This week I’m simply going to follow up to my previous article with an update to Stand and Replenish.
I got to bring this out the night that my last article went live and it really was a blast. One of my match wins was with this board state. Although the picture is a bit blurry, this is me punching through the last eight points of damage on my opponent with a [casthaven]Leyline of Sanctity[/casthaven], [casthaven]Compulsion[/casthaven] and [casthaven]Wonder[/casthaven].
There were certainly a few changes I felt needed to be made, first I present you with the updated list and then I’ll go into why I made these changes.
Stand and Replenish
| Lands (24) 1 Faerie Conclave 4 Flooded Strand 4 Island 1 Karakas 2 Mishra’s Factory 2 Plains 3 Polluted Delta 4 Tundra 3 Wasteland Creatures (3) 3 Snapcaster Mage Spells (34) 4 Brainstorm 2 Compulsion 2 Counterspell 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Elixir of Immortality 4 Force of Will 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 2 Moat 1 Porphyry Nodes 2 Replenish 2 Spell Pierce 1 Spell Snare 4 Standstill 1 Starfield of Nyx 4 Swords to Plowshares | Sideboard (15) 1 Aura of Silence 1 Council’s Judgment 2 Flusterstorm 3 Leyline of Sanctity 1 Porphyry Nodes 2 Seal of Cleansing 2 Supreme Verdict 3 Surgical Extraction |
Maindeck
I dropped [casthaven]Path to Exile[/casthaven] because I realized [casthaven]Porphyry nodes[/casthaven] is also one mana and can act like a wrath under [casthaven]Standstill[/casthaven]. Plus it pairs with [casthaven]Replenish[/casthaven] really well when I need the effect to come back again and again. Another noteworthy benefit is that Nodes can also destroy [casthaven]True-Name Nemesis[/casthaven].
[casthaven]Celestial Colonnade[/casthaven] became [casthaven]Faerie Conclave[/casthaven] due to the cheaper activation cost. If we’re trying to [casthaven]Replenish[/casthaven] or [casthaven]Snapcaster Mage[/casthaven] into [casthaven]Replenish[/casthaven] we don’t want to be paying five mana to animate a creature land. Though having the additional white source may still be correct, I wasn’t upset with the switch as I was often using all my mana.
I removed [casthaven]Entreat the Angels[/casthaven] since it can be very awkward when lining things up within an active [casthaven]Standstill[/casthaven]. Granted the limited access to white has something to do with this, but I felt that the deck would be better focused more around blue and found it difficult managing miracles without [casthaven]Sensei’s Divining Top[/casthaven].
[casthaven]Wonder[/casthaven] comes out for the fact that it just doesn’t really do anything important. It’s a card that I ran when I wrote about Psychatog and that was really just for nostalgia. Though it works with a [casthaven]Moat[/casthaven] in play, it’s a bit too cute to honestly include.
I will also say that out of every single inclusion to the deck that the card I was most impressed with was [casthaven]Compulsion[/casthaven]. [casthaven]Compulsion[/casthaven] made it extremely easy for me to control the contents of my hand while helping me hit my land drops under [casthaven]Standstill[/casthaven].
Sideboard
I removed the pair of [casthaven]Mana Tithe[/casthaven]. Trying to catch an opponent off guard holding up a [casthaven]Plains[/casthaven] is just bad. While I would have loved the chance to do so, it never presented itself. While I did play against a few decks with discard and [casthaven]Gitaxian Probe[/casthaven] which didn’t help the chances of having a “gotcha” moment, it just isn’t as good as something like [casthaven]Flusterstorm[/casthaven], [casthaven]Spell Pierce[/casthaven], or [casthaven]Spell Snare[/casthaven].
I added an additional [casthaven]Seal of Cleansing[/casthaven] and [casthaven]Supreme Verdict[/casthaven] in place of Tithe. Seal proved to be a solid earlier answer to artifacts and enchantments and Verdict gives me an additional sweeper effect that doesn’t care about mana cost, [casthaven]Pithing Needle[/casthaven] or countermagic.
I will likely follow up on this deck again after a few weeks of testing without anything cute, nostalgic or spicy.
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 or in email at brewmesomespice@gmail.com.
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