Wrapup

So I left Laserbeak with the intention of revising it from an aggro deck to a utility deck with the ability to boost those weaker creatures. I like this concept and the aggro black cards will find a home elsewhere, I know it. Before I move on to the next deck, I want to show off what it looks like now.

3 Spectral Lynx
3 Wildfire Emissary
2 Boros Guildmage
4 Yixlid Jailer
3 Cloudchaser Eagle
3 Viashino Heretic
4 Imposing Sovereign

          4 Fervent Charge

4 Meekstone

4 Terramorphic Expanse
6 Swamp
7 Plains
6 Mountain

So; why these changes? When I had the deck analyzed at deckstats.net, it appeared I needed more white than black, so I increased the Plains by one--but no more, because I want to be able to regenerate Spectral Lynx at will. Spectral Lynx, Boros Guildmage and Wildfire Emissary are the only creatures to survive Laserbeak's initial draft, actually and it's because of their rare protection values. Moving to the rest (sans Imposing Sovereign because we know why that's there).

Yiklid Jailer can handle multiple graveyard issues, forcing removal to target it before cards like Snapcaster Mage or any dredge card or, yes, Gaea's Blessing, become useful.

Viashino Heretic: it was either this or something that destroyed non-basic lands. Both can be problematic but the Heretic had two advantages: first, it does damage if the ability gets activated. This means there is a potential non-combat way to win, or at least a way to chew through problems and whittle opponents down. The second advantage was the 3 toughness. Most creatures destroying lands in red have 1, or echo, or are too big. With Fervent Charge, a 3/5 creature is tougher to kill than a 3/3. I also chose this over a one-shot effect like Hearth Kami because I don't want to lose my creatures; they're the best chance I have to win.

Finally, Cloudchaser Eagle. Once I cut the Fledgling Djinns, I wanted to have at least one difficult-to-block creature in here and white is the only way I have to deal with enchantments, so it seems like the best choice. I have to play carefully with it, because it will destroy a Fevered Charge if there are no other targets but with Theros block bringing so many new enchantments to the game, hopefully I won't lack for targets-potentially even creatures, too.

Different Axises

Laserbeak is not a Jason deck, unfortunately.

Now, a Jason deck is one I identify as one that can win through his weird win conditions/setups-frequently milling. In this case, I tested Laserbeak against a Mesmeric Orb deck. You can see about how well that worked out. This was the end of game two:

That's 3 Mesmeric Orbs. Coupled with a Propaganda, I would attack for all of 4, and mill 18 the next turn, losing the game, so I just conceded.

The reason Laserbeak has no game in this matchup is because it is working the Creature Axis to Victory and that axis is completely obliterated by the elements that work the Non-Creature Axis to Victory. My deck is meant to control the creatures I run up against...and so is his. And in this match, his wins because he has more of those elements. Throughout Magic's history, this is been the dominant case.

How do you use creatures to defeat Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale? Propaganda? Maze of Ith?

You do it through a sideboard. And I don't bother with sideboards because I have 180 decks. But there is another way: You do it by Dudebro II'ing them and changing the deck you have.

Because my mistake was thinking Laserbeak is an aggressive deck and the fixes for my problems-hand destruction, artifact destruction, enchantment destruction, land destruction and graveyard removal- are attached to creatures that are not aggressive. 1/x's for 3 or cards that have double colors in their casting cost-BB/WW/RR-which are just about impossible to cast.

Laserbeak is not an aggressive deck. There are no 2/2's for one mana, no free pump spells, no abusive damage spells. It's a utility deck that uses small creatures with good abilities to create winning situations, pumped up by Fervent Charge. That means that creatures like Erg Raiders, as much as I like them, don't fit in.Yixid Jailer does.

See, Jason's deck relies on the recurring magic of Gaea's Blessing to renew his library when he mills himself due to Mesmeric Orb. Jailer ends that, and it's a 2/1 for 2 which isn't really aggressive, but it's aggressive enough. Without cards like Erg Raiders, Radiant's Dragoons suddenly become pointless, and Cloudchaser Eagle makes a lot more sense. Tunnel Ignus or Magus of the Moon become a lot more interesting and Viashino Heretic make sense.

These creatures won't always be relevant in every matchup but that's the price I pay for running a utility deck. But they will have impacts on many matchups and I think those impacts will be huge. The best I can do after that is try and keep those creatures cheap so that I can keep producing them when I need to and hope that the Fervent Charge shows up in time to make the magic happen. Looks like changes are afoot!

Protection

I only had two Outmaneuvers in my binder, so I began to look for other tricks. When in doubt, go for removal. Rend Flesh was taking up a couple slots in the binder so in they went but I was still hoping to find something to play in against the 'I generate bunches of tokens' matchup. Enter Chandra's Fury. It's expensive but it's also does a lot of work, whittling down my opponent's life total in addition to dinking all their creatures and as an instant, I can use it at any stage of the game. There may be a better choice for that slot but I wanted to get some games in, so I decided to test Chandra's Fury out.

There was only one match this weekend, as Portland was brought to a standstill by the weather. I tweaked a whole lot of decks but getting out to play them was highly discouraged by ice falling from wires and branches. Cockatrice once again came to the rescue.

Fuz was playing a G/W enchantments deck which was unfortunate for him, as Spectral Lynx and Wildfire Emissary hit his deck where it hurts.

It did lead to a very clever play on Fuz's part in game two, where he sacrificed his Lignify (enchanting my Imposing Sovereign) to pump his Auratog, cast Auramancer to bring the Lignify back and then cast it on Wildfire Emissary. Smart stuff!

Along a similar lines, I had to use two Rend Flesh to destroy the Fledgling Djinns I had in game one, because they were slowly killing me due to being Pacified. It's not the kind of play I wanted to make but it was certainly the right one. In the end, I had a strong enough combination of creatures with Protection and Meekstone/Fervent Charge to win both games. Chandra's Fury even came in handy, taking a huge bite out of Fuz's life total (as you can see in the screencap from game 2.)

Now, that's good news but it's good news against a deck that had a significant disadvantage to begin with. Certainly, it's encouraging to have success but there's no way I have enough data yet.

Laserbeak

When Invasion came out, Juntu Stakes was printed and I thought: yeah, that's cool. Then Apocalypse arrived with Fervent Charge and I thought: you know, if I combine this with Meekstone, the deck practically builds itself! Bunch of 2/x creatures and I know mine will always be bigger than theirs. Anything that isn't can only attack once! It's foolproof!

I thought it was pretty clever and I think that this was my first 'soft lock' deck. I still think this is a decent idea but times have changed quite a bit. It's time to give Laserbeak (named because I thought the color scheme fit, in a "I don't really understand fashion" way) a retooling.

Also, while searching for a Laserbeak image, I came across a whoooole lot of Laserbeaks from Michael Bay's Transformers movies.

Fuck those things. They are accelerating the downfall of humanity. Fuck them hard.

2 Dusk Imp
3 Spectral Lynx
2 Erg Raiders
2 Orzhov Guildmage
3 Wildfire Emissary
2 Boros Guildmage
3 Outrider en-Kor
3 Radiant's Dragoons
2 Fallen Askari
3 Fledgling Djinn

          4 Fervent Charge

4 Juntu Stakes
4 Meekstone

4 Terramorphic Expanse
7 Swamp
6 Plains
6 Mountain

So there we have it. And all this remained unchanged until very recently, when, after looking at Imposing Sovereign for the fifth time, the light bulb went off.

Those are more useful than Orzhov Guildmage or Dusk Imp, so in they went. But now what?

I've been goldfishing this deck a little bit and while I like it, it's still missing something. The theme has kept the focus of this deck but now I feel it's too narrow. If I don't get both Juntu Stakes and Meekstone, the deck doesn't work out so well. But if I just get Meekstone, I've got a chance.

Which means Juntu Stakes is holding the deck back. The thing is, there are a whole lot more cards that decrease the power of a creature than there were before. Juntu Stakes belongs in a different deck (perhaps one called Smaller and Smaller) and this means I can open up not only my creature selection to useful creatures with only 1 power, but also include spells that might help push this deck forward.

The first thing that comes to mind is a spell like Smother, but Glimpse the Sun God might be a consideration too. And while I wanted to keep 1 power creatures tapped in order to stunt token making decks, Outmaneuver might be the surprise that lulls opponents into playing more recklessly than they should. Only thing to do is start testing. To the test booth, Robin!