Fellow Oldschoolers

The new year has started and with it also a full new year of Oldschool opportunities, tournaments, discussions and of course new brews. The beauty about the format is, that with no new cards coming in, we have to brew new things with the limited cardpool we have. One of my new year intention 2019 is, to go into Top 8 with a Green/Black Oldschool Aggro Deck.

Both colors are in my (aggro) point of view, underplayed. Especially the glorious Juzam Dijnn does not see a lot of play outside of Black Disaster decks. As i have 4 of them lying around in my binder, they should definately see the light of the battlefield more often. In the beginnings of my Oldschool-career, i was fascinated by mono black Disaster. Unfortunately, the mono black strategy does not like me so much and my draws have been terrible over a long time period… My good friend Dani then (well) advised me to keep my hands of the mono black deck and go into other archetypes. Without a viable mono black build, my Juzam Dijns stayed in the folder for to long now. As introduced, for 2019 i decided to brew a BG-aggro build which shall be fast and deadly. As i am also a huge fan of Force of Nature (and i own a BETA-one), it shall also go into this build.

Strategy:

– Put one bolt/blast-proof heavy hitter fast on the table

– Try to bring the opponent as fast as possible to 0 life

– do not get paired against heavy Moat/Maze Decks

– igonre that City in a Bottle is a thing

With this quite simple and effective strategy in mind, let‘s start the brewing:

Speed

Green and Black are both valuable candidates to get speed. Birds of Paradise and Elves valuable candidates for additional mana. Birds have no attack power so i will split the ratio between Power/Mana accordingly. As we want to have increased chances to have two black mana in the second turn to cast a Juzam, i will walk through Deep Shadow forest instead of Llanowar. Also, to have Attack Power on the table, i will split the Birds/Elves Ratio 2/4. With Pendelhaven available this makes more sense. To add even more speed, i will add 4 Dark Rituals to the mix.

Hitters

Green and Black offer some of the best hitters within the whole format. As stated, we ignore that City in Bottle is a thing resp. try to avoid having 2+ AN creatures on the table. With the support of the mana dorks, we should often have 3+ mana available (of which 2 are black in the second turn). Therefore hypnotic Specter seems absolutely reasonable to add. Especially to have also some flyers around if the opponent casts an early Moat. The second (black) flyer is Sengir Vampire which give also some late game (bolt-proof) support to the mix. To give the opponent as early as possible a bad time, i add two different Djinn‘s – Ehrnam and Juzam. I think that the ratio of 4 Juzams/2 Ehrnams makes sense and so shall it be. And as written in the introduction, i also want to play one Force of Nature so it will also be in the Deck. I know that the Manabase will not be perfectly balanced to support a very early Force of Nature – but sometimes one has to weight spice over mathematics 😉

Strategic support

Chaos Orb and Sol Ring are obvious and i have not to explain 🙂

Green offers some of the sweetest support cards for such a speed-beatdown decktype. We definately want to abuse Silvan Library for card advantage and/or proper draws. Also Regrowth helps a lot to recycle already used „restricted“ cards. To deliver the final blow to the opponent, a good number of Berserk shall close the deal. Berserk also helps to get rid of a Juzam Djinn if he cannot do anything else but ping you for one each turn (i.e. if opponent has a Maze or White Knight etc.). In the worst case you can also get rid of one of the opponents creatures – but as said, worst case scenario only… And some Crumble will help the Maindeck to get rid of nasty artifacts if they hit the table. I am quite unsure about the amount of crumble – i think 4 is to many as i need creature speed. I will do a first test with 2 Crumble main and 2 in Sideboard. Also i will have only one source to get rid of an enchantment – Chaos Orb. Demonic Tutor will help to find the Orb if needed. I am also thinking of playing one Tranquility main – but for the moment they will be sideboard tech. Personally i do not like Mind Twist at all but it‘s a strong part of each Deck which contains Black as „natural source“.

To support the aggro strategy i will in the first cut also add two blue cards. Time Walk and Ancestral will help to achieve victory faster resp. more efficient. The Manabase will contain anyway 4 City of Brass and i can add Tropicals to the mix without harming the Manabase.

Manabase

I will need a lot of Forests to cast Force of Nature. Also, as much as possible Lands which can generate Black should also generate Green ( Bayou and City of Brass). To get more access to blue i will put two Tropical Island into the Mix. As Mishra‘s Factory is producing no colored Mana, i will skip this Land for the Deck – obviously it will be a little less Aggro but the Manabase will be much more stable. Pendelhaven as a one-off will support the Elves-Strategy and Library/Strip Mine is in most Deck an „auto include“ anyway. The Moxen and Lotus dito. With 7 Basic Lands this is one of the most „blood-moon-stable“ Decks i ever played 🙂

Sideboard

White cards disrupt me alot – especially Moat, Spirit Link, Swords and the latter. So 3 Gloom should help. Also early flyers can disrupt my plan so 2 Terror should bring them to the graveyard (not 100% sure about Terror at the moment – testing will tell). The two additional crumble are already mentioned in the earlier part of the article. Concordant Crossroads supports against the Abyss and against non-creature Decks. Energy Flux is to avoid losses against heavy artifact decks. 2 Tranquility will clean up the way through Moats, Underworld Dreams, Circle of Protection, Spirit Link etc. Finally, the Ice Storms are to destroy cumbersome Maze of Ith‘s if they hit the table.

I think this first version of the sideboard is quite versatile and helps against a lot of decks.



Overall i like the idea a lot of berserking my way through the opponents creatures. In some test games i already held i was able to Berserk, Regrowth, Berserk my Juzam and attack for a solid 20 Damages incl. trample 🙂 Living the dream 🙂

There are a lot of cards on the waiting list which also want to see the light of the battlefield:

– Iff Biffh

– whirling Dervish

– Killer Bees (soooo many Forests 😉 )

– Avoid Fate

– Scavenger Folk

– Argothian Pixies

and many more.

Hopefully this deck will bring me fun and interesting games with a lot of Berserking through.

As always: Play the game at your table as you like it and let the Oldschool Spirit never die

Regards

Christian aka Lord M of Legion Urborg