Hello Readers.

It has been a while since my last article but now I am finally back with new stuff to talk about. Today I want to discuss a deck called Naya Hexproof, which I have been working on with my Team “Luxurious Hair” leading up to Pro Tour Dublin. We didn’t end up playing it because we were too afraid of the control matchup which seemed (at least at the time) a barely winnable game 1, but at least favorable post sideboard. So it wasn’t entirely hopeless.

This was the first draft I posted on our forums early in our testing:

Naya Hexproof v1

Creatures

2 Boon Satyr

4 Elvish Mystic

3 Fiendslayer Paladin

4 Fleecemane Lion

4 Gladecover Scout

4 Witchstalker

Spells

2 Boros Charm

4 Ethereal Armor

4 Madcap Skills

3 Ordeal of Purphoros

4 Unflinching Courage

Lands

2 Forest

2 Plains

4 Sacred Foundry

2 Selesnya Guildgate

4 Stomping Ground

4 Temple Garden

2 Temple of Abandon

2 Temple of Triumph

 

This was based on the Bant Hexproof deck from before Theros, dipping into Red to replace the punch and evasion lost by Geist of Saint Traft and Spectral Flight
I knew I wanted to have 4 Madcap Skills as one of the key enchantments to provide both a significant power boost and some pseudo evasion to boot. In addition, the full playset of Boros Charm in the 75 cards as additional punch and protection and as a way to defend against Supreme Verdict. The Ordeal of Purphoros was pretty underwhelming and so was the Fiendslayer Paladin, partially due to doing next to nothing in some matchups and putting some major constraints on the mana base.
We experimented with configurations such as Sylvan Caryatid and Nylea’s Presence over Elvish Mystic and Pursuit of Flight to improve the mana and get better evasion, since the ground can be clogged up easily with the new big monsters from Theros.

This didn’t really improve the deck since Sylvan Caryatid mostly just fixed the mana and slightly accelerated into multiple spells, Monstrosity or Bestow. On the other hand it blocked the 2 drop slot when you had a Fleecemane Lion in hand and did almost nothing in the control matchups where Elvish Mystic could at least accelerate into a turn 2 Witchstalker and attack for a few points of damage. Pursuit of Flight seemed nice in theory but at least half the time it was just a Giant Strength because there was no access to Blue mana in order activate it.

As a result my team and I kept looking for other options. Firstly we filled up the good cards, especially Boon Satyr to a playset (even though it’s kinda clunky its very flexible and efficient and provides some sweet sweeper protection on top of it). Joe Demestrio eventually convinced me to lose the maindeck Fiendslayer Paladins since they didn’t seem useful and were an obstacle in our quest to make the control matchup winnable. For some time we had 3 Voice of Resurgence in that slot to be more pre-boarded versus control while still being a nice speed bump versus more aggressive decks.

At that point the deck looked like this:

Naya Hexproof v2

Creatures

4 Boon Satyr

4 Elvish Mystic

4 Fleecemane Lion

4 Gladecover Scout

3 Voice of Resurgence

4 Witchstalker

Spells

3 Boros Charm

4 Ethereal Armor

4 Madcap Skills

4 Unflinching Courage

Lands

2 Forest

2 Plains

4 Sacred Foundry

2 Selesnya Guildgate

4 Stomping Ground

4 Temple Garden

2 Temple of Abandon

2 Temple of Triumph

 

At one point during the week in the team house in Dublin, Marc Lalague pointed out how great flying is in the format since barely anything except Stormbreath Dragon (and Desecration Demon which we couldn’t find a convincing home for at that time since RBx mid-range was just terrible) had flying. Because of that Gift of Orzhova was way better than Unflinching Courage if it could be supported mana-wise. Adding this to the fact that it didn’t make a Fleecemane Lion 5 power versus an opposing Selesnya Charm made it even more exciting and I was more than sold. We replaced a Charm and some Courage with a few Gift of Orzhovas. After regretting my last minute deck choice of a Naya Aggro deck sporting 4 Ghor-Clan Rampager and 4 Brave the Elements (which I can tell you was pretty redundant and mediocre), I decided to look into the Hexproof deck again because it seemed quite well-positioned against the breakout decks of the Pro Tour.

After quite a bit of brewing, tweaking and Magic Online testing, I arrived at this list:

Naya Hexproof v3

Creatures

4 Boon Satyr

4 Elvish Mystic

4 Fleecemane Lion

4 Gladecover Scout

4 Witchstalker

Spells

4 Boros Charm

4 Ethereal Armor

2 Gift of Orzhova

4 Madcap Skills

3 Unflinching Courage

Lands

3 Forest

2 Plains

4 Sacred Foundry

1 Selesnya Guildgate

4 Stomping Ground

4 Temple Garden

2 Temple of Abandon

3 Temple of Triumph

Sideboard

2 Fiendslayer Paladin

2 Fog

4 Ghor-Clan Rampager

3 Mistcutter Hydra

4 Voice of Resurgence

 

Some explanations of the card choices:

Full four Boros Charms maindeck: They are just one of the best cards against Esper. They also provide a big combat blowout and race boost out of nowhere, so 4 seems like the right number to me.

23rd Land: 22 lands seemed a bit on the low end of mana-sources and getting the number of colored sources right seemed tough. For this reason, I decided to add another land since there are decent mana-sinks with Monstrosity, Bestow and sideboarded Mistcutter Hydras.

2 Gift of Orzhova, 3 Unflinching Courage: While Gift is generally a much more powerful card, making your creature almost unblockable, it is also often pretty hard to cast. Since we lost Avacyn’s Pilgrim and we’re stuck with Elvish Mystic as a replacement, I opted for more Unflinching Courage to increase consistency.

1 Selesnya Guildgate, 2 Temple of Abandon, 3 Temple of Triumph: These are the numbers I came up with for a decent number of colored sources. It adds up to 14 Green, 14 White and 13 Red sources. 14 on Green and White seems the minimum number you can run in order to reliably cast your GG and WW spells and your early GW cards. It very possible that the third Temple of Triumph be replaced by a second Selesnya Guildgate. The mana is the deck’s biggest issue and proved really hard to solve. There are more ETBT lands and less colored sources for each color than I would optimally like but this seems like the best possible configuration to cast all the spells. We briefly considered trying to build a straight GW version but Madcap Skills and Boros Charm are key to the deck’s power and success.

The sideboard likely needs some explanation, or to put it in the words of my fellow teammate Steve Mann: “I want to win the Pro Tour with 4 Ghor-Clan Rampager in our sideboard.”
The sideboard is mostly built to transform the deck into an aggressive Naya Beatdown, sporting all the key anti-control elements of such a strategy plus a few slots to cement creature matchups.
While trying to beat Esper and UW Control post sideboard, we figured that we were just a little short of a punch to win the games in many cases or to deal with a Jace, Architect of Thought or an Elspeth, Sun’s Champion properly. So, as strange as it might seem to run a card like Rampager in your sideboard it was exactly what the deck needed. Especially the 4-mana “combo” of Rampager plus Boros Charm on a Witchstalker or simply when they tap out, can win the game out of nowhere.

Sideboard Guide:

Esper:
In: +4 Ghor-Clan Rampager, +3 Mistcutter Hydra, +4 Voice of Resurgence
Out: -4 Ethereal Armor, -2 Gift of Orzhova, -3 Unflinching Courage, -2 Gladecover Scout

Scout is mainly only relevant to protect from Devour Flesh or to be suited up with a Madcap Skills on turn 2 or later with a Boon Satyr. It is probably better than Paladin or leaving in another aura.

Mono Black Devotion:
In: +2 Fiendslayer Paladin, +4 Voice of Resurgence, 0-3 Ghor-Clan Rampager
Out: -1-4 Boros Charm, -2 Gift of Orzhova, -3 Unflinching Courage

Paladin is just another good hexproof body here and Voice helps fighting their Devour Fleshes and provides sac fodder to tap their demons while turning into a reasonable sized threat at the same time. I am not one hundred percent sure if I like Rampager or Charm better here. Neither are great. Another option would be to just bring in the hydras but Rampager helps with fighting their blockers while hydra is just a random card which can be targeted by spot-removal.

Mono Blue Devotion:
In: +2 Fog, +3 Mistcutter Hydra
Out: -4 Boros Charm, -1 Boon Satyr

Mistcutter Hydra is like Invisible Stalker on steroids in this matchup and should win most games alone backed up by auras.

Rw/g Devotion:
In: +2 Fiendslayer Paladin, +2 Fog
Out: -4 Boros Charm

Fairly straightforward hexproof vs Red aggro. Lifelink beats them unless they manage to trigger a big Fanatic of Mogis. Even then, drawing a good curve and then Fog often seals the deal.

This should cover the major archetypes against most creature decks, particularly aggressive ones. You just want the Fogs and more lifelink over the Charms unless your opponent is playing mostly big men. In this case, Charm is often better to punish their gang blocks when they are trying to stabilize.

I think that aside from some mana consistency issues, the deck is very well-positioned right now. Esper is its Achilles heel in terms of matchups but is far from hopeless. The surprise factor, plus the transformational sideboard, does a lot here and sometimes their draws just match up pretty poorly against what we are doing. If they don’t run Devour Flesh, all the better. Mono Black, much like Red and Green Devotion, can hardly ever beat this deck. While mono Blue can sometimes beat it with Thassa, God of the Sea and a big Master of Waves, our deck should generally be favored here. A lot of tier-2 decks floating around can hardly interact with this deck. They also have to fight with their own painful, slow and shaky mana-bases. The deck is certainly one of my top contenders leading up to GP Vienna in 2 weeks. It seems like just the right time for Hexproof to make a comeback, as it did last season, twice taking down the respective GPs.

Until next time,

Emanuel ‘ManuS’ Sutor