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Total Votes : 6 |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:40 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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--- description ---
An unusual deck featuring a horde of creatures in Red, Black, and Green. Decklist with analysis of card choices and matchups.
--- end description ---
Yes, this is an accurate title. There are three colors, only two creatures bigger than a 2-power, and it plays to control the board.
I started with any cards I liked, and not just rigged cards, like jitte and kokusho, but cards I just plain like. And as I’ve been proxy testing (I lack kikis and base set stuff  )I’ve found it’s actually pretty decent.
Yes, I should probably add jitte, but that makes it so conformist…
4 Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Carven Caryatid
4 Fecundity
4 Ravenous Rats
4 Nekrataal
4 Kodama’s Reach
2 Time of Need
4 Viridian Shaman
2 Arashi, the Sky Asunder
12 Forest
3 Mountain
2 Swamp
1 Llanowar Wastes
2 Karplusan Forest
Sideboard
3 Sparkmage Apprentice
4 Naturalize
2 Time of Need
3 Dosan, the Falling Leaf
3 Defense Grid
Card Choices:
Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker- He’s obviously the center-point of this deck. He’s the reason behind birds and so much land search and bops can help him out. Basically, this is how the control works. Just dupe any of the creatures that give card advantage, and you gain one card per turn.
Birds of Paradise- Used because turn two caryatid beats everything but MUC, because now you need one less mountain for a kiki, because you can viridian shaman their jitte turn two, and because its flying. There’s only one flyer with trample, and the Unspeakable is very, very rarely played. Tee hee! I block Kokusho.
Sakura-Tribe Elder- You don’t sac him immediately. If you can’t get that last mountain or swamp, you can after that. Otherwise, you can wait for kiki-jiki to clone him, block, and sacrifice, to up the chance of fecundity drawing you something to play.
Carven Caryatid- The best stall card in standard. 3 for a 2/5 defender is borderline playable. Throw in a free card, and there’s a winner. Especially sweet on turn two, when he kills anything that beats, giving you at least two card for one as well as stopping your adversary from hitting your life total.
Fecundity- Not only good with kiki-jiki, but he makes sakura tribe elder incredible, and is great when you can play anything in your deck by turn three. Basically, it’s a way to make sure you play a lot of creatures the whole game.
Ravenous Rats- Saves damage to head, free to play. With kiki-jiki, he’s instant discard. Without kiki-jiki, he’s a discard that can take out a savannah lion
Nekrataal- Another one of those cards I just plain love. Kills something and provides a blocker who can survive more than one combat. Melo-who?
Kodama’s Reach- Search for mountain to play and mountain to hand. Makes you dump kiki-jiki at possible turn three.
Viridian Shaman- Jitte-slayer, pithing needle-slayer. Doubles as a 2/2 block/beater.
Arashi- I found that I couldn’t deal with weenie flyers very well. Now, one channel fixes everything. Doubles as a beater once you own the board.
Lands- Many forests because I need to have one at least to function (play anything mana acceleration/land search). Three mountains doesn’t hurt if they kill one because I have bops galore. Two swamps because nekrataal is two black, same reasoning. I really only want to get one land that isn’t green or part green, so this balance works well. Only twenty land because of massive mana acceleration, and it hurts to draw too many in a deck without fattie beaters.
Sideboard:
Sparkmage apprentice is method of dealing with weenie flyers in R/W Beats or meloku tokens; board him in mainly against weenies or late-game anti-meloku. And singlehandedly beats bob the builder.
Naturalize- enchantment hate to board in against weenie- shaman only kills artifacts, not glorious anthem.
Time of Need- Board in against slow, lifegain or mana acceleration deck, where you can afford a little extra time to make sure you grab a kiki-jiki.
Dosan the Falling Leaf- The way you beat MUC, counterfires, or anything else that hopes to counter anything good you play.
Defense Grid- In case you don’t draw Dosan against a counter deck, this should work as well.
Matchups
Weenie is probably one of this deck’s best matchups. Put simply, sparkmaging flyers and caryatid versus ground stops creatures, and shaman stops jitte. Also, cloning creatures is incredible if you manage a turn three or four kiki-jiki; the clones can block off attackers and usually kill them. Remember to board in sparkmages and naturalizes, and games two and/or three are simple, and match one you should still be okay. In four naturalize and three sparkmage, out two birds of paradise, four fecundity, and one Sakura-Tribe Elder.
MUC is painful game one if they draw multiple copies of mana leak. Otherwise, you should be able to run them down. Save a ravenous rats for when they have one card in hand, but play everything else. Try to throw down a kiki-jiki when they’re tapped out if possible. Games two and three are very positive as long as you can throw down either a dosan or a defense grid- either should work for the win. In anti-counters, out viridian shaman and 2 carven caryatid.
Rock- make them discard and you win. Game one, try to drop rats and nekrataal when they get something big. You should be able to stall out, since discard beats kagemaro. After sideboarding, drop sparkmages on their mana acceleration, then discard/creature kill them till they drop. In three sparkmage, three viridian shaman. In a rock deck, the premise is acceleration into fat beaters. So, card loss really hurts!
Enduring Ideal- Try to make them discard all their cards. Be careful not play too too many creatures before turn four for fear of WoG (play kodama’s reach, sakura-tribe elder, time of need). Keep in mind that dropping a kiki at the right time may mean making them discard their ideal, which is always fun. In four naturalize, out four viridian shaman.
Gifts- Give them Meloku to hand and use a nekrataal on it. Once again, discard may be your best friend. Also, arashi takes out meloku very well, and all his little pals, too. If the build you play against has counters, board in the countering cards, out caryatid and two reaches.
MGA- Play kiki jiki asap. Use nekrataal to your advantage, as well, because of first strike and card advantage. Board out viridian shaman for naturalize if they don’t run jitte, but if they do don’t. And no matter what, sparkmages in for two bops and two elders, or some combination thereof pedending on how much of their build you’ve seen.
Why didn’t I use _____?
Jitte- Emphasize that this is a fun deck, not some boring, cheap one. Also, it should gain card advantage from them wasting artifact hate cards. This goes for warhammer as well. Contrary to the beliefs of a certain recruit of mine, I don’t think it fits in every deck. It could concievably work here, but it would be the only artifact, and thereby an outlet for them to not lose card advantage.
Llanowar Elves/Elves of Deep Shadow- Pure and simple, this deck is about duplicating creatures. These don’t fit the theme because they hurt my card advantage by being basically lands late game. Bops are in as anti-flying because of only one flying trampler in standard, and they add mana of any color.
Darkblast/Last Gasp- No, this is not insulting those cards in any way. This deck just isn’t about killing creatures like that. That way of killing creatures won’t help me late game, whereas cloning a nekrataal (no cards lost, one gained if fecundity) or channeling arashi (many for one) will.
If you have any questions about specific decks not listed, give me a list to test against, and I’ll edit the article to include the matchup against deck. This will most likely happen as more of the guildpact spoiler is released, and players can make decks using the new cards.
Keep in mind that there’s no greater insult than being beaten to death by ravnous rats, after twenty turns in a row of kiki-jiki cloning rats in your opponent’s end of draw step. It may seem like you are losing for a couple turn with kiki-jiki, but be sure to get card advantage with every clone! If you keep cloning ravenous rats, they will eventually discard something good. And until then, they simply lose cards constantly.
Have fun testing and happy holidays! Hope you enjoy the article and keep comments constructive but not arguementative! Stay in the holiday spirit!
Bernie
P.S.
To my recruits: Enjoy the site!
To Conor: Keep up the good work! When I used my credit, I got a message in under an hour that payment was verified and it was shipped. So much better than “one to three business days” I get everywhere else. You rock!
To Everybody: Happy Christmas, Channukah, Kwanza, and everything else! |
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| edud |
![]() Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 11:27 pm |
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Joined: 17 Dec 2005
Posts: 6
Location:
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Happy Holidays indeed
good list grail, but let me open my post with this:
Sideboard tech Dosan and Sparkmage Apprentice made me die just a little bit on the inside
a few suggestions on card choices and other things:
First, the mana base. 3 land types is trouble when you face mono-color decks or even WWr and G/B
I think the kodama's reaches should be replaced by wood elves. They are creatures that can be duped by Kiki_Jiki and search out forests with the same mana cost as well as serving as a chump blocker.
Of course I wouldn't be suggesting this if I weren't also going to tell you to consolidate your other lands into forests as well. Drop the basics and pains, and add in Overgrown Tomb and the Gruul Shockland. Just don't pay the 2 life if you don't want to when you put them into play with Wood Elves. This will let you play less non-green producing mana sources, and gets you the same tempo as a 3rd turn Reach, considering that Reach could only get basic lands and woodelves can fetch the shocklands.
Next, I looked into Gatherer for T2, 'comes into play' and 'creature' to help you get better creatures.
...yeah... there were none... total jank... you got all the good ones *shudder* dang standard
though maybe keening banshee to kill stuff like Bob or Hyppie? I could see replacing 1 or 2 nekrataals with this. Blah Blah first strike; all the weenies would have been stopped by caryatid anyway.
Okay, that section of the article was good. Next, however...
Your sideboard absolutely kills me.
Dosan? Sparkmage? Defense Grid? Ahh!
you might have had your reasons for such inclusions, but I suspect after game 1 most decks will know exactly where to hit you: Kiki-Jiki, the mana base, or BoP. Thus I suggest you to change the whole gameplan, maybe make the deck less Kiki-dependent and add some beatdown, maybe even boarding out KiKi
4x Cranial Extraction: against-nonweenies. should have no problem to cast if you take my all-forest mana base suggestion, strip away enemy win conditions.
4x Darkblast. yea, I know you said not used, but it is so much more efficient then Sparkmage Apprentice. If you don't get Kiki, sparky is a dead draw. Darkblast, on the other hand, may buy you a couple of turns.
?x Graveshell Scarab sometimes your opponent is packing pyroclasm, and sometimes he's not. If you do get hit by pyro tho, and it wipes everything except for caryatid, say, at least you have a late game beater in case they somehow own the board. plus he is non-legendary, and replaces himself. good with Kiki-fecunity too, make a 4/4 haste and then sac for 2 cards
This, instead of Dosan, should be your fight against MonoBlue cause this can be actually used against the other decks in the format.
?x Swamp/Llanowar Wastes with all these black control in the sideboard, you might want to adjust your mana base a little
The Naturalize and Time of Need are fine.
I really can't see Dosan or Kiki resolving against mono-blue though |
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| inresponse |
![]() Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2005 3:10 am |
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Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 162
Location:
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I think jitte would fit this deck better than most others. Because of your wide threat diversity you lsoe power among your creatures, leaving a generally underwhelming army to beat your opponent. Kiki-jiki is a great way to finish them off, but it does die easily, to every removal spell played, and with no countermagic that is a problem. Since you already have shaman, I would suggest cutting something for a 3-4 jittes to up threat count. I just think that without it you will run into some power level problems within the deck.
but if you want to keep the deck cheap, don't bother.
sparkmage seems pretty weak, even as a target for kiki jiki, and dosan has never really been strong. I think you need to find a different answer to blue control, since now they are playing fewer counterspells than ever, and more creature removal.
The mana base does seem a little weak, especially with carven caryatid, Kiki-Jiki, and Nekrataal in the same deck. |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 11:11 am |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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edud wrote: Happy Holidays indeed
good list grail, but let me open my post with this:
Sideboard tech Dosan and Sparkmage Apprentice made me die just a little bit on the inside
a few suggestions on card choices and other things:
First, the mana base. 3 land types is trouble when you face mono-color decks or even WWr and G/B
I think the kodama's reaches should be replaced by wood elves. They are creatures that can be duped by Kiki_Jiki and search out forests with the same mana cost as well as serving as a chump blocker.
Of course I wouldn't be suggesting this if I weren't also going to tell you to consolidate your other lands into forests as well. Drop the basics and pains, and add in Overgrown Tomb and the Gruul Shockland. Just don't pay the 2 life if you don't want to when you put them into play with Wood Elves. This will let you play less non-green producing mana sources, and gets you the same tempo as a 3rd turn Reach, considering that Reach could only get basic lands and woodelves can fetch the shocklands.
Next, I looked into Gatherer for T2, 'comes into play' and 'creature' to help you get better creatures.
...yeah... there were none... total jank... you got all the good ones *shudder* dang standard
though maybe keening banshee to kill stuff like Bob or Hyppie? I could see replacing 1 or 2 nekrataals with this. Blah Blah first strike; all the weenies would have been stopped by caryatid anyway.
Okay, that section of the article was good. Next, however...
Your sideboard absolutely kills me.
Dosan? Sparkmage? Defense Grid? Ahh!
you might have had your reasons for such inclusions, but I suspect after game 1 most decks will know exactly where to hit you: Kiki-Jiki, the mana base, or BoP. Thus I suggest you to change the whole gameplan, maybe make the deck less Kiki-dependent and add some beatdown, maybe even boarding out KiKi
4x Cranial Extraction: against-nonweenies. should have no problem to cast if you take my all-forest mana base suggestion, strip away enemy win conditions.
4x Darkblast. yea, I know you said not used, but it is so much more efficient then Sparkmage Apprentice. If you don't get Kiki, sparky is a dead draw. Darkblast, on the other hand, may buy you a couple of turns.
?x Graveshell Scarab sometimes your opponent is packing pyroclasm, and sometimes he's not. If you do get hit by pyro tho, and it wipes everything except for caryatid, say, at least you have a late game beater in case they somehow own the board. plus he is non-legendary, and replaces himself. good with Kiki-fecunity too, make a 4/4 haste and then sac for 2 cards
This, instead of Dosan, should be your fight against MonoBlue cause this can be actually used against the other decks in the format.
?x Swamp/Llanowar Wastes with all these black control in the sideboard, you might want to adjust your mana base a little
The Naturalize and Time of Need are fine.
I really can't see Dosan or Kiki resolving against mono-blue though
Yea, I know the sideboard was sketchy, but I just couldn't find a better way to topple blue. I put anti-blue in the SB because anything that can take on blue won't help anything else. Scarab, for example will never, ever, ever resolve against blue, and I would end up just milling myself and wasting mana every turn.
I think the sparkmage was there because my particular build of boros has a ton of flying and non-flying weenies. Sparkmage devastated by sparking a suntail hawk and killing savannah lions almost every game, which proves his worth many times over. Also, against a mana acceleration/fattie deck, killing birds of paradise without completely wasting a card was very useful.
I personally didn't use cranial because it didn't matter what I cranialed for. I could make them discard when I needed with rats, and tended to take them out of the game that way. Also, it hurts bad to draw cranial against weenie. Very bad.
I did think about wood elves, quite a lot actually, and I use reach because I need three mountains. Getting one or two of the color I need is good, but I need three mountains, and I have to find two sometimes with reach. I can't duplicate something to grab the mountains because I need to mountains to play the duplicator!
The kodama's reach with birds of paradise tends to fix mana base problems, the kosama's reach and elders fix the others. If my lands give me one of every color (which is reasonable), then I hope to grab two of three kodama's reach, BoP and Elder, which fixes all my mana problems. Plus, there's no color I can afford to have gone. Green lets me find the land for kiki quickly, and black is needed for control, and red is the color of the mirror breaker himself. |
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| T2_Fr33K |
![]() Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 5:55 pm |
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Joined: 28 Nov 2005
Posts: 32
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| Great maindeck, sideboard is meh. Good article, fix the board- 4 |
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| inresponse |
![]() Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 5:10 pm |
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Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 162
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ok, I put together a list and tested, but my results were not promising...
I used your exact list, and I was always color screwed. I played against a ton of decks on MWS and I got beaten every game but one, in which I played a guy running a "Samurai Deck". Even in that game I didn't draw the colors I needed until it was almost too late.
When I could get the right colors of mana, that's all I could do because I needed so many searchers. In order to attain 3 red mana you need at least 2 accelerators and 1 green producing land. But to do anything with it you need kiki-jiki also. it's just too hard to get everything needed.
Kiki-Jiki was good, when I actually managed to cast him one game, but only produced 2 copies of Ravenous Rats before dying to double-darkblast. after that I couldn't recover because I only had access to red mana and lost the game quickly.
If there were some way to fix the colors, then this might work, but I don't think there is. Maybe drop it to 2 colors? I know it means losing black, but I think it's worth it to have mana cosistency.
And fecundity wasn't reprinted in ninth if this is supposed to be standard legal, but that can be easily cut. |
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| scaraumax |
![]() Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 12:10 am |
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Joined: 30 Dec 2005
Posts: 2
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sadly I must confirm inresponse's testing
I played this kinda deck in standard a year ago, the kiki+witness+duplicant build. With high mana cost cards, Kiki's RRR cost and all the things about needing an excellent starting hand to even play, the only reason I didn't lose was because of the ultimate evil in KiKi + Witness abuse. Even then I lost to WW and Jitte
This deck, on the other hand, has KiKi + ?Carven Caryatid? uh... 
The consolidate into forests was a good plan, pending the release of the Gruul guild doesn't provide cards that blow this deck out of the water
Questionable matchup analysis (how do you expect to cast a Kiki to dupe sparkmage to kill their flyers? Kiki is an instant Jitte target, and if they haven't won by the time you hit RRR, even with birds, in this 3 color deck, they really can't expect to win much in the whole tournament.
Update:
yah I typed this and the popped up Apprentice to goldfish. Cast Kiki 2 times out of 10 before turn 6. ouch
article was okay, but the deck and the bogus matchups force me to give this a mediocre score, sorry |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 4:11 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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The thing is, though, getting a kiki on turn six is okay. You don't need him fast, just eventually.
Carven caryatid beats weenie. Don't diss him. He's the best creature uncommon in standard.
Unless you have serious problems, you viridian shaman their jitte and then play kiki-jiki after. It doesn't take a genious.
Name a bogus matchup. Sparkmage does kill flyers (see suntail hawk, lantern kami), and caryatid stops ground. And shaman kills jittes.
As for cutting the deck to just G/R, I'm working on a G/R deck that so far has beaten every deck I've seen to playtest against... it's quite not what you would expect, and it works with shocking smoothness. But, of course, you'll have to wait till next month. The deck I'm working on beats everything I've tested it against. I'm not done testing, but it's beaten this by a lot, weenie by some, and kicks around a certain "MGA" deck like there's no tomorrow.
Yes, there are better decks out there, but who really wants to write an article on boros weenie, or any other practically premade deck? Normal gifts? Bob the Builder? How completely unoriginal. |
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| inresponse |
![]() Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:16 pm |
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Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 162
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carven caryatid did little to stop the ground. Isamaru and creatures with 2 toughness and bushido are the only things that don't fly, and they can survive a block after anthem. Sparkmage apprentice is a terrible answer to kami and hawk. It might kill 1, but then it is just a 1/1. An anthem saves the creatures. Keening banshee would be a better removal spell than the apprentice. Any kiki-jike combo is irrelevant, because you usaly won;t get one out after your birds gets burned, plus if you do, the kiki gets hit with either char, hammer, or shock.
We don't expect amazing decks against every deck in the format, just decks with some solid match ups and information about how good or bad a matchup actually is. If the deck has no good matches, let us know so we don't test it.
ont he ideal match up- I think it would be better to leave the shamans in. One of the problems with the ideal deck is that it doesn't have enough non-artifact sources of red and white mana. If you can keep them off of fellwar stones and signets, you migth be able to race them or keep them off their combo. |
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