Thursday, May 1, 2014

Top 4 in MPDC 24.10

Over the past couple weeks, I have been writing  about the Crouching Cipher Hidden Strings decklist that has emerged into the Standard Pauper metagame. I presented my own take on the deck and discussed my rationale for the changes that I made.

I ended up running the deck with just a few tweaks in MPDC 24.10, and finished in the Top 4. A build similar to the original version of the deck actually took home the trophy, and I played that deck twice - once in Round 1 where I won 2-1, and then again in Top 4 when I lost 0-2.

Here's the version that I ran:


Overall I was pretty happy with my build. Adding 2 lands to the deck seems to have worked out, as the deck mulliganed much better than previous versions. Essence Scatter also proved it worth several times, and am more confident now that it deserves its place in the main deck. I also was pleased with my decision to add both Swift Justice and Hopeful Eidolon back into the decklist. However, playing 3 copies of Wavecrash Triton seems to be a mistake - I would definitely swap the 4th copy of Vaporkin in its place.

If you haven't tried out this deck before, you should sleeve it up and give it a try. It's surprisingly fun. Later this week, I'll write up a quick deck-tech on exactly how the deck works.

If you've played against this archetype successfully, I'd love to hear what you think works well against it. Let me know in the comments below.

3 comments:

  1. I've been testing really well against the UW aggro decks with my Mono Black Control. Cards I found to be blowouts are Shrivel, early on I had a nice 2 for 1 in game 2 against the deck. Another card that I think is good against the deck is Duress, being able to take the Mizzium Skin or God's Willing is huge. I wrote about the match up here, http://mtgstanndardpauper.blogspot.com/2014/04/mono-black-mind-control.html

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  2. Even though I lost in the finals vs Torreth playing a similar list, Fast and Furious Boros Auras can beat this UW heroics. Yes, Madcap skills and Ethereal armor can take the win in a few turns if UW does not have the hidden strings / hands of binding combos with heroic. What kills us most is Hands of binding.

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  3. I love this list & the aggro version. When it works, it really works. Shrivel & electrickery can blow it out early, and anything faster can get the jump pretty easily as well. I had some bad draws/mulligans, but the deck always felt like it was a turn behind for me. Interested to see how many of these show up Monday. (5/23 decks last week, counting me!) As I've been testing this weekend, so many people trying it out.

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