Abzan Maverick feat. Wrenn
Welcome back to the GreenSunsZenith.com with another donation decklist from Zenith-lover Joe!
This list features a new card from March of the Machine.. Wrenn and Realmbreaker!
Wrenn is really powerful in a list that can power it out on turn 2. Not only can this make threats out of additional lands, they keep guard until your next turn! Wrenn also makes sure your mana is streamline and at worst, can pitch to Endurance if needed.
Being able to get back permanents from the yard is also a huge plus, especially when linking up with Grist. Maverick’s power comes from its land package and creature package, which line up really nicely with what Wrenn can do. In matchups where Wasteland isn’t effective – make it a 3/3! Milled something you really need with Grist? Get it back with Wrenn!
So, how did Joe fit Wrenn into the list? Here’s the 75 we’re taking on.
We’re looking at a Maverick list with a low curve, no Knight of the Reliquary, no Questing Beast, just small, disruptive and powerful creatures.
Want to watch the league? The VOD is now live on YouTube!
Joe’s Pre-League Thoughts:
This list is in response to the shift in the meta, I have been playing against a lot of UWx decks, Painter, and combo (mostly T.E.S and Doomsday). I’ve built the maindeck to beat UWx and fair decks:
– Wrenn turns my useless Wastelands into creatures
– Sentinel on T1 has been crucial, so I made it a 4-of and Thalia a 3-of
– We don’t have Solitude so drawing multiple Thalia’s is not good after the first, and she gets weaker if the game drags on.
– I’ve cut Fiend to 3 for the same reason, I always found myself taking one out due to the fact that most removal is currently white and having the four GSZ means I have them when needed. I’ve kept this as a low curve so so mana screw is not an issue, and being able to use Fiend for one to find a beater in Elvish Reclaimer I found lets me double spell more when I am using Grist that turn to out pace their removal.
– I moved to two Grist as it’s just a house against control, other than that its the usual suspects.
– I also went with Reclaimer to make Bog & overall mana better. A 3/4 Elf that can get you basics is great against Blood Moon decks, where Knight is usually too late or requires you to sack a basic to get another which defeats the purpose against those decks as well.
– I’m iffy on Cradle mostly cause I don’t really use it much with this low curve, it could be a Peatland or another Wasteland, (I’m still not sure but it hasn’t been bad to have Cradle either so I’m keeping it for now).
– I tested out Bob (Dark Confidant) as well, I dropped one Sentinel and the 2 copies of Wrenn and it was good, but wanted to try the Wrenn’s in the league for testing purposes and because it is awesome against control.
Now for the sideboard.
– No Opposition Agent as I think Teeg is great right now. He’s good vs combo great against control with Safekeeper and does the same thing against elves as Opposition Agent.
– Thoughtseize has been great against control and combo. I usually replace all the swords against combo and control.
– Just two Trophies for killing things plus extra Endurance and Plague engineers
– Chalice has IMO been more impactful that Deafening Silence against control
-When on the draw vs Doomsday it buys a lot of time and kills a lot of their fast win lines.
– Chalice has been a really good card against 8 cast, I feel chalice is well positioned at the moment.
The Gaea’s Blessing is insurance against Painter. I played that matchup and either I have the hate and win or I don’t and lose, but with Blessing it’s a nice new addition that has skewed that matchup in my favour for when I don’t have hate early and don’t want to mulligan too low.
I know the board is a little low on grave hate, but I have found Leyline to be only good against Reanimator and dead space in every over matchup. – I went with a third Endurance, and rely on Thoughtseze and Reclaimer/Bog to pick up the slack, so far I’m 50/50 on that matchup.
– Trophies could be paths but I have found having the versatility in Trophy for other matchups has been really helpful. We really have no game against Sneak n Show, but thankfully I have only faced it twice in two weeks so we can’t build for everything.
Round 1: Ruby Storm
Right off the bat we’re up against combo. The Mountain start wasn’t a straight giveaway (I thought it might be Mono-R Stompy or RW Initiative with a slower start) but as they went off T2, we couldn’t do too much.
This is a matchup where Deafening Silence does do a lot more than Chalice, but turning off Petals / LEDs (if they are in this build) is still relevant.
Round 2: 8-Cast
Game 1 was a quick lights out. T1 Chalice on 1 into Emry then T2 Kappa is exactly the start 8-Cast needs to get in front of any hate or disruption Maverick could have.
Thankfully the board we have is great for 8-Cast with FoV and Chalice being two highly impactful cards.
Game 2 was an odd one – typically we care about Chalice on 1 and although or opponent had 2 of them in play, were able to find a gameplan that didn’t worry about them at all. This was a slower draw from 8-Cast but exactly what we need to get under them and pressure their moves to be in response to our board.
Game 3 was exactly how we want the matchup to go. Turn 2 Ouphe into
Plague Engineer to take out any chance of them going over the Ouphe with Thopters.
One big tip for this matchup is the power of Karakas.
I tend to hold off on Swords to Plowshares on Sai & Emry if I can so that I can use Karakas instead. This is obviously not always going to work out / sometimes you just need to get either off the table, but it’s worked for me. I also tend to hold Karakas until they play either one, as when you play Karakas the most likely hold until they find Needle or pitch one to Force.
Round 3: Death & Taxes
Game 1 started out well with Plague Engineer taking out a Mother of Runes and Thalia. From there, the 2-1 creatures of Death & Taxes just out valued us and we drew into the wrong half of the deck.
Not having an after for SFM means Kaldra is going to be very hard to beat and turns out – it was the death of us.
Boarding is pretty nice as we have multiple ways to deal with their plan. Opposition Agent for searching, additional removal in Path and Knight of Autumn, Kaya for killing Germs and value – just good value midrange cards that replace dead bears like Thalia and Esper Sentinel.
Game 2
Thoughtseize showed their plan of getting a Kaldra online asap. Thankfully we look a line with Wasteland that paid off as any other way to remove the SFM would have faulted to the Solitude we knew about.
Wrenn was cool to see in play this match but didn’t have too much of an impact on the game.
Once we got down Grist we were in a fantastic position to take this one.
Game 3
Turn 2 Grist was answered by a Skyclave, that was followed up by a natural Jitte and Solitude for Plague Engineer.
This was a huge turn for our opponent but thankfully we had the goods to remove the Skyclave, get a 3/3 for our troubles and control the board from there.
Or Opponent got a Yorion into play then gained the initiative with Torch, however I feel this was a huge mistake given we were able to fetch for Karakas with Reclaimer on end step, untap, return the Yorion and take the initiative. Game over from there.
Round 4: RW Initiative
Game 1 was highly impacted by Chalice. Double Thalia also hurt our chances of GSZing for an answer but before we could really do anything, RW was stomping over us with a Seasoned Dungeoneer. We conceded with 4 1 drops in hand and a GSZ.
Game 2 we were able to accelerate our mana and then Thoughtseize our opponent only to see they had a triple Caves hand – brutal.
Grist was able to take one out thanks to an insect on the field, we gained the initiative to find the white source for our Swords and of course the Thoughtseize dealt with the 3rd copy. Ramunap into Wasteland sealed the deal.
Game 3 was just a classic initiative start with T1 Seasoned Dungeoneer into Touch on our mana dork. We played an Outland Liberator, but another initiative creature in Cave to trigger the 4/1 into play was just too quick for our draw.
Round 5: UR Delver
In Game 1 we opened on Savannah into Reclaimer and was met with a Wasteland. Huh. We played another Reclaimer, Wasted our opponent back off their Volc to leave them with a DRC and started to get aggressive.
Sentinels from us and Goyfs from our opponent led to a stall before I made a pretty huge error in calculating how effective a pitched Endurance would be (I didn’t take into consideration how my Elves would drop to 1/2s)
From there, our opponent played it safe, drawing into a Murktide and just taking out the match in the air.
Game 2 we just got out Delvered. Threat -> Threat -> Library with no creatures in play or removal in hand was just the end for us and we conceded there.
Overall thoughts
You can listen to my take at the end of the VOD but honestly I’d love to take this list through another league with some small tweaks.
Online, I don’t think you need the flexibility of Trophy and in that place, Path to Exile would be a great fit. Early removal is key right now and Path not gaining your opponent life (or in a fair amount of instances, no value at all) is great for our beatdown plan.
Potentially a mix of T1 hate for combo would be worth trying, with a mix of Thoughtseize, Chalice and Deafening Silence.
