So it turns out I am not that good with a guitar, and she chose someone else over me-someone who apparently had an even more chronic craving for her affections. Check out the deck that won the Grand Prix in Nagoya, in the hands of Yuuji Okita:

[Deck title=”Rise of the Humans by Yuuji Okita”]
[Creatures]
*4 Nightshade Peddler
*4 Izzet Staticaster
*1 Goldnight Commander
*4 Huntmaster of the Fells
*4 Angel of Glory’s Rise
*1 Zealous Conscripts
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Chronic Flooding
*4 Faithless Looting
*2 Izzet Charm
*4 Mulch
*1 Tracker’s Instinct
*4 Unburial Rites
[/Spells]
[Land]
*4 Cavern of Souls
*1 Clifftop Retreat
*2 Hallowed Fountain
*2 Hinterland Harbor
*4 Rootbound Crag
*4 Steam Vents
*1 Sulfur Falls
*1 Sunpetal Grove
*4 Temple Garden
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*4 Cathedral Sanctifier
*2 Izzet Charm
*2 Ray of Revelation
*2 Rolling Temblor
*2 Goldnight Commander
*1 Geist-Honored Monk
*2 Zealous Conscripts
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

For those of you who don’t remember, I wrote a short introduction to this deck last week. My list was three cards and some lands off from Okita’s list as far as the maindeck was concerned (-2 [card]Armored Skaab[/card], -1 [card]Izzet Charm[/card], +2 [card]Chronic Flooding[/card], +1 Tracker’s Instinct), but the main strategy is the same.

Like I said then, the premise of this deck is simple: you mill yourself when convenient, and play out creatures to prevent your opponent from beating you while you set up. Those creatures will chump, trade and grind down your opponent’s resources, and then you bring them all back with an [card]Angel of Glory’s Rise[/card]. You can hardcast her or bring her back from the dead with [card]Unburial Rites[/card], whichever is more convenient.

This Week’s Breakdown

In today’s article, we’ll look at the deck in a bit more detail, so you can be ready to spin the wheels when you take this racecar of a deck to FNM this week. We’ll start off with a breakdown of the maindeck.

The Engine
4 [card]Faithless Looting[/card]
2 [card]Izzet Charm[/card]
4 [card]Mulch[/card]
1 [card]Tracker’s Instinct[/card]

These are the cards that process the fuel and create motion. They put creatures and flashback spells into the graveyard, while fulfilling other functions like:

• drawing you land ([card]Mulch[/card]);
• drawing you cards you want to cast ([card]Faithless Looting[/card], Tracker’s Instinct);
• reducing your opponent’s clock, killing an X/3 with Staticaster when you don’t have a Peddler, countering a [card]Dissipate[/card] or [card]Terminus[/card], or filtering into more action ([card]Izzet Charm[/card]).

[card]Izzet Charm[/card] does a lot of dirty work, but it is slightly underpowered (says the guy writing about a deck with [card]Goldnight Commander[/card] and [card]Chronic Flooding[/card]) and you often don’t need the effects that badly. Still, it is a useful tool to have.

The Gearbox
4 [card]Chronic Flooding[/card]

[card]Chronic Flooding[/card] kicks your deck into high gear very quickly. If you cast two of them early, you actually have to start paying attention to not decking yourself, especially against decks with [card]Nephalia Drownyard[/card]. They fill your graveyard the fastest of all your self-mill cards, but they don’t do anything else. Feel free to board these out in favor of [card]Cathedral Sanctifier[/card]s against Zombies. Like people from mountainous areas know: when you’re driving uphill, sometimes you want to stay in a lower gear.

The Looks and the Gas
4 [card]Nightshade Peddler[/card]
4 [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card]
4 [card]Huntmaster of the Fells[/card]

This deck is not just any racecar; it is a Ferrari. It impresses not only with its racing prowess, but also just with the looks. The cool combination of [card]Nightshade Peddler[/card] and [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card] can completely dominate the board against certain decks. A lot of midrange decks have very few answers to this combo, especially when you can keep bringing them back thanks to [card]Unburial Rites[/card]. The reason I grouped them in with the other humans is that together they form the gas you need to hit the road.

While [card]Huntmaster of the Fells[/card] might not be the looker the other humans are, it fulfills some very important functions. Huntmaster is a great bump in the road for other aggressive decks that try to race you, and it adds two bodies to the field when it comes into play, which is very important for the “combo kill.”

The combo kill is your plan against sweepers, and it works like your general reanimation plan: you fill your graveyard with a good number of humans. You need the one [card]Goldnight Commander[/card] in play or in your graveyard and at least some [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card]s or the [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card]. The more you have of these, the fewer humans you need total, and Huntmaster counts double too. Once your graveyard is full of gas, you turn the key, and step on the pedal:

The Key and the Pedal
4 [card]Angel of Glory’s Rise[/card]
4 [card]Unburial Rites[/card]

You reanimate (or hardcast) an Angel of Glory’s Rise; annihilate all Zombies, if applicable; bring back all the humans in your graveyard; and start counting (in a real tournament, you might want to count beforehand). To get your opponent from 20 to 0 in one turn, the turbo has to be involved:

The Turbo
1 [card]Goldnight Commander[/card]

Let’s say you have the following in your graveyard when [card]Angel of Glory’s Rise[/card] enters the battlefield: [card]Nightshade Peddler[/card], two [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card], two [card]Huntmaster of the Fells[/card], [card]Goldnight Commander[/card] and the [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card].

They all enter the battlefield, and [card]Goldnight Commander[/card] sees eight creatures come into play: it doesn’t count itself; the Angel was already in play when the reanimation ability resolved; and the Huntmasters bring two wolves along. It gives all your creatures +8/+8 until end of turn. You can then use the [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card] to either move a roadblock out of the way or to give your own Angel haste. Then, you can attack with your hasty creatures for 8 + 8 + 11 = 27 damage (or 40 if you attacked with your Angel too).

There are games where just stepping on the pedal is enough to impress, especially when combined with the looks of [card]Nightshade Peddler[/card] + [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card]. In matchups where no sweepers are involved, just reanimating the Angel once or twice “for value” will be more than good enough.

The Wheels
4 [card]Cavern of Souls[/card]
1 [card]Clifftop Retreat[/card]
2 [card]Hallowed Fountain[/card]
2 [card]Hinterland Harbor[/card]
4 [card]Rootbound Crag[/card]
4 [card]Steam Vents[/card]
1 [card]Sulfur Falls[/card]
1 [card]Sunpetal Grove[/card]
4 [card]Temple Garden[/card]

Last but not least, the wheels that keep the car rolling. For the deck to function, red is the most important color, then blue, then green, then white. However, in some sense, white is the most important to get at least one of, or you won’t be reanimating anything. This makes your mana base slightly complicated, especially when running only 23 lands and the full suite of Cavern of Souls-the shiny rims you need to hard cast an Angel to combo off through counterspells.

I do not like Okita’s wheels very much. It seems like he has a bit too little green mana to cast his Mulches reliably, and he is low on colored sources overall because he liked the bling of the [card]Cavern of Souls[/card] a bit too much. Perhaps we can take a page out of another deck from the same tournament, which, like Okita’s deck, also went undefeated on day one of the GP:

[Deck title=”Rise of the Humans by Daisuke Hirose”]
[Creatures]
*4 Nightshade Peddler
*4 Izzet Staticaster
*1 Goldnight Commander
*4 Huntmaster of the Fells
*4 Angel of Glory’s Rise
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Chronic Flooding
*4 Faithless Looting
*4 Izzet Charm
*3 Pillar of Flame
*4 Unburial Rites
[/Spells]
[Land]
*2 Cavern of Souls
*3 Clifftop Retreat
*4 Hallowed Fountain
*1 Hinterland Harbor
*3 Rootbound Crag
*1 Shimmering Grotto
*4 Steam Vents
*4 Sulfur Falls
*2 Temple Garden
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*1 Purify the Grave
*2 Negate
*2 Ray of Revelation
*3 Loxodon Smiter
*2 Rolling Temblor
*1 Clone
*1 Zealous Conscripts
*2 Elderscale Wurm
*1 Craterhoof Behemoth
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

Hirose has even fewer green sources than Okita, but he also doesn’t need them as much, as he cut Mulch from his deck. Instead, he plays one extra land and three [card]Pillar of Flame[/card]s to help in the Zombie matchup. The [card]Shimmering Grotto[/card] lets you sometimes hardcast [card]Unburial Rites[/card], but this costs six, and you should have no issues getting the Rites into the graveyard. Otherwise, it is a bad fixer, and I’d rather cut it for an extra [card]Cavern of Souls[/card].

I think cutting Mulch was a good decision for this manabase, though, and that probably helped him get his undefeated record on day one. His not making it into the top eight, or even the top 16, probably has to do with his sideboard. Okita’s sideboard has a much better plan against control decks than Hirose’s or my sideboard had. We’ll discuss this after I present my proposed (and hopefully improved) list.

By cutting Mulch, Hirose had to increase his [card]Izzet Charm[/card] count to four to make sure he still had enough enablers in his deck. I don’t know if I would want the full four, because, as I mentioned earlier, while versatile, they are slightly underpowered.

I like adding maybe one or two copies of Tracker’s Instinct over some Charms, as it gives you more action out of the graveyard and helps you find missing “combo” pieces while milling yourself. I’d probably also look to cut some number of [card]Pillar of Flame[/card]s or move them to the sideboard. While this makes you a tad worse against aggressive strategies game one, Okita still managed to best a traditional BR Zombie list in the finals of the GP. [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card] is really good against Zombies, after all.

This would be my list going forward:

[Deck title=”Rise of the Humans by Jay Lansdaal”]
[Creatures]
*4 Nightshade Peddler
*4 Izzet Staticaster
*1 Goldnight Commander
*4 Huntmaster of the Fells
*4 Angel of Glory’s Rise
*1 Zealous Conscripts
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Chronic Flooding
*4 Faithless Looting
*3 Izzet Charm
*1 Burning Oil
*2 Tracker’s Instinct
*4 Unburial Rites
[/Spells]
[Land]
*3 Cavern of Souls
*3 Clifftop Retreat
*3 Hallowed Fountain
*1 Hinterland Harbor
*3 Rootbound Crag
*4 Steam Vents
*4 Sulfur Falls
*3 Temple Garden
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*1 Cavern of Souls
*4 Cathedral Sanctifier
*2 Armored Skaab
*2 Ray of Revelation
*2 Rolling Temblor
*2 Goldnight Commander
*1 Geist-Honored Monk
*1 Zealous Conscripts
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

This is basically Okita’s and Hirose’s main combined, all the numbers they agreed on, but without Mulches or [card]Pillar of Flame[/card]s. Instead, I have two Tracker’s Instinct, three [card]Izzet Charm[/card], and a [card]Burning Oil[/card]. I also chose to have a Conscripts in the main, because I feel it is important to be able to have the combo kill available game one, and the Conscripts just makes it easier.

Not having Mulches has a few consequences: first, it means we can base our manabase off of Hirose’s, as we don’t need that much green anymore. This lets us cast our spells like [card]Izzet Charm[/card] much more reliably, as aside from the [card]Temple Garden[/card]s and Caverns, every land produces red or blue. It also means that we’ll have a harder time drawing enough land, and specifically drawing [card]Cavern of Souls[/card] against control, which is why I added the 24th land, like Hirose, but made it a third [card]Cavern of Souls[/card].

Mulch sometimes also helped drawing into excess lands we could discard to our Lootings. To alleviate that loss, I added the [card]Tracker’s Instincts[/card] and a [card]Burning Oil[/card]. The Oil is untested, but I can’t imagine it being much worse than [card]Pillar of Flame[/card], and you can actually cast it if you mill it. If it turns out to be terrible, replace it with Pillar or the fourth Charm.

The Sideboard

The sideboard is mostly modeled after Okita’s because it was much better at fighting control decks. With Hirose’s and my old sideboard, you couldn’t really rely on combo-killing quickly, because you only had one or two Commanders. We both had [card]Craterhoof Behemoth[/card] as a kill that comes out of nowhere, but that one costs eight instead of the Angel’s seven, and it spreads your Caverns very thin. You want one on Human, which makes you have to choose between Angel or Beast for the second one. Craterhoof is also weak against timely sweepers, as that by itself won’t kill anyone.

Okita’s sideboard has extra copies of both the Commander and the Conscripts available because the one-hit kill is your main avenue to win against control thanks to its resiliency both to counters (thanks to [card]Cavern of Souls[/card]) and against sweepers. You need extra copies because you need to be able to find them quickly, as your goal is to kill them either before a [card]Rest in Peace[/card] or very soon after destroying a Rest in Piece with [card]Ray of Revelation[/card]. Getting the combo together quickly is very important even after destroying a [card]Rest in Peace[/card], because most people who have them in their sideboard have two, and [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card]s lets them find the second one very easily.

In my suggested sideboard, I have only one extra copy of the Conscripts, as it is less important than the Commander, and I needed an extra slot for the fourth [card]Cavern of Souls[/card]. Against control you want to draw two Caverns: one to make your Humans uncounterable and one to resolve your Angel. With only three copies in the deck, the risk of milling one too many becomes too high. Also, [card]Geist-Honored Monk[/card] can fill in for the Conscripts in a pinch. It might not have haste, but hopefully the +3/+3 bonus to your Staticasters and the creatures you already had in play is enough to get the job done.

Against Aggro

-4 [card]Chronic Flooding[/card]
-1 [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card]
-1 [card]Goldnight Commander[/card]

+4 [card]Cathedral Sanctifier[/card]
+2 [card]Armored Skaab[/card]

I added the [card]Armored Skaab[/card]s to my sideboard over the [card]Izzet Charm[/card]s, partly because I moved one of those main already, but mainly because when I board out [card]Chronic Flooding[/card]s, I want something that can help me stay alive and fill my graveyard.

I also add the Roiling Temblors if I feel their deck is weak to it-against the WG Human decks and Sacrificial Zombie lists, for example-by shaving an Angel or [card]Unburial Rites[/card], or sometimes a Cavern or Charm, depending on what I feel I need more of in the matchup.

Against Midrange

We are pretty well set up in these matchups: they are slow enough that we have plenty of time to set up, and our endgame trumps theirs. On top of that, our Izzet Staticaster-Nightshade Peddler combo is often dominant against them. This is how I sideboard:

-1 [card]Unburial Rites[/card]

+1 [card]Geist-Honored Monk[/card]

On top of that, I board in the Temblors if they have a lot of mana dorks or tokens, sometimes the Conscripts if they try to go big, and the [card]Ray of Revelation[/card]s if I expect [card]Rest in Peace[/card]. To make place for those, I either shave an extra [card]Unburial Rites[/card] or two (in case of hate), a [card]Chronic Flooding[/card], and either a [card]Burning Oil[/card] or an [card]Izzet Charm[/card], depending on which amount of damage is relevant in the matchup.

You can also bring in or take out the combo pieces depending on whether you think you need them or not (if they don’t have hate or they have a lot of hate or you are running out of time, for example).

Against Control

Here we board in the cards that help us combo quickly:

+1 [card]Cavern of Souls[/card]
+2 [card]Goldnight Commander[/card]
+1 [card]Geist-Honored Monk[/card]
+1 [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card]

-1 [card]Burning Oil[/card]
-3 [card]Nightshade Peddler[/card]
-1 [card]Unburial Rites[/card]

I generally add the [card]Ray of Revelation[/card]s as well (most control is white-based, and is likely to have [card]Rest in Peace[/card]). You can start with one [card]Ray of Revelation[/card]s if you doubt they have hate, but better safe than sorry. To make space, you can cut the last Peddler or shave an [card]Unburial Rites[/card] (or both). You can’t rely on resolving [card]Unburial Rites[/card], but I like keeping some in case they don’t have or don’t draw their hate cards, and sometimes you even get to protect it with an [card]Izzet Charm[/card], though this usually only works once though.

This deck is a ton of fun to play, and I suggest you try it at your local FNM. You haven’t lived until you’ve exiled your Zombie opponent’s entire board while adding twelve creatures to yours.

Good luck as always, and see you next week!

Jay Lansdaal
iLansdaal on Twitter and MTGO