Standard Deviations # 4 - Baneslayer Boros

Hello everyone and welcome back to another "Standard" edition of The Cardboard Witch.  For those of you just joining us recently this blog has started to focus more and more on the Post-Scars of Mirrodin Standard environment.  This is partially because I've been too sick to do a whole lot of drafting but it's also partially because Standard has suddenly become both wide open and incredibly fun!  I'm building/testing decks daily at this point and there seem to be so many options in the new environment that I don't expect to run out of ideas to explore for quite some time.  I don't have to tell most of you that it's been a very long time since you could say that with a straight face about the Standard Constructed format. For those of you hoping for more articles on Scars of Mirrodin limited play please accept my apologies.  The Hairy T North has a Scars practice sealed event planned for tomorrow afternoon (Saturday the 16th) which I plan to attend and hopefully write about soon.  Until then lets take a look at another one the 4 decks currently sitting in my "starting rotation"; Baneslayer Boros.

Baneslayer Boros

Creatures - 22:
 
4x Goblin Guide
4x Steppe Lynx
4x Plated Geopede
3x Kor Skyfisher
2x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Kor Hookmaster
3x Baneslayer Angel

Spells - 14:

4x Lightning Bolt
2x Adventuring Gear
4x Arc Trail
3x Journey to Nowhere
1x Hammer of Ruin

Lands - 24:

4x Arid Mesa
4x Marsh Flats
4x Teetering Peaks
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Terramorphic Expanse
5x Plains
5x Mountain

Sideboard - 15:

4x Tunnel Ignus
4x Kore Firewalker
2x Cunning Sparkmage
2x Burst Lightning
1x Basilisk Collar
1x Sword of Body and Mind
1x Journey to Nowhere



Overview: This is the exact deck I loaned to my friend Andrew Mark for his first ever Provincial Championships on Saturday.  Designed to be very aggressive this build will typically win on turn 5; although it's still capable of turn 4 blowouts.  While there are faster decks in the format (W/W Affinity, RDW) Boros offers significantly better board control and typically destroys other aggro strategies in the mirror.  Additionally W/R is the easiest way to take maximum advantage of the Landfall mechanic, not only because of Steppe Lynx but also because Kor Skyfisher can be used to replay lands on cold draws.  Finally of course playing white gives the deck access to Baneslayer Angel; the single best answer to a stalled/wiped board a true aggro deck can muster in my opinion.  I've been playing some form of "Boros" off and on since Zendikar was released; even running a casual block constructed version an entire YEAR before I came back to play Magic seriously.  This particular version of Boros was designed to be very easy to play and to compete against a wide field (States) however the deck is quite "tweakable" to reflect your local metagame.   

What I think it's good at: Cheap, versatile and fairly aggressive; Baneslayer Boros excels at controlling enemy creatures and dealing damage in 4-8 point chunks.  While hardly the fastest aggro deck in the format it is the most stable; capable of winning games with virtually any creature in the deck.  The inclusion of 3x Journey to Nowhere provides a cheap and easy answer to otherwise game-ending monsters like Primeval Titan and Wurmcoil Engine.  Alternately Arc Trail and Lightning Bolt absolutely devastate opposing "weenie" strategies by clearly the path for your early beaters and setting up a game ending Baneslayer Angel.  Finally while it's hard to call any creature-based aggro strategy a "favorite" against modern control decks, cards like Adventuring Gear, Baneslayer Angel and Stoneforge Mystic can help you power through their control elements and win games other aggro builds would lose.

What I think it's not good at: Like virtually every other creature-based aggro deck with 22 "dorks" this deck is going to struggle against well-timed mass board removal.  Typically this will mean Day of Judgment but the converted casting costs and general lack of toughness on your creatures also make Pryoclasm, Marsh Casualties and Consume the Meek serious threats as well. The only real way to combat these cards is to try and hold back an extra creature in your hands as long as possible while pressuring your opponent hard enough to force him to wipe the board early.  Dropping your Baneslayer/Kor Skyfisher + Equipment *after* your opponent plays Day of Judgement gives you one last chance to win the game.  While hardly a common occurrence I've also found that Baneslayer Boros struggles against decks with multiple life-gain effects.  While it's fairly easy to deal with a single Wurmcoil Engine/Baneslayer Angel/etc it becomes increasingly more difficult to find additional answers as the game drags on.  Boros is very good at dealing roughly 20-30 damage in the first 5-6 turns; if your opponent gains 10 or so life winning becomes entirely dependent on keeping Baneslayer Angels in play.  For example I recently lost a match against mono-green aggro where my opponent played 2 Wurmcoil Engines and 2 Pelakka Wurms in consecutive games; I ran out of gas before I could drag him under 10 life.  Finally while the Landfall mechanic can generate absolutely ridiculous openings it also forces you to keep drawing land to make your Lynxs and Geopedes relevant.  While most aggro decks would be happy to never draw another land after turn 4 that draw could easily cost Baneslayer Boros the game.  Eventually you can learn to play around this dependency by figuring out when to play and activate "crack" lands but ultimately you still need to draw land as the game progresses.     

What the Sideboard does: The sideboard for this deck was designed to be both easy to use and fairly straightforward.  This is partially because I had no real idea what the Post-Scars environment looked like when I built it.  It's also because I intended to loan the deck to a casual player who was exploring more competitive play for the first time at this year's State Championships.  In my experience casual games rarely involve sideboarding so I tried to make the choices both obvious and powerful.  This would prevent a new player from second guessing himself during the match and allow him to focus on winning the next game.  4x Tunnel Ignus allows you to aggressively attack Ramp strategies (Valakuut and mono-green Eldrazi) by forcing your opponent to either slow down or eat a "bolt" in exchange for fishing out extra land.  Of course the ramp player will go out of his way to kill the Ignus but that should give you enough time to win the game with your other threats.  While it may seem like over-kill I included 4x Kor Firewalker to help close out matches against other aggro decks; almost all of whom run a bunch of red cards.  Most of the red aggro lists I've seen online run no Brittle Effigy's, 1 Masticore and maybe 2-3 Ratchet Bombs in the SB; making it unlikely they can handle 4x Kor Firewalkers unless you play multiples into a Ratchet Bomb for some reason.  Usually the 2 copies of Burst Lightning come in against either decks that have very few creatures (and thus no targets for Arc Trail/Journey) or vast hordes of smaller creatures we need to cook out.  Personally I consider the Cunning Sparkmage/Basalisk Collar combination far too slow/clunky to see maindeck play in this environment it still makes a useful sideboard option against Titans, giant green creatures and huge alien Eldrazi monsters.  2x Cunning Sparkmage may be 1 too few but 1x Basilisk Collar works fine as long as you don't board out the Stoneforge Mystics.  It's possible that the single copy of Journey to Nowhere should be in the maindeck and this should be the 4th Arc Trail or even a 3rd Burst Lightning.  If you're seeing more Titans/Eldrazi than you're seeing Elves/RDW/WW Affinity feel free to make this switch.  I'm also not sure I even want the 1x Sword of Body and Mind in this deck at all.  It was originally included as Jace/Frost Titan meta but it doesn't seem overtly effective in that role and I will likely be changing this slot very soon.            

How to play it: Playing Boros is incredibly easy; you cast monsters, use removal to clear out your opponent's monsters and then play lands to produce huge damage totals.  Playing Boros at a high level on the other hand is a bit trickier; not every opponent is going to concede just because you dropped a Steppe Lynx into a Geopede.  In many cases the difference between winning and losing with a Boros deck comes down to knowing when to hold your strength in reserve and when to really step on the gas.  This in turn requires specific knowledge of your opponent's deck and how future turns are likely to play out.  In essence while Boros may be a very easy deck to play it's not going to win games *for* you like say W/W Affinity or some combo heavy versions of RDW.  As a general rule you'll want to open up fast with Steppe Lynx, Goblin Guides, Plated Geopedes and Adventuring Gear; avoid playing the Skyfisher too quickly as it slows you down early but can win entire games later on.  Additionally try to use cards like Lightning Bolt and Arc Trail to remove blockers in the early game while saving your Journeys and Hookmasters for larger/more dangerous threats played later.  Against aggro decks that are faster than Baneslayer Boros don't be afraid to slow down and focus on torching your opponent's creatures.  Just like yourself an aggro opponent will struggle to win the game without monsters but unlike you he's probably not drawing into a Baneslayer Angel.  There will be plenty of time to finish your opponent off later in this match-up provided you focus on staying alive in the early game.  Against control decks the key is figuring out if your opponent handles creatures primarily through board sweeping (Day of Judgdment) or spot kill (Doomblade, Lightning Bolt, etc).  Against board sweep effects you'll want to grind out wins by forcing your opponent to play his "nuke" before he's ready.  Typically this means playing only 1-2 creatures in the early game and augmenting them with equipment if possible.  Ideally your opponent will be eating enough damage that he'll have no choice but to hit the "reset" button and pass the turn, allowing you to drop another monster and start the assault anew.  Unless your opponent is completely out of cards you should ALWAYS hold back at least one serious threat against this type of control deck.  Against spot removal decks however it's usually just a better idea to flood the board with "problems" and dare your opponent to try and solve all of them.  While Skinrender and Doomblade are both very powerful cards they only kill one creature at a time; provided you don't give him 800 turns to draw more gas your opponent should run out of answers before you run out of threats.  Finally against Ramp you want to hybrid these two strategies; swarming your opponent with as many creatures as possible while still holding back a solid threat and a Journey to Nowhere to respond to your opponent's inevitable counter.  Most Ramp decks will drop the All is Dust on turn 4 or 5 and then lead into the Primeval Titan the turn after.  This leaves a tiny window for you to cast something like a Baneslayer Angel (or a Skyfisher if you have equipment) and then Journey to Nowhere their answer.  With 2 turns to respond to the All is Dust you should be able to kill most Ramp opponents before they set up again.        

Possible improvements?: As it stands now this deck is meta'd more towards an aggro-based environment with a lot of smaller/medium sized creatures.  In particular cards like Arc Trail and Hammer of Ruin were chosen for their ability to win mirror matches against other aggro decks and would therefore be less good if you were playing against Ramp/Control all the time.  Even some of the land slots were filled with the aggro mirror in mind; both Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse were chosen primarily because I didn't like running more than 8 lands that cost me life in such a potentially fast environment.  If your environment is less aggro and more about Titans and control strategies (I know mine is) this version of the deck may require some minor "tweaking" for optimal performance.  I'd probably drop 4x Arc Trail, 1x Hammer of Ruin for 1x Journey to Nowhere and 4x Burst Lightning/Flame Slash.  I might also drop both "tap crack" lands and a Teetering Peaks for 3x Scalding Tarn.  Finally I recently read an article from esteemed pro Brad Nelson on Channel Fireball in which he mentioned running Mark of Mutiny as a potential counter to Primeval Titan and/or Wurmcoil Engine.  In particular he mentions snatching an opponent's Primeval Titan and going to fish out 2 copies of Teetering Peaks for spectacular amounts of damage.  I have to say "Brad that's an amazing idea and I intend to steal it as soon as possible."  I think it's safe to say 3 copies of either Act of Treason or Mark of Mutiny will find their way into the sideboard before my next tournament. 

Well guys that pretty much covers Baneslayer Boros for now, hopefully you've enjoyed taking an in-depth look at what I think is a serious under-rated deck in the current format.  While it's hardly the best choice for an environment full of board sweeping effects, as the metagame shifts more towards cards that kill giant monsters I believe Boros will find a better home here in Standard.  As always thanks for reading and I hope to see you next time here on the The Cardboard Witch.

-nina