Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats!

Brian Kibler

The collective attention of the online Magic community has recently experienced a tremendous shift in focus away from Invasion Block, both Constructed and Limited, and has come to rest on the mother of all formats: Standard, or as the old guard still calls it, Type II. Regionals looming on the horizon, the sudden influx of strategy articles addressing the format is entirely warranted. While the vast majority of these articles seem to address very similar themes - these being the adaptation of pre-existing archetypes to take into account the new cards offered by Planeshift - I hope to present a short series of articles on constructing foil decks for the current metagame.

Foil decks - more commonly referred to as metagame decks - seek to locate the common weaknesses of popular decktypes and exploit them as well as possible. Zvi's Pro Tour-Toyko championship deck is a good example, as is, to an extent, my Red Zone deck from Chicago. In the case of "The Solution," Zvi's team predicted, quite correctly, that a vast majority of the decks in the field would rely almost entirely on red removal spells, thus making a full complement of Galina's Knights, Crimson Acolytes, and Voice of All nigh-unstoppable. The Red Zone punished the expected field of mana-intensive Rebel, Fires, and control decks with Armageddon and resilient creatures, using cards like Simoon, Ancient Hydra, and Tsabo's Decree to plug the holes where Armageddon alone wasn't enough.

Finding such common weaknesses - and the most effective ways to exploit them - can often be the road to success in any metagame. With the exception of Skies, the vast majority of decks in the Standard environment are still extremely mana hungry. Fires, Rebels (both the more standard and Counter-Rebel variations), and U/W and U/B control decks all function most effectively with a great deal of mana, whether for high casting cost creatures, searching with Lin Sivvi, or abusing Fact or Fiction. Evolutions in the metagame have made The Red Zone a less appealing choice, however, as opposing Fires decks have begun including Simoon almost as a rule, and what was once one of The Red Zone's most powerful weapons in the matchup has been turned against it to great effect, since it attacks an element of the deck (the Birds and Elves) which is present in both builds. This alone is not the nail in the coffin for the deck, but it is a significant setback that needs be addressed, and I'll discuss a current version of the deck in an upcoming article. For now, however, I'm going to focus on another deck that takes advantage of the current mana-hungry Standard metagame. To begin, a rough listing:

THUNDERCATS
Main Deck
	
Sideboard

4 Rishadan Port
2 Dust Bowl
18 Mountain
	
4 Scoria Cat
2 Flowstone Overseer
1 Tahngarth, Talruum Hero
	

	

4 Stone Rain
4 Pillage
3 Tectonic Break
3 Hammer of Bogardan
3 Earthquake
4 Seal of Fire
2 Ghitu Fire
4 Fire Diamond
2 Star Compass
	

	

4 Boil
3 Lightning Dart
4 Flametongue Kavu
2 Flashfires
1 Earthquake
1 Tahngarth, Talruum Hero
	

Thundercats is, like The Red Zone, an exercise in foil deckbuilding. This particular version is the result of more theory than testing, so don't accept the list as gospel. I'm providing what I hope will be a solid conceptual base to build on, as well as exploring some ideas that have perhaps been overlooked in the hype over Fires, Rebels, and Skies.

Land destruction as a strategy has been largely overlooked at the highest levels of Standard deckbuilding recently, and precisely why isn't clear. Ponza style decks enjoyed a great deal of success in Standard prior to the Urza's Block rotation, but since have lost the extremely potent Avalanche Riders, which doubled as land destruction and a potential win condition, as well as Masticore and Ghitu Encampment, which, like the Riders, served multiple purposes in the deck. The general power level of cards in the Standard environment has dropped, however, so one might suspect that these losses can be compensated for.

Ponza
Chris Benafel
Main Deck
	
Sideboard

14 Mountain
4 Ghitu Encampment
4 Rishadan Port
3 Dust Bowl
	
1 Lightning Dragon
3 Masticore
4 Avalanche Rider
	

	

2 Tectonic Break
2 Powder Keg
3 Fire Diamond
4 Pillage
3 Earthquake
4 Seal of Fire
4 Stone Rain
2 Shock
2 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Cave-In
	

	

3 Mogg Salvage
3 Pulverize
2 Tectonic Break
4 Boil
3 Thran Foundry
	

Perhaps, and perhaps not. Tsabo's Web was a stinging blow to a strategy that relies heavily on Rishadan Port and Dust Bowl to aid its many land destruction spells. Base green creature decks have moved away from small creature swarms, in the vein of Stompy, toward large, hard-to-remove threats like Blastoderm, which can pose a significant problem for a deck reliant on damage-based removal. Without the land destruction overload Avalanche Riders, it is foolish to think that one can keep an opponent to three or less land indefinitely. With the regenerating blocker Masticore provided gone, a monored deck must look for another answer to large creatures that slip through the bombardment of Stone Rains and Pillages.

That answer can be found in the beast that is Scoria Cat. The Prophecy uncommon was always a high draft pick due to its ability to dominate the table in creature combat, and current Standard is scarcely different. Against Fires, Scoria Cat sits back and roars at incoming Blastoderms, who - conveniently enough - cannot be targeted by Fires of Yavimaya to make them large enough to punch their way through the Cat's enormous toughness. It also deals very well with Saproling Burst, picking off the tokens one by one and living to tell the tale. As Pro Tour-Chicago showed, Fires decks have a very difficult time dealing with six toughness creatures - especially when their land is getting blown up. One can easily keep land tapped by playing land destructions spells, recurring Hammers, or just playing more enormous beasts to keep the opponent's fading monsters in check - and once they're gone, the six power Scoria Cats end games VERY quickly.

The rest of the deck is mostly self-explanatory, but I will go through brief explanations of each set of similar cards. Flowstone Overseer and Tahngarth are there both to clean up the threats that get on the table and as your win conditions if your pack of Thundercats don't get the job done. With six mana accelerators, you can generally play your five casting cost threat cards very quickly, allowing for Tahngarth and Flowstone Overseer to wreck havoc upon your opponent's creatures - and your Cats upon their life total - in short order.

Stone Rain, Pillage, and Tectonic Break are the land destruction package of the deck, and should be used early and often. It is important to keep your opponent below his deck's mana flashpoint - that is, the point at which he can start producing threats you have difficulty dealing with. Fires decks have a flashpoint of four to five, as Blastoderm and Jade Leech can be problematic if you don't have a Scoria Cat, as can Saproling Burst. Rebel decks have a flashpoint of around four as well, as Parallax Wave can protect their searchers from your removal, but this flashpoint is much less problematic. Control decks, such as Angel control and Nether-Go, have flashpoint of four due to Fact or Fiction. Fact or Fiction's ability to provide them with additional lands is often your primary concern, and you should take this into consideration when splitting piles.

The red damage spells in the deck have varied uses. Some earlier incarnations of the deck included another copy of Ghitu Fire and additional creatures, but I soon found that being unable to remove a first turn mana creature immediately, especially when playing second, often resulted in such an insurmountable loss of tempo that Seal of Fire was an absolute necessity. The two remaining Ghitu Fires are backup removal for Elves and Birds, as well as an answer to nearly any targetable threat and a potential finisher. Hammer of Bogardan is this deck's primary route to victory against control decks, except in the rare instances in which you're able to keep their land low enough to beat them down with creatures despite their counters and removal. Earthquake serves both as a board clearing spell against Rebels and the eighth and ninth Elf killers in the deck. It can occasionally finish off an opponent as well by clearing the way for attacking Scoria Cats.

The mana base of the deck is fairly self-explanatory. Fire Diamond provides acceleration for fast creatures and post-Tectonic Break mana sources. Star Compass is included simply because it isn't legal to play six Fire Diamonds, and that seems to be the proper number of mana accelerators for the deck. Rishadan Port is an obvious choice, particularly for a mono-colored deck centered around a mana denial strategy, and Dust Bowl is remarkably powerful, but only two are included due to the vulnerability they give your mana base to Tsabo's Web. Eighteen mountains make the deck fully one half mana sources, allowing you ample ability to use Tectonic Break and Dust Bowl almost with impunity, as well as providing for easy ramping to Scoria Cat or Hammer-cycle mana.

In the testing I have put this deck through, it has performed reasonably well against almost every popular archetype. One of its most potent advantages is that it can easily take advantage of an opponent with an even slightly mana-light draw, turning what would otherwise be a slight stall into a crippling paralysis of their development. It is nearly impossible for a Fires deck to beat your land destruction without a mana creature on the draw, and even then you have a plethora of direct damage to remove them. This direct damage - along with your large creatures - is devastating to Rebel strategies, and Hammer of Bogardan punishes slower decks. Blue Skies is a relatively bad matchup, but Boil, Lightning Dart, the second Tahngarth, and Flametongue Kavu after sideboard turn a previously disadvantageous matchup into a virtual slaughter.

However, like I have said, this listing is only a rough version, although it has gone through a number of previous incarnations. Cards like Chimeric Idol, Veteran Brawlers, and Tangle Wire have all been in and out of the main deck at various times, and are notably absent from the current version due primarily to the fact that they are nearly useless against at least one of the popular decktypes in the current environment. This particular listing is designed for a relatively open field, consisting of Fires, Rebel, Control, and Skies decks, and can stand to benefit from tuning more in the direction of beating a particular metagame. I encourage you to tinker with both the numbers of various cards in the deck, and to experiment with other cards entirely. Thundercats is meant to illustrate a particular principle, that of foil deckbuilding, rather than to provide you with a ready-to-play decklist, although in its current incarnation I would not put it above winning a few tournaments.

Next week I will explore another foil deck, this time seeing what black has to offer to shake up the Standard environment. Feel free to contact me with questions, comments, and ideas at majesk@aol.com. Until next time - good luck!