HorseshoeCrab
01-12-2012, 01:54 PM
So I have been testing the GW Maverick deck since I think that Mirrorweave & Hero Of Bladehold is an amazing combo that no one is really paying attention to. The deck is good. It has greats threats all up the curve, and it is really consistent. However, that deck is too safe. What I mean is that the deck just plays dudes and some removal. Its nothing special. Every aggro deck in the format does the same thing. Its fair and if I want to win a ticket to Barcelona then I want to play a deck that is not fair.
I was reading TCGPlayer for some reason, and came across this: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10238
OMG OMG OMG OMG...this deck is the nuts! I was also thinking back to what FTW said about how Mirrorweave decks typically had Windbrisk Heights for the surprise kill, plus Spectral Possession. I put two and two together, and now I think I have the best Mirrorweave deck in the format... Not to mention so much card advantage and late game action, PLUS a bunch of life gain built in to fight aggro and even combo decks?!? How unfair!
Current list
1 Emeria, The Sky Ruin
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Mistveil Plains
16 Snow-Covered Plains
4 Windbrisk Heights
2 Auriok Champion
2 Hero Of Bladehold
4 Martyr Of Sands
3 Ranger Of Eos
4 Serra Ascendant
4 Squadron Hawk
2 Weathered Wayfarer
2 Honor Of The Pure
2 Mirrorweave
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Path To Exile
3 Proclamation Of Rebirth
4 Spectral Procession
SB:
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Ghostly Prison
2 Nevermore
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Rule Of Law
1 Spellskite
2 Samurai Of The Pale Curtain
1 Wheel Of Sun and Moon / Jotun Grunt
2 Stony Silence
How it plays
You can play this deck out in a few different ways, based on what your opponent is on and whether you are on the play or draw. Your typical turn 1 is a Windbrisk Heights or Emeria to get the tapped land out of the way. On turn 2 you are playing either Martyr of Sands, leaving 1 open for a sac, or one of your 2-drops. Squadron Hawk is actually pretty sick in this deck, since it fills your hand with white cards for Martyr, and provides a lot of threats for control.
You could drop Serra Ascendant on turn 1 or two, but I would do that only if I knew that my opponent wasn't on Lightning Bolt or Helix. I like dropping my Serras after gaining life so that my opponents can't Bolt Serra in response to a Martyr sac. A 6/6 is still fine on turn 3, right?
Turn three might be a Spectral Procession turn. If your opponent thinks you have something saucy under Windbrisk, this is where you make your opponent start to throw away removal spells. You are in value town at this point, and it is perfectly fine to lead with Spectral, bait out some resistance, and then drop a Serra after everything is said and done.
Mirrorweave is as useful as ever, but here it has more "I win" situations. Attacking with, say, a couple of Squadron Hawks and a 6/6 Serra will be devastating. Just make sure that your opponent lets the flyers through first. Hero only needs one other creature out to be lethal with Mirrorweave, and it just gets ridiculous with some spare Wayfarers or other things lying around.
This decks works well as a regular White Weenie deck. If you are playing against aggro or mid-range and you don't have Martyr, just drop Wayfarer and Auriok Champion instead and try to curve out. Hero is a real all-star here, since your opponent has to Path it or 2-for-1 it with burn spells. You have the long game because of Martyr recursion, so let them run themselves out of cards, and then take over with your card advantage and life gain.
You can play this deck out in a much slower fashion, namely against control decks. Here you apply the strategy of dropping a Wayfarer or a couple of Hawks and just swinging until they deal with it. Honor of the Pure is sweet here, because 1 Honor and 2 Hawks is a threat that you can just sit on. Make them answer your small threats, and then punish them with a Hero or Spectral. Oh, and if they drop some bomby creature, you can just Mirrorweave next turn to either turn it into a trade or win the game outright. Ranger gives you plenty of gas, so you shouldn't run out of threats as long as you play them out intelligently, and Proclamation being Forecast or Emeria going online means that you should always have threats on the board.
Sideboard
Ethersworn Canonist is a must-have in this meta to combat Storm and other combo decks. The hope is that this combined with my other sideboard cards will overwhelm the combo player so that they don't have enough answers. Honestly I hope to dodge combo rather than test this theory.
Ghostly Prison is a concession to the Affinity nut draws, as well as a way to keep Twin decks from killing me. Affinity can still just attack with one plating-equipped creature, but that is way more manageable than the battle cry attacks coupled with Arcbound Ravager tricks.
Nevermore = more combo hate. Also, a possible out to so many weird singletons that could just wreck you. It is a game 2 board-in against the combo decks, and a game 3 trump against the random stuff. Example: I played a match last night where I used this to stop my Mono-W control opponent from playing Isochron Scepter. A second copy came in naming Reverence. Go ahead and look that card up...Talk about awkward!
Oblivion Ring is more versatile removal. Its a swiss army knife that I'm never sad to see.
Rule of Law is another Canonist effect. Hopefully the answer for the Canonist isn't also an answer for this. This could be an Elspeth, Knight Errant as a nice card to bring in against control, but I'm really not worried about control with this deck. I have so much going on late game between Heros, Rangers, and Proclamation that I don't really need a dedicated slot to fight those decks.
Samurai of The Pale Curtain is my suggested graveyard hate. It provides a decent body to attack while nerfing Melira, Dredge, any flashback stuff, and whatever random graveyard interactions my opponents will come up with. I like this over Relic because Relic can be played around, and once its popped its gone for good. If I was playing Melira combo, for example, I would be able to bait the Relic sac effect, and just have to wait another turn or two to go off. I don't think that's good enough. I might do the split with a Wheel Of Sun and Moon, again to force my opponents to have more diverse answers. Jotun Grunt is another maybe as a way to put some good pressure on an opposing Tarmogoyf deck
Spellskite is something to help against Zoo, Jund, and other decks that have good removal for my Serra's Ascendants. It is also ok against Twin decks.
Stony Silence is in for Affinity, Tron, and other such things. I was having a rough time against Affinity's nut draws, and I didn't want a narrow answer like Kataki. Also, Tron is a terrible matchup, like nightmare bad, but this card might at least slow them down enough to get something going.
Misc
Hero Of Bladehold by itself cannot trigger Windbrisk, because the soldiers come in tapped and attacking. Those soldiers would have had to be in play before the Declare Attackers phase in order to count as "attacked."
Watch out for GY hate from your opponents. You can't bank on having those Martyrs stay in the graveyard, so try to keep one in your hand in those control matchups.
You don't have to reveal everything to Martyr. I would, for example, purposefully choose NOT to reveal Mirrorweave in G1. The surprise factor might be what decides that game!
If you are playing against a Mana Leak deck, and they go first, it is wise to go Wayfarer T1, and then just use Wayfarer on T2 to grab and play a Windbrisk. That way you are wasting their turn 2 while still doing something useful.
I was reading TCGPlayer for some reason, and came across this: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10238
OMG OMG OMG OMG...this deck is the nuts! I was also thinking back to what FTW said about how Mirrorweave decks typically had Windbrisk Heights for the surprise kill, plus Spectral Possession. I put two and two together, and now I think I have the best Mirrorweave deck in the format... Not to mention so much card advantage and late game action, PLUS a bunch of life gain built in to fight aggro and even combo decks?!? How unfair!
Current list
1 Emeria, The Sky Ruin
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Mistveil Plains
16 Snow-Covered Plains
4 Windbrisk Heights
2 Auriok Champion
2 Hero Of Bladehold
4 Martyr Of Sands
3 Ranger Of Eos
4 Serra Ascendant
4 Squadron Hawk
2 Weathered Wayfarer
2 Honor Of The Pure
2 Mirrorweave
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Path To Exile
3 Proclamation Of Rebirth
4 Spectral Procession
SB:
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Ghostly Prison
2 Nevermore
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Rule Of Law
1 Spellskite
2 Samurai Of The Pale Curtain
1 Wheel Of Sun and Moon / Jotun Grunt
2 Stony Silence
How it plays
You can play this deck out in a few different ways, based on what your opponent is on and whether you are on the play or draw. Your typical turn 1 is a Windbrisk Heights or Emeria to get the tapped land out of the way. On turn 2 you are playing either Martyr of Sands, leaving 1 open for a sac, or one of your 2-drops. Squadron Hawk is actually pretty sick in this deck, since it fills your hand with white cards for Martyr, and provides a lot of threats for control.
You could drop Serra Ascendant on turn 1 or two, but I would do that only if I knew that my opponent wasn't on Lightning Bolt or Helix. I like dropping my Serras after gaining life so that my opponents can't Bolt Serra in response to a Martyr sac. A 6/6 is still fine on turn 3, right?
Turn three might be a Spectral Procession turn. If your opponent thinks you have something saucy under Windbrisk, this is where you make your opponent start to throw away removal spells. You are in value town at this point, and it is perfectly fine to lead with Spectral, bait out some resistance, and then drop a Serra after everything is said and done.
Mirrorweave is as useful as ever, but here it has more "I win" situations. Attacking with, say, a couple of Squadron Hawks and a 6/6 Serra will be devastating. Just make sure that your opponent lets the flyers through first. Hero only needs one other creature out to be lethal with Mirrorweave, and it just gets ridiculous with some spare Wayfarers or other things lying around.
This decks works well as a regular White Weenie deck. If you are playing against aggro or mid-range and you don't have Martyr, just drop Wayfarer and Auriok Champion instead and try to curve out. Hero is a real all-star here, since your opponent has to Path it or 2-for-1 it with burn spells. You have the long game because of Martyr recursion, so let them run themselves out of cards, and then take over with your card advantage and life gain.
You can play this deck out in a much slower fashion, namely against control decks. Here you apply the strategy of dropping a Wayfarer or a couple of Hawks and just swinging until they deal with it. Honor of the Pure is sweet here, because 1 Honor and 2 Hawks is a threat that you can just sit on. Make them answer your small threats, and then punish them with a Hero or Spectral. Oh, and if they drop some bomby creature, you can just Mirrorweave next turn to either turn it into a trade or win the game outright. Ranger gives you plenty of gas, so you shouldn't run out of threats as long as you play them out intelligently, and Proclamation being Forecast or Emeria going online means that you should always have threats on the board.
Sideboard
Ethersworn Canonist is a must-have in this meta to combat Storm and other combo decks. The hope is that this combined with my other sideboard cards will overwhelm the combo player so that they don't have enough answers. Honestly I hope to dodge combo rather than test this theory.
Ghostly Prison is a concession to the Affinity nut draws, as well as a way to keep Twin decks from killing me. Affinity can still just attack with one plating-equipped creature, but that is way more manageable than the battle cry attacks coupled with Arcbound Ravager tricks.
Nevermore = more combo hate. Also, a possible out to so many weird singletons that could just wreck you. It is a game 2 board-in against the combo decks, and a game 3 trump against the random stuff. Example: I played a match last night where I used this to stop my Mono-W control opponent from playing Isochron Scepter. A second copy came in naming Reverence. Go ahead and look that card up...Talk about awkward!
Oblivion Ring is more versatile removal. Its a swiss army knife that I'm never sad to see.
Rule of Law is another Canonist effect. Hopefully the answer for the Canonist isn't also an answer for this. This could be an Elspeth, Knight Errant as a nice card to bring in against control, but I'm really not worried about control with this deck. I have so much going on late game between Heros, Rangers, and Proclamation that I don't really need a dedicated slot to fight those decks.
Samurai of The Pale Curtain is my suggested graveyard hate. It provides a decent body to attack while nerfing Melira, Dredge, any flashback stuff, and whatever random graveyard interactions my opponents will come up with. I like this over Relic because Relic can be played around, and once its popped its gone for good. If I was playing Melira combo, for example, I would be able to bait the Relic sac effect, and just have to wait another turn or two to go off. I don't think that's good enough. I might do the split with a Wheel Of Sun and Moon, again to force my opponents to have more diverse answers. Jotun Grunt is another maybe as a way to put some good pressure on an opposing Tarmogoyf deck
Spellskite is something to help against Zoo, Jund, and other decks that have good removal for my Serra's Ascendants. It is also ok against Twin decks.
Stony Silence is in for Affinity, Tron, and other such things. I was having a rough time against Affinity's nut draws, and I didn't want a narrow answer like Kataki. Also, Tron is a terrible matchup, like nightmare bad, but this card might at least slow them down enough to get something going.
Misc
Hero Of Bladehold by itself cannot trigger Windbrisk, because the soldiers come in tapped and attacking. Those soldiers would have had to be in play before the Declare Attackers phase in order to count as "attacked."
Watch out for GY hate from your opponents. You can't bank on having those Martyrs stay in the graveyard, so try to keep one in your hand in those control matchups.
You don't have to reveal everything to Martyr. I would, for example, purposefully choose NOT to reveal Mirrorweave in G1. The surprise factor might be what decides that game!
If you are playing against a Mana Leak deck, and they go first, it is wise to go Wayfarer T1, and then just use Wayfarer on T2 to grab and play a Windbrisk. That way you are wasting their turn 2 while still doing something useful.