Sneaky UR

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Happy Thursday to all,

Yesterday we challenged the readership to help us build an awesome standard-compliant aura deck featuring the likes of Eldrazi Conscription and Kor Spiritdancer. eMails are still floating in and the build is starting to take form. Last evening we had a few minutes to squeeze in some playtesting and found that when Sovereigns of Lost Alara hits and sticks, it pretty much game over for your opponent. Loads of fun gaming is expected to be had as this build develops further.

Righto -
I heard someone just before the release of Rise of the Eldrazi call today's game a 'stale-a$$' format. We completely concur with this statement. But now that RoE is hitting game tables everywhere, we sincerely hope that everyone will be leaving their oh-so-predictable Jund decks at home and have some fun experimenting and taking a plunge with new deck archetypes.

To this end, we found an interesting build by echoswitch from the forums : This build he has named Sneaky and I will republish his words which best describe it . . .

Sneaky is a new competitive and aggressive deck archetype. Using the synergy of the newly printed and quite explosive combination of Kiln Fiend and Distortion Strike, along with aggressive creatures amazing 1cmc spells; Lightning Bolt and Flame Slash, the deck will shatter your opponents before they can even react.

The deck ignores defenses and shrugs of disruption. Typical games for this deck end at turn four or five, but it can pull off turn three wins.

Card Choices
The Good - Every build should be running most of these. Tried, tested, and true.

Kiln Fiend - This is the star of the deck. In combination with Distortion Strike, your opponent will be weeping.

Goblin Guide - "goblin guide is a must, even if he only gets in for 2. The lands he nets your opponent now that I've played this deck like 30+ times today just doesn't matter because this deck is so fast." - Pahshowned

Plated Geopede - Can be as explosive as Kiln fiend with fetches

Goblin Arsonist - Adds more 1drops to the deck, while being able to take out 2/2s

Distortion Strike - One of the best blue spells printed this block. Damage, Evasion AND Rebound all for one? I'll take 4

Lightning Bolt - nuff' said

Burst Lightning - nuff' said

Flame Slash - Silly good at taking down creatures. I suggest siding the out for Burst lightnings against less creature heavy decks

Staggershock - Very awesome with Kiln Fiend and the Spellblade. The rebound is just fantastic, and being able to spilt the damage is great

Spell Pierce - This deck needs alittle bit of protection. I would run this over Dispel, but both are great

Ponder - Better than See Beyond for a number of reasons. It pumps kiln, it digs, it stacks, and can shuffle. Neato!

Into The Roil - Although you'll probably never kick it, the extra mana over Unsummon is well worth the ability to bounce other permanents, such as Planeswalkers.

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After some playtesting, echoswitch had some excellent games and took first at his local Friday Night Magic with this final build :

The Sneakiest of Sneaks

Creatures 16
3 Goblin Guide
3 Goblin Arsonist
4 Kiln Fiend
2 Plated Geopede
3 Wind Zendikon
1 Ruinous Minotaur

Spells 22
4 Distortion Strike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Flame Slash
2 Staggershock
3 Ponder
3 Spell Pierce
2 Devastating Summons

Lands 22
4 Scalding Tarn
11 Mountain
7 Islands

Alright on to my games:
GWU Turbo Turns: 2-0
It was a bad match-up for him. I just ignored his planeswalkers and went for the face. The extra draws always helped me more, and whatever beast tokens or walls he dropped were just avoided or burned away.

His deck went on to massacre the rest of tourney by taking like 8 turns in a row. Pure Silliness.

Vamps: 2-0
I was really scared to face this deck. Vamps has decent speed with tons of removal, but luck was on my side. He wasn't running alot of removal main deck due to the meta and had no idea about my deck.

I cleaned up first game quickly and he promptly sided in TWELVE additional removal spells. In game 2, for some crazy crazy reason, he drew 0 removal. None. So I swept house again.

I told him that I was writing this up for forums and he insisted I play one more game for fun, just to showcase what his deck can do. He definitely hit removal in the next game: Goblin Guide? Vendetta, Plated geopede? Urge to Feed, Kiln Fiend? Gatekeeper. I finally try to save the game with a massive Devastating Summons. Double Doom Blade. FML.

Mono-Green Beats: 2-1
First game played pretty standard for me. Guides, Fiends, Bolts and Strikes; Win. Second game he got some crazy accel. Hit every land drop, two llanowars, harrow and explore. Floating 9 green turn 4 is hard to beat. He dropped acidic slimes, Deadly Recluse, and Khalni Hydra. That was game.

Last game was a race. I kept distortioning around his guys, but he kept beating face. I ended the game at 2 life with a wind zendikon and a kiln fiend out, and him with a hydra, 3 llanowar, 2 leatherback baloths and 2 acidic slimes. I was sweating all game.
In Summary
- Ruinous Minotaur was bad. The extra damage was nice, but never totally game changing. The saccing lands is not fun.
- Devastating Summons was a blast. Even if it was just to mess with the opponent by switching strategies away from the fiend. Its a great "Every-thing-else-has-failed" card.
- Staggershock was very good. Good good good.
- Wind Zendikon was the major game changer for me, people just couldn't handle the flying. Most games started with a Goblin Guide, then next turn flying, hastey Wind Zendikon for 4 damage. It doesn't even really slow down the deck at all. Great combo with Devastating Summons, by saccing the enchanted lands, you get to return them to your hand!
- I'm really torn on Flame Slash over Burst Lightning, I think I'm going to run a 3-2 split
- Always mulligan until you have a creature, and both colors of land. Trust me.
- People are scared of goblin arsonists attacking into 2/2s. Use this to squeeze as much damage in as you can.
- Don't worry about taking damage. This deck is one of the fastest in the format. You will always win in the damage race.
- I dropped a few 'pedes to rely less on tapped fetches, making the deck alittle faster. Freeing up the 2-slot for the Kiln Fiends was very nice.
- I think 18 creatures is a good number for the deck. 16 was alright, but the deck really needs dudes on the field.

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Hats off - a great start and perhaps a new deck which has not yet made it to your local meta-game - our point - keep on developing - We would sooner get a deck like this kick our butt than win a dozen games against a Jund build.

Also up on the radar - MTG Mint Card just got in some very cool deck boxes -

The shizzle holds up to 85 sleeved standard-sized gaming cards. Small removable compartment at the top enclosure for dice. Designed with Ciruelo dragon artwork.

Anywhoos - stay tuned, more post Rise of the Eldrazi deck ideas landing on this blog.
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