Rude Awakening

[Plank]

I played this deck back when type 2 was Mirrodin and Kamigawa were the format. When they rotated out I decided that it could probably become legacy viable.


Lands//
11 Islands
11 Forests

Creatures//
3 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Eternal Witness

Instants//
3 Echoing Truth
3 Disrupt
3 Stifle
4 Moment's Peace
4 Force of Will
4 Gifts Ungiven

Sorceries//
2 Rude Awakening
2 Regrowth
3 Kodama's Reach

Artifacts//
3 Vedalken Shackles

SideBoard//
4 Compost
4 Counterspell
4 Hydroblast
3 Sphere of Resistance

Stall the game with counters, bounce, fogs, and shackles until you work up enough mana to entwine Rude Awakening for the win.

The Cards:

Lands - There's really no need for nonbasics in this deck. The only spells that are double mana are Witness (which you'll probably never drop on turn 3 anyway), Rude Awakening (you'll have 2 green by turn 8 hopefully) and FoW (which you should never have to pay for anyway.)

Stifle - GG Storm, fetchlands, Charbelcher, etc. etc.

FoW - ...

Disrupt - Sure it's a dead card against goblins, but it doesn't slow you down like an early game Daze would. And it makes good fodder for FoW.

Moments Peace / Echoing Truth - Helps stall the onslaught until you can get out a shackles. Or slows them down by bouncing a turn 1 Hippie.

Kodama's Reach / Sakura-Tribe Elder - Mana Accel, plus, provided you go first, answer to a Lackey or Lions.

Vedalken Shackles - Their creatures = your alternate kill mech.

Rude Awakening - The kill mech~

Eternal Witness / Regrowth - Graveyard manipulation.

Gifts Ungiven - MVP of the deck. It was a toss up between this and Intuition. I've never tested it with Intuition, but Gifting for Witness, Regrowth, Shackles, and Echoing Truth is some type of hot sauce.


Matchups:

Goblins / White Weenie / MonoBlack Aggro / Elves - MVP here is Vedalken Shackles and Moments Peace. Get off a Gifts Ungiven for Shackles, Moments Peace, Eternal Witness, and Regrowth for the game. Just save your FoW's for their vindicates and disenchants.

Sligh / Burn - Game 1 is never fun against these people, try to counter anything that is going to hit you for 4 or more. After the board it's much easier. -4 Moments Peace -3 Shackles -1 Stifle +4 Counterspell +4 Hydroblast.

Solidarity / Iggy Pop - Game 1 in this is even worse than Game 1 against Burn and Sligh except Peace and Shackles are completely useless instead of just really useless. Same board strategy except keep the Stifle and take out a Gifts.

Thresh - Do whatever you can to resolve a Shackles, steal and Bear and play defensive until you save enough counters to resolve your Awakening. This match usually goes 50/50.

Stax - The only thing that hurts in Stax is an Explosives for 0 or a Chalice for 2 and 3. Otherwise, just Shackle their kill, and bounce / stifle their Smokestack when it gets too many counters. Of course you need to be wary of their Crucible / Wasteland combo... (or not)

U/W Control / Landstill - Drop Tribe Elder turn 2 and let him go to town. Nobody wants to have to wrath or StP an Elder. -4 Moments Peace +4 Counterspell


This deck won me a local tourney of about 20 people or so. It seems slow, but it has plenty of ways to not lose early on. (Matches usually run to time.) :p

[Cavius The Great]

Exploration might be nice to speed up the deck a bit.

[Alfred]

If you're going to run Rude Awakening, I would suggest throwing Boseiju, Who Shelters All in the sideboard, and adding Living Wish. This will allow you to get past decks with countermagic.

I like the Shackles/Moment's Peace combination a lot. It seems like it would be great at stopping creature rushes, as well as giving you the ability to outlast aggro opponents. However, I think your maindeck utility is poor. Echoing Truth? Stifle? Disrupt? These are all suboptimal maindeck cards, and probably should be religated to the sideboard.

Though the deck may not have any "need" for non-basics, it's always a good idea to use fetchlands + a few duals to solidify your manabase even more than it already is. If it's a cost restriction, please post the deck as you would play it if money wasn't a concern. That makes it a lot easier to gauge from a critical standpoint, and can always be budgetized if need be.

Fetchlands also allow you to abuse Brainstorm, which is a card that I believe should always be attempted to be included in decks with Blue in them, as it is probably the best card selection that has ever been printed.

I would also suggest another counter to compliment Force of Will. FoW on it's own is great, but when complimented with another hard counter, it makes your deck much harder to fight through.

Here's what I suggest off the top of my head:

-3 Stifle
-3 Disrupt
-3 Echoing Truth
-4 Forest
-4 Island
-1 Regrowth
-1 Kodama's Reach

+3 Living Wish
+4 Brainstorm
+4 Counterspell (maindeck)
+4 Some combo of G or U fetches
+3 Tropical Island
+1 Sakura-Tribe Elder

Then add 4-5 Living Wish targets in the board along with 2 Boseijus. Good Wish targets are Treetop Village, Viridian Shaman, Gigapede, Man-o'-War.

Deranged Hermit, Maze of Ith, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, etc. are all great too depending on your meta.

Good luck with the deck BTW!

[Plank]

Living Wish seems like it would help the deck greatly. I just need a solid SB with it. I don't see myself ever wishing for a Treetop. The only time I would need one would be against control, but then I would be wishing for Boseiju. I would like to keep at least 3 Stifles SB for the Hide Tide and Iggy pop decks and 3 composts because a large portion of my meta revoles around MBC/Aggro and the like.

Sooo...
SideBoard//
3 Stifle
3 Compost
1 Troll Ascetic
1(2?) Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Viridian Shaman

That leaves 5-6 slots open, any suggestions? Goblins and Sligh / Burn are also pretty heavily played in my meta if anybody has any suggestions for them.

[Alfred]

Living Wish seems like it would help the deck greatly. I just need a solid SB with it. I don't see myself ever wishing for a Treetop. The only time I would need one would be against control, but then I would be wishing for Boseiju. I would like to keep at least 3 Stifles SB for the Hide Tide and Iggy pop decks and 3 composts because a large portion of my meta revoles around MBC/Aggro and the like.

Sooo...
SideBoard//
3 Stifle
3 Compost
1 Troll Ascetic
1(2?) Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Viridian Shaman

That leaves 5-6 slots open, any suggestions? Goblins and Sligh / Burn are also pretty heavily played in my meta if anybody has any suggestions for them.

A few comments:

For Stifle and Compost, those sound like two good choices for the sideboard against your meta. Also, I would probably want to put two Boseijus in there, because then post board, Gifts Ungiven would allow you to fetch it, giving you another must-counter along with the Living Wishes.

Troll Ascetic is an interesting choice, but I think that something like Ravenous Baloth would be the better choice here, as it helps out much more against aggro/burn decks. Maybe even something like Iwamori should get in there because it dominates both Thresh creatures, Goblins and most black aggro critters. Backed by countermagic, it could be a potent threat.