Hello readers,

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look at my article. My name is Christopher Thomson and I am the behind the scenes influence that unleashed the dreaded GR Wolf Run Ramp. To start with a bit about myself, I have been playing magic since Onslaught and moved to tournament play around Darksteel. I regrettably don’t have any spectacular showings at any event that mattered. Aside from a ton of product prize I don’t have anything to show my skill as a player either. I’ve held a decent rating for a long time, on the old system I was around 1890-1900 but at big events I would always choke. Either tilting from variance or missing a crucial play I have repeatedly cemented myself as an average magic player. So the question would be, why would anyone want to listen to me or what I have to write? Well where I may not have much to show on the player side of things I have been an avid deck builder my entire “Magic career”. I shared the same dreams many people playing in FNM’s do, to make your way on to the pro tour or place well at a Grand Prix. So on this level I believe that many can relate to the things I have to say because it’s not from a Magic-pro or some seasoned veteran , but from one of you guys. Suffice to say I have finally lived the dream, just in a different way. Instead of standing in the lights with the cheque I get to see my little monster grow up and take the world by storm. If even for a moment, people will know my name as one of the two forces that rocked the face of standard.

Now since winning large tournaments has never been my strongest suit I have regulated myself to more of a support role for others. I was very fortunate to qualify for an international group, Team Revolution, made up of some very strong players. Gavin Verhey, Brian Sondag, and Andrew Noworaj are some notable players on the team, along with many other very talented and skilled people. I believe I qualified mostly on the strength of my theory crafting and having very distinct reasons for every choice I made, regardless of how right or wrong they were. I spent the last two years of my life going to college so my ability to play the game diminished only leaving me time to look at the format from an outside context and attempt to build decks from it. This let me actively take a part in the game I love without having to devout consistent amounts of time or money. I would continually scour the 1000+ cards in standard looking for interactions and to build engines or working parts from the card pool available. My decks would fluctuate in playability but they never denied a chance to learn something about the format without succumbing to only playing the top decks.

Since I have been honing my craft for many years, when a set is first spoiled I immediately jump into action. My goal is to find what cards work well in existing decks and to discover any hidden engines that are present within the cards. Another thing I do is look at previously existing decks and see what is salvageable. The first two to spring to mind were [card]Tempered Steel[/card] and various [card]Birthing Pod[/card] decks. Since there isn’t a whole lot I could do with them I began tinkering with [card]Birthing Pod[/card], but never really liking what I was seeing. I was also tinkering around with UW because of the synergy between [card]Phantasmal Image[/card] and [card]Sun Titan[/card]. Then, a few days after Innistrad spoiler season began the lands were leaked, and most notably Wolf Run. It gave a huge purpose to play [card]Primeval Titan[/card] because not only could you grab the Wolf Run but an Inkmoth and immediately make the life of your opponent miserable. My initial build had swords as well so you posed multiple threats for your opponent that were non-linear and very difficult to stop them all. For reference, my initial decklist is here. It looks rough, and it certainly is, but this is the catalyst that broke your standard environment.

[deck title=Wolf-Run Ramp v1.0 by Christopher Thomson]
[Lands]
4 Mountain
4 Inkmoth Nexus
3 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Rootbound Crag
6 Forest
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
4 Primeval Titan
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Viridian Emissary
3 Acidic Slime
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Garruk Relentless
2 Slagstorm
1 Devil’s Play
3 Incinerate
4 Rampant Growth
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
2 Beast Within
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Sword of War and Peace
1 Slagstorm
4 Naturalize
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
3 Act of Aggression
2 Beast Within
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

What we have here folks is some outdated technology. The context that this deck is in currently is knowing that [card]Tempered Steel[/card] is the scariest deck from block, if you can survive its onslaught you typically should have a high win ratio versus that style of strategy. This is why there are 3 Slimes main along with a burn suite (Garruk included), so I could kill off or block away the early aggression, pop the enchantment and be on my way. With all the ways to neutralize artifacts, I incidentally found a way to crush the other “deck to beat”. Our game plan was stronger and harder to answer than pod so this gave us an edge. Lastly, The Garruks, Wurmcoils and Swords in the sideboard gave us some staying power against red which early in spoiler season was the last conceivable deck that would likely exist in any sort of greater fashion. The Swords were in the deck with the idea that the format was still dominated by them, so they were more or less a carry over from the previous format. Later in the season we received the hidden gem of [card]Ancient Grudge[/card] so this is why [card]Naturalize[/card] is in the deck.

Some hold the firm belief that there is no point speculating on a new format before all the cards are spoiled because there is a chance that all your work could go down the drain with the printing of a few cards. I recognize that there is some futility of it, however what you don’t lose is an opportunity to learn about what you can do with what is given to you. I built this deck with many experimental choices such as Relentless main instead of Hunter with the only reason as to see how they play. Thanks to Brian he took interest in the deck and quickly pointed out the lack of [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card] or removing the swords because they were pretty far off from what we wanted to be doing. Fortunately nothing was printed to invalidate the strategy so this deck served its purpose, to be the prototype for something bigger.

For anyone who enjoyed the early standard format I write this article as an apology to you. It started simply as tinkering around and when passed to the right person, created a wildfire that tore up it’s opposition. I hope you see this as an opportunity to go back to the drawing board yourselves and think about ways to overcome this new challenge put in front of you. Right now people are opting for UB Control but I’m certain there are more answers out there. See if you can create the next sweet deck or piece of technology that can rip the format open. I can say from experience the feeling is absolutely superb, even if it isn’t you who pilots it in the end.

Thanks for taking the time to give this a read, if you have any questions or comments please leave them below or send them to Damiensrealm [at] gmail [dot] com. If you want to see me write more in the future let me know so I can show you guys what sweet piece of technology I’m working on or just my thoughts on various matters. Remember to never stop innovating!

– Christopher Thomson
Damiensrealm on MTGS