Thoughts on Artifacts, Goats and Life
It’s a lot like when one of your parents trades in their old flip phone for a shiny, new iPhone. It has so many uses, can do so many things, replace so many other gadgets, it can be overwhelming. Instead of taking the time to learn how to use it, you stick to what’s comfortable (i.e. actually making phone calls with it) and not much else. That’s similar to how I felt when Trading Post was spoiled. I was quite excited to try to find a way to use this card to its full advantage while not getting destroyed by the best decks in the format. My former favorite Scars block deck gave a lot of tools that work quite well with Trading Post. All of the targets you get used to seeing in a Grand Architect / Treasure Mage shell typically are just fine with Post. Wurmcoil Engine, Spine of Ish Sah, and Contagion Engine all interact favorably with Post. I jammed Solemn Simulacrum in and started working from that shell. After working with a few iterations and finding that nothing I brewed could stabilize before being run over by the most aggressive decks, I moved on to greener (by greener, I mean Elf Wave) pastures.
That is, until I saw it finally putting up some results. I was thrilled to see the Black Market lists that have been making waves in Standard. This is the list that I liked the best and decided to run with.
STANDARD - BLACK MARKET
| CREATURES (6) 4 Solemn Simulacrum 2 Wurmcoil Engine INSTANTS (6) 2 Doom Blade 2 Geth’s Verdict 2 Go For The Throat SORCERIES (8) 2 Black Sun’s Zenith 4 Mutilate 2 Sorin’s Vengeance ARTIFACTS (17) 4 Ichor Wellspring 1 Mimic Vat 2 Mycosynth Wellspring 3 Nihil Spellbomb 2 Pristine Talisman 1 Spine of Ish Sah 4 Trading Post LANDS (23) 3 Buried Ruin 2 Phyrexia’s Core 18 Swamp |
This deck is a blast to play and can be quite oppressive if allowed to get into the mid to late game against most decks. Some cards I’ve had varying success playing with, but haven’t totally given up on are Chalice of Life, Life’s Finale, Contagion Engine and Myr Battlesphere. Chalice is great out of the sideboard for that alternate win condition. The other three have some upside, but are quite slow. After using Chalice out of the sideboard, I decided to run with it and take it to the extreme.
M13 STANDARD - RHOX POST
| CREATURES (17) 3 Phyrexian Metamorph 2 Wurmcoil Engine 4 Restoration Angel 4 Rhox Faithmender 4 Thragtusk SORCERIES (4) 4 Day of Judgment ARTIFACTS (15) 4 Ichor Wellspring 2 Mycosynth Wellspring 2 Chalice of Life 3 Pristine Talisman 4 Trading Post LANDS (24) 1 Forest 13 Plains 2 Gavony Township 2 Ghost Quarter 2 Razorverge Thicket 4 Sunpetal Grove |
This first draft is very linear and could definitely use some tuning, but it has nice synergies built in. I’ll continue to build on this and test it in the casual room when I get tired of playing against Delver.
The past several days, I’ve been grinding with the Red/Green Trading Post list that Brian Braun-Duin playtested against Todd Anderson on Starcitygames.com. Thragtusk is a serious beating and a stabilization play, Wurmcoil Engine is as ridiculous as it always has been with Trading Post and you can do some downright nasty things with Phyrexian Metamorph. Once you start recurring the Wurmcoil, saccing goats, and copying anything and everything you want with the Metamorph, the real appeal of this deck is easy to see. I’ve been able to really punish my opponents’ misplays and battle my way out of some seemingly hopeless situations. One of the best things about Magic is talking to your friends about the game. Trading Post decks have given me an inordinate number of “Holly Shit, let me tell you about this” stories in a very short time. Not since Heartless Summoning still had its new card smell has my MTGO decks folder been filled with so many different decks built around one card. I plan to continue to evolve and grind with Trading Post as Return to Ravnica approaches and see how it plays out on the new Standard landscape. Can it survive the loss of the Wellsprings, Talisman, Wurmcoil and Metamorph? Surely it will be a much different deck if it does. I can’t say what the future holds for Trading Post, but it has been quite versatile and blast to play.
