Guttersnipe’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Hello My Fellow Planeswalkers,

Mathew here from GenericBadMtg with a fresh perspective and motivation for Standard starting with M19. The spoiler that’s been exciting me the most these past few days has been the announced reprinting of your friendly neighbourhood Guttersnipe.

This is a card which I fell in love with after drafting a super sweet Izzet Spells deck in Conspiracy and taking down the entire event. It turns out that making all your cheap cantrips into efficient burn spells is not a bad strategy. I wanted to recreate the style of deck I’d cobbled together that fateful day and so started by looking for a nice, efficient, Blue/Red deck to take full advantage of Guttersnipe’s triggered ability of dealing 2 damage to each opponent whenever I cast an Instant and Sorcery spell.

What I came across was a deck which had seen some play in Dominaria Standard but was largely kept by the wayside by the rampant forces that are Red-Black and Mono Red. Izzet Wizards was a largely fringe deck which still managed to impress with some blisteringly fast starts but I feel had an issue with longevity. Essentially a prowess-aggro-burn deck it often runs out of resource quite quickly, relying on cantrips to continue drawing into more gas. The inclusion of Guttersnipe feels ideal as a way to make almost every non-creature spell into a burn spell and give the deck some more, much needed reach.

Welcome to – Guttersnipe’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Creatures:

4x Soul-Scar Mage
4x Ghitu Lavarunner
4x Guttersnipe
3x Adeliz, The Cinder Wind

Enchantments:

4x Riddleform

Instant/Sorcery:

4x Opt
4x Shock
3x Warlord’s Fury
4x Lightning Strike
2x Abrade
4x Wizard’s Lightning

Land:

4x Spirebluff Canal
4x Sulfur Falls
4x Island
8x Mountain

Sideboard:

3x Kari Zev’s Expertise
3x Wizard’s Retort
2x Negate
2x Spell Pierce
2x Abrade
1x Smelt
2x Blink of an Eye

Soul-Scar Mage has been a major player in recent Standard, representing a threat and a way for red decks to deal with opposing Hazoret’s via turning your burn spell damage into -1/-1 counters to your opponent’s creatures. He fills the same slot here with the added benefit of tribal synergies in what is predominantly a Wizard deck, not to mention the prowess triggers we so greatly crave.

Ghitu Lavarunner makes the deck as yet another Wizard that also helps us nearly guarantee a creature on the board by turn 1. This means we can start applying early pressure and possibly drawing removal out from our opponent.

The next creature to check out is the fiery gal herself, Adeliz, The Cinder Wind. Providing our non-prowess Wizard (Lavarunner) with a sort of fake prowess and having Flying and Haste on a 2/2 body for 3 mana is fantastic and really helps the deck to kick off and close games out quickly.

The whole reason for me picking up the deck, Guttersnipe, might not be a Wizard but has such a good ability in any spells based deck that I feel must be considered. At his best offering reach when we need to finish the game off in a board stall or when running low on resource. This could be the piece Wizard aggro was missing and I can’t wait for the set to drop and make it Standard legal!

Riddleform is a piece that is extremely resilient to removal, with potential to become a 3/3 threat any time we cast an instant or sorcery and also allowing us to scry at instant speed we can really smooth out our draws if needed. Being able to maintain a threat that requires very specific answers and more or less blanks Sorcery speed creature removal is invaluable and should often keep you in contention for the win.

The rest of the deck is essentially super cheap spells like Warlord’s Fury, which gives our creatures first-strike and causes us to draw a card, Opt for more card draw, Shock, Lightning Strike and Wizard’s Lightning for natural burn and Abrade as artifact removal for those pesky Heart of Kiran’s. With 21 efficient instants and Sorceries in the deck we are extremely well positioned to take advantage of the ability on Guttersnipe and our various prowess-ish triggers, hopefully overwhelming the opposition and giving the meta something to think about.

It’s probably also worth noting that Riddleform is a non-creature Spell and will trigger prowess on Soul-Scar Mage to get in that little bit of extra damage.

Our sideboard is fairly straightforward with Wizard’s Retort, Spell Pierce and Negate to help us fight control (still triggering Guttersnipe). 2 Abrade and a Smelt also supplement the Abrades in the main deck when fighting off Vehicles or God-Pharaoh’s Gift decks. Whilst Blink of an Eye can come in to help us dodge removal, maybe draw a card while we’re at it and trigger Guttersnipe at the same time. The last piece is Kari-Zev’s Expertise is a great card to sideboard in against Vehicles or other aggro, giving us a flexible “Hijack” effect and allowing us to cast one of our cheaper spells for free. This means that we can potentially get 2 Guttersnipe/Prowess triggers, a stolen creature or vehicle AND another burn or draw spell.

This deck is one that has reignited my Standard Planeswalker spark after some time spent lamenting the current cost of the format and trying to work out a way to get involved again. One thing that can be said for it is that the entire creature base is immune to death by Goblin Chainwhirler owing to a minimum toughness of 2. This is near essential in the current, and probably forthcoming meta and could be responsible for any potential success enjoyed by the archetype. With the release of M19 on the horizon I for one can not wait to get stuck and start punching in for some damage. But with new Standard comes constant adjustments, realising what’s good or bad in the meta and optimising the list to fight back.

It’s been a while, I know, but I’d love to hear any criticisms or feedback, you can catch me on Twitter @GenericBadMtg or by email at GenericBadMtg@gmail.com

Please stop by and tell me what you’d change, what you like, or just why I’m bad at Magic!

Until next time though, be kind to one another and may you draw well.

Yours,

GenericBadMagic

GenericBadInsights Part 1: Misplays

Hello My Fellow Planeswalkers!

Mathew here from GenericBadMagic with a subject we can all relate to. Whether it’s on the kitchen table, your local FNM or PPTQ we have all had a misplay that lingers in memory long after the fact. Something you find yourself thinking about months later, wondering why? Why? Why didn’t I play that differently.

Here’s mine:

Picture the scene, round one of GP Birmingham 2017, the format is Modern, I’m playing Burn and I’m tied at 1-1 against a Scapeshift deck, I have an empty hand, four land plus a fetchland in play, on 9 life facing down an angry Thragtusk while my opponent is on 3 life.

Seeing this raging Thragtusk I made the rookie mistake of trying to preserve my life total, choosing not to fetch and find a land. Two turns in a row I fail to topdeck that all important burn Spell or creature to apply pressure, two turns in a row I neglect to fetch, reluctant to spend that seemingly precious one life.

I should truly have fetched at the earliest opportunity, thinned out my deck and gave myself the best possible chance of finding what I needed, a Lava Spike, Lightning Bolt, Rift Bolt, anything. The simple truth of it was that I was on a two turn clock, whether I fetched or not Thragtusk had to hit me twice to kill me and I failed to appreciate that.

I finished 3-6 for that tournament and while I wasn’t expecting anything special from my first run at a major event I didn’t see any other top tier decks that I knew I had a decent matchup against from my very underwhelming testing experience. I only naturally feel that I could have don much better if I’d only won that game but it would be a mistake to beat myself up about it, to decide that I definitely would have went 7-2 or 8-1 or otherwise made day two and excelled if I had just made the correct play. That would be too easy an excuse to hide behind.

The right thing to do now is to learn from it, apply my knowledge of using life totals as a resource in future games, reading the boardstate and understanding the clock my opponent puts me on and use that to make more optimal gameplay choices going forward.

So just remember, whatever the mistake, learn from it. Do yourself a service and work to understand what you did wrong, don’t hide behind it. Make better choices, informed by the errors of games gone by. Be mindful of this and you will improve as a player, certain things will become second nature, you’ll miss less of the nuances of the game and over time become a better player. Keep in mind though, it’s virtually impossible to catch everything and you will make errors in judgement. Think of these as lessons and every day becomes a school day!

I’d love to hear from everyone else, catch me on Twitter @GenericBadMtg or in the comments here with the plays you wish had gone differently, let’s learn together as a community and work to truly better our understanding of the game.

Until next time, enjoy yourself, draw well and respect each other.

Yours,

GenericBadMagic

Izzet Aggro? No, Really, is it?

Hello My Fellow Planeswalkers!

Mathew from GenericBadMagic here to bring you all a deck that was voted for by the good people of Twitter. Earlier this week I ran a poll allowing my followers to choose the colour combination of this weeks scheduled deck tech. The options available were Dimir (Blue/Black), Rakdos (Black/Red) and Izzet (Blue/Red) and after an initial draw between Dimir and Izzet our final victor in the follow up poll was Blue/Red!

This is one of my favourite colour combinations to brew and mess with due to the high volume of aggressive non-creature spells and efficient methods of sculpting your hand to be found amongst the card pool offering almost unreasonable flexibility. From here all I had to do was decide “What kind of Izzet deck do I want?” We’ve all seen the control mode which made a huge splash in Standard not too long ago but I wanted to run with something more suited to FNM than a feature-match table, good ol’ Izzet Spells Aggro!

Onwards, to the ingredients!

Creatures

4x Soul-Scar Mage
4x Daring Saboteur
4x Bloodwater Entity
4x Enigma Drake

To make this work we need a creature package to live in harmony with our suite of instants, either by receiving some benefit or facilitating the optimal hand. Soul-Scar Mage, to start with, has the old favourite keyword “Prowess” providing a temporary +1/+1 buff each and every time we cast a non-creature spell. On top of this he also turns the damage caused by our spells into permanent -1/-1 counters for the opposing creatures, a sort of two-step answer to Hazoret and other dudes with Indestructible.

Daring Saboteur doesn’t really benefit from our other spells but rather facilitates the sculpting of your ideal hand via doing combat damage, we can even use our excess mana to make this abseiling pirate unblockable and guarantee a loot effect. This can be very useful in a game where you either want to ensure you hit land number four or simply need some more interaction in hand to take care of a threat or go into overdrive and wreak some havoc.

Bloodwater Entity is another creature with evasion in the form of Flying, which makes the Prowess keyword all the more intimidating as the only limit to how much damage you put over their ground troops with this guy is your potential mana pool and cards in hand. It even facilitates it’s own Prowess triggers by returning any one Instant or Sorcery card from your Graveyard to the top of your own Library, meaning you can play it again the turn you want to attack and make sure you get at least one Prowess trigger.

Last in the main-deck menagerie is Enigma Drake, coming down and getting a huge bonus for all the spells you cast over the course of the game due to it’s power being equal to the number of Instant and Sorcery spells in your graveyard at any time. As a late game bomb or just a solid creature in the mid-game this card has potential to really spiral out of control and take over a game. If anything is going to eat a removal spell out of the opponents hand, I’d be betting on Enigma Drake.

Non-Creature Spells:

4x Opt
4x Shock
4x Lightning Strike
2x Abrade
3x Repeating Barrage
3x Heiroglyphic Illuminations

In a deck like this it’s useful to note that all of your non-creature spells have a good chance of doing more than they naturally should, due to the presence of Prowess triggers. This can lead to some very interesting decisions on when to play spells and how to get the maximum amount of damage in. With Opt, this isn’t a question you would normally find yourself asking, as it has the sole purpose of drawing you a card after scrying. But here it can turn on a Prowess trigger and find you a burn spell or removal, thus getting another Prowess trigger if you can cast the newly found spell and ultimately making your Soul-Scar Mage, Bloodwater Entity and Enigma Drake far more dangerous than they otherwise would be.

Shock and Lightning Strike are cheap staples in any Standard burn/red-based aggro decks, once again triggering Prowess for next to nothing and also doing damage to face or clearing the path of obstacles in the way of your attackers. Abrade fulfils a strictly removal niche, either causing three damage points to a creature or outright destroying an Artifact. Plenty useful in this, the world of God-Pharaoh’s Gift and as a result we run two in the main board by default.

Repeating Barrage is one of those spells that doesn’t want to stay gone once you’ve cast it and can be returned to your hand for a moderate fee, which in the late game you’d be happy to pay to get back a Prowess enabler that’s capable of going straight to the opponents face for three damage or potentially removing a creature from contention in future combat phases.

Heiroglyphic Illumination offers versatility as a spell to either cast when in need of a couple more cards and a Prowess trigger or you can just cycle away when it just isn’t doing the business for you and mana is a concern.

To close out the main deck spells we have Sweltering Suns, an excellent reset button against other fast aggro strategies and, much like our previous card, can be cycled for another when it isn’t relevant. I’d also like to remind you that with a Soul-Scar Mage on board this would put three -1/-1 counters on EVERY opposition creature permanently and if you can trigger prowess a couple of times before it resolves your mage will even live through the damage!

Land:

4x Spirebluff Canal
6x Island
12x Mountain

In order to cast spells we need mana and since this deck is mostly red there is a heavy slant towards Mountains compared to a relatively low number of Islands, but we do run a full playset of Spirebluff Canal in order to facilitate both of our colour requirements.

Sideboard:

2x Abrade
2x Sorcerous Spyglass
3x Negate
2x Spellweaver Eternal
2x Neheb, the Eternal
2x Field of Ruin
2x Crook of Condemnation

In th sideboard we fill out the playset of Abrade for those games against God-Pharaoh’s Gift, Sorcerous Spyglass to get some early information on what the opponent is up to in game two and shut down a card (I’m thinking Walking Ballista or Hazoret). Negate allows us to pick our battle when we really need something to resolve and stay on the board for the win where it may be countered or removed and Crook of Condemnation can fairly effectively combat Torrential Gearhulk strategies as we wipe the field of graveyards in general. Field of ruin is another card for the control matchup, usually taking care of one of the many flip lands in Ixalan and helping us fix for our second colour.

In games where we struggle to get damage through I’ve elected to try out Spellweaver Eternal, a creature which still has Prowess but also causes the opponent to lose life for blocking it through the Afflict mechanic. Following in a similar vein we get to use Neheb, The Eternal, a bigger, badder Afflict creature that generates mana post-combat based on how much life your opponent has lost so far that turn, allowing you to then throw out another creature or even a couple more burn spells to close out the game.

That’s about all I’ve got on this list so far and hopefully a few of you guys make it up, apply adjustments and take it for a spin. You can locate the complete deck on MTG Goldfish for pricing, just click the link!

If you do, you can let me know how it was on Twitter @GenericBadMtg or by email at genericbadmtg@gmail.com

Until next time, have fun, draw well and respect each other.

Yours,

GenericBadMagic.

GP Birmingham Part 3: Life, Burn and Taxes

Hello My Fellow Planeswalkers,

Mathew from GenericBadMagic here for you with the third of four decks taken to GP Birmingham by my playgroup. This particular deck is an exciting, new, creature-centric take on Burn which made it to a 3-6 record in the main event. It was designed completely by Matthew Tidcombe, who plays out of Abbey Video Games in Arbroath, Scotland. Let’s take a look at the list!

Creatures:

4x Seeker of the Way
4x Soulfire Grand Master
4x Boros Reckoner
4x Thunderbreak Regent
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Vexing Devil

 

Monastary Swiftspear is a staple one-drop in Burn and naturally makes an appearance here with eighteen mainboard spells of the non-creature variety to trigger Prowess. Following a similar theme Seeker of the Way also appears with Prowess and the additional benefit of gaining Lifelink until the end of the turn if you cast a non-creature spell, helping you to stay ahead on life total or make a trade during combat more favourable. To finish off the Khans of Tarkir complement of creatures we have Soulfire Grand Master a two-drop who already has Lifelink and a static ability that gives all of your Instant and Sorcery spells Lifelink too! This means Lightning Bolt puts six points between you and your opponents while Lightning Helix becomes a nine point swing.

Vexing Devils acts as a psuedo-burn spell, offering the opponent the opportunity to take four damage immediately, forcing you to sacrifice it, or having to trade with it later in combat or by using a removal spell, possibly taking more damage in the long-term. Boros Reckoner is excellent against any creature heavy deck or strategy involving targeted spells which deal damage as it can hit back for the same amount, but at target creature or player. Thunderbreak Regent has a similar effect, dealing Lightning Bolt damage to any player who dares to target her with a spell or ability whilst also being a 4/4 Flying threat for four mana… Pretty sweet deal I would say.

Planeswalkers:

2x Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Chandra can really help this deck live on into the late game, with her ability to create mana by adding one loyalty counter she can assist with casting your burn spells, she can also add one counter to offer card advantage by exiling the top card of your library but allowing you to cast it, but if you can’t or don’t want to cast it she will act as a repeatable shock to each opponent. Her ability to remove three counters and deal four damage to target creature can serve as solid spot removal for most mid-sized threats and if you manage to get her to seven loyalty you can remove all counters from her and deal five damage to target creature or player whenever you cast any spell for the remainder of the game! If you play red and you need to have some level of control on the game then Chandra, Torch of Defiance is for you.

Instants:

4x Lightning Bolt
4x Boros Charm
4x Lightning Helix
4x Deflecting Palm

 

Now we have four burn staples to tie the deck together. Lightning Bolt does what it’s been doing best since the dawn of Magic, dealing three damage either to a creature or to the dome. What this deck does though is make Bolt even better, allowing you to gain three life via Soulfire Grand Master turns Bolt into a cheaper Lightning Helix and even turns Helix into something much better! Boros Charm can really help push through some extra damage, make your permanents Indestructible or even give a creature Double-Strike until the end of the turn all while triggering prowess on your Swiftspears or Seekers. Last up is Deflecting Palm, useful in not just preventing lethal damage, but reversing it and since Palm is doing the damage, you still gain life from Soulfire Grand Master’s ability.

Land:

4x Sacred Foundry
4x Inspiring Vantage
5x Mountain
5x Plains

 

One thing about this deck which did concern me was the mana base, eighteen land feels like too little and to be honest I feel like the extra three or even four would have allowed this list to go a lot further in the main event. Too many times we would hear that the deck was mana screwed but this was always put down to bad luck. I’m not so convinced and if this were my own list the likely drop-out would be Thunderbreak Regent (due to no dragon synergy) for a playset of Arid Mesa, thinning the deck out slightly better and resulting in stronger opening draws. If a deck was ever made to not care about fetching then this is it, so much life can be gained in a single turn that four damage for four fetches is a complete non-issue.

Sideboard:

2x Sweltering Suns
4x Disenchant
4x Smash to Smithereens
2x Tormund’s Crypt
3x Ghostly Prison

 

In sideboard, to combat go-wide strategies, we have Sweltering Suns, which if timed right, can gain us a tonne of life courtesy of Soulfire Grand Master. Disenchant helps us to survive the Leyline of Sanctity match-ups, while Smash to Smithereens comes in as another answer to Ensnaring Bridge, removing it whilst also dealing three damage to face. Ghostly prison also helps to insulate us against Abzan Little Kids or other mid-range decks and Tormod’s Crypt removes target players Graveyard, shutting down Living End or Delve decks.

This is all I have for this deck but I would recommend that you make the adjustment to the mana base and then try it out, I feel that, from my limited Modern experience, this is fairly well suited as a deck out of left-field that can take many of the established archetypes by surprise! So let me know what you think and what you would change, is there anything in the list that I’ve missed?

Catch me on Twitter @GenericBadMtg with your feedback!

Next up tomorrow it’s a deliciously evil deck that you either love or hate… no it’s not Marmite spread on the inside of card sleeves, it’s 8-Rack!

Until then, have a good one.

Yours,

GenericBadMagic

GP Birmingham Part 1: A first-Timer’s “Rich” Experience and Deck Tech

Hello, my fellow Planeswalkers!

Mathew from GenericBadMagic here to talk to you about my recent experience at GP Birmingham over the past weekend. Four of us traveled from Abbey Video Games in Arbroath to the event and so I have four decks to tell you about! In order to best present these I will do four separate articles over this weekend.

To start with, I want to thank all of the people involved in making the GP an incredible first time experience, from the wonderful vendors hailing from all over the world to the Judges enforcing the rules, everyone came together brilliantly and the end product was a true convention for the game. Special thanks must go out to the nicest guy in Magic, Mr Rich Hagon for taking the time on Friday to talk to three random Scottish guys about old-school Magic, particularly patience in the game, and sign our newly purchased tokens from Trolltrader! (Sorry about the fuzzy picture!)

Another highlight of the event was the opposition, regardless of our game-records I was always able to enjoy a pleasant chat or a miniature festival of puns throughout the rounds, even when at one point I was 0-4! So wherever you all may be, thank you for making my GP experience as great as it possible could have been.

Onwards now to the list I ran, earning a 3-6 record in the main event: Almost-Naya Burn!

Creatures:
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Goblin Guide
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel

Our Creature base is just the established burn triumvirate of Guide, Swiftspear and Eidolon. Basically, I hit you harder than I hit myself and hopefully I win!

Spells:
4x Searing blaze
4x Lava Spike
4x Boros Charm
4x Rift Bolt
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
4x Skullcrack

Our spells include Searing blaze for those pesky creature based strategies, Boros Charm, Lava Spike and Skullcrack to go straight to the face and Lightning Bolt, Rift Bolt and Lightning Helix to offer versatility in where we direct our damage output.

Land:
3x Bloodstained Mire
4x Wooded Foothills
3x Arid Mesa
2x Stomping Ground
4x Sacred Foundry
1x Inspiring Vantage
2x Mountain
1x Plains

Our mana base has everything burn wants, all of the non-fetches, bar one Plains, are sources for red and two even provide green mana for Destructive Revelry. With five sources of white we are usually online for Boros Charm or Lightning Helix by turn two.

Sideboard:
3x Path to Exile
2x Deflecting Palm
2x Destructive Revelry
2x Searing Blood
2x Stony Silence
2x Kor Firewalker
2x Rest in Peace

The sideboard is where the strategy starts to diverge. We still want to burn face as soon as possible but we also want to be alive to do so. This means we have to consider Kor Firewalker for the mirror match, keeping us ahead on life and usually getting in for damage itself, Destructive Revelry for any game involving a Leyline of Sanctity, because we really do want to be able to target the opponent. For the Death’s Shadow games we sideboard in Path to Exile for spot removal, Defllecting Palm for that late-game Death’s Shadow attacking and Rest In Piece, to make it harder for Tasigur to come down and have an influence on the game.

As we see this is a fairly stock burn list, with Destructive Revelry to try and deal with Leyline of Sanctity. One consolation I can take from the main event is that I was at least on to the right deck! But it was not to be for me as I failed to top deck that vital Burn spell that would have defeated Titan-Shift in round one and changed the entire complexion of my match-ups for the day. But as it is I fell to a lowly record of 0-4, out of contention for day two before even winning a game. With a final record of 3-6 though, I cannot be too disappointed with my first showing at a GP where performance was secondary and the experience meant everything.

That’s all I’ve got for this deck, but we have another three of these to come in the next few days which should be a little longer! So stay tuned, next time we look at a list from Alan Butchart-Stewart (see R/W Powerwalkers) with R/G Tron!

Do yourself a favour though and check out the brilliant products you can get from Trolltrader at http://www.trolltradercards.com/ as those tokens were truly top quality.

Until next time, catch me on here or Twitter @GenericBadMtg with your feedback!

Have a good one,

Yours,

GenericBadMagic