Standard Kessig

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Today we are following up our discussion of prior popular Magic the Gathering deck archetypes now in standard constructed. We hope to provide additional posts along with sample decklists representing a typical build. Standard (or sometimes still called type II) is a 60-card Constructed format consisting of the two most recent blocks and any core sets released after either of those blocks. As of the last set release (September 30, 2011), Standard consists of cards released in the following sets - Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, Magic 2012 Core Set, and Innistrad. The current keywords / card mechanics that you will find in these sets are Battle Cry, Bloodthirst, Double-Faced Cards, Flashback, Imprint, Infect, Intimidate, Living Weapon, Morbid, Metalcraft, Proliferate, and Transform.

Common Decks that are being played on those Pro-Tour circuits and at your local Friday Night Magic event include the following (in alphabetical order) are Birthing Pod, G/W Tokens, Mono-Red, Solar Flare, Tempered Steel, Tezzeret (losing popularity a bit), U/B Control, U/W Blade, and Wolf Run Ramp. Today we will yatter on a bit about Wolf Run Ramp.


First things first -

the Kessel Run is a smuggler route used to get glitterstim spice past Imperial ships in the movie Star Wars while the Kessig Run is a drop-in centre for the Krallenhorde Howlpack to omnomnom on travellers in the province of Kessig.

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Righto - the basics :

This deck which uses green mana-ramp effects, particularly Primeval Titan, to produce a large amount of mana, which is then fed into Kessig Wolf Run to produce a lethal attack (often delivered by Inkmoth Nexus). It is a bit similar to the way Valakut builds play. Early game is when you want to drop mana dorks or accelerators such as Birds of Paradise, Viridian Emissary and / or Solemn Simulacrum. Mana ramp spells such as Rampant Growth also do the trick.


From here, your goal is to get the fatties out on the battlefield such as Wurmcoil Engine, Primeval Titan and / or Garruk, Primal Hunter. Primeval Titan is the house in this build as it provides card advantage and additional mana for spells or Wolf Run pumps. Any of these monsters are now available to be targeted for Kessig Wolf Run's ability for pump and trample thus winning you the game. A measure of spot removal is typically found in cards such as Beast Within or Slagstorm.

The typical Wolf Run deck may have the following :

Creatures : Acidic Slime, Birds of Paradise, Dungrove Elder, Llanowar Elves, Primeval Titan, Solemn Simulacrum, Thrun, the Last Troll, Viridian Emissary, Wurmcoil Engine

Other spells : Beast Within, Green Sun's Zenith, Rampant Growth, Slagstorm

Planeswalkers : Garruk Relentless, Garruk, Primal Hunter

Lands : Forest, Mountain, Copperline Gorge, Inkmoth Nexus, Kessig Wolf Run
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What you may have to watch out for -

Spellskites will mess up your game by re-directing the pump from Kessig Wolf Run to itself. In this case, you will need to get some removal out or just hulk-smash your way to the finish line. Caution should also be exercised if you have some swords in the sideboard against mirror matches - if a Spellskite is out, it will steal that sword for itself and it will be sad panda time all around. We suggest that you may be very well served with an Ancient Grudge in the sideboard to blow up artifacts.
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Lastly,

The folks over at MTG Mint Card has all those Foil Graveborn singles you've been salivating after. We suggest that a foil Entomb may make an excellent stocking stuffer for Christmas (for yourself that is).
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