The Replenish Player's Guide to Matchups
** Replenish is one of the best decks in Standard before Prophecy. That does not, however, mean that it's the right deck for you to play, or the right deck to play in any given tournament. Like every other deck in the format it has advantages and disadvantages, good and bad matchups and cards it cannot deal with. You need to decide on your deck based on your local metagame, what decks you know how to play and which you like playing the most. But if you do decide to play Replenish , this is a guide on how to do it. The current decklist is the one I played at Nationals with a Chill added to the sideboard and a Processor for a Ring of Gix . You can modify it from there.
The Decklist:
All right, before I go into individual matchups, I should justify my maindeck decisions. First, the Energy Field . After playing with it, I have to conclude that in most metagames it is worth a maindeck slot right now. A lot of the red burn decks cannot remove it game one, or have something like four ways to do so. Stompy decks normally have only Elvish Lyrist and maybe Uktabi Orangutan . Trinity may (depending on the variation) have nothing, a single Elvish Lyrist off of Skyshroud Poachers or some Creeping Molds. The Suicide Black decks have ways, but they normally use them up quickly. Given how often it's useful and how often you tutor for it, it's worthwhile.
Second, the Diamonds. They're great. They started off as something you could Enlightened Tutor for if you needed mana, and that's still something you do a lot. But as you can tell by the third one, I think you want to draw them. Every now and then they're annoying, but by letting you put an extra mana into play they get you around Ports and Tangle Wires in situations where you'd otherwise need the horrible Frantic Search . They're especially good when fighting against land destruction, and often they let you cast a four mana enchantment on turn three. The slight downside is one land draws (rare), sometimes drawing two (which can be good or bad) and sometimes having to hold back Seal of Cleansing on turn two. Three seems to be the right number in the maindeck, but there are many matchups where the fourth is good.
Finally, the most important choice: Using no Ports and using Brainstorm over Frantic Search . So many people have tried to sell me on Frantic Search it's not funny. But Frantic Search is really good for only one thing: Getting out from under Rishadan Port or Tangle Wire . Drawing two and then discarding two is nice, but it's not enough compensation for losing a card. Neither is the ability to use this to get a second white mana. Most of the time, you use Frantic Search and your card count is reduced by one without much compensation. On the other hand, Brainstorm is almost always castable with an extra mana you don't need, and it's actually so good you end up trying to save it for later whenever possible, even when it's not stopping discard spells. However, Frantic Search still has to be considered as a metagame option, no matter how much I hate it. My choice was easy, as I expected more copies of Duress than Tangle Wire . Rishadan Port is annoying but far from enough on their own to justify the Frantic Searches. I would play Frantic only if I expected little Blue Control of any form and a lot of really aggressive decks, many of them with Tangle Wires. If you do that, Brainstorm comes out for them, and you have to make sure you're happy with your post-board configuration against Blue. As for the Rishadan Ports, the mana simply did not work out to my satisfaction with colorless lands in the deck. Their main use is to stop other Rishadan Ports at key times, and if you expect a lot of Ports I can see running one or two of them, but more than that puts too much pressure on your mana base.
Individual Matchups:
Magpile:
-1 Energy Field , -3 Enlightened Tutor
+1 Marble Diamond, +1 Phyrexian Processor, +1 Ring of Gix , +1 Wrath of God
If you wanted more or better cards to board in you would play: Defense Grid , Lilting Refrain
You're not half as dead as most of your opponents will think you are. This is still what I always said the blue matchups were, a battle of wits . Still, he does have the upper hand if he knows what to do. Your goal is the same as always, to force out his counters. Most people who run Magpile are too aggressive with their counters because they have so many of them. Many will even counter Attunement , not that that's wrong all the time. The key thing to remember is that time is on your side if you're not losing too much card economy. Over time, first Daze goes dead, then Miscalculation gets cycled. On your side, Parallax Tide becomes less good, but Opalescence is normally in play.
If you get caught using Attunement too much, you're going to lose. If you're pretty sure they don't have a Counterspell , start getting all the threats you can. If they're running low, Attune often enough to throw away all the lands you draw once you hit six of them plus one for each of his Ports. But if your opponent has a hand full of counters, Attune only if you have enough junk to throw away or you need mana. Your opponent's deck has enough counters to keep up with you, and Foil will only help them next month if it goes in. But if you can avoid losing cards in this way, you have a good chance. Your goal is to get him to use his real counters on spells other than Replenish . Parallax Tide is tricky - it's a must counter card early, but loses its potency at some point, and at some point after that your opponent will know that. Most players are way too scared of Parallax Tide in the middle game. On the flip side, they're not scared of Opalescence enough.
The key is to make every card you have count, drawing either a counter or being worthwhile. Opalescence is in many ways the fork in the road: Once it hits everything is good. But if they don't let it, they're countering even more cards. Attunement is a similar dilemma. If they counter it too that's a lot of counters, but if they don't your deck becomes nothing but goodness, if slightly lower quantities of it. The other key is to never let him know how much danger he is or isn't in. Often I cast Parallax Tide early with nothing to back it up, or an Attunement praying it'll get through. On the other hand, often I just want every spell countered. I've been through this territory before with Accelerated Blue, but this matchup is different in that his clock isn't Stroke of Genius but Thieving Magpie .
Magpie requires him to tap four mana on his turn, and then it requires him to keep a creature in play. The first part is difficult, and the second part forces him to deal with Parallax Wave , which otherwise is mostly harmless. They wait for it to run out, and that's that. Instead, the Wave will deny them at least several cards while it is in play, so they have to deal with it. There are draws where you're preying they'll draw a Magpie. But it's also important not to let them get it in when they can protect it. If they have three mana and you have three, it's worth considering leaving up counter magic if you have the right hand. Otherwise, they can use Daze to stop any threat you have and untap with the Magpie in play. This is their big chance to win. Once its past, the war of attrition normally begins.
The last question is whether to play around Daze and Miscalculation . You do play around Miscalculation when you can, and Daze when you can. Daze is somewhat of an issue because they often only have two, and if you know this you want to ignore them unless playing around them is free. It's a safe bet that they have four Miscalculations. In general, not walking Attunement and Opalescence into Miscalculation early is a waste of time unless you know they're going to counter and you don't want them to. But after that, if you haven't seen one, try to play around them until they're getting cycled. Even then, be suspicious.
If I had to put numbers on the situation, which I never like doing, I'd say Magpile has maybe a 65% for the match if it has no sideboard other than Annul and you apply correct strategy (which means that from the other side you're looking even better, since most players won't), with those loses coming from when something goes wrong, especially not drawing Magpie. If they also sideboard Stormgald Machinist, the situation gets rapidly worse. This deck is a good reason not to play Replenish , if you expect it in numbers.
Accelerated Blue:
-3 Enlightened Tutor , -1 Energy Field
+1 Seal of Cleansing , +1 Phyrexian Processor , +1 Wrath of God , +1 Marble Diamond
If you wanted additional or better board cards you would add: Defense Grid
I've covered this before, and it's still similar to Magpile, so I'll be brief. If this deck type is revived by Mike Long's run to the top eight of US Nationals, it's likely to be similar to his version, without Daze and with ten or so counters. It should include more land for those intending to shuffle, but that's not your concern. The deck has some issues, but it's not unplayable. Anyway, this matchup is still the flip side of Magpile, a battle of wits and drawing out of counters where you have the edge. You want to play around Miscalculation if you can, but don't sacrifice too much to do it. They're going to have to get very lucky to take game one. After boarding, they may have Stormgald Machinist (and they will have Annul ), so it's tougher but unless they went overboard on those Machinists you should be fine. The Diamonds are actually pretty important against Machinist, because they let you threaten Tide or Wave and that keeps Machinist from getting on the table safely. Unless you fall victim to him, you should be fine.
Burn:
+1 Chill , +1 Circle of Protection: Red , +1 Marble Diamond
-1 Island, -2 Seal of Cleansing
Additional Sideboarding: More copies of CoP:Red or Chill.
Game one, go straight for the Energy Field if you need to, but going straight for the win is even better. Don't give up Attunement / Replenish just because the Field is available if you're not in any danger. Game two, you have Circle of Protection: Red , and that is more often worth going for. If you know they don't run Pillage or some other way to get around Field, you can use it more aggressively, but also remember that it's tough for them not to use Pillage to slow you down if they get the chance. The problem is you're going to have to break the Field in order to win, although you can normally use Tide and Wave to not be in any danger.
The key dynamic of this matchup is what you need to understand. They have an opening early on. After that, you can either win with your engine or use Energy Field or Circle of Protection: Red to stall them. If you just win, you win. If not, you need to worry about them killing you when you give them an opening, so be careful. Also try not to wait longer than you have to, since that lets them accumulate lands and burn spells. Still, this is going to be hugely favorable. You are their nightmare.
Ponza/Red LD:
+1 Chill , +1 Circle of Protection: Red , +1 Marble Diamond
-1 Energy Field, -2 Parallax Wave
Additional Sideboarding: More copies of Chill and additional Diamonds
You're not that happy about the Circle, but it's better than running another four drop. That certainly won't be of much help. The games are simple: You're racing to get your Diamonds down and get to the four level to start dropping Parallax Tide , or often to the three level to use Attunement , which will get you enough lands to survive the onslaught of land destruction. He needs to prevent this. Without Rishadan Port , that's a very tough job, and even with it you have the edge here until board cards come into play. Once you survive, your enemies become Boil , Tectonic Break and Thran Foundry . Watch out for them. If you have enough mana for hardcasting, it's worthwhile, since they can't play enough board control to deal with that. Once you get out into the open, he's reduced to a few expensive creatures you can easily deal with and Hammer of Bogardan , which means that unless you're way behind there won't be a problem.
Suicide Black:
+1 Marble Diamond , +1 Ring of Gix , +1 Meekstone , +1 Circle of Protection: Black
Extra Sideboarding: Light of Day , Seal of Removal
Meekstone single handedly transforms this from a nightmare to a matchup error in your favor. Game one is going to be very scary, and if they pass the goat check they often win. But after sideboarding, they literally lose to Enlightened Tutor , because dropping Meekstone is going to shut down their entire deck. Getting 20 points of creature damage in under the Meekstone is going to take long enough for you to go out for coffee, come back, watch their Tangle Wires expire and go off.
In the second part of this article I'll go over the rest of the major deck archetypes, including Bargain , Stompy, Flores Black, the Mirror, and more.
- Zvi Mowshowitz
Team Mogg Squad
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