Here’s the story of how I ended up in the Top 8 of last weekend’s Pauper Championship Series event with Druid Pizza.
It’s 2 weeks before the March 7th event and the past Wednesday night weekly’s have not gone well… I’m hardly going 2-2 most weeks. A far cry from Top 16 in last year’s league and a qualification for the RIW Invitational. My performance during the last RIW Hobbies Championship in January was also less than ideal. I went record positive, but missed Top 16; since more players means tighter margins, I’d need to perform better to get points.
In the last RIW Pauper Championship event I played the newly minted “Food Retriever Combo” deck. A deck that abuses Ashnod’s Altar, Cauldron Familiar, and Food cards to draw / Cycle through your library while also draining the opponent. The deck wins by looping Myr Retrievers with a Molten Gatekeeper (Infinite damage), or by drawing the whole deck and reshuffling Lembas for Infinite life drain with a Familiar. “F.R.C” was a fairly new deck that I had success with at weekly’s, but it wasn’t consistent enough to win an event.
I look back at my past Top 8 results to see if I can find a deck. Pestilence is an option, as it was what I played in my first Top 8 at RIW before the Championship Series. Pestilence decks have gotten a lot of tech and tools since last played it, and have become closer to traditional Gardens. My main issue with the deck is it’s hard to close games and it takes a fair amount of brain power to pilot for a full day!
The next option was my deck from my first top finish of the RIW Championship Series, BG Basking Broodscale. Now this deck I would love to play, but there is 1 issue…. Basking Broodscale was banned! Now, there are cards that match the style of play Broodscale brings. Pili-Pala is a deck that not only directly copies the shell that Basking Broodscale used, but it also is a two-card infinite mana combo. My main concern is needing to untap with it out, or give it haste to combo out. Meaning, it’s very hard to win with it as the opponent has a full turn to hold up interaction.
The last choice was the Mono Red Madness deck I Top 8’d the NRG event with. Now this is another deck I love! A lot of people say it’s the top deck in the format and needs bans, but I do have issues with bringing it to this event. It’s a very well-known deck and people know it’s good… This means it’s a very “hated on” deck and everybody has a plan to beat it.
Without a clear direction to go, I started looking at new cards that are coming out in TMNT on Friday. I had been working on a Sewer-veillance Cam combo deck but found multiple builds to be lacking, either being too slow or too weak to what I expected to see at the event.
As I was reading through a Discord thread on the new cards, somebody posted a card that I had overlooked, Guac and Marshmallow Pizza. The poster also pointed out the card combos with Devoted Druid and it piqued my interest. Devoted Druid is a card that is well known for comboing with basically any mistake Wizards makes when printing cards and it seems one of these mistakes was finally printed at Common.
For those who don’t know, Devoted Druid is an 0/2 that can tap for green mana, but what makes this card broken is that it can untap itself by putting a -1/-1 counter in itself. So if you have a way to refuse that cost or by give it +X/+1 repeatedly, you can tap it for Infinite green mana. Now, what does Guac and Marshmallow Pizza do? G&MP is an Artifact Food that Costs a single Green mana to cast. It has flash and when G&MP enters, a target creature gets +2/+2, untap that creature. Now on its face value, this is just a good pump spell on a stick. What would normally be an on-rate combat trick, but in the context of Devoted Druid, the fact that it’s on a nonland permanent means everything.
The enters the battlefield trigger being attached to a permanent matters because of how it interacts with Retraction Helix (and Banishing Knack). These cards are instants that grant target creature “tap: return target nonland permanent to its owner’s hand” until end of turn. Helix and Knack were the last pieces of the puzzle that allowed this deck to happen!
Now, how does this combo work, and why is it so strong?
The setup is very simple.
- Have all the cards needed for the combo either in hand and/or on the battlefield.
- Have a devoted Druid that can gain haste or does not have summoning sickness.
- Cast Retraction Helix/ Banishing Knack on the Druid.
- Cast the Guac and Marshmallow pizza targeting the Devoted Druid on ETB( tapping it for mana before the trigger resolves if you didn’t use it to pay the original mana cost.) giving the Druid +2/+2 an untapping it.
- Use the Devoted Druid’s Retraction Helix’s Ability to return the G&MP back to hand.
- Use Devoted Druid’s untap ability to put. A -1/-1 counter on it to untap it. This leaves you with a 1/3 untapped Druid.
- Repeat steps 1-6 as many times as needed.
These are the steps to give your Druid infinite power, which in turn provides infinite green mana and the ability to bounce every nonland permanent your opponent controls back to their hand and thus allowing you to swing in with the Druid and kill your opponent in a single turn. Seeing this combo, I decided I wanted to build this for the upcoming event, but I needed to figure out a deck to play it in, and play around its weaknesses. Speaking of weaknesses with the deck, they are as follows:
- Needed to untap with Devoted Druid or give it haste
- This combo lasts one turn, as Druid will die if you don’t bounce it back to hand and replay it.
- 1 of the 3 combo pieces are instants, making them hard to dig for alongside the permanents in the combo.
- I know there will be at least one turbo fog player, and multiple Prismatic Strands decks at the event. This deck can stop my combo then very easily even without removal.
So how do I go about solving these issues?
First to address untapping with the Devoted Druid or giving it haste. As far as untapping with it, I plan on running at least 8 interaction spells in the main deck. This should help me untap with it, as well as protect the combo while I’m attempting to do it. But what about if I want to combo out in a single turn? Well I have two options in cards to pick: Crashing Drawbridge and Bitter Reunion.
Crashing Drawbridge is in the colors of the deck I already have, but is susceptible to removal just like my Druid.
Bitter reunion is outside my colors, but allows me to use draw cards, and is harder to interact with before it can give my Druid haste. So because of the card draw and it being able to be harder to interact with. I chose Bitter Reunion.
Unless you’re lucky and just happen to have the combo in hand you’ll need to find the rest of the combo in your deck. You can do this in 2 ways. First, draw as many cards as possible, and second is to dig deep for cards. Broodscale did both of these things, but without Black in my colors, it gets harder to do. So I decided to go with a plan that allows me to dig deep.
The cards I picked are Impulse and Malevolent Rumble. Each of these cards dig 4 cards deep. Impulse is instant speed and can find all of my combo pieces. Rumble refunds me a mana, but only finds 2 of the 3 pieces. I opted to run all 8 of “Helix / Knack” effects because of this.
I also needed a back up plan to beat Fog effects and Prismatic Strands. What I do have is unlimited green mana and the ability to bounce and replay permanents.
Hierophant’s Chalice can bypass Fog and Strands, so I put it in as a one-of in my deck, But how do I draw it?
This is where Abundant Growth comes into play. Not only does it help fix my mana, but it also draws a card when it enters. Normally this is great because it replaces itself. But in this deck. I can bounce it over-and-over again to draw my whole deck.
Let’s take a look at the decklist….
Druid Pizza
4 Abundant Growth
4 Banishing Knack
3 Bitter Reunion
4 Bountiful Landscape
4 Devoted Druid
6 Forest
4 Guac & Marshmallow Pizza
1 Hierophant’s Chalice
4 Impulse
5 Island
4 Khalni Garden
4 Malevolent Rumble
1 Mountain
4 Retraction Helix
4 Spell Pierce
4 Tamiyo’s Safekeeping
SIDEBOARD:
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Prohibit
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Scattershot Archer
3 Snap
I’m banking on 2 factors to allow me to win.
- The combo is extremely powerful, and has the ability to win on turn 3 without protection and then 4 with protection. Meaning it’s on par or faster than some of the other decks in the format. It is also a combo that does not use the graveyard.
- Most people have no idea what I’m doing. Outside of a few players who have seen my deck or who I’ve talked to for advice, nobody knows how this deck works
So let’s see how my day went…
Round 1: Rakdos Burn. 2-0
Now some players may see those words and think I mean Rakdos Madness, I do not. This player was running every spell that could deal 3 damage to face for a single mana. Most of his burn spells also can kill creatures meaning my Druid has a lot of ways to be removed compared to Rakdos Madness, but the good news is he had very little draw power. So if I can keep myself from dying, I can most likely win. So that’s what I do. I use my Pizza, and safekeeping to stay alive, while also keeping any creatures he plays from attacking me with extra Helix’s and my Plant / Spawns until I can assemble the combo and win.
This is a deck I kinda have to just race. We are both generally uninteractive combo decks, but I feel like I have the edge in this match up as long as I can don’t get Mesmeric Fiended out of my combo before he combos.
Game one I’m on the play and open to an Island Spell Pierce hand. But with no combo pieces, but I decide to keep it. Knowing that if he had a land grant or lotus petal hand, I basically win on the spot. And on his turn, he does infact attempt to land grant, and I counter it. Giving me all the time in the world to find my combo and win. Game 2 I keep a hand with Relic, and prevent him from going with the combo plan. And am able to combo 1 turn before he has lethal damage on me.
Round 3: Mono Black Burn 2-0
Game 1 basically played out the same way as round 1, except I had to bounce more creatures. Game 2 on the other hand I had an opportunity. I opened my hand up to the following: island, forest, Devoted Druid, Retraction Helix, Guac & Marshmallow Pizza, Spell Pierce and Landscape. This is a turn 3 combo. Now this is risky, but I was 99% sure he would be boarding in Snuff Outs in place of Soul Reap that he had game one against me. But I’m up a game so I decided to go for it. Turn 1 I play my island, and I end up countering his turn 2 draw two, the best thing I could ask for. I play my Druid out on turn 2 hoping he doesn’t have removal. Turn 3 he sacrifices his creature and attempts to draw as many cards as he can and passes. I draw and I do not have protection for my combo, all I can do is hope he didn’t draw his Snuff Out… Luckily, he didn’t. And I’m able to combo off to kill him on turn 3.
Round 4: Mono Red Madness. 2-1
This is a match up I knew was going to be Hard. Madness has free interaction, but thankfully only 1 of those spells can kill my Druid.
Game 1 goes very well for me. I am on the draw, but am able to counter a turn 2 Faithless Looting that he was using to try and find a second land. This left him on 1 land the whole game. And he forfeits before I play my Druid.
Game 2 I sadly had to mull to 3, despite this I try to combo out, but he had red blast to prevent it.
Game 3 I am able to find the combo and have plenty of protection and since I’m able to play my Druid out early it prevents him from being able to deploy a Guttersnipe. I attempt to combo out and have more interaction than he had removal.
Round 5: Mono Blue Faeries 2-0
This is one of my worst match ups. A tempo deck that is able to hold up a lot of interaction. How did I go 2-0? Partly luck, partly a good sideboard plan.
Game 1 I was able to resolve a Druid while he was tapped out and was able to protect it from being Snapped. I
Game 2 I resolved a turn 2 Scattershot Archer and was able to use it to prevent him from attacking and keeping a single flier on board for the rest of the game. Eventually I was able to assemble the combo and his only Counterspell at that point was a Spellstutter sprite. Which I was able to kill in response to it’s ability on the stack, preventing the counter and winning the game.
And with that, I went 5-0, meaning I am able to draw my next 2 rounds to make it into the top cut. This was my goal for the day. All I wanteřd was to be the first person to put up a top finish with this combo in a major event. I am able to celebrate appropriately and buy myself a pizza, thankfully without guac and marshmallows, and relax until top cut.
Now my top 8 match did not go well. I went 0-2 vs Spy. At this point I am happy. I achieved what I wanted to do. I topped a major event with a deck I built. 1 week after the cards were released. In the end I’m happier doing that than winning the event.
