Suggestions for a 100 Card Singleton Gauntlet

Remember the 100 Card Singleton Collector’s Checklist, where I summarized the most prevalent competitive decks in 100CS? That was nearly four months ago, so today I’d like to give that list an update. For starters, here is a summary of recent Top 8 decks along with a comparison to the July metagame. I used a Relevance Index once again, but I tweaked it to consider a slightly shorter time frame. I re-ran the July numbers to ensure a fair comparison in the Change column. For simplicity, I converted the numbers into percentages.

Category	Archetype	Percentage	Change
Aggro	Elves	13.5%	+13.5%
Aggro	Goblins	12.6%	-2.0%
Control	UW	12.2%	+5.1%
Aggro	RGW	12.2%	-4.3%
Mid-Range	Bant	6.7%	+0.5%
Mid-Range	Dark Bant	6.5%	-1.6%
Mid-Range	Scapeshift	5.6%	+1.7%
Aggro	White Weenie	5.3%	+4.4%
Mid-Range	Rec-Sur	5.0%	-1.9%
Mid-Range	UGR Madness	3.4%	+3.4%
Aggro	Red Deck Wins	3.1%	-3.4%
Control	Mono-Blue	2.2%	-4.8%
Mid-Range	UG	1.6%	-0.7%
Control	5 Color Control	1.3%	+0.3%
Combo	Sutured Ghoul	1.3%	+1.3%
Mid-Range	Blue Ooze Survival	1.3%	+1.3%
Mid-Range	UG Survival	1.3%	+1.3%
Control	GWB Rock	1.3%	+1.3%
Aggro	GW	1.2%	-1.7%
Control	UB	0.8%	-1.2%
Combo	Oath of Druids	0.6%	-3.0%
Control	Blue Rock	0.4%	-3.3%
Combo	UW Ideal	0.2%	-1.1%
Mid-Range	UGB	0.1%	-2.5%

As you can see, there’s a new king of the hill! Elves can be hated out of existence to a certain extent, so we shall see how long that lasts.

Here is a category summary over the same period of time:

Category	Percentage	Change
Aggro	47.9%	+5.8%
Mid-Range	31.6%	+0.7%
Control	18.3%	-3.7%
Combo	2.2%	-2.8%

That’s a pretty aggro-heavy metagame. That said, the format has its checks and balances that will easily prevent control and mid-range from getting crowded out entirely. In the most recent event, there were no less than four UW Control decks in the Top 8. That’s one way to keep the Goblins and Elves in check, to be sure. If UW gets too popular, some other people will be ready to capitalize with their Bant decks. And if Bant gets too popular, we’ll be back to Elves, and so on and so forth. This is, of course, a gross oversimplification of the metagame, which also depends on the particulars of each build and the influence of various other archetypes. My point is merely that 100CS has quite a healthy metagame, even if aggro gets the biggest share of the pie.

Updated Collector’s Checklist: 100CS Gauntlet

Just like the article title says, this new version of the checklist is designed to be a gauntlet for the 100CS format. If your deck can hold its own against this group, then you can bet that you’re in pretty decent shape for a Weekend Challenge Premier Event.

You can make a pretty good 100CS gauntlet with just eight decks:

• Elves
• Goblins
• UW Control
• RGW Aggro
• Dark Bant
• Scapeshift
• White Weenie
• Rec-Sur

It made sense to cut corners to keep this list as small as possible. Specifically, I allowed Goblins to represent both itself and Red Deck Wins, and Dark Bant also represents Bant. In both cases, the decks are similar enough that it feels redundant to include both in the gauntlet. It’s not that the decks aren’t different — they are! But for the purposes of a testing gauntlet, you want all of the decks to be pretty distinct from each other in order to get the most out of your time. With the decks combined in this way, the following chart shows how much of the metagame our gauntlet covers.

Archetype	Percentage
Goblins + RDW	15.7%
Elves	13.5%
Bant + Dark Bant	13.2%
UW Control	12.2%
RGW Aggro	12.2%
Scapeshift	5.6%
White Weenie	5.3%
Rec-Sur	5.0%

That’s about 83% of the metagame, which isn’t bad at all for just eight lists. If one was serious about doing in-depth testing against a set list, it might even make sense to reduce this down to 4-6 lists. You’d have to trim an aggro deck or two while assuming that aggro matches are similar to each other, and you might drop Scapeshift and/or Rec-Sur off the bottom of the chart. I don’t like that approach, because the decks we’re talking about all play very differently. With that, let’s dive right into the eight lists.

Goblins / Red Deck Wins

This list is simply E.Hustle’s most recent Goblins list, which comes from the 10-02-10 event. This guy has over 20 Top 8′s with Goblins, so I think it’s safe to assume that he knows how to build his deck.

(To load a .txt deck into Magic: Online’s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Text Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

E. Hustle’s list runs the green splash for Tarmogoyf and Tin Street Hooligan, plus the Naturalize out of the sideboard for nasty hate spells like Sphere of Law and Moat. I notice that he omits some strong spells, including Ball Lightning and Cursed Scroll. That’s because he’s not trying to be Red Deck Wins, at least not in this version of his deck. His goblin count is sky high at 34 plus a Mutavault.

I think it’s worth pointing out that Goblins has a few particularly devastating cards in addition to being really synergistic and fast. Goblin Recruiter is a biggie, and it’s searchable by Goblin Matron and Imperial Recruiter. Out of the sideboard, you also get access to Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, Price of Progress, Ruination, Dwarven Miner, and Dwarven Blastminer. Pyrokinesis is also pretty soul-crushing if you like those other little green guys (elves). This combination of speed, synergy, and a handful of absolutely game-breaking cards is what has made Goblins such a ubiquitous deck. Did I mention that it runs a bunch of good burn spells?

Being ready for the red matchup is important for any tournament level 100CS deck, because red is always there. Once I faced three red decks in one event, and facing two in the course of five rounds is commonplace. Not only is it your most common matchup, but it requires a decent amount of hate out of the sideboard to adequately respond to it in Games 2 and 3. You just don’t have much time to dig through a deck to find those hate cards.

The newest card in the deck is Ember Hauler. Arc Trail isn’t in this list, but it would fit right in. Also, Combust is a viable new sideboard card.

Elves

As a starting point, you can feel free to check out ChrisKool’s Elves article. I’m using my own similar list in this gauntlet, and I’ve made some adjustments since I last made the Top 8 in October.

(To load a .txt deck into Magic: Online’s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Text Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

I emphasize a few things a bit more than other Elves players. I like having extra mana elves, so I included Quirion Elves and Skyshroud Elf. I also want as many lands as possible that tap for green mana on Turn 1, so you might notice the absence of certain other lands for that reason. I also maximized the elf count as much as I dared, ending up with a total of 34. My overall creature count is 49; among other benefits, that helps me maximize the ridiculous power of Gaea’s Cradle. To that end, I included Sylvan Scrying to help me find the Cradle as often as possible. These changes all contribute to a higher chance of an explosive draw without sacrificing much in the way of utility and game-breaking fatties.

In the new cards department, Scars brought us Ezuri, Renegade Leader, and he does a great job as a finisher. I reluctantly left out Genesis Wave, because while it can enable a nice blowout if I’m already blowing the opponent out, it would be less inspiring in my opening hand. I can’t identify any matchups where it would really shine, so I would reason that a creature tutor is better in that slot.

Bant / Dark Bant

I was a little torn on how to represent Bant and Dark Bant in the gauntlet. On the one hand, I could include the standard Bant build and call it a day. Unfortunately, Bant decks are all over the map, so I can’t identify such a build. If you dig through the Decks of the Week archives, you’ll come across Bant decks with anywhere from 24 to 35 creatures, and anywhere from zero to 12 counter-magic spells. Some have a minor focus on Survival of the Fittest while others leave it out entirely. el_fake, the player with the most Bant Top 8′s, is running a bit of red in his build. You can also find a Pestermite / Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker/ Reveillark combo in some of slug360′s lists. What is a guy to make of all this?

In the end, I find recent Dark Bant lists to be tidier, so I’m going with Thalai’s Top 8 Dark Bant list from 09/17/10.

(To load a .txt deck into Magic: Online’s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Text Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

This list is nicely focused and doesn’t include anything that stands out to me as quirky. This particular version omits Survival, although Thalai has also been successful both with and without it. The nice thing is that it’s not much different from what I would envision as the “typical” Bant deck; it just has Mind Twist, Doran, the Siege Tower, and four black removal cards. You can read about the original Dark Bant deck in Travis’ article.

Whether you look at Bant or Dark Bant, you will always see a bunch of efficient creatures. They always run Natural Order and Progenitus. Most lists run about six counter-magic spells (as Thalai’s does). They include the good blue card drawing spells and the good white utility spells. It isn’t especially synergistic, instead relying on lots of cards that are good on their own.

The two most notable newcomers to the archetype are Gideon Jura and Sun Titan. You don’t want many five and six mana spells in this deck, but those two threats support the game plan really well.

UW Control

Since I couldn’t settle on a favorite UW control list, I did some mixing and matching. My final product ends up looking more like dragonbgx’s list than anything else. He won two consecutive events with his version, so this should do nicely.

(To load a .txt deck into Magic: Online’s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Text Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

UW lists don’t always run the same combos. A bit less than half include Painters Servant / Grindstone or Goblin Charbelcher / Mana Severance. Practically every list, including the one below, runs Thopter Foundry / Sword of the Meek.

Recent sets have done little to change the archetype overall. The most popular recent addition to the deck is Sun Titan. Gideon Jura, on the other hand, does not seem to have caught on. Some people play Ratchet Bomb, but I left it out, despite the fun Sun Titan interaction. It’s just too slow and clunky for this format, and it pales in comparison with Engineered Explosives, which is easier to tutor for anyway. If you want to check the deck out, you can watch a video of an older incarnation here.

RGW Aggro

 

RGW varies. Some people run it almost as a mid-range, ramp deck, but I will claim that the faster versions are better. It’s just a lot scarier to face something that drops creatures quickly and then blows up all of your lands. Click here to read about this strategy in detail.

Dessiker’s list from 11-06-10 is an example of a pretty good list. The entire deck is 4cc or less except Baneslayer Angel, he runs the good mass land destruction in his main deck, and I think it’s just a nicely focused build overall. The list below is only a few cards different from Dessiker’s.

(To load a .txt deck into Magic: Online’s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Text Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

Terravore and Countryside Crusher, which are perfect for this deck, are absent. I only left them out of the gauntlet build because nobody uses them. Arc-Slogger is also out of this list, but some people prefer that over a Baneslayer Angel.

RGW hasn’t gotten many new toys lately apart from Vengevine. This list uses Fauna Shaman, albeit not in a particularly abusive manner.

Scapeshift

This Top 8 list (10/02/10) comes to you from the master of Scapeshift: platipus10. Check out platipus10′s article for all of his original reasoning. Even though he has updated his deck since he wrote that article in May, the same logic applies today.

(To load a .txt deck into Magic: Online’s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Text Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

If you haven’t played against Scapeshift much, the experience goes something like this:

1) You’re the beatdown whether you like it or not, because when the clock ticks up to 7 lands, you’re dead.

2) It’s hard to kill him before he gets to his lethal land count, because he has good defenses, and he ramps into fatties.

3) It always seems like he gets his Scapeshift when he needs it, because the deck is good at finding it.

4) If he doesn’t get you with Scapeshift, he can get you in a bunch of other ways.

I’m not exaggerating. This deck is a powerhouse, and more people should play it.

Because the deck wants lands rather than other forms of mana ramping, it doesn’t include mana elves or Natural Order. Survival of the Fittest is absent as well, but it is possible to build a Survival-friendly version of the deck, such as this one by ArchGenius / Shuyin Knight of Zanarkand. Notable recent add-ons include Primeval Titan, Grave Titan, and Inferno Titan. You can also use Wurmcoil Engine profitably in Scapeshift.

White Weenie

White Weenie is back! I decided to use a list of my own crafting, because I see a few oddball cards in every list I look at. I would have been lost without the existing lists; mine is just an attempt at a “best of” version.

(To load a .txt deck into Magic: Online’s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Text Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

White Weenie’s Plan A is cast a few evasive beaters and then blow up everyone’s lands on Turn 4 or 5. If that fails, it can just continue to drop creatures, possibly along with a pump effect, until it pushes 20 damage through. The deck also has just enough utility to take out one or two troublesome permanents on the other side of the table.

There isn’t much new material for White Weenie. The newest cards in this list are War Priest of Thune, Student of Warfare, Black Vise, and most importantly, Mother of Runes.

Rec-Sur

GBW Rec-Sur is still plugging along and capturing a modest 5% of the metagame, not including a few assorted Survival decks in different colors, such as Naoto’s UGR Madness deck. Rec-Sur is an interesting deck in that it doesn’t have any particularly bad matchups or any really easy matchups. I think the red match is hard, because you need more things to go right than they do. The easiest matchup is probably something like a slow RGW deck. Any deck that doesn’t get off to a fast start had better have a strong late game, because Rec-Sur is tough to beat once it gets going. Control matchups are at least decent, because you can present a steady stream of threats.

I took a Demonic_Penguin Rec-Sur deck and lightly edited it for this final entry in our gauntlet. His version is probably what you are most likely to face.

(To load a .txt deck into Magic: Online’s Deck Editor, click “Load”, select “Local Text Deck”, find the location of the downloaded deck file and double-click the deck.)

If you want to learn Rec-Sur, you should check out Travis’ content, in which he dissects his deck and evolves it through a series of matches. Here is the first video in that four part series. His deck is different from Demonic_Penguin’s in some important ways, and investigating those differences would be a good way to start learning the archetype.

Rec-Sur got more help than most decks in Magic 2011. Fauna Shaman is a slam dunk, but we also got Obstinate Baloth, Primeval Titan, and Sylvan Ranger. The other important semi-new card is Vengevine.

Full Checklist

This list includes everything from the eight deck lists in the gauntlet except basic lands and snow lands. And that’s all I have for you today! Thanks for reading!

-Zimbardo