Hello hello! Welcome back to Arena Adventures, the series where I climb up the Magic: The Gathering Arena Standard ranked ladder, taking you along for the journey. Last article, I got to Platinum 2 with a brand-new deck, and I’ve got some higher aspirations this time around.
For those of you who are new around here, I’m currently using a blue-black midrange deck. It’s definitely the strongest deck I’ve used throughout this series, but there are a few tweaks I want to make to it before I continue climbing up the ranked ladder.
In and Out, Up and Down
In: 2x Aetherize
I found that this deck struggled against wide boards of creatures. Cards like Floodpits Drowner, Go for the Throat, and Cut Down can easily deal with individually strong creatures. But, the deck lacked the ability to deal with a board full of creatures like Llanowar Elves and Elvish Archdruids. So, to deal with those scenarios more effectively, I added two copies of Aetherize, an efficient one-sided board wipe that can swing the flow of a game drastically in my favor if used at the right moment. Although my opponent does get to recast the cards that I wipe off of the board, this deck can often outpace their rebuilding and close out the game quickly.
In: 2x Three Steps Ahead
Longtime fans of this series will remember that this card was one of my favorites in the original blue-black Faeries deck I used in earlier editions. The card is back in this deck, and for the same reasons. It provides a large amount of flexibility for just three mana. Being able to be used as an unconditional counterspell, as a way to draw more cards, or even create an extra blocker in a pinch is a fantastic combination of modes for just one card. Plus, it can even do more than one of those things if I’ve got enough mana on hand. This is exactly the kind of Magic card I love, and I think it’ll play a great role in this deck.
Out: 2x Faebloom Trick
This card is certainly interesting, but I just think it’s often a less effective version of Floodpits Drowner. Both cards tap opposing creatures and provide small creatures for me, but Floodpits Drowner can get rid of an opposing threat permanently. So, Faebloom Trick is out, despite being a very cool card.
Out: 1x Nowhere to Run
While it’s nice to be able to get around ward or hexproof on my opponent’s creatures, giving a creature -3/-3 is often not enough to kill it. So, despite the great niche that this card fills within the deck, I’m cutting it for other ways to interact with my opponents.
Out: 1x Faerie Mastermind
I love this card, I really and truly do. But sometimes, you’ve gotta let what you love go. There have been many times that I’ve had a copy of Faerie Mastermind in my hand, and wished it was a counterspell or a board wipe. So, I’m cutting one copy of it and hoping that I’ll get the interactive spells I need more often as a result.
Here’s the full decklist, as it currently stands:
Back to the Ladder
With those changes made, let’s get back to the ranked ladder! Last time, I got to Platinum 2 (my highest rank yet), and wanted to make a push to the tippy-top of Platinum. I played a lot of games this time around, against a lot of black-based reanimator decks that sought to fill their graveyard with big creatures, so that they could later be brought back to the battlefield.
These decks presented somewhat of a problem for me. It’s much harder for me to remove, say, a Valgavoth, Terror Eater that’s been reanimated with a Zombify because of its hefty ward cost.
And, again, I struggled against the cycle of Talent enchantments from Bloomburrow. These cards often hit the battlefield before I have mana open for a counterspell, and generate huge amounts of advantage for my opponent over the course of the game. Stormchaser’s Talent, for example, costs just one mana. It makes a token that presents a genuine threat to my life total, provides recursion for the best instant/sorcery my opponent casts, and can even become a huge token-generating threat later in the game. Unless I have mana available for a copy of Three Steps Ahead or Spell Stutter, there’s really no way for me to deal with this card in my current decklist. I could consider adding a copy or two of Into the Flood Maw, but that would just delay the threat presented by this powerful cycle of Bloomburrow enchantments.
My favorite thing about this decklist is that it can adapt to most scenarios. If my opponent is running a powerful enchantment that I can’t deal with, chances are I’ll be able to outlast the damage they’re dealing to me with Sheoldred, the Apocalypse on the battlefield. I’ve also discovered just how powerful Kaito, Bane of Nightmares truly is. Assuming that I’m able to ninjutsu it onto the battlefield on turn three, this planeswalker can act as either a cheap and repeatable lockdown for my opponent’s best creatures, an efficient card advantage engine, or as a giant Ninja to hit my opponent in the face. I’ve won many games based solely off of Kaito being a 6/7, 7/8, or even an 8/9. A big, low-costed creature is an easy way to close out games quickly. Having the option for quick life total reduction as needed with Kaito, or an easy way to stave off the pressure more aggressive decks create with Sheoldred, let me get out of many sticky situations during this section of ladder climbing.
I’m happy to report that after several (probably too many) games spent in Platinum 2, I finally made it all the way up to Platinum 1! This is the highest that I’ve climbed so far in the series, and I’ve got aspirations to continue climbing up into Diamond before the end.
I learned a lot about this deck’s strengths and weaknesses during this time, and I’ve got some observations to share. First, I tend to wind up with a hand full of lands in games that go past nine turns. While games don’t often extend that long, I’ve played many matches against other interaction-heavy decks that take a while. I’d like to make the deck’s mana base a bit more interesting, meaning that the lands I draw in the longer games can hopefully have some sort of effect beyond just adding mana to my mana pool.
And, beyond that, I’ve also noticed that Cut Down tends to fall off in effectiveness a few turns into the game. It’s still a fantastic card, but I think I’d like to diversify my interaction suite a little bit more. There’s a few cards that are already in the deck that I think can fill that role well, so I’ll be shifting around the quantities of some cards soon.
Diamond Dreams
I’m quite happy with how this deck is turning out. So happy, in fact, that I decided to try to bring it into the Standard Event, the mini-tournament available for a small entrance fee, to test my mettle. I was playing well, and found myself in a lot of very close games. I eventually lost the tournament, exiting with a record of 2-3. But, I don’t think that record is fully representative of this deck’s abilities (or my own abilities, for that matter). So many of the games were so close, and it felt as though I had a genuine chance in each of them. This is definitely the strongest deck I’ve worked with so far, and I’m excited to see how far I can take it up the ranked ladder.
I’ll see you all next time, as I try to make it to Diamond for the first time!
To follow the Arena Adventures journey from the beginning, start here.
