Breaking the World in Game Day Oath of the Gatewatch

Ah Game Day, what a beautiful day. It's a day where every Magic player in the world gets to play with their new toys alongside friends and alike. On days like these, playing a finely tuned competitive deck just doesn't cut it. I need to play with a newly brewed deck imbued with a lot of cool cards from the newest set. All fingers crossed on Atarka Red doesn't just come out of nowhere ruining the solemn day.

So I was playing a different take on Eldrazi Ramp. The normal build of ramp will just goldfish their way into Ulamog with a million ramp spells. It's actually a fine deck and I was playing it for some amount of time to a good result but the problem is that I always felt like being a slave to my own opening draw and top decks. There are draws where you only got ramp spells and just crossing your finger to ever top deck your payoff cards. There are draws where you only get 10-mana spells without any ramp. It's miserable when that happened.

It gets even worse when your opponent can actually interact with you. Nothing feels worse than when you have ramped your way to 10 mana but your opponent Transgress the Minded your Ulamog or when your ramp spells get countered and you were left with a 10-mana spells you can't cast. In short, playing normal ramp deck requires you to be a lucksack or be in a metagame where everyone is playing Sphinx Tutelage.

Ali Aintrazi, the Godfather of all big mana decks said it clearly that he doesn't like the G/R or Mono-Green version of ramp because he always feels like having no control over the course the game. His suggestion is to add Blue into the mix because who can help you control your own destiny better than Blue? With that in mind, this is the list that I played on Game Day Oath of the Gatewatch. I called it, Temur Ramp:

Creature  (20) 4x Sylvan Advocate 4x Hangarback Walker 4x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy 2x Nissa, Vastwood Seer 4x World Breaker 2x Dragonlord Atarka Spell and Artifact (15) 4x Seek the Wilds 4x Kozilek's Return 4x Explosive Vegetation 3x Hedron Archive Sideboard (15) 4x Radiant Flames 2x Rending Volley 3x Dispel 2x Disdainful Stroke

Land (25) 6x Forest 1x Mountain 1x Island 4x Wooded Foothills 1x Cinder Glade 4x Yavimaya Coast 2x Lumbering Falls 4x Sanctum of Ugin 1x Haven of the Spirit Dragon 1x Blighted Woodland 1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger 1x Kozilek, the Great Distortion 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon 1x Oblivion Sower

Seven is the lucky number here as I cut any spells costed more than that from the main deck. The reasoning is twofold: firstly, World Breaker + Kozilek's Return is already game over for most decks and Atarka can close out the game faster than you can scream MAMA! Secondly, by only relying on 7-mana spells, we can severely cut down the number of ramp spells we played by only playing the most essential one, which is ramp spells that ramp you from 4 to 7. Any 3-mana ramp spells nonsense can now be cut to make way fore more powerful cards that you won't feel bad to topdeck in the late game, such as Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Nissa, Vastwood Seer.

Speaking of Jace, the card is very essential in this deck. Card-filtering is always good but it gets even better in Ramp deck since you need the right amount of early defense, ramp spells, and payoff cards. Furthermore, discarding Kozilek's Return to Jace is as good as it sounds because you can make sure World's Breaker will break the world on turn 7 but still playing ramp spells on turn 4. The planeswalker side of Jace is not as good in this deck as it is in Jeskai Black or Rally, but still, a -2 to opponent's creature goes a long way toward surviving before your payoff card came and many opponent will often use their creatures to kill Jace, gaining you life on the process.

Now I can't say how much I really love Sylvan Advocate. It's a card that I always want to see in my opening hand. It's the best roadblock in the early game, a stabilizer in mid-game, and a pressure in late-game, all in one card. It can block any Atarka Red's creatures profitably and it can block Siege Rhino, and it can attack into an empty board. With Sylvan Advocate, I often found my opponent in low-life total on turn 7, that's unheard of in normal ramp decks. Hangarback Walker also make the cut here as another card that can be good in early and late game. It is also another way to proc your Sanctum of Ugin since other than that, you only have 4 World Breaker to proc it.

Oh and there is also Seek the Wilds and it was actually a mistake. Originally, it was supposed to be Sylvan Scrying but I changed it on last minutes. For some reason, I thought that the card reads, "Look at the top 4 card of your deck, select a creature or land card and send the rest to the graveyard" when it actually send the rest of the cards to the bottom deck. I thought it would be cute to be able to fix your mana while also putting Kozilek's Return and World Breaker in the graveyard. But I was stupid and after Malik reminded me about the original card text, I sideboarded it out in every match. But still, the card did help me fix my mana, which is essential in a 3-color deck, so I showed the card up on my winning a photo anyway just to troll. 

Oh, did I spoiled out the result of my Game Day for you? Well, I guess I just did.

Back to the topic, I really want to discuss about the manabase. The first thing that probably sticks out is zero copy of Shrine of Forsaken Gods. The reason to not include that powerful land is that there is no need to rush into 8 mana as there are no Ugin in the main board. By cutting that card, I can make way for 4 Yavimaya Coast which also provide colorless for Kozilek in the sideboard and World Breaker's activated ability.

There are also Lumbering Falls in the deck which is really good to fight control deck in the late game and it can randomly becomes a 5/5 with Sylvan Advocate. The problem that I found is that you actually need more blue mana to be able to reliably cast Jace on turn 2 and also your blue cards from the sideboard. As it is, out of 5 games, I only managed to get mana screw in 1 game where I draw 2 Jace and no blue mana in my opening hand. For the future, I'm considering to add Frontier Bivouac into the manabase.

The sideboard is geared toward beating 4 decks: Rally, Collected Company, 4c Midrange, and Atarka Red. 3 Dispel and 2 Disdainful Stroke put collected company and rally deck so behind on tempo. 4 Radiant flames alongside 4 Kozilek's Return makes sure that your Atarka Red opponent will not have any creature to pressure you. Additionally, Radiant Flames also matched up well against Bant Company and U/R Prowess creatures because you can now converge for 3.

Rending Volley is actually for Ojutai and maybe Anafenza. It can also kill Stormchaser Mage, but I often found myself in a position of holding 2 Rending Volley against Monastery Swiftspear and Abbot which is as bad as it sounds. As the metagame is not really geared toward Ojutai, I'll probably cut Rending Volley from my sideboard if I have to play this deck in the future. The Eldrazi quartet (yes, Ugin is an Eldrazi), is boarded in for the slower matchup, such as Jeskai Black and mirror match. Only one of each to avoid getting blowned out by Infinite Obliteration

Speaking of mirror match, I really need to tell you about my final game against Didit who plays the G/R version of ramp. Just like me, Didit is also a big-mana deck enthusiast and we have discussed a lot about making new Eldrazi deck in standard. He was also once a champion of Savage Knuckleblade deck which I took as an inspiration to build this deck's manabase.

Anyway, this deck is actually really bad against G/R ramp as it doesn't have any interaction in the mainboard. Moreover, the deck is really slow but it stops at 7-mana spells while G/R Ramp when over the top of it by casting 10-mana spells. As expected, I was crushed by a stream of World Breaker topped by Ulamog in game 1. Game 2 things getting better because I can boarded in Disdainful Stroke, but things went bad because I have to mull to 5. Fortunately, Didit also mulled to 5 which evens the game.

Things started to go well for me in the early game with a Sylvan Advocate pressuring Didit which only has a Thought-Knot Seer. But then, A Titan's Presence swings the game around and I found myself in a position with no threat and interaction while drawing only lands. The game then went to the point where Didit managed to turn the game around by casting World Breaker and adding Ulamog to his hand via Sanctum of Ugin all while having exactly 10 mana on his board. But then, I drew my 7 lands, and cast World Breaker, making him left with only 9 mana. Then I proc the Sanctum of Ugin to search for Eldrazi cards and this is where I stand on a crossroad.

The situation at that moment was that I only have 6 mana and I have a Kozilek in hand. If Didit drew his tenth land, then he will cast Ulamog and cutting me from the game. So I figured out that I can only plan for a situation where Didit didn't draw his tenth land and the question was, "What is the best card to take advantage of the situation?"

The choice was between World Breaker and Oblivion Sower. World Breaker can cut Didit down to 8 mana making him even further from casting his Ulamog but it will only buy me some time as my World Breaker can't close out the game fast enough. Oblivion Sower, on the other hand, can get me to 10 mana if I'm lucky which will help me casting the Kozilek in my hand. Kozilek definitely has the better odds to close out the game faster.

After contemplating for a while, I chose Oblivion Sower and what a great choice it was. Didit didn't draw his tenth land and I casted Oblivion Sower to exile 2 lands from Didit's top deck, which was: Sanctum of Ugin and Temple of Forsaken Gods. I also managed to retrieve another Sanctum that I exiled earlier. With all of that, I managed to cast Kozilek on the next turn, adding Ulamog, and turn the game to winning position while Didit never draws his tenth land. That was one of my most satisfying win while playing Magic.

Afterwards, the game 3 went anticlimactic with Didit got mana screwed and I cast Ulamog on him. Truth to be told, that was what I expected from his deck and also one of the reason I want to avoid playing G/R Ramp in the first place.

After winning the sweet Game Day playmat, I played in a Draft game and managed to get 2-0 to draw in the third game with this sweet Mono-Black deck splashing a little bit of Red.

Ah, that was a beautiful day indeed.