About
Zen Takahashi

GP Sydney 2013 TOP 4

GP Auckland 2012 11th

Won a PTQ when he was 13.

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Two weeks ago, just before GP Dallas, William Jensen voiced on Twitter that Shahar Shenhar believed Selesnya Aggro was favoured against Mono Blue Devotion. Upon seeing this tweet, I was immediately intrigued. Historically, Mono Blue Devotion was seen to crush Selesnya Aggro and some event went as far as saying it’s one of the deck’s best matchups. We saw this being demonstrated throughout Pro Tour Theros and is what drove Selesnya Aggro to becoming unplayable in the past few months. While Sam Black and William Jensen discussed the matchup, Craig Wescoe joined the conversation and he showed off the Selesnya list he was working on, saying that that “my version destroys it”. This was his list:

Creatures

4 Banisher Priest
4 Experiment One
4 Fleecemane Lion
4 Mistcutter Hydra
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
4 Voice of Resurgence

Spells

4 Advent of the Wurm
2 Last Breath
4 Selesnya Charm

Lands

8 Forest
8 Plains
3 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Temple Garden

Sideboard

4 Boon Satyr
2 Last Breath
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Skylasher
4 Unflinching Courage

 

This list looked great and was definitely the best Selesnya lists I had seen since Pro Tour Theros. I really liked the idea of playing a full set of Miscutter Hydras as they’re great against the control decks as well and you can often make the Hydra bigger than any of your opponents’ creatures in the aggro mirror. I also liked the full set of Boon Satyrs in the Sideboard and personally wanted them in the Maindeck. I thought they would be very well positioned due to the amount of Mono Black Devotion and the rise in the amount of control decks to try and combat Mono Blue Devotion. There were some things I didn’t like about the list though, mainly the Soldier of the Pantheon and the low land count. This deck isn’t as aggressive as a deck like Boros and involves a lot more defensive creature combat so I didn’t like the idea of playing such a weak body in the form of Soldier of the Pantheon. I also felt like 23 lands was not enough for a deck with a relatively high converted mana cost as you usually always want to bestow the Boon Satyr and you want to try make Mistcutter Hydra at least a 4/4.

I wanted to try the deck but was unfortunately busy throughout the week and never got the chance to. On Thursday Craig’s updated his list to answer the change in the metagame as UW Control had become more prominent due to its success at GP Dallas. Needless to say, I was once again impressed by his list:

Creatures

4 Banisher Priest
4 Boon Satyr
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Experiment One
4 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Skylasher
4 Voice of Resurgence

Spells

4 Advent of the Wurm
4 Selesnya Charm

Lands

8 Forest
7 Plains
4 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Temple Garden

Sideboard

2 Glare of Heresy
2 Last Breath
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Time to Feed
3 Unflinching Courage
2 Witchstalker

 

I really liked the changes that Wescoe made to the deck. The huge success of UW Control at GP Dallas meant that Skylashers could now be played Maindeck over the Fleecemane Lions. The pro-blue creatures are great against UW Control as it blanks all their removal except Last Breath. He also moved the Boon Satyrs to the Maindeck as an answer to the control decks and the Mono Black Devotion decks, and cut the Soldier of the Pantheons for Elvish Mystics. As I said before, I didn’t like Soldier of the Pantheons in this deck and I felt like 23 lands wasn’t enough so cutting them for Mana Dorks seemed great as it adds more mana sources to the deck as well as increase its velocity.

While I liked the changes Wescoe made, it did feel like the deck was becoming too focused on specific matchups as he added more and more cards to beat specific decks. Cards like Skylasher and Banisher Priest often end up as a Grizzly Bears against many decks in the format. However Andrew Shrout (famous MODO Grinder and PT Dragon’s Maze Top 8 Competitor) proved the deck’s worth as he played it to a Top 4 finish at the Invitational. Here was his list (almost identical to Wescoe’s):

Creatures

4 Banisher Priest
2 Elvish Mystic
4 Experiment One
2 Fleecemane Lion
4 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Skylasher
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Boon Satyr

Spells

4 Advent of the Wurm
1 Last Breath
4 Selesnya Charm

Lands

8 Forest
8 Plains
3 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Temple Garden

Sideboard

1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Witchstalker
4 Unflinching Courage
1 Boon Satyr
3 Last Breath
3 Glare of Heresy

 

His solid finish proved the deck’s legitimacy so I decided to give it a spin on Magic Online. For testing purposes, I decided to play a generic list made by comparing the two different lists.

Creatures

4 Banisher Priest
3 Elvish Mystic
4 Experiment One
1 Fleecemane Lion
4 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Skylasher
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Boon Satyr

Spells

4 Advent of the Wurm
1 Last Breath
4 Selesnya Charm

Lands

8 Forest
8 Plains
3 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Temple Garden

Sideboard

2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Witchstalker
4 Unflinching Courage
1 Boon Satyr
3 Last Breath
2 Glare of Heresy

 

Here are some matches I recorded with the deck (would like to say sorry in advance for the bad voice quality and poor play as I was quite sick). I recommend setting the quality to 720p HD.

Round 1 vs Mono Black Devotion:

Round 2 vs Boros Burn:

Round 3 vs Green Devotion:

I ended up recording 5 matches but the recording software screwed up on some of them so only three of them came out well. Overall the testing went great as I went 4-1 in the matches, beating 2 Mono Black Devotion, Boros Burn and UW Control while losing to Green Devotion. Funnily enough, I never got to face Mono Blue Devotion which was the deck that this list was primarily designed to beat. Based on those matches, this is the list I would be testing in the future:

Creatures

4 Banisher Priest
3 Elvish Mystic
4 Experiment One
4 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Skylasher
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Boon Satyr

Spells

4 Advent of the Wurm
2 Last Breath
4 Selesnya Charm

Lands

8 Forest
8 Plains
3 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Temple Garden

Sideboard

2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Witchstalker
4 Unflinching Courage
1 Boon Satyr
2 Last Breath
1 Glare of Heresy
2 Ratchet Bomb

 

The main change is the addition of Ratchet Bomb in the Sideboard. While I found Mono Black to be a favorable matchup, an early Pack Rat is very hard for this deck to beat. The problem with Last Breath is we have to have it in our starting hand as we can’t deal with the Pack Rat once they untap with it. Ratchet Bomb allows us to deal with it even if drawn at a later time. Although it does take two turns, it’s usually fine as the game often reaches a stalemate as neither player can attack. Ratchet Bomb is also great against the aggro decks such as Boss Sligh and White Weenie, and I like boarding in a copy against control as an answer to Detention Spheres

Overall I am a huge fan of this deck right now and I think it’s very well positioned in the current metagame as it is favourable against Mono Blue Devotion, Mono Black Devotion and UW Control. Rw Devotion is an unfavourable matchup, but I do think it is quite close and Andrew Shrout demonstrated this as he beat it in the Quarter-Finals of the Invitational. I will most likely be playing this deck on MODO for the next couple of days and am planning to play it at my local GPT this weekend. As usual if you have any questions or feedback (doesn’t necessarily have to be about this article), feel free to comment here or tweet me @mtgzen!

Cheers,

Zen Takahashi

@mtgzen on Twitter

StoneColdEffy on Magic Online

planeswalkerzen Everywhere Else