Treacherous Pit-Dweller Deck Wins a PTQ (Blue/Black Aggro)

June 17, 2012 | Posted by Dee

Treacherous Pit-Dweller is one of those cards that looks awesome at first glance, but then you realize it has a pretty big drawback. Two black mana for a 4/3 creature is very good, but when it dies, your opponent gains control of it and it gets a +1/+1 counter.

Andre Müller found a way to deal with the drawback. He took the following Blue/Black (UB) Aggro deck with 4 Treacherous Pit-Dweller to a first place finish in a Pro Tour Qualifier (PTQ) in Hamburg, Germany.

UB Pit-Dweller Aggro
Creatures (26)
Spells (11)
Lands (23)
Sideboard (15)

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How to Overcome Treacherous Pit-Dweller’s Drawback

First, copy or Clone creatures work well with Pit-Dweller. Andre played six of these creatures (4 Phantasmal Image and 2 Phyrexian Metamorph). When you copy Pit-Dweller with Image, you get a 4/3 undying creature. When it dies, Image returns to the battlefield ready to copy another creature.

As long as you don’t copy Pit-Dweller, you won’t lose control of Image. If the only creature on the battlefield is Pit-Dweller, you can even choose not to copy a creature. With this play, you would get a 1/1 Image. Its power and toughness is 0/0 but it gets a +1/+1 counter from undying.

If your opponent gains control of Pit-Dweller, you can copy it with Phyrexian Metamorph and trade with it. When Metamorph dies, it comes back from the graveyard because of undying so you can copy another creature. Again, just make sure not to copy Pit-Dweller or else your opponent will gain control of it.

I talked to judges about these plays so they are all legal.

Second, you can cast bounce spells to keep Pit-Dweller’s drawback in check. Bounce spells say “return target creature to its owner’s hand” so Pit-Dweller goes back to your hand since you’re the owner even though your opponent controls it. With Vapor Snag, you also cause your opponent to lose one life. Andre played seven bounce spells, 4 Vapor Snag and 3 Unsummon, and 2 Snapcaster Mage to rebuy them.

Bounce spells work well if your opponent tries to block with multiple creatures. For example, he blocks Pit-Dweller with a 1/1 and a 2/2. All three creatures die and he gains control of Pit-Dweller. You Vapor Snag it and replay it. With this play, your Vapor Snag basically killed two of his creatures. You do have to spend mana again to recast Pit-Dweller but that’s not too bad because it only costs two mana.

Third, sometimes you just have to kill a wayward Pit-Dweller. This is obviously not optimal but you gave your opponent a free 5/4 creature. You have to deal with it. Andre had 2 Tragic Slip and 2 Go for the Throat for his kill spells and 2 Snapcaster Mage to replay them. Tragic Slip is solid because morbid is active whenever your opponent gains control of Pit-Dweller.

Oops, the play below doesn’t work because undying returns the creature back to its owner’s graveyard. Sorry about that.
Fume Spitter has an interesting interaction with Pit-Dweller. When your opponent gains control of Pit-Dweller, it gets a +1/+1 counter. You can remove that counter by targeting it with Fume Spitter because +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters cancel each other out. Then, destroy Pit-Dweller with a removal spell or blockers. Its undying ability will trigger and you will regain control of it. Plus, it will have a +1/+1 counter.

Filed Under Standard 

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8 Responses to “Treacherous Pit-Dweller Deck Wins a PTQ (Blue/Black Aggro)”

  1. Sarcork on June 17th, 2012 6:01 pm

    “because +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters cancel each other out”
    does this mean: if an undying-creature dies and comes back… and u block then an infect-creature with it… u can us undying again?

  2. Cam W on June 17th, 2012 6:57 pm

    At last, someone put this creature to good use. it seems like a very good creature to play against Delver. Although I’m pretty sure that taking the +1 counter off of the pit dweller is a bad idea. Since undying doesn’t care who controlled the creature when it died, but rather returns it to it’s owners control with a +1 counter (which means you would have to hand it straight back to your opponent). Or am I missing something?

  3. Xanooo on June 18th, 2012 2:44 am

    @ Sarcork

    No they won’t because of state based actions. Those will see a +1\+1 and a -1\-1 counter on the creature when it dies.

    The counters cancel each other out after if the creature would survive.

  4. Dee on June 18th, 2012 7:36 am

    @ Cam W

    Ah, you’re right. Thanks for pointing that out. I corrected it on the article.

    @ Sarcork

    If the infect kills the undying creature by blocking with lethal damage, then the +1/+1 and -1/-1 don’t cancel each other out.

    From the comprehensive rule book:

    704.7. If a state-based action results in a permanent leaving the battlefield at the same time other state-based actions were performed, that permanent’s last known information is derived from the game state before any of those state-based actions were performed.

    Example: You control Young Wolf, a 1/1 creature with undying, and it has a +1/+1 counter on it. A spell puts three -1/-1 counters on Young Wolf. Before state-based actions are performed, Young Wolf has one +1/+1 counter and three -1/-1 counters on it. After state-based actions are performed, Young Wolf is in the graveyard. When it was last on the battlefield, it had a +1/+1 counter on it, so undying will not trigger.

    The counters only cancel each other out if the creature doesn’t die. For example, you block Treacherous Pit-Dweller with a +1/+1 counter with Glistener Elf. Glistener Elf dies and Treacherous Pit-Dweller loses its +1/+1 counter so it can use undying again.

    But if you block Pit-Dweller with 4 Glistener Elf, then because of the above rule, Pit-Dweller dies with four -1/-1 counters and one +1/+1 counter. It dies with a +1/+1 counter so it doesn’t trigger undying.

    It’s kinda confusing. Here’s a link to the ruling if you want to learn more.

  5. Tom on July 10th, 2012 6:06 am

    Howcome your not usin altars reaped, use it as pit comes back with a plus 1 and therefore they don’t get to use it and you draw 2 cards?

  6. Dee on July 10th, 2012 7:32 am

    I didn’t think of it, but it does look like a good card.

  7. Tom on July 10th, 2012 7:44 am

    What u think u cud change to make it work?

  8. Dee on July 10th, 2012 11:36 am

    Actually, I thought about it some more. I don’t think Altar’s Reap is good enough to replace cards in the deck.

    The bounce spells are better because it combos with Pit-Dweller even after they kill it.

    For example, you can play Pit-Dweller on turn two. If they kill it, you can bounce it on turn three. Altar’s Reap doesn’t help you in this situation. You can’t use it on turn three because they have already taken control of Pit-Dweller.