Empty My Brain

I think it’s about time I wracked my Type 2 brain again.

Since Kamigawa rotated out, I’ve been trying to figure out a Standard deck to play on a budget. My last venture into Standard, if you’ll recall, was UR Arcane-Splice Ire of Kaminari. It was unexpected, to say the least, and it cost me approximately $3 to build out of the Five-Cent box at the Hero Zone. All of its cards except for the Islands and Mountains are now gone, and close to unplayable in all formats.

So I’m looking for something similar in Time Spiral and Coldsnap, since they’ll rotate together, and I think I may have found something…

Empty the Warrens has gotten a lot of attention recently in Vintage because it “wrecks Stax.” Well, I don’t know about that. I figure if your casting a four-cost sorcery that relies on previously cast spells to be good, Stax wasn’t doing its job anyway and you should have used Rebuild and won the game. It’s got game and will see play, but I seriously doubt that Empty the Warrens is the second coming of Tendrils of Agony. Not in Vintage anyway.

In Standard, Warrens could be an interesting choice. Most red-based storm decks are going for a Dragonstorm and a near-Instant win using Bogardan Hellkite. I won’t need to make that much mana, so first turn Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Empty the Warrens for six goblin tokens is a pretty solid opening gambit, I’d say. That’s a four turn win, and I’ll probably come up with some other offence in that time, right? I hope?

I’m thinking something like this:

4x Empty the Warrens
4x Grapeshot
4x Chromatic Star
4x Mishra’s Bauble
4x Rite of Flame
4x Seething Song
4x Mogg War Marshal
4x Sudden Shock
4x Shock
3x Blood Moon
3x The Rack
18x Mountains

That seems solid and not stupid at all.

I mean, there’s nothing quite like burning and goblining your way to the top, right?

Chromatic Star and Mishra’s Bauble are pretty much in there for emergency digging and storm count. Likewise Rite of Flame and Seething Song. I mean, there’s actually a decent chance that I could “combo out” on turn two for a significant number of goblins. Nothing in the deck costs more than three, and one of those things that costs three is just in there to go from three to five mana in a hurry.

Mishra’s Bauble is actually pretty cool. Like it’s Urzan brother, if you get to your upkeep, it’s suddenly like you’re only using 56 cards in your deck, which, last time I checked, is illegal. Plus, anything that costs zero has to be examined for possible brokenness.

(Note that Lotus Bloom has no mana cost. It does not have to be examined for brokenness because it’s pretty bad. You could Weld it in Vintage, but why not just get Gilded Lotus instead?)

Mogg War Marshal is in there because he’s an efficient blocker and a pretty good attacker too. I like the mechanic a lot, especially once you realize that you always pay the upkeep to force your opponent to deal with three goblins instead of two.

Blood Moon I consider my super-secret tech. Who plays all basic Mountains? I play all basic mountains! Who plays with a bunch of new dual lands, bounce lands, and Flagstones of Trokair? Kids with trust funds and no concept of how money works in the real world. Also, suddenly, losers who have only red mana to spend.

Plus, the 9th Edition Blood Moons look sweet and this is an excuse for me to buy some.

Plus, it might behoove me later to find room for a playset of Ghost Quarters and perhaps Stone Rains. Everyone loves land destruction in Standard, right?

The Rack is an, um, interesting choice. I included it pretty much because I have a playset and I like it. Plus, every once in a while, someone plays extremely stupidly to avoid damage from it. It’s no Black Vise, I’ll grant you, but a lot of people have trouble spelling “Vise,” and when my deck takes off I don’t want people corrupting it by using “Vices” instead. Also, I wouldn’t want my deck to be illegal. I’m sure eventually I’ll find something better for that slot, but right now, it’s cheap and awesome.

Chris Romeo developed this deck further on Star City Games on Wednesday this week, so most of the credit should actually go to him (you can read his article too!). I like his build, but it’s too much creature and not enough combo for me.

In all honesty, though I had been thinking about Empty the Warrens ever since it showed up in the discussion forums.

It’s a decent card, like I said, but I don’t see it being that good. Stax and Fish (the two major reasons people are running it) are already geared to preventing that sort of brokenness. I’ll change one of my Chains of Vapor into a second Echoing Truth in Fish. Okay. And in Stax I’ll run Pyroclasms in the board. Ooh.

I have been considering it, though, as a replacement for the maindeck Tendrils in Burning Belcher. It’s easy to storm with that deck to, say, five, because then you run out of spells in your opening hand. Land Grant, Mox, Ritual, Chromatic Star, Tendrils is really lackluster though because, Woohoo, 10 damage! It’s a lot cooler when it’s Land, Mox, Mox, Tinderwall, Empty the Warrens, because Yaaahhh! 10 goblins!

I’d still have the Tendrils in the Sideboard, of course, because sometimes it does actually go full-bore combo and it’s easy enough to just Burning Wish for the win condition.

We’ll see how it goes. Personally, I like it. If the creature thing continues to work out, I might put Dark Confidants into the maindeck as well. That guy is really, really good. Even when he finds you a Force of Will or a Memory Jar. He’s the one reason I would keep Living Wish in the deck, and he’s almost worth it. I just really like Burning Wish because it’s red.

Anyway, it’s something to do, attack with a lot of goblins. Anything more than a storm of two and then Empty the Warrens is a decent win condition, especially in conjunction with you disrupting your opponent. It’s just unfortunate it doesn’t win on its own.

So in the future, I look forward to Blood Mooning your Urzatron, or whatever non-basic lands are in vogue right now.

Yaaahhh! 20 goblins!