Johnny on the Spot: Anatomy of a Brew

Did you ever talk to someone about brewing a deck? It usually starts with the entire deck being constructed and then going over the deck's strategies and card choices. It's unusual to actually get the details of the original thought process for deck creation out of a brewer. With that, I want to go over a brew (actually more of a tweak) and the thought process from start to finish.

My first thought is I want to stop Birthing Pod decks. I think they are the top of the metagame right now and my recent brews have failed miserably against them. In order to keep brewing and stay competitive I have to find a way to beat Pod decks. How?

Imagine you were going to an odd tournament. From round 1 all the way to the finals the only decks you would face would either be Kiki-Pod or Melira-Pod. How would you construct a deck that would thrive in that metagame? What cards would you use?

All those are good hate cards. But there's a problem. None of them are great. I've had games where I got one of those hate cards out against them and they still won anyway. Both Pod decks have versatile main deck and sideboard destruction for these cards as well as a good beatdown plan. However, there is another card that I've played against them and shut them down.

Pod decks usually try it get their creatures on the battlefield as soon as possible with disregard to sweepers, especially in game one. Anger of the Gods will kill 90% of their creatures with no chance for persist, recursion, or death triggers. If I had to stop a Pod deck, this is a great card to start with.

Now, I need to find a shell to put it in. RWU control seems like a natural fit, but I don't like that deck. It doesn't have fast enough win conditions and I often see the deck going to time in rounds because of it. In a big tournament like a PTQ or GP, those draws will feel like losses when it's time to cut to top 8.

There's also a version of Jund that runs Anger of the Gods along side of Courser of Kruphix. I'm not a big fan of that build either. Playing with Anger of the Gods cramps your ability to be able to play with Kitchen Finks, which I think is better than Courser. Also, it's a fair deck in an unfair metagame and I don't think Anger of the Gods is enough to help.

I want to port Anger into a deck that can already crush the metagame except for Pod. I think the best candidate for that is 8 Rack. This deck crushes any combo based deck except Pod. It also has solid match-ups across the board against other fair decks.

 

I have a soft spot for non-creature win conditions.

This is where the brew magic happens. Do you have the courage to splash red into a monoblack deck for one card that has a double colored casting cost? Won't this almost certainly make the deck worse? Yes and yes. If you want to brew, you have to make suboptimal choices that people will criticize. What's the worst that could happen? Losing. That's it. If you want to brew you have to be willing to lose.

My initial brew looks like this, which I've renamed Hate Rack:

4 The Rack
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Ensnaring Bridges
4 Dark Confidant
4 Thoughtsieze
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Wrench Mind
3 Raven's Crime
4 Anger of the Gods

Is four Anger of the Gods right? Probably not. My gut tells me it will be three. But, whenever I'm brewing, I want to see the impact card a lot. I want to know if it works. I want to know what it feels like to draw two of them.

Remember, the only point of this deck is to beat the two Pod builds (while keeping in mind it will eventually have to face the entire metagame). The only match-ups you should test are against Pod decks. If it fails at either, the deck needs to be scrapped. Don't worry about the percentage points you're shaving against RWU control or Splinter Twin because you added a dead card against them. That's not the point of this exercise. The point is to determine whether or not a discard shell with four Anger of the Gods can shut down Pod decks.

Now to move onto the manabase. A double red casting cost card in an otherwise
monoblack deck is tricky. Graven Cairns are the easiest way to hit double red while still having double black for Wrench Mind and Liliana. Other than that, the standard R/B duals of Blackcleave Cliffs, Blood Crypts, and fetches will round out the red portion.

Manabase:
4 Graven Cairns
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Blood Crypts
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 March Flats
4 Swamps
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

 

 This land make the manabase (and deck) possible.

 
Will the fetching and shocking be too much life loss along side of Dark Confidant and Thoughtseize? I don't know. But, I know that I won't let it stop me. Average Magic players assume that and stop brewing. Real brewers want to experiment and actually see the results in action.

Another potential casualty is the cutting of Mutavaults and Small Pox in order to make the mana work. Mutavault represents a tough clock against a handless opponent and an early Small Pox can ravage an opponent that dropped an early creature. Again, most players would stop at those cuts but neither of those seems really effective against Pod decks. Unless Small pox is cast on turn two, a Finks or Voice will get sacrificed with no real loss of tempo on the Pod player's part. They also have too many creatures for Mutavault to attack through.

And....that's it. That's the anatomy of a brew (or a tweak). You don't need to go big. In fact, you should do quite the opposite. Start small. Brew at a specific target deck that you want to hit. Don't worry about the rest of the metagame. Don't worry about a sideboard (yet). Don't worry about losing. Modern is too big and complex of a format to try and do everything against everyone all at once. Thinking about all that is why most people either shy away from brewing or fail at brewing.

See what you can learn from a micro-metagame. Does Anger really stop a Pod deck? If it doesn't, it might help you build your sideboard in another deck. Trying and failing and learning are all part of brewing and you'll never know what tidbit will come in handy in a future brew.

As for Hate Rack, I'm planning on testing it with my fellow Cauldron brewers. I will almost certainly run it at an FNM to see if it has potential for the PTQ season and GP Boston. Expect a follow-up article with either success or lessons learned from failing.