The Return of Necro *RCQ Top 4*

The Return of Necro *RCQ Top 4*

 

History lesson time kids. Some of y'all talk about power creep, but there was a time in Magic when one of the most powerful cards to ever be printed was considered a bulk rare because players hadn't figured out the value of exchanging life for cards. I'm talking about, of course…

 

Necropotence from Ice Age

The 90s were just a different era for Magic. The people making the game didn't truly understand how it worked yet, which isn't unreasonable for such a new creation. But if they didn't get it, most Magic players definitely didn't get it. And then some players started figuring things out. A new theory called "card advantage" was proposed in which players realized having more cards than your opponent was a very powerful advantage. If that was true of one extra card per turn with something like Jayemdae Tome…wouldn't a card like Necropotence be insane at it? So, reasoned one Magic group, and soon "The Necrodeck" was born.

 

The original strategy was simple: play some creatures like pump knights, rip your opponent's hand apart with Hymn to Tourach, use removal on their creatures that got through, and then right as you were both running on empty tap "BBB," dump some life, and boom! Back to seven cards in hand. The meta turned so quickly the time period became known as "Necro Summer." Necrodecks were everywhere, and the only other viable strategy was to play anti-Necrodeck decks (spoiler warning: almost all of them didn't, actually, beat Necro). With the exception of Ice Age block constructed, Necropotence absolutely annihilated every format it was allowed to be played in meriting multiple bans. Eventually Wizards swore to never repeat that mistake.

 

And then they made this card:

 

Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor The Brothers' War

 

The New Necro

After making Mythic last month with a five color Domain deck, I spent some time grinding other strategies to prepare for an upcoming RCQ featuring the Standard format. With a busy work life and a family, I'm pretty much restricted to playing only formats I can access digitally through Arena, which means Limited and Standard. Excited at the prospect of actually getting to play Standard, I doubled my testing efforts. Prior to The Brothers' War release I found myself consistently losing to one card:

 

Invoke Despair card from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty

 

After The Brothers' War released, it became apparent pretty quickly the format was based around decks running Invoke Despair or Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, and sometimes both together. Other decks simply weren't up to snuff with the power of those two cards, and both have the nasty habit of drawing their controllers into additional copies of themselves. I was frustrated getting burned out by a removal spell so by the time I was facing my first opponent using Gix I was already pondering ways I could utilize the new cards to conquer Standard.

 

My first match against the Yawgmothian Praetor was eye-opening. They dropped aggressive creatures because somehow black has the best creatures in Standard, then whatever defense you put up they'd simply plop Gix down, refill their hand, and keep applying pressure. Inevitably they'd start tossing Invokes your way, and even when you had managed to stabilize against the creature onslaught your life total was still in jeopardy. In an instant I was sitting back on the floor of my high school buddy Jake's living room, trying to swim against the tide of "Swamp, Dark Ritual, Necropotence, go." Building around Gix to power into Invoke Despair consumed me; you even have a pump knight in Misery's Shadow!

 

I knew I wanted to be monoblack from the get go to power Corrupt. The new addition to Standard courtesy of BRO is pricey at six mana, but it gives you an Invoke advantage by allowing you to "burn harder" than other Invoke decks, and also offset the life lost to your opponents' copies of the card. Some players combine red and black to use Fable of the Mirror-Breaker to more frequently draw copies of Invoke, but in a mirror match on the draw you put yourself in a position to get overrun by your opponent's tempo from going first. They'll start casting Invokes before you do, and thus burn you out before you can. Cutting red to play Corrupt instead means that while you draw fewer cards than you would from Fable, you have twice the "Invokes" to dome your opponent with and your 5th-8th copies cushion your life total to "break serve" from your opponent's Invokes. Gix helps offset the "card loss" from the draw on phase 2 of the Saga, and you're off to the races out-competing opposing Invokes.

 

In order to play five-drops like Invoke and six-drops like Corrupt, you want to never miss a land drop. That meant my lists started with any black card that could draw cards, plus Reckoner Bankbuster. Those early builds were okay, but too often I found myself not in a position to maximize Gix when first casting him, and he's got a "Go for the Throat" target on his head whenever he's on the battlefield.

 

Eventually I shifted from these pseudo-control strategies and went all-in on the aggressive strategy. Out went cards like Bankbuster, in went purely aggressive creatures like Cult Conscript. My win percentages started ticking up, pushing me to Top 1500 in ranked play right as the season was ending.

 

Here's the list I took to the Bellingham RCQ:

Deck

4 Go for the Throat (BRO) 102

24 Swamp (SLD) 65

4 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (DMU) 107

4 Corrupt (BRO) 88

4 Evolved Sleeper (DMU) 93

4 Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor (BRO) 95

4 Cult Conscript (DMU) 88

4 Misery's Shadow (BRO) 107

4 Tenacious Underdog (SNC) 97

4 Invoke Despair (NEO) 101

 

Sideboard

3 Bloodline Culling (MID) 89

4 Ashnod's Harvester (BRO) 117

4 Duress

3 Karn's Sylex (DMU) 234

1 Bloodline Culling (MID) 89

 

The RCQ

The pro scene ain't what it used to be, but that's not a bad thing. Magic is too big for the singular PTQs from my day, and local game stores being able to onboard players into high level competitive play is awesome. Unfortunately, Standard is a moderately unpopular IRL format at the moment (more on that here), so I only had one option to play for San Diego using it. I drove the two hours to Bellingham to square off against 11 other players, with a cut to Top 4; the 100+ person PTQs after a drive to Omaha, Nebraska this wasn't.

 

Round 1 Donato Fatigate

My opponent was playing a self-described "homebrew" they had thrown together featuring red/white cards. It was a controlling deck, but got off to a slow start in game one and I had a pretty brutal aggressive start that made short work. I boarded in Duress, got New Necro, aka Gix, going in Game 2, drew five extra cards, and that was enough to keep the pressure on to take the game home.

 

1-0

 

***SIDEBAR***

I spent a decade at Wizards championing the creation of a Magic Companion app for in-store play to make tournament logistics better. This RCQ was the first time I got to use it live for an in-store tournament as a non-employee and it was a dream come true. There's something thrilling about seeing so much sweat, blood, and tears turn into a real-world experience. Being notified in my car between rounds that my pairings were up, and knowing when to draw was *chef's kiss.*

***END SIDEBAR***

 

Round 2 Mario Jacobson

The second round was a UW Soldiers matchup, which can be dangerous because they can go wider than you can and you don't have a ton of removal until the sideboard. Mario was a little mana light in the first game and I had Go for the Throat right when I needed it. The second game was dicier. You board out aggressive creatures like Tenacious Underdog and Cult Conscript for more removal and take a control deck positioning. Despite that, we found ourselves racing as Mario was stuck on two lands for much of the game. It was actually close, but Invoke Despair finished things off.

2-0

 

Round 3 Nam Dang

Nam came down from Vancouver, a shorter international commute even with the border than my own drive from near Seattle. The matchup was Grixis Control, which is tight, and Nam was a pretty competent player. I snuck the first game out by drawing more actual Invoke Despairs. I boarded in Duress for the second game, but whiffed two or three times with it and lost a squeaker with Nam at 2 life. In the third game I went back to the sideboard and opted to swap Duress and Corrupt out to bring in more creatures: the Cult Conscripts I had cut for the second game to get handkill in, plus Ashnod's Harvester. The 3/1 has higher immunity to removal dodging Go for the Throat and coming back for one final swing after Hero's Downfall or whatever, plus exiling creatures from the graveyard makes the Grixis player's Corpse Harvesters bad. That strategy paid off, combined with some manaflood from Nam, and I outflanked him aggressively in the third game to seal the deal.

3-0

 

Thanks to the aforementioned Companion app providing Standings information after the round, the math was clear: a double draw meant I was a lock for Top 4. I panicked a little bit trying to do the math before the round because it's been ages since I had to figure out draws with a Top 4 cut instead of a Top 8, but then my homies Grant and Ben, who were cheering me on in our Discord chat, reminded me I built that feature into Companion and could just check there.

 

Round 4 Intentional Draw

Round 5 Intentional Draw

 

Semifinals Pete Irving

I entered the single elimination in 2nd place meaning I got to play in the semifinals. Pete was playing a rogue blue-black deck that tried to maximize Ledger Shredder, Razorlash Transmogrant, and All-Seeing Arbiter, of all things. Turns out that's a pretty rough matchup. I felt pretty behind the whole match getting my opponent down to 11 but only getting Gix off once. Meanwhile I kept getting my life chipped away by a Transmogrant and slowed down by Arbiters. I had the Go for the Throats exactly when I needed them to stop the 5/4 from killing me but in the end I ran out of steam. I sideboarded in Bloodline Culling but the second game was never close as he got a tempo start and used Ertai to keep my board clear while beating down with the Razorlash.

 

3-1-2

 

A lot of Magic has changed in the 15 years since I could last compete professionally, but the feeling of winning a brand-new set of steak knives stings exactly the same now as it did then.

 

Making Mythic

Lessons learned for me: Duress kind of sucks in the current format. It was terrible against Grixis, and would have been better as another creature which is the strategy I've adopted for beating those control decks. After returning home I switched the decklist up to this version to complete Mythic in December:

 

Picture of the Monoblack decklist Bill used to make Mythic in December 2022 on Magic Arena

Deck

4 Go for the Throat (BRO) 102

24 Swamp (SLD) 65

4 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (DMU) 107

4 Corrupt (BRO) 88

4 Evolved Sleeper (DMU) 93

4 Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor (BRO) 95

4 Cult Conscript (DMU) 88

4 Misery's Shadow (BRO) 107

4 Tenacious Underdog (SNC) 97

4 Invoke Despair (NEO) 101

 

Sideboard

3 Bloodline Culling (MID) 89

4 Ashnod's Harvester (BRO) 117

4 Phyrexian Fleshgorger (BRO) 121

3 Karn's Sylex (DMU) 234

1 Bloodline Culling (MID) 89

 

The Phyrexian Fleshgorger in the sideboard is for the creature deck matchups. Typically in those battles I switch from a beatdown line to a more controlling line and Fleshgorger is much better at breaking what they're doing to buy you the time to set up big spells. A few specific card comments:

 

  • Bloodline Culling is an MVP in the sideboard. Go for the Throat is the best targeted removal spell in black, but Bloodline Culling is criminally underrated. It does work against Wedding Invitation and Oni Anvil decks, as well as easily dispatching Sheoldreds and Sanctuary Warden.
  • Sheoldred is better in this deck than many versions because you have so many prime targets for Go for the Throat. Do they kill Gix? Misery's Shadow? Evolved Sleeper? Any of those cards will kill an opponent, two of them will put you miles ahead in the game, but taking action means leaving yourself exposed to the ole' 4/5. Don't forget to protect it against red decks by not blocking unless you have to so they can't combine burn spells to knock Sheoldred out. No one should play aggro red right now, but if they are Sheoldred living is the #1 predictor of you winning the game.
  • Ashnod's Harvester is a nod to the monoblue "instants in graveyard" deck. Graveyard Trespasser does a worse job of fitting the curve, but is an overall more powerful card. I prefer Harvester because it has a bigger role to play in more matchups, like Grixis. In the Semifinals of the RCQ, however, the Trespasser would have been better against the UB "draw 2" deck.

 

Key Plays

  • If your opponent is boarding in The Brothers' War, consider not exposing multiple creatures to getting blown up by it. It's okay to play them one at a time and keep applying pressure.
  • Against control decks with counters I usually swap Corrupt out for Ashnod's Harvester as an additional aggressive threat that comes back from the graveyard.
  • Against aggressive creature decks I usually swap Cult Conscript, Tenacious Underdog, and some of the least relevant remaining creatures (usually Misery's Shadow) for Bloodline Culling, Fleshgorger, and Karn's Sylex.
  • Most of the time you are the beatdown because you've got the reach of Invoke and Corrupt, but always ask yourself to be certain.
  • Your most powerful opener is: 1-drop creature, 2-drop creature, Gix. Don't be afraid to trade resources with all-in attacks to get triggers off of Gix. You will win that race long-term, and like I said Gix getting a target on his head clears the way for Sheoldred to come through a turn later.

 

The deck is a blast to play, and so far after making Mythic in a week I've ranked as high as top 150. I'm bummed I won't have more chances to play Standard in order to qualify for San Diego, but Pair 'o Dice in Bellingham ran a fun event and it was an absolute blast shaking the dust off. My opponents were also a lot of fun to play against, and the community at the shop was pretty welcoming. See you in January with another deck to make Mythic!

 

Picture proving Bill got Mythic in Constructed in December of 2022 on Magic Arena
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