blockers have power 8 or more?  That's what I thought.  Of course, 4 Birds is a time-honored staple and Sakura-Tribe Elder is one of the best Green cards in Standard, so this idea may be a bit too out there for Regionals.  Maybe just replacing a few Watchwolves with Pit-Skulks, and moving the Watchwolves to the sideboard (Watchwolf is a better defense card anyway, sitting on the bench in the early game and discouraging attacks into a two-mana creature that can kill most four-mana creatures).

 

So, I think we've still got a few sideboard slots left, so I'll make a few recommendations.

 

Devouring Light

Crash Landing

Carven Caryatid

Hand of Honor

 

Of course, top-level tournaments aren't exactly my strong suit, so I can't really make guarantees.  I also try not to profess that there aren't other, perhaps even better, ways to remake this deck.  The thing about Magic is that there's always another way of doing things.  I try to make my deck garage articles more of a "learning experience" than an outright schematic of what you must do.  My job is to demonstrate sound deckbuilding principles and plant ideas in your head for you to consider, and I think I've done that.  Good luck at regionals, Greg