I know that there are tons of Cawblade articles floating around at the moment, but I feel like the format has changed enough that people need to be updated. This article will mainly be about Cawblade vs Darkblade, my list and discussion of it, sideboarding, and the potential banning of [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card]. Could one more Cawblade article hurt? I think not.

Many magicians that know me well would tell you that I very rarely play the ‘best’ deck in the format. I take it upon myself as a personal challenge to try and beat the best deck in each of the formats that I put time into. While I have used this method to decent success in the past, I was unable to crack the code for beating Cawblade. So I bit the bullet and played the best deck. I’ve played Cawblade in 5 tournaments so far and have a combined record of 22-2-1. From that total, the only two losses came from a PTQ that I finished 3rd in, with the draw being an intentional one from a weekly tournament. While I know that being the end-boss at local tournaments isn’t a big deal, I’m on one of the biggest heaters I’ve ever had with an archetype. I’ve joined the dark side, and I’m loving it.

I’m going to throw down my current list for you right now for future reference later in the article:

[deck title=Cawblade by Francis Toussaint]
[Creatures]
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Squadron Hawk
1 Sun Titan
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Preordain
4 Spell Pierce
4 Mana Leak
2 Into the Roil
2 Dismember
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of War and Peace
[/Spells]
[Planeswalkers]
2 Jace Beleren
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
[/Planeswalkers]
[Lands]
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Seachrome Coast
2 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Tectonic Edge
5 Island
3 Plains
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Mental Misstep
2 Oust
1 Dismember
3 Divine Offering
1 Spellskite
2 Day of Judgment
1 Batterskull
2 Sun Titan
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

And for those of you who are just in it for the list, you can leave now, I won’t be upset. I understand.

Cawblade Vs. Darkblade
In my opinion, and experience, Cawblade is far superior to Darkblade. The argument for Darkblade is, as far as I know:

– ‘Real’ removal in [card]Go for the Throat[/card];
– You have the best man land around, [card]Creeping Tar Pit[/card];
– Hand disruption to snatch up all of them [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card]s, and ‘trump’ the mirror.

You’d think that one advantage of playing black would be that you get better removal spells, but I’d have to disagree. UW has access to some great removal that isn’t significantly worse than black removal. [card]Into the Roil[/card] is actually surprisingly good right now, has a ton of utility. It’s good against [card]Splinter Twin[/card], [card]Batterskull[/card] germ tokens, and Sworded creatures. [card]Dismember[/card] is also exceptionally good right now. Its main drawback of costing 4 life isn’t too much of a drawback because [card]Batterskull[/card] and [card]Sword of War and Peace[/card] can make up for the lost life quite easily. Costing one fits really well on the curve because you can play Stoneforge turn two, and then be able to play [card]Batterskull[/card] and [card]Dismember[/card] turn three. [card]Dismember[/card] is really good in the [card]Splinter Twin[/card] matchup as well because it’s mana cost is so low, and you don’t care at all about paying 4 life.

A huge strike against Darkblade is having a weaker manabase than Cawblade. [card]Tectonic Edge[/card] is really, really, good right now. I can’t say how many times I’ve taken control of games with timely [card]Tectonic Edge[/card](s), or [card]Tectonic Edge[/card] being recurred by [card]Sun Titan[/card] to lock a person out of a game. Also, the opportunity to choke a Darkblade player out of a color comes up fairly often. [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card] is quite good at the moment as well. [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card] is great at holding swords when there are no squires or hawks available to do the job, and can single-handedly win games that you would otherwise be out of reach. What’s easier? 10 poison, or 50 life?

As for hand disruption, it is, in my opinion, very much overrated. The problem with hand disruption is that it’s not actually that crippling to have [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] taken away. Take for example the following hand:
Land, Land, Land, [card]Preordain[/card], [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card], [card]Mana Leak[/card], [card]Jace Beleren[/card]

To be fair, this is a good hand. However, notice how it’s not even a big deal having a [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] taken from this hand. Even if we take away the [card]Mana Leak[/card] and have 4 lands, [card]Preordain[/card], and [card]Jace Beleren[/card] post [card]Despise[/card]/[card]Inquisition of Kozilek[/card], Cawblade is still in great shape. Playing [card]Preordain[/card] and extra Jaces help my deck draw into gas when they strip it of cards.

What I dislike most about playing hand disruption is that you are essentially cutting counterspells for to make room for the hand disruption spells, and now your opponents have little to no fear of being foiled by counterspells, and have free rein to cast whatever they like. I read Mike Flores follow up article on his recent victory with Splinter Twin, and in this article he said that he was actually more afraid to play against Cawblade than Darkblade because he couldn’t just play whatever he wanted without fearing counterspells.

It took me a lot of disappointment and frustration earlier in my magic career to realize that when you play hand disruption you can’t be upset if they top deck their way to victory. It happens. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

The TL;DR of this section being: Tectonic Edge is the best, and counterspells > hand disruption.

Cards I Played and Why
Approaching Cawblade, I knew that Edgar Flores was king, and with this knowledge I used his most recent list as a starting point. From the start I loved playing straight UW, 6 main deck Jaces, and playing the full 4 & 4 of [card]Spell Pierce[/card] and [card]Mana Leak[/card]. Here are some explanations of the cards in my list:

[card]Sun Titan[/card]:
One thing that I noticed post PTQ is that my sideboarding list had [card]Sun Titan[/card] coming in for literally every matchup other than [card]Splinter Twin[/card], and because of this I decided to add one to the main deck. [card]Sun Titan[/card] is really great because you can lock people out for mana with [card]Tectonic Edge[/card] in conjunction with [card]Sun Titan[/card]. Using [card]Sun Titan[/card] to bring back a [card]Jace Beleren[/card], or a [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] is always huge. [card]Sun Titan[/card] can be especially potent post board when people start killing your swords. I don’t want to play more than one because being six mana can make it a dead draw against [card]Splinter Twin[/card].

4 [card]Spell Pierce[/card] & 4 [card]Mana Leak[/card]:
I like playing the full amount of each of these because they are particularly good against [card]Splinter Twin[/card], while still being completely live against the Mirror. Playing so many counterspells is also really funny against Darkblade because they will feel safe to play cards into you because they checked your hand a turn or two earlier, and then be soul crushed when you topdeck the counterspell.

[card]Into the Roil[/card] & [card]Dismember[/card]:
See above. The 3rd [card]Dismember[/card] in the sideboard is mainly for decks that you don’t care about your lifetotal against such as Splinter Twin, Valakut, and Eldrazi.

6 Jaces:
Playing two [card]Jace Beleren[/card] maindeck has been great for me because it adds value to [card]Sun Titan[/card], and helps bury opponents with card advantage.

[card]Mental Misstep[/card]:
[card]Mental Misstep[/card] out of the board is good against Darkblade, UB control, and various agro decks. It’s great to be able to protect your hand on the draw with misstep against hand disruption, and can single-handedly take away a huge part of their advantage from going first. Misstep can also be great against pesky cards such as [card]Goblin Guide[/card], [card]Nature’s Claim[/card], [card]Quest for the Holy Relic[/card], [card]Vampire Lacerator[/card], [card]Birds of Paradise[/card], and [card]Preordain[/card].

Sideboarding
Coming into the PTQ I had written out a sideboarding guide, but I found myself deviating from the guide way over half the time. With all the customization that is possible with the Stoneforge package, and all the different variations that are viable, it’s important to be flexible in your sideboarding, and be able to adjust to different combinations.

Banning Stoneforge Mystic
I have heard talk of banning some part of Cawblade from players due to its continual domination of the standard format, without any definitive end in sight due to the new addition of [card]Batterskull[/card]. Some people say that UR Splinter Twin may be the answer, but in my opinion it’s not good enough. I believe all that it will take to bring down UR Splinter Twin is some smart card choices from Cawblade players, and players actively practicing against it.

I love Cawblade, but I can see that it is unhealthy for the format. PTQ attendances are dropping, and I’m sure people everywhere can hear the grumbling of people complaining about Cawblade at their local tournaments. Cawblade is the most dominant deck around since I’ve started playing Magic (right after affinity fortunately).

I believe that [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] is the problem. Without [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card], [card]Batterskull[/card] and the other swords are completely reasonable cards, but the combination of Stoneforge and [card]Batterskull[/card] is so absurd that they are even doing quite well in Legacy. I’ve heard some people say that [card]Batterskull[/card] should be banned, and not [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card], but I believe it is like the scenario with [card]Survival of the Fittest[/card] and [card]Vengevine[/card]. It’s better to ban the broken card and let the format grow, than to let it remain and control the format, while being slightly less broken.

Well that’s all I’ve got for content for now, hopefully you learned something. The best advice I can give you for playing Cawblade is to be comfortable with the deck. Cawblade is a complex deck; it has a lot of intricacies that you must be aware of to play the deck to its full potential. As for playing against Cawblade… good luck. Thanks for reading!

Francis “Franstar” Toussaint