#caw-go

Playing some #mtg in DC this weekend? Playing UB Control in the new meta? Maybe you're comfortable with that deck. You don't have Gideons or Mystics. Whatever reason, you're going to be that guy. Here's my advice: be the one with the

Here's Why

I was going to call this section "What, you say?" again, but the whole move zig thing probably should be left for dead.

What is the #1 contender going in to this weekend? Caw-Go. The one with the Swords. You know, that one. Everyone will be playing that deck or have a plan for that deck. It dominated Paris and it seems like a strict upgrade over the prior version which, for the record, was no slouch. Before I got tired of bumming Gideons, I went on a massive cash-winning hot streak with that deck. It could win any match and had a lot of sideboard space.

People looking to metagame against what is possibly going to be a Faeries or Jund-like metagame loaded with Caw-Go^ may be looking to the good old Vengevine. Vengevine is pretty good at demanding blocks, and sometimes you'll get him bin'd for free thanks to Sword of Feast and Famine. He goes well with the type of decks that can play Viridian Zealot and/or Acidic Slime around Spell Pierce for value, doesn't mind Day of Judgment much and has always been reasonably good at off'ing Jace.

So I expect to see him show up. Which is why you want to be the one with the Trinket Mage. Because that means you're also the one with

and

and to a lesser extent, the rolling life gain anti-aggro combination of Speedbump Mage and Elixir of Reset Goblin Guide Advantage. Elixir also means that you can afford to use your Go for the Throat and Doom Blade plays early on Vengevines and still count on them later in the game for bigger threats. Plus, you have Black Sun's Zenith too, which hangs around for later in a convenient fashion. What's more, in a pinch you can always speedbump a Mystic with a Trinket Mage and then optionally pitch a tutored Chalice that you don't need to play to offset the Sword advantage for a few turns while you try to power out a Wurmcoil Engine or Precursor Golem or whatever your heart desires.

I'm Not Saying

This is a better option than playing Caw-Go and just mixing in some Condemn/Journey action. I'm just saying that if you're going to be the one with UB, you might want to be the one with the Trinket Mages. Also, keep in mind that sometimes it's more fun to Inquisition on turn 1, leave the Mystic, take the Squadron Hawk, let the Mystic resolve, then Inquisition again to take the tutored Sword. Ow. Try it. It works well against Johnny Wagner!

Another successful #mtg Friday Night Magic event. I ran Caw-Go for a second time and this time I finished in 7th place with a 4-1 record.

With these guys:

Who doesn't like a ton of free, cheap, flying creatures that thin and shuffle your library?

The Report

Round 1 - Travis w/ BR Vampires - 1-2 - on the draw

Game 1 - I get off a good Day and he scoops with one card in hand against Jace and Gideon. I board in Celestial Purge, Tectonic Edge and another Day of Judgment. I think I made a mistake here by not swapping Journey out for Condemn, which I think is probably better in this match due to being instant speed.

Game 2 - He resolves Dark Tutelage, so I lose.

Game 3 - He resolves Dark Tutelage, so I lose. I played well and most of the games were pretty solid and even quite close, but I just didn't rip when I needed to rip.

Round 2 - Cody w/ Mono-White Allies - 2-0 - on the play

Game 1 - Yay, loser's bracket. He doesn't have a real deck and has basically no disruption. After he's forced to play Pacifism and Journey on two of my Squadron Hawks, I pretty much bowl him over with Colonnade.

Game 2 - He gets stuck on lands and I reinforce the situation with Jace. That guy needs to rotate out of standard so that it's no longer impossible to recover from missing an early land drop.

Round 3 - William w/ Valakut - 2-1 - on the draw

Game 1 - I Spell Pierce a Harrow and he gets to ramping but is too slow and dies to beats while he's trying to catch up. He had main deck Pyroclasm for my Hawks but they just kept. on. coming.

Game 2 - I keep a bad hand on the draw and regret it in approximately 2 seconds. He basically ramps unopposed and does the thing his deck does when you don't have any counter spells. I put up a good fight and draw it out a bit, but I get to where I can only win if I draw a few Edges in a row and that's just not likely.

Game 3 - He apparently keeps a loose hand full of good things, but two mountains. It takes him a few turns to get a green source and I stop his first few ramp spells and pretty much seal the game with Gideon and crew.

Round 4 - Kevin w/ Elves - 2-0 - on the play

Game 1 - He has to mulligan to 5, which is pretty much a death knell in this match. He eventually over-extends into a 3-for-1 Day of Judgment and I take over the game from there.

Game 2 - He keeps a somewhat loose hand, fearing a mulligan into a worse one (see prior game). I believe he misses a few land drops. We end up fighting over Vengevine and a Monument which I kill by a combined Journey and Jace bounce to leave him with no guys. He puts up a fight with Acidic Slime, but I keep throwing Hawks in there and pop a Jae ultimate with two Condemn in hand.

Round 5 - Emily w/ UW Control - 2-0 - on the draw

Game 1 - I actually new what Emily was playing, but managed to forget. I kept a workable, but not optimal hand, per the evaluation I made when she opened with a Colonnade. She started out of the gate going for Jace and I stopped two of them before landing mine, despite her getting ahead on land by edging my Colonnades. For the rest of the game, I protect Jace, she has Gideon and Colonnade and I have Hawks and some removal options. Eventually, she gets a Luminarch (she plays this with Clasp, which works quite well in our meta). I kill her Gideon with my own Gideon and then the Hawks end the game very slowly as I have too many cards from my Jace action for her to get past. The game takes 41 minutes. Yow. Love that mirror. After sideboarding, I remark that I hope we have a real second game and everyone gets to keep their hand.

Game 2 - I keep a hand of 2 Day of Judgment, 2 Negate and 3 lands. Days are not great in this situation, but she does play Baneslayers and I'm squarely focused on the Jace war, where Negate is excellent. Apparently I jinx Emily. She gets stuck on two land for a while, I Negate two Jaces, she finally gets to four land, but I have 3 Tectonic Edge, so I double hit her and she is left with two plains. I play Jace and the game is over in a few turns. Not the way I wanted things to go, but realistically we probably would have just gone to time and I would have won anyway. Unless she had a blowout hand.

Caaaaawwwwww Yeah

This deck continues to work well. I believe, had it not been for the round 1 loss and my round 1 opponent eventually going 3-2, I would have probably had 4th or 5th place. Bad breakers. But only dropping one match is pretty solid and it was definitely a winnable match. The little Hawks are quite versatile and the deck has a ton of tricks up its sleeves. I have yet to play the UB control match, though, which is one I hope to hit next time or maybe practice in advance.

Here's a summary #mtg report from FNM. I ran Caw-Go in a five round event and placed 1st. Heading in to the last round, I was 4-0 on matches and 8-0 on games. The other undefeated player was my teammate Ben, so we drew for 1st and 2nd and split the prize pool (Ben was 2nd, given that he had lost at least one game).

Here's the match sequence, and then I'll talk about the deck:

Round 1 - Bye

Srsly? Oh well, I got to shuffle my deck which had been constructed just before the event and then go see what people were playing. I noted that a vast majority of decks were ramp decks. Lame, but good for me. Maybe the pairings software noted that I hadn't played in a few months and decided I needed some prep time.

Round 2 - Kevin w/ RUG - 2-0

Game 1 - He does some Cobra stuff, we trade some counter spells. He fratricides my Jace eventually, but he ends up over-extending into a Day of Judgment and I believe dies to Hawks and Gideon. I believe I boarded in Flashfreeze and Day of Judgment, a Tectonic Edge and boarded out one Hawk as part of that, since Gideon and Colonnade would be able to carry the game once he ran out of gas.

Game 2 - He gets stuck on 3 land and I Jace him to death. Not the game I wanted to play, but it happens sometimes.

Round 3 - Brian w/ GW Eldrazi Ramp - 2-0

Game 1 - My strategy here was to basically prevent him from casting Emrakul, as I could effectively handle everything else. I would Tectonic Edge and Spreading Seas his Eye of Ugin #1, then Wildwoods to protect Jace, then Eldrazi Temple. I also used Jace to periodically bounce his Overgrown Battlement as another way to slow the mana down. I pierce his opening explore. I think this game tipped in my favor when I managed to stop a Summoning Trap w/ Spell Pierce. One thing I did, which an onlooker thought was a bad move, was throw some sacrificial baby and daddy Jace action in front of Wildwood to keep Brian's mana occupied while I tried to build up enough of my own to play Gideon w/ counter mana backup. That seems to have worked, and since I play enough Jaces to let a few go and don't need to worry about him countering any I play, I think this was the right move. I boarded in Spreading Seas, Day of Judgment and another Journey for Condemn, since Condemn isn't as fun against Titan and Annihilator triggers. The game was pretty long.

Game 2 - I pierce his opening Explore. Long story short, I think the deciding moment was when he whiffed on a Summoning Trap, netting a Battlement. I was able to keep him off Emrakul mana and man-lands and managed to also handle a resolved Kozilek. I believe the game ended in turns on maybe turn 3, via Colonnade + Hawks beats.

Round 4 - Quentin w/ BR Vampire Aggro - 2-0

Game 1 - I get down to about 8 from Pulse Tracker, Viscera Seer and other small beats, trading a few off with Squadron Hawks along the way to keep my life total out of Bolt range. I Spreading Seas his Lavaclaw Reaches and focus on trying to prevent Dark Tutelage from landing. I get to where I'm fighting Bloodghasts, but I can safely kill stuff because I Condemn a Kalastria Highborn. I basically establish a Jace/Gideon combo which he can't remove and kill him slowly with Colonnades. The game took about 36 minutes and I thought he might concede before lethal to save time, but he did not. I boarded in Day of Judgment, Celestial Purges and another Condemn and Journey, I believe. I took out baby Jaces, which don't help me keep my life total up, and also removed a Mana Leak and Spell Pierce as well as possibly a Preordain.

Game 2 - He opens with a Duress and takes a Day of Judgment, which leaves me with mostly spot removal and a spell Pierce, which hits a Tutelage. The quick beats/Hawk battle continues, but my life total remains much higher this game. He Memoricides me for Jace. I think he should have called Gideon. Ultimately, I kill enough of his creatures that even after a few Doom Blades, I kill him with Gideon and Colonnade to his top decks of small, irrelevant dudes.

Round 5 - Ben w/ Mono-Green Eldrazi - ID

And we play some Commander. He borrowed Brian's (round 3's) Doran deck and I played Teferi. He beat me on the play with an un-answerable Doran and then I beat him on the play with Teferi, Jitte and Vendilion Clique.

Thoughts on Caw-Go

I like the list. Day of Judgment is a good card. Colonnade + Gideon is a fast clock. Spreading Seas is obviously quite good right now. Squadron Hawks are great chump blockers that last forever, protect Jace, speed up wins, manipulate the library, provide card advantage and trade with lots of Vampire dudes. I felt a bit uncomfortable playing without Elixir, which I think is very, very good in control mirrors. But, I did not run into any, and therefore the world may never know. I think I would play the deck again, for sure. The secret reason that I decided to play it initially is because it runs 4x Spell Pierce, which is my favorite card in Standard, narrowly edging out Tumble Magnet.

As far as the metagame goes, I think Caw-Go is a good fit. There are lots and lots of ramp decks, and it performs well against ramp decks. There are some control decks that prey on the ramp decks and it seems to have at least a fair shot if not an edge there (subject to control player skill). But, I also feel like the Gideon/Hawks combo gives the deck a pretty good game 1 and even better game 2 against aggro than UB, which was fine but always a bit more touch and go given the reliance on one or two copies of Consume the Meek to deal with actual swarms.