How Good is Naya Lightsaber?
November 23, 2009 | Posted by Dee
By now, if you follow competitive Magic The Gathering, you’ve heard about results from Worlds 2009. Andre Coimbra took the Individual World Champion title with a Naya deck built by Mike Flores. Mike called the deck “Naya Lightsaber” and actually posted the list on his blog about two weeks ago.
| Naya Lightsaber | |||||||||||
Spells (11) Creatures (25) | Lands (24) Sideboard (15) |
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Deck Analysis
When I first saw the list two weeks ago, I thought the deck was not that good. But it wasn’t the spells that concerned me. Rather, I thought the mana base was too fragile.
Here’s the breakdown:
13 green sources
12 white sources (16 if you count the four Noble Hierarchs)
11 red sources17 green spells (including 1GG from four Stags in the sideboard)
19 white spells (including 3WW from four Baneslayers)
15 red spells (including 2RR from four Ruinblasters in the sideboard)
Compare this mana base to a typical Jund deck’s mana base:
16 green sources
14 black sources
14 red sources22 green spells (including 2GG from Garruk and 1GG from Stag)
24 black spells
24 red spells (including 2RR from Ruinblaster)
I compare the two mana bases because Jund has been regarded by many players as having a fragile mana base. In fact, one of the common strategies to beating Jund is attacking its lands with cards like Ruinblaster and Spreading Seas.
But when you look at the two mana bases side to side, you see that Naya Lightsaber has less colored sources that Jund.
Now I understand that Jund has more color-intensive cards like Jund Charm, Sprouting Thrinax, and Garruk. However, I don’t think the difference is big enough to warrant a low colored source count. Naya Lightsaber has its own color-intensive cards like Baneslayer, Ruinblaster, and Stag.
It’s much easier for Jund to cast Ruinblaster than Naya Lightsaber. Jund has 14 red sources while Naya Lightsaber only has 11. If you’re Jund and you’re facing Naya Lightsaber, I think boarding in Ruinblaster is good strategy. You can keep them off double red (or double white for Baneslayer).
So, with a shaky mana base, why did Naya Lightsaber do so well? I mean, it won the whole tournament.
To answer this question, let’s look back at a Pro Tour seven years ago. Pro Tour Osaka was a block constructed format that featured two top decks, Blue/Green Aggro-Control and Mono Black Control.
Of course, Mono Black had the better mana. You can’t have a more stable mana base than 25 Swamp and 3 Cabal Coffers. In contrast, Blue/Green had terrible mana. For example, one of the top eight decks had 2 Centaur Garden, 9 Forest, and 9 Island. However, in the finals, Blue/Green was able to beat Mono Black for the title.
While Blue/Green could easily have issues with color screw, its cards were so strong that it had a solid matchup against Mono Black. The drawbacks from the risky mana base were not enough to lower the power level of the deck to tier two status.
I think this is similar to what happened with Andre’s results. He played a deck that had slightly worse mana than most of the field. But his cards were so good against the metagame (including Jund, which was over 30% of the field) that he was able to win the whole thing.
I mean, look at the spells in his deck. It’s basically a combination of many of the best cards in the Standard format.
Baneslayer, Bloodbraid, and Ranger of Eos are the best creatures. Woolly Thoctar gives Jund and red decks a lot of problems and its a fast clock against control. Noble Hierarch, Wild Nacatl, and Scute Mob are solid one drops that turn on Ranger.
Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile are probably the best removal. And Ajani Vengeant is the best walker since he’s solid against aggro and control.
The sideboard is just more good cards. Ruinblaster is widely played by the top players as a foil versus multicolor decks like Jund. Stag is good against Jund, Vampires, and even Bant. Celestial Purge is great against Mono Red, Vampires, and Jund. Burst Lightning is an efficient removal spell that’s widely played in various decks. It’s also an out against Malakir Bloodwitch, one of the best cards against Naya. And the fourth Ajani Vengeant is great against control.
Also, a little luck helps. You need Lady Luck on your side to win a Magic tournament in the top levels. If you watched the top eight webcast, you know that Andre had some lucky breaks.
He hit double red mana multiple times to wreck Jund with Ruinblaster. He didn’t get color screwed a lot. And he should’ve lost game four to Bram’s Boros deck but Bram boarded out a Goblin Bushwhacker, which would’ve made his second Ranger lethal.
So, here’s my conclusion about the deck. It’s definitely very powerful. It’s probably a tier one deck especially if Jund continues to be a major part of the metagame. Don’t be surprised to see many people playing it in States. But if you choose to play the deck, know the risks. Your mana is not very good. If you get unlucky, you can have a bad day and lose too many games to color screw.
PS: A word about Jungle Shrine. It will require some testing but Jungle Shrine may be a good fit in the deck. Based on the webcast, Brian David-Marshall said Mike Flores did not play the tri-color land because he wanted most of the lands to enter the battlefield untapped. Jungle Shrine slowed down the deck too much. Still, adding 1-3 Shrines to bolster the mana base might be a good idea. You’ll sometimes play Rootbound Crag and Sunpetal Grove as a tapped land anyways.
Buy the Cards on eBay
Check out eBay for the lowest prices on Magic The Gathering cards. Here are eBay links to the latest auctions of the expensive cards in this deck.
Mythic Rares
- Ajani Vengeant
(3 main deck, 1 sideboard)
- Baneslayer Angel
(4 main)
Rares
Creatures
- Noble Hierarch
(4 main)
- Scute Mob
(1 main)
- Ranger of Eos
(4 main)
- Great Sable Stag
(4 sideboard)
Lands
- Arid Mesa
(4 main)
- Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
(1 main)
- Rootbound Crag
(4 main)
- Sunpetal Grove
(4 main)
Uncommons
- Path to Exile
(4 main)
- Bloodbraid Elf
(4 main)
18 Responses to “How Good is Naya Lightsaber?”
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My biggest concern with the deck, as you posted it, is that it has only 52 cards and is thus not tournament legal
you forgot to include bloodbraid elf in the decklist very important to the deck!
Thanks for the catch. I’ve fixed the decklist and added the full set of Woolly Thoctars and Bloodbraid Elfs.
Did you consider the multicolor cards in Jund? While not typical, I think multicolor has to be treated similar to dual mana costs when considering mana bases because it requires a specific land to play. Statistically you might think about RW like RR. Yes, it’s just generally better to fetch for RW over RR because it enables more of your spells, so it rarely comes up in Standard. But in a tri-color format, you stretch colors laterally, not just deeply.
While Andre got lucky, everybody has to get lucky to win a Pro tournament. But Jund was weak laterally – Andre targeted the red mana all day that was required by most of it’s spells, and Jund couldn’t get the dual and tri-color costs most of its spells required to stay in the game. We saw the same problems against Spreading Seas. Consider how different that would be if Jund was a dual-color deck.
Further, most of Andre’s cards were mono-color, which is much easier to fetch and play around and much harder to target with land destruction.
I haven’t run the numbers, but the evidence looks like the mana base of Jund is weak, and in this case the traditional depth based quick-test might not be the key to understanding why.
Dan,
I see your point and Jund definitely has more color requirements but that’s offset by Naya having less colored sources than Jund. Therefore, I think both mana bases are close to the same stability.
I go back to my Ruinblaster example. Jund has 14 red sources while Naya only has 11. Jund has a better chance of casting a kicked Ruinblaster, which can keep Naya off double white, green, or red.
Heirarchs fix mana
Rangers fix mana by getting heirarchs
k thx
Jund has a lot of removal to kill Hierarch including turn one or turn two Bolt. Plus, Hierarch can’t produce red.
It’s still the perception of a lateral mana base that’s screwing with your math. While ruinblaster does require 2 red to play kicked, it does not require that mana until the fourth drop. Similarly, Baneslayer does not require 2 white until the fifth drop, though it is helped by the presence of hierarch and the ability to fetch on 4 with ranger. The other source of the misperception is vengeant, who can tie up key resources. Getting from one red to to red is relatively hard in a tricolor without lands that come into play tapped, which ajani capitalizes on, but even worse than that is going from 2 to 3.
Long story short, higher colorless cost presence and vengeant make the line between a weak manabase more blurred due to allowing a less scripted manabase.
Why hierarch instead of birds of paradise. Is it solely for the exalted bonus. Birds could produce red.
Yeah, exalted is crucial to make your other guys bigger. Exalted is much better than the ability to make red especially late in the game with Ranger of Eos.
I took out the extra vengeant in the board and put in spell breaker behemoth because vengeant was countered always when I played against grixis control.
yeah, spellbreaker behemoth may be a great sb card now that blue control has started to be good again.
noble hierarch is strictly better than birds simply because of it’s late game capabilities. Where birds is usually straight useless later on, heirarch can still be dropped as a 1-mana continuous pump for your baneslayer or other fatty.
Sure jund can just bolt it, but in my eyes it’s almost like making them waste a bolt on something you don’t necessarily need in the first place. I’ve done alot of testing with the deck and can, more often than not, get the mana I need the old-fashioned way, hierarch seems like he’s more there as a tempo accellerator than anything. If the slot was there for more of a mana-fixing standpoint, then I’m sure it would’ve been birds of paradise instead.
Sure we would have seen birds of paradise but i think it would have been lotus cobra instead because of the simple pack that he plays fetch lands sure only 4 but that’s still enough to get the well needed red on any turn you need basically and sure jund can bolt it but i be like sure waste your bolt i will just get my land the old fashion way.
i like garruk for this deck, and exploiting the most powerful mechanic ever with spells like explore and creatures like plated geopede or dragonmaster outcast
[...] Naya Zoo bears a passing resemblance to Naya Lightsaber. However, it has 0 Baneslayer Angels. Instead, it plays a Stoneforge Mystic package of Basilisk [...]
With the idea of garruk being here, i would also wonder why Sarkhan vol isn’t aswell. He’s a nice 4th turn drop or turn 3 with noble, and works well with ajani. What i like to do is use the -2 on sarkhan, steal their creature, beat them down, and then use ajani’s +1 and keep it tapped. It’s like being jacked and beaten with your own weapon, but then not allowed to use to block or attack with. Lols
Why cant we take the best of both worlds and combine them? Like my build…i run baneslayers from lightsaber and the collar + mystic combo from boss…Ive went to plenty of tournaments and just demolished every deck ive been up against…i wouldnt mind some feedback for the deck though.
Land 24
3 mountains
4 forest
3 plains
4 rootbound crag
2 raging ravine (excellent against control)
1 stirring wildwood
3 sunpetal grove
4 arid mesa
creatures 23
4 woolly thoctar
2 stoneforge mystic
4 baneslayer angel
4 bloodbraid elf
3 ranger of eos
4 birds of paradise
1 scute mob
1 dragonmaster outcast
spells 13
3 naya charm (the tap down effect is ridiculous)
4 path to exile
4 lightning bolt
equipment 2
1 basilisk collar
1 behemoth sledge
Ive done nothing but win to every deck ive faced but i am open to suggestions for the deck