Deck of the Week: W/U Worship Casual Extended

Here is the Deck of the Week for Episode 152 of The Magic Sock. Phillip sent in this deck and needs help! Send feedback to his deck to TheMagicSock[at]gmail.com or leave a comment here.

W/U Worship (casual extended)

3 Mistmeadow Witch
3 Sage of Fables
3 Managara of Crondor
3 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Mulldrifter
3 Body Double
3 Reveillark
    26 Critters

4 Wayfarer's Bauble
3 Worship
3 Wrath of God
    10 Non-Critters

9 Island
6 Plains
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Mistveil Plains
2 Riptide Labratory
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
    24 Lands

Sideboard:
1 Wrath of God
4 Ethersword Canonist
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Remove Soul
2 Negate

Phillips comments on his deck:

This deck started with the idea of simply trying to keep a creature in play.
In the MTGO casual room, it's very frustrating to see every creature you
play get killed before a single turn can pass.  So as a base, I started with
the Reveillark / Body Double combo.

The idea is to drop early creatures with abilities - block - and let them
die.  Hopefully, when Reveillark comes out later, I can get them back.  This
works especially well with land fetching creatures (like the Solemn
Simulacrum or Sakura-Tribe Elder when I experimenting with adding green to
the deck).  Also note that in this deck, there is no reason to wait to pay
full cost on a Mulldrifter - it's often better as a potential targer for
Reveillark when I play it.

Since I had a very hard creature to kill when I have the combo going, I
thought about including Worship.  Most games in MTGO casual are 1 game
only - no matches.  A large number of decks have nothing in them to deal
with an enchantment like Worship - their best hope is to make sure I have no
creatures in play.  Dropping worship on the mono-red deck.. or even a
zoo/aggro deck is often an auto-win.

The next thought was protecting the worship.  Glen Eldendra Archmage came in
at this point as a way to cover 3 bases - protection from spells that target
Worship, a creature that has to be killed twice -and it's Reveillarkable.
Thankfully, I got them cheap when they were (oddly) less then $1 each - they
are now around $10 online.

To keep the Archmage around, I tried different combos that work with
persist - but the best by far is the combination with Sage of Fables.
(Remember, rule 402.5 says that the -1/-1 that goes with persist is
cancelled by the +1/+1 counter from the Sage of Fables).  This combo gives
me umlimited counters of non-creature spells, and a blocker that always
comes back.

To deal with opposing threats I started with Wrath of God - the staple of a
control deck.  Since my creatures are so resistant to Wrath, it was easy to
include it.  The part that throws me the most - I insist that my decks have
a way to deal with Artifacts and Enchantments.

I started with the Oblivion Ring / Vedalkin Mastermind combo (bounce
Oblivion Ring while the "remove from play" is on the stack and the target is
removed from game permanently), but recently switched over to the
combination of Mangara of Crondor and Mistmeadow Witch.  The combination is
similar - while Mangara's ability is on the stack, remove him from the game
with the Mistmeadow Witch.  Mangara's remove self from game is NOT part of
the cost, so he'll be back to do it again next turn.

The nice part about this combo is that both parts can come back via
Reveillark.  Both creatures are also Wizards, so get the Sage of Fables
bonus.  Both can also be saved with the Riptide Labratory.  Heck, you can
use Mangara with the Riptide Labratory in the same way as the Mistmeadow
Witch.  The bad end - Mangara needs a turn to do anything, so if the card I
need to get rid of is a Jitte, the Oblivion Ring would have been much
better.

BTW, the Witch also combos well with Reveillark, Solemn Simulcrum,
Mulldrifer - removing the counter from the Archmage - or just removing an
attacking creature for a turn.

The problems I've had so far - anything that messes with the graveyard
scares me.  If I played more matches, I'd certainly worry about the many
different ways to deal with graveyard effects from opponent's sideboards.
I'm not sure how I can defend againt them all.  Creatures with the ability
to kill an enchantment can also stop me (like Indrik Stomphowler, Harmonic
Sliver, etc).  I also got milled to death a couple of times, so I put in the
Mistmeadow Plains as a "why not" card.  My last problem I hit often is that
the deck can be slow, especially if I don't draw a Wayfarer's Bauble in my
initial grip.  Sakura-Tribe Elder is a perfect fit for the deck, but doesn't
seem worth the 3rd color by itself.  Am I missing something obvious to help
speed the deck up?

Other inclusions I've thought of but haven't done - Venser, Shaper Savant is
a Reveillark-able Wizard, as is Sower of Temptation.  Mirror Entity is a
possible direction if I wanted to go more combo.  However, I don't want to
make this deck too non-casual.  As it is, I sometimes get complaints with
either the Sage of Fables/Glen Archmage combo.  I sometimes get complaints
about Wrath, Mulldrifter, Reveillark and playing a net-deck.  I am very
interested in opinions if this deck is ok or possibly too much for a casual
game.

BTW - I got yelled at many times for the Oblivion Ring / Vedalkin Mastermind
combo as "cheesy" - but oddly I usually get complimented for the Mangara /
Mistmeadow Witch combo.... someone will have to explain that one to me :)  I
guess it's "Play what you want, and ignore the complaints" sometimes.

I would also like some thoughts on the sideboard - I haven't tried the one I
listed at all, it's more off the top of my head.  The Canonist is for combo
decks.  Remove Soul for decks with lots of come into play creatures.  The
Oblivion Rings are filler for lack of better ideas - I don't have much
experience with matches at all.

Comments

[Jake]

right now in this stage the deck would lose almost every single game against extended tourney decks. if you want to make it better for tourneys then i recommend adding some counter spells such as Cryptics, mana leaks, remands... the archmage is a good idea as they are hard to play around and work well with riptide laboratory.

[jim bear]

competative but fun revilark
4 figure of destiny
4 spell snare
4 negate
4 mull drifter
1 mirror entity
4 cryptic command
1 venser shaper savant
4 gifts ungiven
3 wrath of god
2 rift wing cloud skate
1 body double
4 revilark

side board
1 wrath of god
4 kataki wars wage
4 ethersworn cannonist
3 tormods crypt
2 umezawes jitte
1 meloku the clouded mirror

this will give your deck a lot of options and make a lot of oponents have to think with figure of destiny... hope this helps

[jim bear]

in hind sight to better have your combo go off i might go with minus 1 gifts ungiven plus 1 mirror entity

[Jake]

I have only problem with your deck and that is with the revilark body double combo. you only have one copy of body double and if you search it with gifts then th opponent can choose to put in the graveyard and you have no way of getting it back.
anyway good deck that should be a good tourney base to build around

[jim bear]

body double gets brought back into play with revilark