Naya Aggro with Sideboard Plans (6th Place Deck at Grand Prix Manila)

June 21, 2012 | Posted by Dee

Martin Juza, one of the best Magic players in the world, recently got 6th place at Grand Prix Manila with a Naya Aggro deck. The main deck was very straightforward with 23 lands, 33 creatures, and 4 Bonfire of the Damned.

Martin played powerful aggro creatures that you would expect in a red/green/white deck. He played eight mana dorks, Strangleroot Geist, Blade Splicer, Huntmaster of the Fells, and Restoration Angel.

Check out his decklist below.

Naya Aggro
Creatures (33)
Spells (4)
Lands (23)
Sideboard (15)

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With 4 Gavony Township, the deck only has 19 lands that produce colored mana. That’s pretty low for a three color deck. There are eight mana creatures but you can’t count on them all the time because they are easy to kill.

Martin gets around this mana base deficiency by playing 4 Cavern of Souls and 22 Human creatures. Cavern of Souls helps a lot because it can produce all three colors to cast your creatures. With the high number of Human creatures, one Cavern of Souls is often all you need for mana fixing.

To complement Cavern of Souls, Martin ran a full set of Borderland Rangers. This card is an important mana fixer because it doesn’t have the weaknesses of the mana creatures and Cavern of Souls. Unlike the mana creatures, you still get the mana fixing whenever it dies. Unlike Cavern of Souls, it can fix your mana for playing non-creature spells.

Along with giving you the colored mana that you need, Borderland Ranger also helps you cast bigger Bonfires.

Speaking of Bonfire of the Damned, this one-sided sweeper is one of the best cards in Standard. There are so many aggro decks in the format and Bonfire is great against them. Many control decks have Lingering Souls and Bonfire trumps that card pretty well.

In the middle or late game, a miracle Bonfire is often game ending. You can even take down planeswalkers with it if you have enough mana.

It might seem weird to see only 3 Strangleroot Geist, but I think that number is much better than 4. The deck only has 15 lands that produce green mana so the chances of having two green mana on turn two are not that high.

Also, four of those lands are Cavern of Souls. In many situations, you won’t be able to rely on this land for green mana because you have to name Human instead of Spirit, Strangleroot Geist’s tribe.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is perfect for the deck because it only plays four non-creature spells. I like three copies instead of four because she is a legendary creature.

Restoration Angel is excellent in this deck because she has a lot of good targets for her ability. She can blink Blade Splicer and Huntmaster of the Fells to make more token creatures. She can reset Strangleroot Geist once it has a +1/+1 counter to turn on undying again.

She can give you more basic lands by flickering Borderland Ranger. If you need flyers or want a bigger Geist-Honored Monk, she can flicker the Human Monk.

Geist-Honored Monk is not normally seen as a three-of but she fits the deck well. She combos well with the high number of creatures (especially Blade Splicer and Huntmaster of the Fells) and the 4 Gavony Township. Also, she’s a Human for Cavern of Souls.

Sideboard Plans

Here are some general guidelines for sideboarding against popular decks.

Blue/White (UW) Delver

+2 Combust
+1 Crushing Vines
+1 Plummet
+1 Ancient Grudge

-4 Bonfire of the Damned
-1 Geist-Honored Monk

Zombies

+1 Oblivion Ring
+2 Celestial Purge

-3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Pod

+1 Crushing Vines
+1 Oblivion Ring
+1 Ancient Grudge
+2 Wolfir Silverheart

-3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 Geist-Honored Monk

Red/Green (RG) Aggro

+1 Crushing Vines
+1 Oblivion Ring
+1 Ancient Grudge
+2 Wolfir Silverheart
+2 Hero of Bladehold

-3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-3 Geist-Honored Monk
-1 Huntmaster of the Fells

Wolf Run Ramp

+2 Hero of Bladehold
+2 Wolfir Silverheart
+3 Zealous Conscripts

-4 Bonfire of the Damned
-3 Geist-Honored Monk

Solar Flare

+3 Zealous Conscripts
+1 Oblivion Ring

-3 Geist-Honored Monk
-1 Huntmaster of the Fells

Filed Under Standard 

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