GP Seattle was a weekend of great experiences as well as the opportunity to meet so many fantastic people. In addition to getting to play against top 8 player Andrew Shain as I discussed last week, I had an opportunity to face Andy Wilson in an off-camera feature match in round 12. He was another who went undefeated day one and was a fantastic opponent. Even when we both made dire misplays, we still did our best to be well sporting. In the end, he managed to slither a win with his Sultai Constrictor deck. While he didn’t reach the top 16, he later told me on Twitter that he was rocking the same list as the one Jon Munck took to 10th place. Today we’ll be looking to climb to the top by upgrading the fantastic Counter Surge Challenger Deck to this same list. Let’s have a look at it:
Sultai Constrictor (GP Seattle 10th Place by Jon Munck)
You may remember that during last week’s article I commented on how upgrading the Vehicle Rush deck required picking up a large number of staples, making it one of the format’s most expensive decks. For better and for worse, Sultai Constrictor is also a similarly priced deck with heaps of staple cards showing up in the 75. There’s a lot to change from the preconstructed list (found here), but we’re here to do it as cost-efficiently as possible.
Counter Surge Precon Upgrade #1
| Creatures (24) 4 Bristling Hydra 4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner 2 Gonti, Lord of Luxury 3 Rishkar, Peema Renegade 4 Servant of the Conduit 2 Verdurous Gearhulk 1 Walking Ballista 4 Winding Constrictor Spells (12) 1 Doomfall 4 Blossoming Defense 2 Fatal Push 2 Hour of Glory 3 Hadana's Climb | Lands (24) 4 Aether Hub 4 Blooming Marsh 2 Botanical Sanctum 2 Fetid Pools 5 Forest 2 Hashep Oasis 1 Ifnir Deadlands 4 Swamp Sideboard (15) 1 Fatal Push 2 Cartouche of Ambition 3 Duress 2 Negate 2 Die Young 1 Deathgorge Scavenger 1 Lifecrafter's Bestiary 1 Supreme Will 2 Thrashing Brontodon |
Like last week we’re making some pretty darn heavy duty changes right out of the gate. The good thing is the deck largely functions well on its own, but we need to shift the core a bit more. For one, some of the cards in the original list just aren’t all that effective. Dreamstealer feels particularly questionable overall, Walk the Plank isn’t anywhere near as effective as some of the other options at our disposal, and Scrapheap Scrounger feels like a card that, while good, is a remnant of the old Delirium-based deck. Longtusk Cub is a great card and certainly makes appearances in Constrictor-based lists to this day, but Servant of the Conduit is much better for both ramping and fixing our mana.
Speaking of mana fixing, boy does that mana base need some work. Foul Orchard and Aether Hub just simply won’t cut it. While Hub is fantastic in this kind of list and Orchard is if nothing else serviceable, we need something better. As such we’ll start picking up the necessary duals to make the upgrade not just to better lands, but lands that give us access to blue mana. This allows for us to activate a flipped Hadana’s Climb as well as a few of our new sideboard cards—another area that, like the other precons, definitely needed a bit of improving right out of the box. One great thing is that the only new cards generally making an appearance in the deck in the new post-Dominaria metagame are the enemy checklands, which make fantastic budget options compared to the fast lands, although the fast lands are arguably better a lot of the time and see more multi-format play.
Counter Surge Precon Upgrade #2
With the second upgrade run we move to pick up some of the more expensive staples in one simple run. Here we add the remaining Walking Ballistas and the Vraska’s Contempts. We also round out the last of the playsets of our dual lands here to ensure that we have the best possible mana base. This might not seem like too much, but these cards get quite pricey. The Ballistas will set you back at least $50 easily and a playset of Contempts will be a pretty comparable amount. You need them, though. The cards are just that good.
Ballista is so good in this deck compared to the others I almost wanted to try working it into the first upgrade, but felt improving the overall build first to be a bit more important. Whereas in the other lists it provides a great multi-utility creature, here it plays so well with Winding Constrictor, Hadana’s Climb, Rishkar, and Verdurous Gearhulk that it almost achieves an over-the-top level of amazing. Getting mega-pumped by everything and wiping out your opponent’s board (or in some cases their life total) is back-breaking. Meanwhile Vraska’s Contempt gives you so much reach. Hour of Glory is an acceptable alternative while you’re starting with the deck, but being able to hit planeswalkers as well is no joke. Neither is the lifegain, as the card hits many key cards in certain aggro builds.
Last we pick up a couple Jadelight Rangers as well as a lone Scarab God for our sideboard. Ranger offers our deck some great options and flips Hadana’s Climb at a ridiculously effective rate. The Scarab God gives us some fantastic ways to keep a full board of creatures to crush our opponent. That said, they’re not so essential that you can live without them up until this point, yet what they do is so good you still want both. Just ask Andy, who used a pretty beefed-up Ranger to crush me for the win in our feature match. Hopefully you too make that climb all the way to the top of your next major Standard event with this or one of the other upgraded lists.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this upgrade series and that it gives you plenty of ways to take one of Wizards’ best products ever and bring it up to something that will let you take your game to the next level. Haven’t gotten your deck yet? No problem! Hipsters has your back, thanks to Card Kingdom, with this sweet contest on Gleam. There’s plenty of ways to enter, but act quickly because tonight we’re drawing the four winners during my Twitch stream as I play some of these lists in their fully upgraded forms. I’ll be live around 6pm EST and will draw winners within a few hours. I hope to see you all there. Keep on challenging yourselves to be the best player you possibly can!
Kendra has been playing Magic since Urza block and never looked back. Playing a variety of formats and being known for championing Pauper in particular, the Elf Queen can be found hanging out on Twitter as well as streaming on Twitch, always seeking to better the community at large.