For those that have been following me for a while, you might remember this little unlucky number that I was working with. Lucky Thirteen is here to try and make a comeback since I have become sick of sitting back and casting blue spells in response to E V E R Y T H I N G my opponent does. Anyone following me will know that I tend towards non-blue jank and odd interactions. Nearly a year has passed since its inception and I have come back with a much more stable and honest deck list for Lucky Thirteen, as seen below:
Lucky Thirteen
| Lands (23) 2 Badlands 3 Bayou 4 Bloodstained Mire 1 Forest 3 Grove of the Burnwillows 1 Swamp 2 Taiga 4 Verdant Catacombs 3 Wasteland Creatures (13) 4 Dark Confidant 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Tarmogoyf 1 Tree of Perdition Spells (24) 4 Abrupt Decay 2 Fatal Push 2 Life from the Loam 4 Liliana of the Veil 3 Punishing Fire 2 Sensei’s Divining Top 4 Thoughtseize 3 Triskaidekaphobia | Sideboard (15) 3 Choke 2 Krosan Grip 1 Pernicious Deed 2 Slaughter Games 3 Surgical Extraction 2 Sylvan Library 2 Toxic Deluge |
This list is much closer to a Jund style shell with [casthaven]Tarmogoyf[/casthaven], [casthaven]Liliana of the Veil[/casthaven] (in the main) and many less combo centric cards like [casthaven]Berserk[/casthaven] and [casthaven]Invigorate[/casthaven]. [casthaven]Death’s Shadow[/casthaven] was incredible many games when I originally built the deck list, but there is always that pesky downside of [casthaven]Swords to Plowshares[/casthaven] conveniently putting me to thirteen life, naturally a horrible nombo with [casthaven]Triskadekaphobia[/casthaven]. So this week I have a very simple update article as I will be running this deck the night that this article releases.
Creatures
We have dropped the [casthaven]Death’s Shadow[/casthaven] for [casthaven]Tarmogoyf[/casthaven] which has been a great upgrade giving us a very efficient and aggressive threat that doesn’t auto-kill us with a single [casthaven]Swords to Plowshares[/casthaven]. I also found that sometimes we just need to ditch the combo and try to be as effective of a Jund deck as we can be and Goyf fills that aggressive role perfectly.
[casthaven]Tree of Perdition[/casthaven] is the added slot for a creature. It won’t be often, but there are times when we need to be able to set our opponent’s life total to thirteen to either kill them quickly with our aggressive cards, or just win with a [casthaven]Triskadekaphobia[/casthaven] in play. Naturally as a thirteen toughness creature, it plays defense REALLY well.
Removal
[casthaven]Fatal Push[/casthaven] is the new card here and honestly I haven’t been very impressed with it in BUGstill so I am hoping that running it in this non blue control deck goes much better.
Is a kick really a push?
I have removed the combo pieces of [casthaven]Invigorate[/casthaven] and [casthaven]Berserk[/casthaven] that I was using to try and get a cheeky kill with [casthaven]Death’s Shadow[/casthaven] when I had to be faster than a four mana enchantment and two turns.
I have dropped [casthaven]Death’s Shadow[/casthaven] for the same reason as [casthaven]Invigorate[/casthaven] and [casthaven]Berserk[/casthaven]—I am trying to shift more towards control than combo. I will add that not requiring a lower life total also rewards us with a safer and more consistent mana base.
Sideboard
The sideboard has become very heavy in solid anti-fair cards featuring gems like [casthaven]Sylvan Library[/casthaven], [casthaven]Slaughter Games[/casthaven] and [casthaven]Choke[/casthaven]/[casthaven]Krosan Grip[/casthaven] against Miracles and Sneak and Show. We have [casthaven]Surgical Extraction[/casthaven] to fight combo decks like BR Reanimator and while it is not ideal against Dredge it can buy us turns to get our [casthaven]Deathrite Shaman[/casthaven]s online against Erin Cam—I mean Dredge, that is what I meant.
Initial Thoughts
I piloted this deck Friday night and although I didn’t do very well I also had some rough draws. [casthaven]Invigorate[/casthaven] was still in the deck and that was definitely incorrect and I either didn’t see lands against Elves! for several turns, or I drew really poorly against BUG Leovold having several lands drawn in a row. Tonight I will be running it back and I will update on Twitter as the rounds progress through the night. I am hoping that adding [casthaven]Fatal Push[/casthaven] gives the deck a bit more ability to control the pace of the game so I can get myself ahead to either Jund my opponent out, or help my opponent develop [casthaven]Triskaidekaphobia[/casthaven].
Happy brewing to each and every one of you. If anyone has an idea for a brew that they would like to see, I will gladly take requests and challenges on twitter. 🙂
Aaron Gazzaniga works part time at a game store and in his off time has been an avid magic player/brewer since 2003. Having begun in Odyssey Standard Block and always favoring control and prison style decks, we come to this moment in time where Aaron finally gets to talk about and share his ideas. If you want to contact Aaron tweet @aarongazzaniga