Saturday, January 5, 2013

Breachspine



You may think that may name is Will, and if you think that, you are wrong! My name is Timmy, and I am one of the Timmiest Timmy's to ever Timmy. Some cards arouse my timmy more than others, and when Return to Ravnica became spoiled, my Timmy went camping with the thoughts of Worldspine Wurm's potential.



I really had no reason to fully bake a deck to use the wurm though, that is, until my local shop, Top Deck Hobbies, decided we'd try a modern FNM. Once we set the date, my brain was off to the races to build a modern deck.

Having a mediocre knowledge of legacy I knew of decks that got to abuse Show and Tell and Sneak Attack to trick cards such as Emrakul, The Aeon's Torn and Progenitus into play. The legacy decks did have one card that I could use in modern through, and it's the card that fuel's this deck's potency. Through the Breach.

The neat interaction between Through the Breach and Worldspine Wurm is that after swinging for a silly amount of damage with Worldspine Wurm, you have to sacrifice(not exile!!!!) Worldspine, this means that WSW's “dies” trigger occurs, and you get three 5/5 Trampling wurm token's to finish them off with on next turn.

bottom line: they're not gonna have a good time

So what kind of shell to use for such a deck? Simple, Green ramp with red splashed for some removal and the casting of Through the Breach. What are the green ramp spells in modern though? Birds of Paradise are awesome, they add red for better color fixing; Wall of Roots is a total baller, he gets to add mana the turn he comes into play, and an 0/5(or 0/4) for 2 is the bane of some RDW's creature fronts. Well hey, wasn't there a good ramp defender a few blocks ago... oh yeah Overgrown Battlement's 0/4 body will just bully aggro decks with sup par removal, and he adds a green mana for each defender? Turn 1 birds, turn 2 wall of roots + overgrown battlement, turn 3 breach worldspine? Sounds awesome...


hold the phone. I just remembered something, the king of ramp is legal in modern as of October 2012; Primeval Titan is back to push people around, this changes a few things. He tutor's for any land. Kessig Wolf Run's ability is in our colors so that's an auto in as an alternate win condition. Boy at this rate i'll be able to hard cast Emrakul... or breach him on turn three... alright, Emrakul's in the deck now. While we're at it, let's bring in the Urza-Tron package of lands to pump Wolf Run and for Prime Time to fetch. We'll also need an earlier way to fetch some Urza Lands so their trusty friend Expedition Map gets the cut now. And a card to help dig for emrakul or for another urza land would be pretty nice, Ancient Stirrings fits this well. On the subject to digging why not a tutor? Summoner's Pact fetches Worldspine at instant speed. End of your turn cast S. Pact, fetch Worldspine Wurm, cast through the breach, put worldspine into play, my turn pay for pact, attack for 15, end my turn get three 5/5 trampling wurms





what about sideboard? Well, I tailored mine for the local playing field, against the RDW's that would be playing, I put in Pyroclasm, for UW or any deck that had a tonne of non-basic's that weren't used for red mana: Blood Moon, for against the generic aggro decks: Thragtusk(i didn't have much else lol). And for infect decks that rely heavily on their board wipe avoiding land Inkmoth Nexus, Stone Rain is a long time friend of mine. I can't think of 3 more cards... I have 5 minutes until we start the tournament, I grab three forest for when I pull in blood moon.

Best sideboard card ever


And now for the list


Land(26)                                         Creature(20)                                         Artifact(4)
3x Copperline Gorge                       3x Birds of Paradise                               4x Expedition Map
6x Forest                                         2x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Kessig Wolf Run                        4x Overgrown Battlement                     Sideboard(15)
4x Mountain                                   4x Primeval Titan                                   3x Blood Moon
1x Rootbound Crag                         4x Wall of Roots                                    3x Stone Rain
3x Urza's Mine                               3x Worldspine Wurm                             3x Pyroclasm
4x Urza's Powerplant                                                                                    3x Thragtusk
4x Urza's Tower                             Instant(6)                                              3x forest
                                                       2x Summoner's Pact
                                                       4x Through the Breach
Sorcery(4)
4x Ancient Stirrings



So that was pretty easy come to think of it, there's no long explanation of cards with witty subtext. My timmy went hard and deep with this deck. So here's the games.
Round 1
Deck: UG Infect
Player: Kaleb
Game 1: I win the roll and choose to keep my hand of Copperline Gorge, Urza's Tower, Urza's Mine, Expedition Map, overgrown Battlement, and through the breach. I play Tower and Map and pass.
Him: he keeps and drops a forest and a glistener elf and passes.
Me: I draw an anchient stirrings, play copperline gorge and cast overgrown battlement, I know the power of infect and don't want to go out this early.
Him: he drops a island, and attacks with glistener, I block with wall, no combat tricks, he cast's blighted agent on his second main phase
me: I draw a wall of roots, cast wall of roots, play Mine, place a -0/-1 counter on wall of roots, and cast stirrings, look at 4 irrelevant cards and an Emrakul. Emrakul and breach in hand I pass turn.
Him: drops Inkmoth Nexus, attacks with both dorks, battlement blocks glistener he ground swell's blighted agent. I take 5 infect, he passes turn, EOT I crack map for Urza's Power Plant.
Me: I draw Urza's Power Plant(naturally). I drop the powerplant, tap mine, powerplant and copperline gorge to cast through the breach, it resolves, Emrakul hits the board with haste, I attack he sac's his board, takes 15.
Him: draws card, scoops.

Sideboard: -3 ancient stirrings/+3 pyroclasm

Game 2:
i'll spare you the details, he turn 1 glistener elf's, turn 2 double rancor hits for 5, my turn I draw another land instead of a pyroclasm or a wall, I pick up my card and we go to-

Game 3:
I keep my hand of Primeval titan, birds of paradise, wall of roots, overgrown battlment, Forest, Tower and Powerplant.
Me: Forest->Bird>go
Him: Inkmoth>go
Me: draw pyroclasm, tower>wall of roots>ovwergrown battlement>go
Him: Forest>Activate Inkmoth> attack> Block with bird.
Me: Draw summoner's pact> play power plant> cast Prime Titan fetching Powerplant and copperline gorge> Pass
Him: Forest>Glistener Elf> Ichorclaw Myr> pass
Me: draw Tower>Giggle>place tower>Pyroclasm his two creatures, I then swing with prime titan getting another tower and kessig wolfrun, nail him for 6.
Him: Land, pass
Me: Draw copperline> attack with Prime Time, grabbing tower and mine, before damage run all essential mana into Wolf Run. And that would be the 3 untapped towers, a mine and a power plant with a 19/6 trample titan running down his front door, my opponent does come counting, and then picks up his cards.

1-0

Round 2
Deck: UG Infect
Player: Tim D.
Uggg two infect decks in a row... that glistener elf from game 2 of the previous round had me on edge the entire game.

He wins the roll and chooses to play.
I mull to 5 and keep a bird forest overgrown battlement, through the breach and a copperline gorge
him: Inkmoth pass
me: draw worldspine>copperline into a bird and pass.
Him: another inkmoth, swing with first one double mutagenic growth get's in for 5 poison.
Me: draw wall of roots. Play forest play wall of roots, pass.
Him: places another inkmoth, attacks with first inkmoth, I block with bird. Pass.
Me: I draw mountain, play mountain through the breach worldspine wurm, attack for 15, take him to one, set out my tokens and pass turn.
Him: plays island, passes turn.
Me: irrelevant draw, I attack with three wurms, game.

Between games one and two he makes remarks about how using Breach to hurl Emrakul would be a good plan.

He chooses to play
I mull to 6 and keep breach, emrakul, map, power plant, mine, and Forest.
Him: Forest>elf pass
me: Draw birds of paradise> forest> Birds pass
Him: Inkmoth attack, no blocks, he groundswell's like a boss for 5 poison.
Me: draw Forest> Play mine, cast map, pass
Him: island, blighted agent attack with elf, I block with bird and crack map for tower.
Me: Draw Bird> place tower, play bird pass.
Him: plays island> head scratching> activate nexus swing with team, I block nexus and pray for no pumps. I take 2 poison, he passes turn.
Me: draw another breach> cast through the breach and Emrakul Slides into play, he sac's his board and eats 15.
Him: plays island and passes.
Me: draw summoner's pact> pass
him: plays island and passes
Me: draw forest, play forest, pass
him: draw pass
During EOT, I tutor for prime titan.
Me: tap for summoner's pact. Leaving tower open. I draw a rootbound crag and play it, and pass.
Him: Draw forest Glistener elf pass.
Me: “I'm sorry”, Draw some card and breach primeval titan into play. He chuckles and eats 5 trample damage.

2-0

The next two matches were pretty good, the deck operates the same almost every time. I played against UW delver and lost game 1, then game two I pulled in blood moon and Pyroclasm, I proceeded to turn 2 blood moon. He then proceeded to play mountains and flash a Snapcaster Mage into play, to hit me for 2 as I durdled about trying to draw the combo, which I did and he picked up his impressive pile of non-basic's. We were both hungry and took the draw to get some food.(poor guy, i convinced him to draw, and he got knocked to 5th place :( i'll just buy him a draft sometime)
2-0-1


round 4 I went against a deck of my design( I literally built it right before the tournament started for him.) Quest White Weenies. Game 1 he keeps a good aggro hand and gets me to 8 with birds and sky fishers and memnites. I stabilize and Breach-Spine him to death. Game 2, he keeps a hand he should have mulliganed, drops a quest and an ornithoper and passes and never draws another plains, I end up getting primeval titan on like turn 4 and Urza Tron became so strong I was able to through the breach worldspine wurm and then hard cast a worldspine wurm on the same turn(6 or 7?).
3-0-1


I realize the last 2 reports were lacking, but it is now 3:13 am and I was also buying and selling cards and dealing with customers during the final two rounds. So i'm giving myself some leeway :)

top 4 split for prize because we wanted to draft.

Overall the deck was really fun to play. I did some rounds with the people that I didn't get to play against, against the eldrazi-tron deck, I was more consistent in slamming an emrakul annoyingly early, he was more effectively hard casting emrakul through it was often too late( 2/7 games he got to hard cast emerakul).

Against RDW, woah. I got wrecked on every game that I didn't turn 2 or 3 a wall to stop the ground pounding.

I am letting a friend borrow the deck for a modern tournament elsewhere tomorrow, so I'll see how he does with it(he ran eldrazi-tron at this FNM)

P.S. I feel bad about this post, usually I cook up some cool images meshing the cards I used together. Though all the cards in this deck have art that just doesn't work with each other. Alas I was able to concoct a little something that summarizes this deck.