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Total Votes : 15 |
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| inresponse |
![]() Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:07 pm |
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Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 162
Location:
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--- description ---
The new decks in standard are still undecided, but this one will definitely be a force to be reckoned with.
--- end description ---
With the rotation of Guildpact into standard, a whole new breed of decks is available to magic players. Normally this isn’t the case, as the archetypes are pretty defined and do not change much, but this time things are different. Because of the guilds, there are a lot of new decks to play, many of which are proving to be very successful. I’m sure there are going to be a lot of people writing about Gruul and Izzet because they are the coolest guilds, with all sorts of weird mechanics and beatdown creatures. The Orzhov, however, try to win off of small advantages that can quickly build up into a victory. Because of this, they are my favorite guild, and this month my article concerns them, specifically the new face of non blue control:
4 Ghost Council of Orzhova
4 Yosei, the Morning Star
4 Souls of the Faultless
4 Orzhov Signet
4 Phyrexian Arena
4 Mortify
4 Faith’s Fetters
3 Pithing Needle
4 Wrath of God
2 Debtors’ Knell
3 Orzhov Basilica
4 Godless Shrine
4 Caves of Koilos
2 Orzhova, the Church of Deals
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Shizo, Death’s Storehouse
4 Swamp
4 Plains
Sideboard:
1 Debtors’ Knell
Darkblast
Boseiju
Nightmare Void
Cranial Extraction
Castigate
Devouring Light
Culling Sun
Terashi’s Grasp
(There are many sideboard options, it really depends on what your metagame looks like)
This deck plays very differently than many other control decks. You drop a lot of early game removal and blockers and follow up with the amazing Ghost Council or Yosei. Debtor’s Knell allows for a late game lock with the pair.
Most control decks allow for turn two and even one removal, but the closest thing this deck has to that is Pithing Needle. Instead, it plays to make up the early game life loss with Souls of the Faultless, Faith’s Fetters, and Ghost Council of the Orzhova. Phyrexian Arena is the Best card in the deck, giving you cards for almost no cost because of the life gain.
The best part about this deck is that it has maindeck answers to any potential problem. Umezawa’s Jitte can be needled or fettered, Greater Good and Glare of Subdual can be needled, fettered, or mortified. The multiple uses many of the cards have make this deck quite a toolbox.
It is amazing to get a late game Debtor’s Knell out. Usually it means you win the game if you are in even a small lead, and sometimes it can make you come back from nowhere. Repeatedly animating Yosei, the Morning Star and saccing to Ghost Council of the Orzhova every turn puts your opponent in a lockdown they can’t get out of in time to live through Council beats.
One time I was way behind against Ghazi-Glare. He had seven saprolings, Selesnya Guildmage, and Loxodon Heirarch on the Board, as well as Glare of Subdual. I drew two for my turn with Phyrexian Arena, and had exactly enough mana to play both and sacrifice my Yosei to tap down everything (some were already tapped from attacking the turn before). He took his turn, dropped a land and said go. On my upkeep I bounced the Yosei to play, swung with Ghost Council, sacced the Yosei, and was back in the game. He couldn’t play anything for the rest of the game and lost shortly.
Match Ups:
The format is currently in a state of disrepair. There are tons of new archetypes out there right now because of Guildpact. U/R will be good in some form, probably with the Urzatron, WW/r, Zoo, Greater Good, and Blue Control will probably all still be forces in the Standard world.
U/R Tron:
This match up is not terrible. Their creature removal is next to useless, and yours has plenty of targets. Debtor’s knell is amazing here if you can draw out counters with other cards. If you get an early Phyrexian Arena, you win. However, their access to Blaze/Invoke the Firemind can take you out of a winning game. It can be helpful to cast Faith’s Fetters without waiting for a worthy target just to gain the four.
Blue Control:
Much better for you, with the sideboard coming in to deal with pretty much anything. Whichever hand disruption you use, you will be pleased with the results, especially with Boseiju, Who Shelters All.
Greater Good:
Amazing for you. All their threats conveniently die to multiple different spells in your deck. There is no way you should lose this match, except for manascrew versus god draw.
Zoo, R/W weenie:
This match up really depends on their deck and your draw. Souls of the Faultless is key against Zoo and against the R/W weenie builds with fewer fliers. If you don’t draw wrath or fetters it can go badly though. It is important to have either a Souls of the Faultless, Wrath of God, or fetters in your opening hand when deciding whether or not to take a mulligan.
Please try this deck out, it promises to be a force in the new metagame. MBC was good last format, and this is pretty much an improved version of that. |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:17 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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| Looks pretty good, but I don’t see blind hunter down, which makes me feel sad, and there’s a notable lack of creatures. They can disable your only two creatures with power, and then you’re in trouble. MUC has counters to save creatures and abilities on them for protection, which I don’t see. One other thing, there doesn’t seem to be anything to sacrifice for ghost council. Consider belfry spirit. Best of luck! |
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| inresponse |
![]() Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:34 pm |
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Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 162
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you don’t need many creatures to sac for the council because you’ll only use his ability to protect him from removal a couple times. The walls sac for this very well, and yosei is just amazing with him. Keiga does little against this, as ghost council removes itself, and yosei simply trades. Meloku si tough, but if you can kill it with wrath you are usually in good shape. THere are simply too many serious threats for Blue to counter them all. Other decks are playing very very little removal. Most decks are either very agro with char as the only real relevant removal spell and a few random copies of putrefy/mortify in other decks.
and i think blid hunter is a little of a stretch to add. |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:56 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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| okay, good, you can back up your choices. However, I think hunter is a must. eight life swing if he never deals damage is pretty sweet. |
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| inresponse |
![]() Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:26 pm |
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Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 162
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oh, I thought you were joking about the blind hunter, lol
I haven’t really considered him. making your opponent lose life isn’t really a major goal of this deck until you have total control of the board, so Idon’t think he’d fit. Maybe I could cut a couple control cards to fit him in, I’ll try it out, seehow he works. I just feel like he’s not appropriate for this archetype. I do love him in a more agro-control buidl though. |
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| Osion |
![]() Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:04 am |
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Joined: 17 Dec 2005
Posts: 62
Location: MD
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Nice build of the deck, inresponse
now if only I hadn’t just traded away my Yosei s 
Did you test other versions of the deck or is this an optimized build?
here’s my ideas
Quote: making your opponent lose life isn’t really a major goal of this deck until you have total control of the board, so Idon’t think he’d fit.
if so, why the two copies of Orzhova, Church of Deals? With Souls of the Faultless and Ghost Council in the deck, not hitting that WWB or WWBB because you got a land that can only tap for generic mana isn’t so hot.
You said the life loss wasn’t an issue, so why spend a really expensive way to only drain a little bit? Did you want to drain your opponent out once you have established board control? Seeing how your deck establishes control with a built-in 4/4, the bleeding is unneccessary, imo.
Regarding the use of
4 Orzhov Signet
3 Orzhov Basilica
Personally I’m not one for using artifact accelerants in constructed unless they were the really efficient variety or I was playing a deck like Domain that depended on them.
I’m okay with the bouncelands in limited, but still hesitant on their constructed value (well, except the Dimir Aqueduct in MUCb)
Would this damage the lack portion of the manabase too much? Here’s my suggestion
4 Godless Shrine
4 Caves of Koilos
1 Shizo, Death’s Storehouse
6 Swamp
8 Plains
+ 4 Gift of Estates
I’ve been wanting to use my estates since I got them, and they seem more geared toward a control-oriented deck. I dropped the Orzhova Churches and converted the Eiganjo and Basilicas to plains.
Something really bothers me about using Souls of the Faultless. How good has he been in playtesting? He’s useless against flying, dead to Wildfire, slow against WWr, and a dead draw against MUC and Ghazi-Glare.
I dunno... |
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| inresponse |
![]() Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:49 am |
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Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 162
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ghost council would be in the deck whether he had the life loss ability or not. It is helpful, but it is not the main focus of the deck. The churches rarely hurt the mana base, and are worth inclusion because they can speed up the clock when you are locking them out with yosei and beating with Council.
THe signets are much better than you might think. In this top heavy deck, you really need all the acceleration you can get, and you especially need color fixing for the mana intensive council and souls. Also, this accelerates you into turn 3 fetters or wrath, which can be very helpful when going second versus agro. It also accelerates out turn 3 Council, which can’t always be killed right away.
the bouncelands are needed in this deck because it only runs 23 lands. These limit the possibilities of mana screw. You almost always have an opportunity to drop them without messing up your curve.
The Souls of the Faultless are amazing against the current agro decks. R/W weenie has fallen off the radar for the most part, leaing zoo as the main archetype. Zoo has nothing but ground creatures with 2 or 3 power. They crumble to the wall and can stop attacks dead. If your opponent does happen to be playing r/w weenie, then they still stop samurai, swiftbalde, isamaru, and savannah lions.
Against Wildfire, Souls is dead anyways. They will rarely have ground creatures to swing with, sticking with large fliers instead. They aren’t actually totally dead as they can be sacrificed to save a ghost council during wildfire (which really screws them up).
I did test many versions of the deck. I started with no yoseis and no souls. instead, I played skeletal vampire and akuta, born from ash (along with ghost council). Debtor’s Knell was not even considered, I was playing culling suns, terrarion, and cremate. This build has taken a lottt of work to get to, but it’s always being worked on. For example, I am considering dropping an arena and 2 other cards for some maindeck castigates or conjurer’s ban. And now I am trying it out with blind hunter’s, as La_Sin_Grail suggested. |
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| The First |
![]() Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 6:57 pm |
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Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Posts: 195
Location: Anderlecht, Belgium
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Why not a little Miren. That lovely land is soooo good with the Kami Dragons. Speaking of which... why no Kokusho? With the knell and the Ghost-Council in play, you’ll have an alternative winning condition. If you don’t use the council for the bleeding ability, then maybe you should use Blinking Spirit or another flyer instead. At least, they have evasion. Blinding Angel would be nice as well. Then, you’d only have to focus on their flyers to control the board with Yosei.
Cool combo between the Council, Yosei and the Knell though! |
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| inresponse |
![]() Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 9:39 pm |
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Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 162
Location:
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Blinking Spirit doesn’t have flying...
and the life gain is good, it’s not like I don’t use it. It’s just a great addition to an already playable card.
there are no other candidates that have the resistance to removal the council has. Ther few other options don’t allow me to combo out at the end game either. Blinding Angel would be okay, but I play 12 creature removal spells, 4 of which wipe their board. Blinding Angel would rarely be useful when it hit, and it would only do 2 points which doesn’t really swing a game. Also, it dies to char, which pretty much every agro deck in the format plays.
Evasion is good, but it really isn’t necessary, because when they have blockers it means they have attackers, so I am dealing with them before I play my threats, or my threats are just larger anyways. Besides, yosei has flying if I need a flying creature.
I tried Kokusho, but yosei is better. I don’t have room for 8 dragons (too bad) so I have to play yosei. Her ability to buy 2 turns is amazing, and can really turn a game around where 5 life and 5 damage couldn’t.
Miren is a great card in this deck, and was originally in. Unfortunately it dies to the legend rule and can cripple your early game. Dryad sophisticate is also out there, which is making me consider even cutting Eiganjo Castle. Usually when you get to the point of using the Miren, you have ghost council anyways, or can use Debtor’s Knell to get one of them back. |
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| bungietech |
![]() Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 11:59 pm |
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Joined: 08 Feb 2006
Posts: 7
Location:
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| The Orzoh Guild is also my favorite! I have been playtesting on MWS with this guild since its release, and Inresponse’s version is the most efficient and tight decklist I have seen so far. I started out playing a generic beatdown version, with Blind Hunters and Belfry Spirits, but those creatures’ abilities are far too narrow for serious constructed play and should be relegated to limited decks. And if you are using Blinking Spirit for evasion, then your local metagame must consist of way too many Stratozeppelid. |
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