Adam Koska
About Adam Koska
Adam is an experienced player from the Czech Republic who has a number of high-profile finishes under his belt:
- 9th at Worlds 2009
- 9th at Pro Tour Kyoto 2009
- 38 Lifetime Pro Points
- Top 32 GP Vienna 2008
- Top 64 GP Krakow 2007
- Two times Czech Nationals Top 8
Hello and welcome to my
latest article.
Today, I’m going to tackle
a Limited-only topic – one that’s fairly important in my opinion. The
triple-Zendikar format was one of the fastest Limited environments in recent
history and when reading various reviews of cards from Zendikar, you could
often find phrases like „usually this card would be good, but not in Zendikar
draft“. People had to adjust their mindsets, and learn to see Limited with
different eyes. However, Worldwake pushed things in a slightly different
direction again – it not only brought a bunch of new cards to the mix, but
affected the whole format itself, so when drafting ZZW, the Zendikar cards work
often a little bit different than in Zendikar-only draft. While it is still
entirely possible to draft a blazing fast aggro deck, there are now also some
tools to go for a more controlling approach – and that’s what I‘d like to talk
about today.
From ZZZ To ZZW
Triple Zendikar was quite a
hostile environment for control. While drafting slower decks was not entirely
impossible, you couldn’t realistically go and sit down at your drafting table
with the control approach in your mind. Every now and then, there would be good
control decks, most often Blue-White or Blue-Black with some good defenders and
some big finishers (Lorthos, the Tidemaker comes to mind) or Green-Black decks
with some mana acceleration and multiple cards like Heartstabber Mosquito, Mold Shambler and Soul Stair Expedition (this particular deck, while not even that
good, was probably my favorite pre-Worldwake control archetype, one that I
found incredibly fun to play). But you couldn’t reliably go for the „control
route“ in draft, as the risk of your deck ending up too clunky and underpowered
was just too big. After the addition of Worldwake, trying to draft a control
deck starting with pack 1, pick 1 suddenly becomes viable. The reason for this
change is twofold:
- The environment slowed down
a little, with one less pack of Plated Geopedes, Steppe Lynxes, Vampire Lacerators and Welkin Terns
- Worldwake brought some
tools that make the controlling decks possible. And since most of those „tools“
are blue, the best control strategies post-Worldwake are, in my opinion,
Blue-White and – in particular – Blue-Black.
Control In ZZW
Let’s take a look at some
of the blue-black cards that make the control strategy possible. The card that
has the biggest impact on the viability of the control route post-Worldwake is Mysteries of the Deep. Before WWK, there wasn’t really any reliable common card
advantage spell in Blue, so you were basically left with trading cards one for
one more often than not. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since with the
higher curve that control decks usually possess, this should lead to a superior
board position sooner or later, but a card that lets you draw three once you’ve
stabilized is golden in an archetype that aims for the lategame. Of course not
all the control decks will have Mysteries of the Deep at hand and having the
card is by no means requisite for playing control, but since the card is
relatively weak in most other decks, it should come fairly late, even tabling
sometimes, and having the card in your control deck definitely makes for a good
feeling, as long as you can make sure to survive the early game.
Halimar Excavator is the
new Kraken Hatchling. I don‘t see him primarily as an Ally, but as a two-drop
that can stop most of the opposing two-drops and even some three-drops. In the majority
of slow blue-black decks, he will be better than most other two drops like Ruthless Cullblade. Also note that he increases the value of cards like Soul Stair Expedition and – in particular – Grim Discovery. Even if you don‘t have
those cards, nor any further mill-subtheme, it‘s usually better to mill
yourself as some opposing decks can make use of cards in their graveyard, especially
if those decks are black.
Another excellent blocker Blue
has to offer is Calcite Snapper. Along with the Halimar Excavators, the Calcite Snappers often form the backbone of your defense, as they take care of most of
the ground creatures. One of the prime reasons slow blue decks got better with
Worldwake.
Among the „fringe cards“, Brink of Disaster is one that gets often overlooked but can have its place in
the right blue-black deck, where it can act as a removal spell. Against a deck
with a lot of big ground creatures, Brink of Disaster can be ok, because you’re
probably planning to kill your opponent through the air anyway, so you don’t
care about creating a ground blocker. I wouldn‘t like to maindeck it though,
unless I have multiple Tideforce Elementals to tap the enchanted creature down
and kill it immediately.
Honorable mention goes to Quicksand, a card that fits the control deck very well, since it can help you
get rid of hard-to-block creatures like Bladetusk Boar or Timbermaw Larva (with
the trigger on the stack). Aggressive decks often eschew playing the colorless
land to avoid mana troubles that would prevent them from casting their spells
(and who cares in Boros about defense anyway?), but if your manabase is solid
enough, feel free to pick Quicksand and play it.
As for Zendikar cards worth
mentioning, Giant Scorpion becomes even better than before and I rarely draft
it over Surrakar Marauder nowadays, especially since Surrakar Marauder found a
worthy adversary in Pilgrim's Eye in Worldwake. It might not seem that
important, but the situations where Pilgrim's Eye holds back a Surrakar Marauder
(or even trades with it) are definitely more common than you might think and
the slower non-black decks gained an excellent weapon to fight Surrakar Marauder.
And speaking of Pilgrim's Eye, this card is a gem in control decks – it helps
you reach enough mana for your expensive spells and there are plenty of
creatures it can trade with, apart from the aforementioned Surrakar Marauder,
for example cards like Welkin Tern or any of the two mana 2/1 creatures that
you find in the common slot.
How To Draft It
So what’s the correct approach
to drafting a control deck with the new tools available? As Blue got a lot
better in Worldwake, it can be a dominant color now. It‘s not so risky to
commit to Blue early in the draft, because there‘s always the third booster to
save your day. Sky Ruin Drake, Paralyzing Grasp – all those cards that felt a
bit awkward in your pre-WWK aggro deck suddenly are a lot better in a blue
deck. Blue can still be a fairly aggressive color, especially when paired with
White or Red, but some decks will now want an Into the Roil more than a Welkin Tern and Cancel more than Vampire Lacerator. An interesting strategy is the one
Simon Görtzen has been a huge advocate of in San Diego: Upping the land count
in your blue-based deck to 19 and finding room for Walking Atlas to speed you
up a little. While I think that sometimes the Atlas is a bit clunky and
unreliable (not a good topdeck in the lategame), I must admit that this
strategy definitely has something going for it and picking a couple of Atlases
late is never a bad idea in a control deck, since they’re a good sideboard option
for the games where you’re on the draw.
When drafting Blue-Black,
look out for some of the cards that fit well together, like bounce and Bloodhusk Ritualist, etc. A nice combination you can take advantage of is Spreading Seas and Enclave Elite, the „build your own unblockable creature“
kit.
Example Decks
Here‘s an example of what
an average blue-black control deck looks like – a 3-0 deck from my second draft
in San Diego:
A 3-0 draft deck from PT San Diego. The deck forms part of my feature article:
How has the draft format evolved with the addition of Worldwake? Are there viable control strategies in ZZW and if so, how do you draft them? Level 3 pro Adam Koska has the answers! He explains how to draft his favorite control archetype in
ZZW.
| Colors |
|---|
| Artifact | 3 |
|---|
| Black | 11 |
|---|
| Blue | 8 |
|---|
| Land | 18 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 3 |
|---|
| 2 | 5 |
|---|
| 3 | 8 |
|---|
| 4 | 4 |
|---|
| 5 | 2 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Artifact | 2 |
|---|
| Artifact Creature | 1 |
|---|
| Basic Land | 15 |
|---|
| Creature | 15 |
|---|
| Instant | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 3 |
|---|
There are a couple of cards
that don‘t really fit the overall „controlling“ deck theme, primarily the two
equipment cards, but 90% of all decks don’t fit the „aggro“ or „control“
bracket completely and there will always be some overlap. Judging by how my
games went, even the so called „control“ decks like this one can have some
pretty aggressive draws, mostly with the flyers, where the Adventuring Gear
helps speed up the clock.
Here is another blue-black
controlling deck I happened to draft recently:
A 2-1 draft deck from a local store draft. The deck forms part of my feature article:
How has the draft format evolved with the addition of Worldwake? Are there viable control strategies in ZZW and if so, how do you draft them? Level 3 pro Adam Koska has the answers! He explains how to draft his favorite control archetype in
ZZW.
| Colors |
|---|
| Artifact | 2 |
|---|
| Black | 9 |
|---|
| Blue | 11 |
|---|
| Land | 18 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 3 |
|---|
| 2 | 2 |
|---|
| 3 | 9 |
|---|
| 4 | 3 |
|---|
| 5 | 3 |
|---|
| 6 | 1 |
|---|
| 7 | 1 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Artifact | 1 |
|---|
| Artifact Creature | 1 |
|---|
| Basic Land | 17 |
|---|
| Creature | 12 |
|---|
| Enchantment | 2 |
|---|
| Instant | 6 |
|---|
| Land | 1 |
|---|
While this deck has several
issues, mainly a wacky curve with not enough two-drops (which was the reason
for my single loss with it), it’s a fine example of a deck where the Walking Atlas really shines – and I would happily play two if I had them. It
accelerates you into the expensive spells you have and does a couple of cute
tricks, like making your Calcite Snapper a 4/1 blocker when necessary or
killing an opposing X/2 creature with Caustic Crawler. And you can even untap
it with Twitch to provide an extra landdrop! Yay!
Speaking of Twitch,
everybody seems to hate this card, but I think it‘s a nice utility trick that
can blow people out of the water every now and then. I don‘t play it in every
deck and it‘s not even particularly good in this one, but you would be
surprised how many people are caught off guard by an untapped and
ready-to-block Giant Scorpion that attacked on your previous turn.
Paralyzing Grasp got a bit
better with Worldwake, partly because of the presence of Zendikons, against
which it can create a nice 2 for 1 trade, partly because with one less Zendikar
pack, there aren’t so many Kor Sanctifiers around.
Aether Tradewinds, a card I
usually like a lot, is not at its full potential here, but it’s still fine. The
two things you can „abuse“ it for are bouncing a Bloodhusk Ritualist and making
them discard their creature and also returning your Heartstabber Mosquito for
further use. Apart from that, it can bounce Zendikons all day long, so it’s
still a useful and reliable card.
I was tempted to play 19
lands in this deck and I probably would have if I had a single Quicksand or a
card like the U/B manland, but with two cheap spells that draw a card – Spreading Seas and Twitch – it’s almost like playing 18,5 lands, which is fine.
Blue-based control is
obviously not the only possible control deck in the ZZW format. Another option
to draft control, for example, is to focus on multicolor Allies. However, I don’t
really like this route, as in my opinion, Allies are too clunky and somewhat
overrated. Either you just take those that are good on their own (Graypelt Hunter etc.) or create a small subtheme with a couple of them, but unless you
have more than 6-7 Allies, you can‘t really run the „Ally deck only“ creatures
like Ondu Cleric or Jwari Shapeshifter. Drawing these in the wrong situations outweighs
the benefits you gain when you draw the whole „Ally package“. Of course you can
try to build your deck around the Ally theme, taking more or less every single
one that you see, but that is such a risk in my opinion that it‘s almost never
worth it. What happens usually, is that you damage your mana consistency as a
tradeoff for some ridiculous draws your deck can provide, but the thing is, if
they kill your pivotal Allies (or you don’t draw that many), your engine
usually just falls apart and cards like Join the Ranks suddenly don’t do that
much. And that’s assuming that several copies of Join the Ranks get opened and
you get shipped some – which is not guaranteed with just one Worldwake booster
in the mix.
That’s all from me for
today, if you’re a regular drafter, make sure to try the control route in ZZW
draft (if you haven’t already), some of the biggest names of Magic were really
advocating this strategy in San Diego and it also feels like a breath of fresh air
not to aim at your opponent’s throat from the first turn on, but to try to
craft your gameplan in a more sophisticated way. It almost feels like drafting
a normal set again. :)
Thanks for reading and if
you have something article-related on your mind, make sure to leave a comment!
Adam
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You didn't mention treasure hunt which can provide crucial card advantage/acceleration even without a halimar depths. Combined with atlas it is a tremendous booster, and though I wouldn't take it pick 1-6 or so, it still remains a very solid card. Especially with the near half-deck of land you play you chances of getting serveral cards for 2 mana is amazing, and provides a crucial tempo boost especially in an archtype that lacks a whole lot of 2-drops. Late game it can help get you to your bombs to win, but I have never been unhappy to have it in my hand, which I am with several cards like atlas late-game or brink of disaster if I am lacking the fly power I need to make it shine.
The bloodhusk was a nice pick. I love that card!
efrate: You're right that I probably should have mentioned Treasure Hunt, at least with a couple of lines, but I had my reasons for not doing so: first, because it's a card that most writers have already written about many times (both for limited and constructed) and second, because I don't think it's that crucial for the control strategy. Don't get me wrong, it's a fine card, but without Halimar Depths, it's just nothing special and Mysteries from the Deep will be way better most of the time. Even if you have Depths, the chances of drawing the two cards together is not that big. Treasure Hunt doesn't accelerate or provide any tempo boost, what it does is that it gives you approx. 1,7 cards for two mana, which is not bad, but then again it's nothing to be too excited about. I will play Treasure Hunt if I have one in my control deck, but I wouldn't pick it over any "business spell".
Very nice article, I was waiting for people to pick up on drafting control in ZZW. Just as a reference, this is my Walking Atlas draft deck from day 2, which is actually more of a combo-control deck than anything else:
10 Island
8 Mountain
1 Quicksand
2 Plated Geopede
3 Walking Atlas
1 Calcite Snapper
1 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Hedron Rover
1 Windrider Eel
1 Roil Elemental
1 Burst Lightning
1 Punishing Fire
1 Treasure Hunt
1 Into the Roil
2 Paralyzing Grasp
1 Summoner's Bane
1 Cancel
1 Inferno Trap
1 Mysteries of the Deep
I picked the first Atlas instead of Dread Statuary, which is an incredible card, but I did not want to risk a low Atlas count. The way the draft went I had a 4th Atlas in my SB which was often boarded in on the draw.
I feel that the uses of the two cycles of "Comes into play tapped with X effect" lands should have been mentioned.
Like how Teetering Peaks has lost value and etc.