The Casual Gamer

Shadows Over Innistrad Is Here!

Were you one of the 178 players that participated in Nerdageddon's Shadows Over Innistrad Prerelease weekend? If not then you missed a helluva weekend. Including the discovery of my new best friend:

He's sooooo good!

When I first saw this card I didn't have my socks blown off. Not a huge defense, so he can be dealt with. His ability can bite you when you need land and your opp is putting it in your GY, but after playing with him that really isn't the downside. I'm not saying it can't come bite you but I tended to draw more spells with him & the times he sent land away, it helped because I drew power with my actual draw step.

In limited he was a beast because you're almost forced into higher casting cost stuff for deck construction & now those high costs get added value with this Devil on your shoulder. Add in his menace ability and you're scoring a bolt a turn with him as long as your opponent has only a creature untapped or alive. Something that happened often this weekend. 

So I got home after a long day of MTG prerelease fun and of course spent the next day brewing up my Standard deck. We've got a Fat Pack Battle this Friday for FNM but the rest of the month, including SOI Gameday on April 30th, is Standard Constructed at Nerdageddon. 

Here's my brew:

"Slow Burn" 

Creatures: 18

Insolent Neonate x4

Sin Prodder x4

Avaricious Dragon x2

Inverter Of Truth x1

Thunderbreak Regent x4

Goblin Dark-dweller x3

Spells: 19

Avacyn's Judgment x4

Tormenting Voice x3

Alms of the Vein x2

Exquisite Firecraft x4

Fiery Temper x4

Ruinous Path x2

Artifact: 1

Pyromancer's Goggles x1

Land: 22

Foreboding Ruins x3

Smoldering Marsh x3

Swamp x5

Mountain x11

No sideboard because I haven't really focused on that. The deck will take some tooling and testing but this is a good place to start.

It's a burn deck but it's not. Most of your burn decks are fast out the gate. This one really doesn't get the ball rolling until turn 3. Yet this one comes with mid-range headaches. The creature base has a lot of evasion abilities either with flying or menace.

The spells all can be targets for Dark-Dwellers plus be hefty enough to get value from Sin Prodder. The madness triggers for Vein & Temper are huge when paired with any of the discard cards. Pyromancer's goggles is just sprinkles. It adds mana and finishes games.

Now I wanted to add Kolaghan's Commands to this deck but at 20 a pop I wanted to stick to more of a budget. I added Ruinous Path & Alms of the Vein to replace the commands. If you wanted the more expensive version then switch those out and put the other two cards in your sideboard. The difference is a $110 deck or a $200 deck. 

As always Casual Gamer is about budget brewing. 

Again the deck isn't coming out of the gate strong. You might get a neonate on turn 1 but really its turn three where everything comes online. Don't be afraid to burn early and often. Get the Sin Prodder out as fast as possible, especially if you're holding land on turn 3. In fact the more Sin Prodder's out the better. 

After turn three just keep tossing creatures and burn out. Save your Avaricious Dragon & Inverter of Truth until you need them. Also Inverter is a great finisher with Sin Prodder. Outside of the lands in your GY you'll be turning your library into pure gas for the Prodder. This is one card I'm torn on for creature count. I might switch Inverter of Truth with Avaricious Dragon for a two of instead. 

I'm excited for this new cycle of Standard. Fetches are gone. Rhinos are toast. Now we get to brew a whole new world. 

Don't forget to swing in this weekend to pick up your Shadows Over Innistrad Booster boxes, Booster Packs, Intro Decks, Fat Packs, and Deck Builder Toolkits. Everything is available at NOON on Friday.