entirely safe and fun

So, I played with my friends John and Avri at the Team Pro Tour Qualifier. We did strictly OK, but I feel like I’m improving, and I really enjoyed myself. Part of the reason I had as much fun as I did was the deck I played - the Black-White Promise-Husk deck debuted by Michael Diezel at Pro Tour Honolulu. The deck is so good because of its ability to jump from the control role to the beatdown role from turn to turn, denying its opponents the ability to seize either of the Flores roles of Magic theory, and because of its nifty combo finish (feeding low-power creatures to Nantuko Husk, probably including four or more Promise of Bunrei tokens, and likely boosted by an Orzhov Pontiff, a.k.a. Battle Pope - more on him later).

The control side of the deck is built around card advantage generators like Dark Confidant (”Bob”), Battle Pope, Promise, and Plagued Rusalka. In particular, the interaction between Battle Pope and the Rusalka can act as a Plague Wind against most opponents. Equally critical, when in the control role against an aggro deck including protection-from-black creatures, is the interaction between the colorless Promise tokens and any sacrifice outlet, which keeps Jitte nonsense to a minimum while you wait to start your offense, clear your opponent’s side of the board, or find a Pithing Needle. Bob… well, it’s nice when he draws you extra cards, but most of the time he just attracts some kind of kill spell right away; it happened to my Bob squad so often at the tournament that I named the gambit (”the Bobeque”). He is, of course, pleased as punch to jump into the graveyard with reckless abandon if the life loss starts to hurt too much, since nearly a quarter of the deck consists of sacrifice effects, but honestly he never stuck around long enough to be a liability on that front for me.

The aggro side is built around efficient beaters like Isamaru and Kami of Ancient Law (”Koala”), high-quality fat like Ghost Council of Orzhova, and a versatile disruption suite of Castigate, Pithing Needle, and Mortify. Add the combo power of Nantuko “Ravager” Husk, Promise of Bunrei in the Thoughtcast role, and Battle Pope in roughly the DotV slot (as a reach extender by getting your guys in), and the dirty Affinity feel is definitely there.

In some matchups, I would spend more or less the entire game in aggro mode. I had a couple of games against basically creatureless decks (such as Heartbeat) that went like this: Turn 1, drop a Rusalka. Turn 2, swing for 1, drop Bob, and Bob eats a removal spell or something. Turn 3, drop a Husk, swing for one more with the Rusalka. Turn 4, Needle, Promise of Bunrei, swing for three, sac the Rusalka to the Husk, and trigger the Promise. Turn 5, drop Battle Pope, drop Isamaru, sac the Pope to the Husk and haunt Isamaru, sac Isamaru to the Husk, attack for 23, good game sir.

Hand in Hand (black-white aggro) games, in which I usually seized the control role, frequently followed a different pattern: I’d force them to commit two or three protection-from-black guys to the board, then drop a Pope, sac, haunt, and sac, using a Husk and whatever was handy, to clear their board and get in for at least six. Then, if they don’t have a relevant play to come back, take the aggro role, else settle back in for some more control.

Both Heartbeat Combo and Hand in Hand tested to be near-rollover matchups for the Husk deck, and I expected both to be out in force at the tournament. The harder matchups were the ones in which large numbers of my cards went dead, and in which I could be crowded out of the control role. Vore, the blue-red control deck with the clean combo finish, offered little purchase for my one-for-one removal, and the Pope frequently wasn’t important. Vore also hit me in the mana, where it hurt, blowing up lands before I could get all of my pieces in place. I was OK with having it as a bad matchup, though, since it punishes bad players, and hence seemed less likely to show up at a PTQ than many other decks.

I found, in testing, a few things that I wanted from the deck that the netdecks weren’t offering me. First, I wanted the fourth Pope maindeck, because it’s more or less the best card in the deck, and good in almost every matchup. I moved a Castigate to the board in its place. Second, I usually just hated the Basilicas, but understood their role. That said, I decided I wanted one more basic Plains to give myself an additional out against Blood Moon, and since I often found I wanted a Shizo to buff Isamaru or Ghost Council, I added a second. Third, I wanted to lower the curve, so cut one of my Ghost Councils, going down to two. Fourth, I wanted a sideboard card to secure me in my role against control decks, either as aggro or control, and chose to run a set of Mindslicers to ensure that a favorable board position could be turned into a superior strategic position. Fifth, I needed a way to deal with those pro-black guys. I tried a bunch of ideas (pro-white creatures, Devouring Light, even Empty-Shrine Kannushi), but kept coming back to the original choice in the netdecks, Shining Shoal. With the fourth Pope maindeck, I found myself better able to keep up with the menace of Paladin en-Vec anyway. And finally, casting about for a way to deal with the Red decks, I was tossed a pair of Opal-Eye on the morning of the event, and they would have probably been excellent if only they came up. I topped up the board with extra copies of maindeck cards that I knew I’d want in some matchups, and had the following.

B/W Battle Pope
Maindeck:

Artifacts
3 Pithing Needle

Creatures
3 Dark Confidant
4 Kami Of Ancient Law
4 Nantuko Husk
4 Orzhov Pontiff
4 Plagued Rusalka

Enchantments
4 Promise Of Bunrei

Instants
3 Mortify

Legendary Creatures
2 Ghost Council Of Orzhova
4 Isamaru, Hound Of Konda

Sorceries
3 Castigate

Basic Lands
4 Plains
5 Swamp

Lands
4 Caves Of Koilos
4 Godless Shrine
2 Orzhov Basilica

Legendary Lands
1 Eiganjo Castle
2 Shizo, Death’s Storehouse

Sideboard:
3 Mindslicer
1
4 Shining Shoal
3 Eight-and-a-half-tails
1 Castigate

1 Mortify
1 Ghost Council Of Orzhova
2 Opal-Eye, Konda’s Yojimbo

And onto the brief tournament report:

Round 1 against Greater Gifts: I knew this was a bad matchup for me. In game 1, he doesn’t find a blue source early, so I Needle his Top, hoping to keep him down. It doesn’t work, he stabilizes at 10, and my life goes down in dragon-sized increments. Game 2, I get out a pair of early Needles on Greater Good and Top, and take temporary control of the game, sending in a few small guys. But he topdecks Kokusho, then Gifts, and I lose real bad awful - he’s boarded in the Gifts Classic loop with Hana Kami, Footsteps of the Goryo, Death Denied, and he plugs in Kokusho and Yosei for the win.

Round 2 against Hand in Hand: He puts out an early Jitte, and I spend two Promises’ worth of tokens keeping it inactive until I find a Needle, and then a Battle Pope. With my combo pieces depleted, it took me twelve offensive turns to kill him, with the last eight (!) coming via the drain ability of the Ghost Council, eating white and colorless blockers. I board -3 Mortify (nearly useless in this matchup), -3 Castigate, -1 Bob, -1 Pithing Needle to get +4 Shining Shoal, +3 8.5 Tails, +1 Ghost Council. Game two I jump out to an early lead by playing (among other things) two Husks, forcing him to play three problack guys to generate an offense. I then Pope away his team, and swing in for a bunch. He plays two more problack guys, but I find 8.5 and a Shizo to put things away safely.

Round 3, Heartbeat. I somehow dropped game 1 by going all-in on a non-fatal Husk, and he had the one-of Boomerang to buy the win. No idea how I managed to do anything that stupid. I boarded -3 Bob, -2 Ghost Council, +3 Mindslicer, +1 Mortify, +1 Castigate. He boarded in combo strengtheners rather than the Man Plan, but I hammered him with Needle (Drift), Castigate, Husk, topdeck ‘Slicer for the brutally one-sided win. Game 3, I had an aggro god-hand, and won on turn 5 with just one Needle (on Muddle, to keep Savage Twister away) for disruption.

Round 4, more Hand in Hand. I see two six-point life swings in the match record, which must mean I sacced everyone, including a Pope, to a Husk twice. It’s hard to lose when you Plague Wind twice. Game 2, I stayed a dude ahead all game, and won the damage race using Shizo to push through with a Ghost Council.

Round 5 I did the impossible: I lost to Heartbeat, by mulliganning down to 5 in the first game, and keeping Plains, Caves, Isamaru, Needle, Needle, Rusalka, Promise in game 2. How did I lose with that hand, you ask? I didn’t see the third land until turn 9, and it was a friggin Basilica. Hate those things.

Round 6, I lost to Vore. Game 2 was amazingly close, though. I got a ‘Slicer into play alongside a Husk and Isamaru, attacked once with the team, and then ate the ‘Slicer. I would have won, except… he topped Pyroclasm, Eye of Nowhere, Magnivore on consecutive turns, essentially his only out, and found Wildfire shortly thereafter to seal it, stabilizing at 2. Bad beat.

So, that’s my story. The deck is fun, it’s competitive, and it can do totally broken things. Will the x/3’s rise to seriously challenge this deck? We shall see at Regionals, next weekend.