Part One:
For the past six months that I’ve been playing Magic again, I’ve mainly focused on Standard and Booster Draft. Extended came and went, and I only played in two PTQs, simply piloting Affinity to a Top Eight and a 1-2 drop finish without much fanfare. When I found out the dates for the Grand Prix trials and the Standard for a Mox tournament, I scoured the decklists of PT: Kyoto, Magic Online PEs, and even Magic-League to pick up some inspiration on what to play. Always a blue mage, I looked and saw decklist after decklist of Faeries and Five-Color Control, all relying on nonbasic lands and tenuous counterspells to answer direct threats. Disappointed in these answers, I looked to the aggro decks and saw a sea of R/W Reveillark and Kithkin, none of which seemed all that powerful. As I perused more decklists, I ended up seeing some interesting R/B and Mono-Red aggro decks that appealed to me, particularly this one:
Blightning Beatdown
by Mark Herberholz
Main(35)
4 Boggart Ram-gang
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Goblin Outlander
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Siege-gang Commander
4 Blightning
4 Flame Javelin
3 Tarfire
4 Volcanic Fallout
Land(25)
4 Auntie’s Hovel
4 Ghitu Encampment
4 Graven Cairns
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Sulfurous Springs
5 Mountain
Sideboard(15)
3 Ashenmoor Gouger
3 Infest
3 Shriekmaw
2 Murderous Redcap
2 Vithian Stinger
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Guttural Response
I sleeved this deck up and playtested it a ton and loved playing it, though a few things became immediately clear:
• The deck was not aggressive enough
• Blightning was only good if ahead or your opponent was screwed anyway
• Siege-Gang Commander wasn’t all that impressive
As I looked through more and more decklists, I saw that many of the mono-red players were playing Tattermunge Maniac. I couldn’t figure out why people would not run this card, so as a reality check, I searched up some old articles by Dan Paskins and even the original Sligh article that describes the Sligh mana curve.
I put Tattermunge Maniac in the deck and built the list around the Sligh mana curve, dumping Blightning for more burn and Siege-Gang Commander for Hellspark Elemental (another card I couldn’t understand why people omitted). The results were immediate: Games were ending quicker and it was punishing any slow start from the opponent. Winning the die roll against any matchup made me feel supremely confident, and losing it didn’t matter all that much to me.
I won the Standard for a Mox tournament with the following decklist:
4 Tattermunge Maniac
4 Figure of Destiny
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Outlander
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Tarfire
4 Magma Spray
4 Flame Javelin
3 Volcanic Fallout
6 Mountain
4 Ghitu Encampment
4 Auntie’s Hovel
4 Graven Cairnes
4 Sulfurous Springs
Sideboard:
4 Bitterblossom
3 Deathmark
3 Infest
2 Guttural Response
2 Wild Ricochet
1 Volcanic Fallout
As happy I was with the deck, problems immediately began to surface. 5cc decks were suddenly running Wall of Reverence + Plumeveil rather than Kitchen Finks, and my plan against white-based decks was quite inferior to begin with – siding in Infest to kill my own guys (including Goblin Outlander) didn’t make much sense.
Still, I only made minor changes to the decklist for the next tournament, a 15-person GPT in Bellingham, where I won without too much trouble (not losing a match in the process). I took out Tarfires for 3 Terrors and the 4th Volcanic Fallout, and added the then-unplayed Chaotic Backlash to my sideboard to punish white-based token strategies, pulling Bitterblossoms and Wild Ricochets for them (but leaving Infests in).
Happy with the deck and the results that I attained from playing it, I saw the spoiler list for Alara Reborn and two cards immediately jumped out at me:
Anathemancer
Jund Hackblade
My mind raced with the possibility of opening up with turn one Tattermunge Maniac, turn two Jund Hackblade, and turn three Boggart Ram-Gang, only to finish them off with Anathemancer on the fourth turn! The deck seemed extremely fast, and I was excited to share my findings with friends and forums everywhere. However, many writers and people online did not share the same excitement that I did, citing that the new Orzhoff Pontiff (Zealous Persecution) would wreck my deck, and that Jund Hackblade was flat out terrible (source: Kyle Sanchez, Starcitygames.com).
Deflected by all the criticism, I stopped posting publicly about the decklist and worked with Gerry Thompson, Max McCall, Corbett Gray, and Charles Dupont on the R/B deck. We discussed various strategies, including stripping down the Sligh build and going to a midrange R/B build with Demigod of Revenge, but in the end, I stuck with the Sligh-based plan and sleeved up the following list at Regionals:
4 Tattermunge Maniac
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Jund Hackblade
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
3 Anathemancer
4 Magma Spray
4 Flame Javelin
3 Terminate
3 Volcanic Fallout
3 Ghitu Encampment
4 Auntie's Hovel
4 Sulfurous Springs
4 Graven Cairnes
8 Mountain
I can’t remember the sideboard, but it’s not really relevant – I ended up going 3-2 drop, losing to Doran and a Jund midrange deck with Makeshift Mannequin. Still, I was happy with the deck, and ended up committed to the same list for GP: Seattle.
A week before the event, I had many old friends and acquaintances staying with me – GerryT, Cedric Phillips, Matt Westfall, my brother (Kevin Boddy), and Brian Six. Instead of testing Standard and Block Constructed like intelligent men, we spent the days eating at all the fine restaurants in the Seattle area (Ezell’s Fried Chicken, Schultzy’s, Dick’s, Paseo, to name a few) and moneydrafting. The crowd that we had for drafts was great – Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa and Jed Dolbeer were in town – and a lot of fun was had, even if we did get kicked out of the University of Washington’s student center for being too loud.
After watching countless 8-4 drafts that Gerry would find himself in, I gained a newfound respect for Waveskimmer Aven and Bant Panorama, and in some strange way, feeling at peace with my deck selection. Watching Gerry’s unorthodox drafting strategies (and his subsequent wins) made me feel confident that I didn’t need (or possibly even want!) validation for every single card choice in my deck. Cedric echoed these sentiments with saying that he thought my deck sucked, but that I should “play the deck I know and win the tournament.” He was taking his own advice, as he piloted W/U Kithkin to a money finish at the Grand Prix.
In the end, I sleeved up the following list and was very happy to go to war with it:
4 Tattermunge Maniac
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Jund Hackblade
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
3 Anathemancer
4 Magma Spray
4 Flame Javelin
3 Terminate
3 Volcanic Fallout
3 Ghitu Encampment
4 Auntie's Hovel
4 Sulfurous Springs
4 Graven Cairnes
8 Mountain
Sideboard:
3 Chaotic Backlash
3 Everlasting Torment
3 Pithing Needle
3 Deathmark
1 Banefire
1 Anathemancer
1 Volcanic Fallout
In Part Two of my report, I’ll go over all my matches in detail and discuss sideboarding strategies.