Images courtesy of Wizards of the Coast
Hello there! Welcome once again to Arena Adventures, the series where I’ll be climbing up the Magic: The Gathering Arena ranked ladder, and taking you along for the journey. Last week I got to Platinum 4 (the lowest sub-rank within Platinum) after trying (and failing) in the “Standard Event,” a mini-tournament.
I also promised at the end of last article that I would use one of the preconstructed decks that new players are provided with to climb up in the ranks. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite work. I did my best to climb past Platinum 4 with the blue/green big mana preconstructed deck, but it didn’t quite have the juice I needed it to have at some key moments.
I also tried re-working my white Hare Apparent deck into a white/red Hare Apparent deck, focused on using Raise the Past to bring some discarded Rabbits back to the battlefield. This deck was strong, and I climbed up to Platinum 3 with it before stalling there after several matches.
So, I decided to stick to my roots. In this edition of Arena Adventures, I’ll be taking the blue/black Faeries list I used in the earlier editions of this series, and giving it a brand new coat of paint. I’ll be going all-in on this deck, using every wildcard I’ve got to my name as I try to take my first deck even higher on Arena‘s ranked ladder. Let’s get started!
Decklist Deep Dive
This is firmly a “midrange” deck, meaning that it attempts to control the early game with counterspells and creature removal, before closing out the mid/late game with efficient creatures. Decks like this attempt to find a nice middle ground between aggressive decks and control decks, and I think they’re a ton of fun to play. It also has some similarity to the old Dimir Faeries list I had several editions ago, so let’s talk about the returning cards first:
4x Faerie Mastermind, 4x Enduring Curiosity, and 2x Kaito, Bane of Nightmares
All of these cards are fantastic in their own right. Faerie Mastermind is a fine rate for a flying creature at two mana, and it can provide a solid source of card advantage. Enduring Curiosity will provide even more card advantage due to the amount of evasive creatures in this decklist, and it can even stick around for a while after it dies. And, of course, Kaito, Bane of Nightmares is a solid card that provides card advantage, a big creature to attack with, and the ability to lock down an opponent’s best creature, all in one card.
4x Cut Down and 3x Spell Stutter
These cards found slots in this list easily. They both provide efficient, instant-speed ways to interact with an opponent’s game actions. There’s nothing more that a Magic: The Gathering player could ask for!
I’d also like to talk about some new additions to the list, and there are a whole bunch of good ones to talk about. I won’t be talking about every single card in the deck (I’m sure none of you would want to read a full paragraph talking about the intricacies of why I’m running exactly seven Islands), but here are some of the greatest hits…
4x Spyglass Siren, 4x Floodpits Drowner, 1x Tishana’s Tidebinder
Spyglass Siren may not seem like the greatest card in the world, but it fills a very important role in this deck. Because it can be cast on turn one, and creates an efficient play pattern for turn two, it opens up a very strong start for this deck. The aforementioned turn-two play pattern involves using one mana to crack the Map token that this creature creates (turning it into a very efficient one-mana 2/2 flying creature), while holding up the other mana for a Cut Down to get rid of a creature played by an opponent. That’s a really good way to open up a game, with a strong board presence and strong board control. Plus, as a little added synergy, this creature can be returned to my hand with Kaito, Bane of Nightmares and then re-cast later to get another Map token. Isn’t that neat?
Floodpits Drowner is a newer card, and a great one too. It’s a 2/1 for two mana, which isn’t the best, but it prevents our opponent’s best creature from untapping. And, in a pinch, it can even permanently remove that creature from the board. This is a nice, flexible removal spell that rewards good in-game timing. I’m also a big fan of Tishana’s Tidebinder, but its effect is admittedly a bit narrow. So, there’s only one copy of it. But, this card shuts down planeswalkers, creatures like Etali, Primal Conqueror, and even artifacts like Portal to Phyrexia. This card is great, and I may find room for more copies of it as the deck evolves over time.
As I’ve said before, having creatures with flash (an ability that allows them to be cast at any time) is particularly strong for a deck with a high density of interactive spells. This allows me to hold up mana, waiting until my opponent’s turn to cast anything before deciding if I need to cast some interaction or if I can cast a creature instead.
2x Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, 2x Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal, 1x Nowhere to Run
Rounding out this list is a pair of legendary creatures that bump up our life total – ok, it’s a little more complicated than that. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is one of the best creatures in all of Magic‘s Standard format at the moment, and it feels fitting to include some copies of it here. Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal is another fantastic creature, and it’s exactly the kind of threat that midrange decks are looking for. To finish this section out, I included one copy of Nowhere to Run, a niche answer like Tishana’s Tidebinder that’s still a very powerful card when used in the right circumstances.
And here’s the full decklist, for those of you who may be interested:
With all that said, let’s get into some gameplay!
Going Platinum
I started in Platinum 3, having reached that point after some games with the blue/green preconstructed deck and the white/red Hare Apparent deck I spoke about earlier. This section of the ladder was much the same, as I fought against a lot of black-based control decks and multi-colored reanimation-focused decks.
There was a group of cards I saw very, very frequently during this part of the ranked ladder climb: the cycle of cards with “Talent” in their name, from Bloomburrow. Specifically, Innkeeper’s Talent, Bandit’s Talent, and Stormchaser’s Talent each appeared in my opponents’ decks very frequently. While I’m not making any changes to the deck quite yet, I sense that some more spells to deal with enchantments (like Negate) may be added to the deck in the future.
Once I got the Platinum 2, I noticed that the competition got a good bit stiffer. My opponents seemed to have a firmer grasp on when to time their removal spells, which of my creatures warranted the target of a removal spell. Plus, their decks were just more powerful. There wasn’t a major increase in their skill or their card quality, but this was definitely a step up from competition I’d seen before.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it much higher than Platinum 2 this time around. I made a lot of good progress though, and I have some thoughts on how to climb even further…
It Takes Two to Tango
So, there’s one type of deck that I folded to quite often in Platinum 2: green-based big-mana decks. If they were able to land more than one or two big creatures on the board, I found myself unable to fight back with much efficacy. To combat this, I’ll add some board wipes to the deck next time and try to make another push into Platinum 1 (and maybe beyond). See you all next time…
For more Arena content, check out our guide to playing The Aetherspark in Brawl, or our deck tech for Golgari Midrange in Standard.
