Standard

Putting Money Where My Mouth Is – TCG Player $10K Top 8

If I told you how many people in the last couple weeks have stopped me to ask how I’d build or sideboard a ‘Caw-Blade’ deck…well…well you’d probably be late for work or some other appointment if you sat here reading the list, so for argument’s sake, it’s a lot.

Since the deck was spoiled at PT Paris a month or two back, I haven’t played anything else except one variation or another of it. Different incarnations of the deck would only last a few days as I searched for the best build. The one I’ve settled on presently might not be ‘the best’ out there, but it’s certainly the one I’m most confidant with and the one I plan on sleeving up for any Standard tournaments in the near future.

I play U/W because I don’t like to mess around. Most writers out there are promoting either a Red splash or a Black one to gain benefits from their own respective cards but weakening a manabase and dropping Tectonic Edge is one of the most dangerous things a deck builder can do in a fast evolving format like this. Tomorrow’s best deck can easily be replaced by another overnight. Valakut has been subject to much criticism for being weak to a lot of the format’s answers, but all the fighting between Caw-Blade players trying to make up their minds on how to build their decks has led to an uprising of Valakut decks that plan on catching their opponents off guard.

Before I go on any longer I’ll get to my current list before I talk about my card choices and the reasons for them.

[deck title=UW Caw-Blade by Dan Lanthier]
[Lands]
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Tectonic Edge
1 Misty Rainforest
5 Island
4 Plains
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Sun Titan
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Gideon Jura
3 Mana Leak
3 Spell Pierce
3 Day of Judgment
2 Condemn
4 Preordain
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
2 Baneslayer Angel
1 Sun Titan
1 Mortarpod
3 Flashfreeze
3 Divine Offering
1 Deprive
4 Oust
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

I’m going to make a bold statement and suggest that my main deck is near perfect. I’ve got the usual suspects in the creature slots, a playset of each of Squadron Hawk and Stoneforge Mystic. Supported by their best friend, Sun Titan. Sun Titan plays a few roles in the deck. He’s a threat that can win the game on his own, he brings armies back from the dead, and he repairs your swords if they happen to fall victim to an Acidic Slime or something equally un-fun. He also has the added benefit of bringing Wastelands back from the grave if you’re one of those people who enjoy ruining other people’s fun (Looking at you Jon).

The Planeswalkers haven’t changed, and if someone decides to do so they are what I like to call ‘wrong’. I played a Grand Prix Trial a few weeks back when I was still trying to figure out what version of the deck was better and I played a version with one Gideon, and one Elspeth for white walkers. Seemed like a good idea at the time but so does every poor life decision. Please don’t do it.

The original Caw-Blade deck from Paris had a few more counter spells. They played the fourth Spell Pierce, alongside a Deprive and a Cancel. It seems after every tournament I play these days I cut one of them from the deck and I wouldn’t be surprised if that trend continued in the future, but as I have it right now there are three Spell Pierce and three Mana Leak. The argument is that Spell Pierce is marginal at best in the mirror because it does nothing to stop the sword plan. And while that is true and Spell Pierce is certainly a little worse because of that, it’s still very good at slowing down Jace and delaying the inevitable against Valakut. Mana Leak is ok, but every game goes long these days so only playing three still gives you a good shot at drawing them early, while your chances of having a hand filled with them late in the game is diminished.

One of the more important changes I’ve made is that I’ve gone down to three Day of Judgment but I added two Condemn. My theory is that Day of Judgment is too slow to deal with the aggro decks (Boros, Kuldotha Red, and Elves). Not only does it not come online until your fourth turn at earliest, a tough pill to swallow if you are facing down a first turn threat. But you also have to tap out to cast it, leaving your planeswalkers unprotected. At the same time, you also clear away any guys on your own team, making your sword plan even slower.

Condemn is just as good at stopping the aggro decks in their tracks as Day of Judgment so long as you have your own threat on the table. It’s not even a bad card in control mirrors anymore because everyone is playing creatures in their lists and winning the sword race is the most important aspect of those games. I used to play them in my sideboard but found that I was bringing them in against almost everything so they got promoted.

The equipments are still the same but I’m playing more of them main. The original list only had Sword of Feast and Famine and the Lifestaff as the equipment package. But I find myself looking for Body and Mind often enough that it should be in the main deck. Some/most lists already play both swords in the main, but it seems that most people have either forgotten or dismissed the Lifestaff. That card is so important against the Boros and Kuldotha Red decks that I don’t understand how people win without it. Both those decks are perfectly capable of killing you before you can even cast a Day of Judgment so why people think that gaining life could be a bad thing is beyond me. Also, you’ll appreciate the Lifestaff when you figure out that you could be blocking [card]Hero of Oxid Ridge[/card] instead of just losing when he shows up to the party.

That about covers the main deck, so let’s have a look at the sideboard and figure out how to approach every matchup. Being flexible and creative while doing this is incredibly important when playing this deck as your opponent can never really be sure what your deck looks like after board. And I’ll cover that a little more later. These are just guidelines. Everything is variable upon play style and priority.

Boros, Kuldotha Red

+ 2 [card]Baneslayer Angel[/card], 1 [card]Mortarpod[/card], 2 [card]Divine Offering[/card], 4 [card]Oust[/card]
– 3 [card]Mana Leak[/card], 3 [card]Spell Pierce[/card], 1 [card]Sun Titan[/card], 2 [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card]

My rule against aggro decks is to remove all the cards that you don’t want to have post board first and if there are still cards that need to come out you take X Jace with you to fill the remainder.
I only bring in 2 Divine Offering because I don’t want to have a hand full of them when they are beating down with their guys. And the other cards are pretty self explanatory. Mortarpod gives you an extra toughness which is good for blocking Goblin Guides and it also gives you an out to [card]Cunning Sparkmage[/card] or something equally annoying [Spikeshot Elder perhaps? –KYT].

Valakut

+ 4 [card]Oust[/card], 3 [card]Flashfreeze[/card], 1 [card]Deprive[/card]
– 1 [card]Sylvok Lifestaff[/card], 2 [card]Condemn[/card], 3 [card]Day of Judgment[/card], 1 [card]Gideon Jura[/card], 1 [card]Sun Titan[/card]

This is the toughest match to sideboard for by far. I’m still not 100% sold on my final sideboard plan because a lot of it changes on the fly. If they are playing [card]Lotus Cobra[/card] then the Ousts MUST come in. I’ve been going insane the last while trying to figure out how to deal with him without going into a third color and I’ve accepted the Oust plan. Every deck playing with Lotus Cobra gets Ousts boarded against them.

The rest of the sideboarding makes sense. Condemn, Lifestaff, and the Sun Titan are all pretty bad at stopping anything they do. I’m not sold on bringing out all the Day of Judgment, but dealing with Lotus Cobra is more concerning than getting rid of a Primeval Titan, if he resolves it’s probably game over anyways. I could accept cutting a Jace and a Squadron Hawk instead of two Day of Judgment which is also a possibility.

U/W, U/W/r, U/W/b

+ 2 [card]Baneslayer Ange[/card]l, 1 [card]Sun Titan[/card], 3 [card]Divine Offering[/card], 1 [card]Deprive[/card]
– 1 [card]Sylvok Lifestaff[/card], 2 [card]Day of Judgment[/card], 3 [card]Spell Pierce[/card], 1 [card]Mana Leak[/card]

This is a difficult match to play, a lot of how you play and what you bluff depend entirely on your opponent’s play style. I’ve played games where I’ve boarded out all of my counters, games where they’ve board out all their counters, games where they boarded out their Day of Judgments and games where they haven’t. It’s all about what you expect from them and how they like to play the games out. Against the red version, I bring in Mortarpod to deal with their Sparkmages. But when fighting the black versions or the two color versions, nothing is different. Baneslayers provide a quick clock as well as being very difficult to block and attack into. And the Divine Offerings are pretty self-explanatory. The sideboard plan changes often enough that writing out all the scenarios would take forever, a lot of it involves moving around some counters to make it impossible for your opponent to know what’s in your deck. I like leaving in a couple Spell Pierces against the U/W/b players because they get to see it when they Inquisition you and they adjust their entire game to play around it.

RUG

+ 2 [card]Flashfreeze[/card], 4 [card]Oust[/card], 1 [card]Deprive[/card]
– 1 [card]Sylvok Lifestaff[/card], 2 [card]Condemn[/card], 3 [card]Spell Pierce[/card], 1 [card]Mana Leak[/card]

I bring in four Oust because Lotus Cobra has to die. A couple Flashfreeze get brought in because they counter late game Titans, and board out weaker cards. It took a while for me to build a deck and a sideboard that could adjust to RUG, but once you have an idea of what you have to do against them to win it’s not that difficult. The games are easy if Lotus Cobra doesn’t happen, but he’s tough to fight.

WW/GW Quest

+ 2 [card]Oust[/card], 3 [card]Divine Offering[/card], 2 [card]Banelayer Angel[/card]
– 1 [card]Sylvok Lifestaff[/card], 3 [card]Spell Pierce[/card], 3 [card]Mana Leak[/card]

Oust actually really sucks against them, but you need a critical mass of cards that kill off Argentum Armor or the creature it’s equipped to as their deck barely does anything without it. Once you’ve dealt with the Armor, the only thing left to cause any concern is Fauna Shaman, but U/W is traditionally very capable of killing creatures without protection so that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Tezzeret

+ 1 [card]Sun Titan[/card], 3 [card]Divine Offering[/card], 1 [card]Deprive[/card]
– 1 [card]Sylvok Lifestaff[/card], 1 [card]Day of Judgment[/card], 2 [card]Condemn[/card], 1 [card]Gideon Jura[/card]

The choices here are pretty self explanatory I think. The argument can be made to leave Condemn in and board out more Days so that you can deal with Blightsteel Colossus or stave off an early 5/5 that wants to fight, but if you are being attacked by a Blightsteel then you’ve probably already been Mindslavered so nothing is saving you at that point.

I think that about covers all of Standard. Most of the matchups have a theme going on and the sideboarding procedures stay fairly consistent. When it comes to my sideboarding, I don’t really like giving out guides because so much of what I board in or out depends on what feels right and who is on the play/draw. I think that’s the most important way to sideboard and something not enough people do. But guides do their service because it gives some insight into the thought behind every choice.

I hope some of you pick this list up and give it a go in whatever tournament you play in the next couple weeks. Good luck and kill every Lotus Cobra you see.

Dan

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