Matchup Analysis: Replenish vs. Accelerated Blue

**When I first built my version of Accelerated Blue, Nemesis was not out so Replenish was still based on older, weaker enchantments. When I covered Accelerated Blue, Replenish was not a major deck type, so I chose not to cover the matchup. That was a big mistake. Since I've now covered both decks, and understanding this matchup is really important, I'll stop here to cover this key matchup in more detail. If you want the short version, Replenish test spells its way to victory.

As I said earlier, I think Replenish is a control deck. Your goal is to play it as a control deck, hardcasting your cards, and not depend on Replenish itself. If there's one place not being a combination deck makes your life easy, it's against Accelerated Blue. There are different versions of Accelerated Blue, but they're all vulnerable to the same strategy. So are most decks that call themselves 'Draw-Go.' If you're careful, this is an easy matchup to win.

Neither player can win very early on unless the other has a very bad draw, so both players need a long term strategy. The Accelerated Blue player will try to counter enough of the right spells to stop your deck from working, or so that it leaves only pieces that his creatures, Kegs and Treacheries can handle. Before the game begins, the blue player has to decide which spells he wants to counter and which he'll let through. Some of his decisions are easy. Parallax Tide must be stopped. Once you have any kind of graveyard, so must Replenish . Obviously, Counterspell is going to take a counter with it unless there's something even more important. Back to Basics also counts as needing to be stopped for most draws of most versions. Assuming Miscalculation can be used somehow, that means you need the equivalent of 12 counters just to stop those. If you have 12, you're playing more than I did. But that means you can't counter Attunement or Opalescence . Together, the remainder of your deck is more than enough to win with.

That's the intuition on the match. Replenish has too many threats. With my version of the deck, the only net loss of cards is with Attunement . If you adjust your land ratio one card in the right direction or have one useless card you're even. I playtested the matchup, and I figured out how you should play the Replenish deck here.

If you have a hand with more threats than your opponent probably has counters, especially if it includes Replenish or even better more than one Replenish at the end, start casting spells you think your opponent will counter if he has one. Save Parallax Tide for last, since that's the strongest test spell and the most dangerous if it hits while your hand is good. Walk Attunement into counters if you can, or use them to force your opponent to counter Opalescence if he lets Attunement through. If he lets you have Opalescence force him to stop Parallax Wave. A lot of the time, when the plan's working they'll signal that they're out of counters since they figure you'll keep testing them anyway, and start tapping mana. Once you know it's safe, of course, Replenish for the win or sometimes just hardcast your way to the win. Use Seal of Cleansing to take care of Grim Monolith or one of the counters. This is one card you do want to sneak in if you can. Don't play more land than you need under this plan, not counting what you need to play around Daze or Miscalculation if you choose to, and to cover for Rishadan Port . Try to avoid using the Painlands if you can, since they might be killed by Dust Bowl . Once you have too many lands, Attune the extras away.

Attunement strategy is one of the key things that's easy to do wrong. Don't use Attunement unless you need to. Reason one you need to is that you have two or more cards worth discarding, like extra Enlightened Tutors and lands. Reason two is if it's about to get killed somehow. Reason three is if you need another land. Then there's the point in the game where the blue deck is out of counters and starts going for threats, at which point you have to win as fast as possible. And of course, if you're about to Replenish and you know it will work go for it! But if there's a chance it won't work, don't stack your graveyard for more than you need for a sure win.

That was what to do with a good, threat heavy draw. When you get the opposite hand it's more problematic. One option is to Attune it into a better hand, which you'll do with a bad enough hand if you get the chance. Try to wait on it as long as possible, though, to discard the worst possible cards or to wait for some cards to become the worst possible cards they can be. Before, you wanted Attunement countered. Here, you want it to work. It's hard to control this result, since it normally depends on what your opponent decided he would do. Try not to tip your hand, though. Here, you're doing exactly the opposite of what you did above. There you're trying to cast the weakest spell they'll counter. Here you want the strongest spell that will work. Probably the best enchantment here is Opalescence , since most players will let it through. Use Parallax Wave , Attunement and Seal of Cleansing as your pressure, all spells that don't normally get countered. Make sure to play around Treachery , since that would make their life easy, and save your real threat. If they're not being careful they'll be forced to tap out. Then you have them if you drew anything at all. Also note that drawing a lot of land can give you a chance to cast two threats and play around Miscalculation. You'll draw more threats later on.

One way they have to get back in the game is Stroke of Genius or Opportunity . Normally, by this time they have a Rishadan Port , which means they'll tip their hand by not tapping a land. Let them go and counter the Stroke if you have the counter. Worst case is they save mana to counter back, which you of course make them do anyway.

In general, I found that if you're careful to cast your spells in the right order it's really hard to lose. Annul is annoying but not really that much trouble. Only a pure Draw-Go deck, not a Somnophore deck but a true CMU Blue style deck, could actually stop all your threats. But in effect, almost any two different enchantments in your deck beyond Seal of Cleaning (which is quite useful) will be annoying, and the third will have to be countered. Even finding the spare mana for Powder Keg isn't easy if you don't have a chance on turn two. You can do amazingly if you can manipulate your opponent into countering when you want him to, but you should be fine even if you can't.

The scariest problem is actually when they get aggressive. If they start casting Masticores and Morphlings, you're suddenly on a clock and will lose if your hand won't let you go on the offensive. If they don't put this pressure on you it won't matter. With time to slowplay you can win with almost any hand.

After sideboarding, you bring in the fourth Seal of Cleansing , another Back to Basics and two Mana Shorts. You don't want to do too much, since your deck is excellent against blue. The one card you don't want is Enlightened Tutor , so you take those out. A lot of this is that your version doesn't include the cards you would normally take out, which are Seal of Removal , Mystical Tutor and Frantic Search . That would force you to have more cards to bring in. Here, you run only the bare minimum. The Accelerated Blue deck brings in more Annuls and maybe Thran Foundry . That's nothing you can't deal with without changing your strategy much. Playing around Thran Foundry just means you put even less reliance on Replenish than usual. Kill the Foundry if you get the chance with Replenish in hand, or if you have an extra Seal regardless.

The balance changes with other versions. Here, your mana base doesn't run out and can't be attacked; the use of depletion lands turns that on its head. The use of Frantic Search and Mystical Tutor means that you will slowly lose card economy. Still, the amount of offense and shortage of counters in Accelerated Blue should let the plan work. Game two you have to sideboard more to get where you want to be, but if you get there you should be fine. When these versions face off against blue with heavier countermagic, there is the potential for some problems.

As I noted earlier, Lilting Refrain would be amazing in these matchups. If you start having problems, you can start using them. This does mean sacrificing other matchups, so keep that in mind. You can sideboard Defense Grid if you have to, but with Annul it's not worth keeping Enlightened Tutor in for it, so you'd have to put in multiples. All of this is dependant on blue decks adapting to Replenish . So far, I haven't found an acceptable way for them to do that.

What should you do if you're on the other side, playing Accelerated Blue? Your best hope is to either win quickly, play against a version that has to get too aggressive, or get your opponent to overextend. If you don't see any depletion lands or Frantic Searches, you should drop a Morphling or Masticore early on if you think you can do it without losing, especially Morphling . That prevents them from being able to bleed out your threats slowly, and you should put their life total under maximum pressure. If you can use Rishadan Port to stop them from having four mana, generally you want to do it even if that means you can't counter.

Here comes the weird question, which is what to do about Attunement . Ironically, it's when your hand is really bad (or aggressive) that you go after it. If you have a lot of counters you should let them Attune and burn threats. If you don't, you have to fight it, since it insures they'll get enough to get around your weak hand. This changes somewhat if they tutor for Attunement , since obviously their hand is uneven somehow. They could have gone for Parallax Tide and didn't, so trust them and counter Attunement . If your opponent is bad, there's more reason to let them Attune, since that's where a lot of the mistakes are made in this matchup, especially overextention. The third option is the best one but it's out of your control. If their mana base will run down over time and their Frantic Searches will generate automatic card disadvantage, it may be possible to win the long game. Attack their painlands without mercy. If they need depletion lands with two counters on them, go after them too, but when possible tap their basics with Ports. Counter only the really powerful cards and hope they run out of threats. Often they'll have no choice but to go for it, and they'll lose if they fail. You can help this out a lot in deck construction.

What helps you? Annul is obviously good, the more and the more maindeck the better here. Memory Lapse doesn't help much unless you're using it to get to Rewind and Thwart . Daze can be good if they don't know you have it, but often they naturally get around it thanks to their mana curve. Rewind is good if you can get that far, and Thwart often is as well. Enough of these give you a decent shot to take down the aggressive versions. The problem is these are all horrible cards for the deck, but there isn't much you can do about that. Out of the sideboard, your options are again limited. Thran Foundry helps some but it isn't great. Hopefully someone will come up with the tech here, but nothing I've seen so far works.

I hesitate to give percentages for games or matches, because people's variants and play styles are so different and I don't have detailed enough information. But you should win this matchup with Replenish most of the time. It's actually so good I considered not bothering with Mana Short.

Zvi Mowshowitz

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