A new take on blue black in Standard Pauper by rrmedio1

If you follow my Standard Pauper career you know that I am in love with all decks featuring Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Treasure Cruise. Those decks were earlier called Gary's Cruise but with the introduction of the Exploit mechanic the decks turned even better - and changed name.

Here is a video of me playing the latest iteration of my list.


The master of these decks is rrmedio1. He won MPDC 30.03 with a new take on Blue Black, featuring Grave Titan Jr. = Grave Servant.

Grave Titan Jr. The Deck

2 Macabre Waltz 
3 Sultai Emissary 
3 Palace Familiar 
4 Black Cat 
3 Dutiful Attendant 
3 Nantuko Husk 
2 Gurmag Drowner 
1 Vulturous Aven 
4 Undead Servant 
4 Dismal Backwater 
3 Gray Merchant of Asphodel 
4 Evolving Wilds 
2 Peel from Reality 
3 Treasure Cruise 
6 Island 
9 Swamp 
4 Sign in Blood 

Sideboard
2 Reave Soul 
2 Sidisi's Faithful 
1 Vulturous Aven 
1 Mnemonic Wall 
3 Festergloom 
3 Disciple of Phenax 
3 Negate 

Here is the final results of the tournament and all the decks mentioned below: http://pdcmagic.com/gatherling/eventreport.php?event=MPDC+30.03

Roberto kindly offered to explain his deck and these are his words:

"Well, the main idea was to have a black deck that would abuse Nantuko Husk, specially for the interaction with Dutiful Attendant and for keeping my creatures from being exiled. Added blue because I love Grumag Drowner and because Peel From Reality is usually great with black creatures. Also, I would be able to play Treasure Cruise, which is maybe a good card, not sure.

The original list had Artificer's Epiphany for ditching creatures in the graveyard, but in the last minute I replaced it with Sign in Blood because the deck doesn't have that many card draw and I was afraid of running out of gas.

The list is not very polished, specially the sideboard, which probably lacks Duress, Disdainful Stroke, and probably some other cards. Black Cat is not great as it used to be because it basically only works against heroic. Undead Servant floats between MVP and useless very easily, since the deck is not designed around it. I was very lucky not to face green decks, since I had no Deathtouch creatures.

The matches

I was late but gwyned was nice enough to allow me to join the tournament with a bye.

First match (2nd round) was against an interesting UB Control by Erwiddan deck which was controlling me very effectively. First game he did not give me much air to breath and he was almost stabilized in the second game, when his time ran out. I guess he was into really awful lag.

Second match was against SFlaren's Izzet Control, with main deck Hexproof creatures, and game 1 let me hopeless after being crushed so easily. But the deck worked very well after siding in the Disciples and Negates. In both games 2 and 3 it looked like he would win with early Hexproof fatties, but all the recursion was too much for him to keep 1 for 1'ing me. I have to say that this was an awesome and crazy match.

Top 4 was against Malum's Boros Tokens which also crushed me in game 1 with Magmatic Chasm. He almost got me in game two but a timely Festergloom saved the day. In game 3 he didn't got the aggressive start and we traded creatures until the card advantage gave me upper hand. Despite many mistakes and misclicks, I ended up winning.

The finals were against JogandoPelado, aka PlayingNaked, and his Mono Black deck. It was very similar to my deck (but no Cruises for him), also based on the Nankuto-Attendant engine. In the first game he got 3 Garies very soon, I dragged the game a bit recasting my single Gary a few times until he finally killed me. Game 2 was a bit odd: I slowed him down with the Disciples of Phenax but he was attacking me in the air. Then Gary landed and I won out of nowhere attacking back when some of his creatures were tapped. In game 3 he had some mana problems and it was my time to draw early Garies, who finished the game when he was starting to develop his board. 

Sideboard

Reave Soul was good against the tokens deck and not bad against the Mono Black deck.

Sidisi's Faithful was also good against the tokens deck

Aven was good in all matches

Wall was never cast (sided it in against the Izzet deck, I think, then sided it out again)

Festergloom won me a game against tokens

Disciple was the better card in the finals and also good against Izzet. The UB Control deck never let it be resolved

Negate was great in all matches, not counting the finals, where I did not use it."

Thank you, Roberto!

BTW, if you are at all interested in Standard Pauper check out the free touranments with real prizes runing at pdcmagic.com. They are the best.