[Deck] Restore Balance

[Darth Nihilus]

Since i didn´t see a thread about this deck yet i thought it might be time to show you guys a pretty effective and cheap deck. Restore Balance is a direct transition from old extended and it got a few new toys since its time back in future sight.

So this is the list i started with:


4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Firewild Borderpost
4 Mistvein Borderpost
4 Veinfire Borderpost
4 Wildfield Borderpost

4 Ardent Plea
4 Violent Outburst
4 Restore Balance
4 Demonic Dread

3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Ensnaring Bridge
3 March of the Machines
2 Ajani Vengeant

3 Island
3 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Forest
2 Mountain


SB: 4 Simian Spirit Guide
SB: 3 Trespasser il-Vec
SB: 3 Thirst for Knowledge
SB: 3 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 Krosan Grip

The SB back then was pretty random, just some stuff to go off earlier than other decks did, like hypergenesis before its ban. After some testing and tuning (80+games) i came up with this:


4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Firewild Borderpost
4 Mistvein Borderpost
4 Veinfire Borderpost
4 Wildfield Borderpost

4 Ardent Plea
4 Violent Outburst
4 Demonic Dread

4 Restore Balance
3 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Reminisce

3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Phyrexian Totem
2 Ajani Vengeant

3 Island
3 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Forest
2 Mountain


SB: 4 Simian Spirit Guide
SB: 3 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 2 Damnation
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 4-free slots

So the basic idea is to cascade by turn 3/4 with only posts out, resulting in your oppenent saccing all his stuff.
The win-conditions are Tezzeret/Phyrexian Totem and to some extend Ajani Vengeant. Ajani is mostly there to lock down big dudes and the mirror matchup against variants that run March of the Machines. In testing Reminisce proved to be awesome, having virtually more than 4 Restore Balance in the deck works wonders, since you aren´t limited to 4 cascades.

So why should you play this deck? Well for one its pretty budget the whole deck is 100€ at best and it is usually more solid than Living End.dec.

The thing that needs to most work is the sideboard. The problem here is in most of my games i dont even bother sideboarding. Against 12-post, D-storm and Midrange you usually don´t need the SB.

Restore Balance biggest weakness is Infect combo since you don´t run early single target removal and also to some extend can´t run it. The only thing to do here is board in Simian and pray for an early cascade spell that slows your opponent down enough.

So those are my takes on the deck, maybe some of you guys got a few ideas how to further improve.

[Darth Nihilus]

No imput on this?

[daugarten]

Why no Greater Gargadon? Seems like you could focus less on building up borderposts and develop your land normally instead. With all that space in the deck cleared you could throw in counterspells, thoughtseizes, removal, etc. to have answers to the popular decks beyond just your combo. And with Ardent Plea it'll make the Gargadon a 2 turn clock if they happen to still be at 20.

Quick Edit: The deck is not very popular right now and I've only come across it on Cockatrice just once. It certainly a big surprise but easy to prepare against for games 2-3 if the sideboard is ready for it (counterspells like Nix and the like). I think you could use some more protection and also be more aggressive to disrupt the faster combos.

[Phoenix Ignition]

So thoughtseize is a terrible suggestion. You'll notice that anything costing under 3 cannot go in this deck, so most counterspells and thoughtseize are just awful here. No one will ever start sideboarding Nix, it's just a terrible card in general, you might as well just use Ethersworn Canonist or Chalice of the Void or something.

Gargadon should be one of your wins, you can sac all your lands to it in response to a cascade going on the stack, leaving the opponent with nothing.

[daugarten]

*Derp Derp*

You're absolutely right. Not sure what I was thinking. I'd like to test the list a bit and see if I have any useful input :P
I'm thinking Traps might be good sideboard options atm.

[Darth Nihilus]

Greater Gargadon is a good call, didnt think about it allthough it gets wrecked by a PTE pretty fast. Usually Tezzeret/Ajani get there without any problems.

[jrsthethird]

Been doing some testing on MTGO with this deck. Glad to say it's been working really well.

Greater Gargadon is so good. He doesn't come into play often, but what makes him great is the ability to sac stuff prior to Balance to wreck your opponent.

The Deck:

3 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Plains
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Forest

4 Firewild Borderpost
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
3 Mistvein Borderpost
3 Wildfield Borderpost
1 Veinfire Borderpost

4 Greater Gargadon
4 Violent Outburst
4 Ardent Plea
3 Restore Balance

2 Kitchen Finks
2 Thassa, God of the Sea
2 Ajani Vengeant
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Vendilion Clique

3 Theives' Fortune
3 Beast Within
2 Detention Sphere
1 Bow of Nylea

Sideboard:

4 Ricochet Trap
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Firespout
2 Dismember
2 Kor Firewalker
1 Suppression Field
1 Rest in Peace

The Combo:

This might be built to take advantage of the cascade/Restore Balance combo, but it's a control deck at heart. Balance functions as three things: Wrath of God, Armageddon, and Mind Twist; all of which are control all-stars. Try to hold it off until you're getting at least two of those effects on your opponent. Outburst is best, since Instant speed can hit your opponent EOT and leave you an extra turn post-Balance to recover. It's also worth it to suspend Balances early. You put a clock on the action; either your opponent will try to race it and you can blow them out with a cascade, or they'll be forced to wait until after and give you that much more time to establish. It also gets it out of your hand for an extra discard when you do cascade.

We only run 3 Balance because drawing it sucks. It's going to happen sometimes., but with 4, it's almost certain you'll get one.

Borderposts act as lands, which gets around Balance. The deck runs 27 mana sources, but only 12 lands. The cheap fetches have a great synergy with the posts, since you can drop one turn 1 and still be able to play two posts turn 2, and you still start turn 3 with mana possible. With 5 colors in the deck, the ability to search out the one you're missing can't be denied. I tried a list with various fetches and a couple shocks, and it wasn't nearly as consistent as this.

Gargadon makes Balance very unfair. He's a beater for sure, but his main function is to clear your board to make Balance hit that much harder. If he does land, 2 hits is usually enough, since our opponents tend to be very liberal with their life usage. With enough pain and a Plea or two, he might even do it in one hit!

Win Conditions:

The deck has a nice suite of various win conditions. Gargadon is obvious, but I think Thassa is the real MVP here. She smooths out your draws a lot, so you can maintain control of the board while finding your win condition. Speaking of which, throw down enough blue posts and she can swing herself. Ardent Plea is great with her, since it adds devotion AND pumps during the attack. Don't forget her activated ability can stop your opponent from chump blocking herself or a Gargadon!

Ajani is another all-star. If you can land him before or right after a Balance, he can pretty much lock your opponent out from the rest of the game. With Tezzeret, you can turn all your "lands" into 5/5 dudes. If you're low, you can use his +1 to find more guys. He also offers a great non-combat win, by searching up enough artifacts to kill your opponent with the -4 drain. He's our only black card, so be aware of that when building up your mana base.

Keranos is interesting. I've been testing with him but I haven't actually been able to cast him yet. I think there are better options but I want to land him first to see. I think the 5 mana might be too much; it's what made me add black and switch from big Tezz.

Vendilion Clique and Kitchen Finks are the utility creatures. Finks provides a nice body (especially after a Plea), 2 counters from Gargadon, some extra life to stall against aggro. Clique is also multifunctional. Besides the traditional draw step attack, he can be used on our own hand to put a Balance back into the deck. He works amazing with Thassa too; if you're sitting on 3 or 4 devotion and your opponent attacks, you can drop him and make her a 5/5 indestructible blocker (while still hitting their hand)!

Utiliy:

The other stuff gives us some versatile answers. Beast Within can hit ANYTHING, at instant speed, and a 3/3? Who cares? We'll just Balance it away in a turn or two. Answers Twin, Tron, Planeswalkers, Inkmoth, all of it. You can even blow up your own land for a 3/3 beater if you're stretched for a win con. Detention Sphere is a nice twist on Oblivion Ring; it can hit multiple copies of problem cards. 2 Vials left post-Balance? No problem! Not to mention, it adds to our devotion for Thassa. Theives' Fortune is an expensive Impulse that we can't Prowl, but it's a great dig spell that gets us around the main caveat with a cascade deck: nothing can cost less than 3 mana except your combo card. It digs deeper than Thirst and doesn't waste a Balance if we draw it.

Bow of Nylea is a really great card for us too. It lets us reuse Balances in a long game by putting them on the bottom of the deck. Even better, since it can place up to four cards on the bottom, if we only put one Balance back, we can stack our next 3 draws after the cascade. Besides that, the Bow has a great synergy with Finks, by canceling the -1/-1 counter so he can Persist again, or just pumping another guy for some extra damage. It also blows up Inkmoths, Cliques, and other small flyers; and the 3 life per turn can slow down an opponent's clock.

Sideboard:

I'm still working on the sideboard. Aggro matchups are great for us, but against a combo/aggro deck like Affinity or Elves, Firespout gives us a couple extra sweepers while we can set up. Traps give us an edge against blue decks; Remand is brutal for us. The Leylines are for Burn and discard; Burn can race us on one land, and discard can take apart our key cards (not to mention, our "lands"). Dismember provides a cheap targeted creature kill; a way to stop a turn 2 Infect kill as well as a couple more outs against Twin decks.

The last few spots I'm not sold about. I haven't tested them enough but the idea is, with a two-drop hate card, you can easily cascade into it. Siding out the Balances and just running two Firewalkers against Burn to cascade into is sick, and we can hit Living End and other graveyard decks with the Rest in Peace. Suppression Field is great against Twin and Tron or other such decks. The best part about this is that they won't see any of these cheap hate cards coming, since they don't figure you'll run anything cheaper than 3. For those matchups, just side out one Balance. If you hit a Balance or the hate, you'll still be ahead. (I haven't done enough testing with this strategy to confirm, but that's the idea.)

Summary:

Game 1s are usually in our favor. We have a good surprise factor in that people won't know what to expect until it hits them, and even if they do, they won't always know how to play around it. Game 2/3 are always harder, since artifact hate is huge against us. We also have a great advantage that we can afford to mulligan very aggressively. Since the Mind Twist effect of Balance is based on our own hand size, if we can get a great start with a 5 card hand vs. a 7 card hand, that means two extra cards the opponent has to discard.

The deck is very consistent as it is, usually able to Balance on turn 3 or 4 every game (not that you always want to do it that early), and combined with the aggressive mulliganning, can give us a huge edge against much of the field. I think it's well-positioned to become a top-tier deck. If anyone wants to give it a try and offer any suggestions, feel free.

(Note: there are also no-post versions that do not rely on Borderposts for mana. They're less susceptible to artifact hate, but they're much more reliant on Gargadon to get a good Balance. Unfortunately, that makes the game a little less one-sided if the opponent can answer the GG. I haven't tested those versions, so I don't know what's better.)

[Phoenix Ignition]

(Note: there are also no-post versions that do not rely on Borderposts for mana. They're less susceptible to artifact hate, but they're much more reliant on Gargadon to get a good Balance. Unfortunately, that makes the game a little less one-sided if the opponent can answer the GG. I haven't tested those versions, so I don't know what's better.)

The biggest problem with the deck is the susceptibility to artifact/permanent hate. I played around with this idea for a while, but in the end everyone having Ancient Grudge or even worse artifact hate (shatterstorm) for affinity ended up having 1 sided armageddons against me.

When the opponent can duress/thoughtseize your "lands" and Abrupt decay them, you're going to be in a very rough position. At that point you basically rely on suspending and resolving a balance before they kill you, and usually smart opponents will save 1-2 lands + a threat in their hand for when that happens.

If the opponent had successfully kept me off of borderposts, it's likely my hand is going to be full of things I couldn't play before the balance happened, so they still get to keep that 1/2 lands + threat.

You're right about Remand as well, that card just kills you. Ricochet trap is probably just worse than Thoughtseize since you're going to want the 1 extra mana anyway for the turn you're cascading. It's better positioned if you grab 2 of them, and also you can put it in against random combo decks.

I don't think this deck can work with borderposts in it as long as people are sideboarding so hard against affinity. I'd be interested in a borderpostless deck but it's much weaker to itself than one with borderposts.

[arcboundravager2]

how does this deck beat a stony silence? i mean beast within is fine but you have to find it unassisted, and if they have anyway to protect the SS, i have no idea what your plan is