Today I wanted to talk about a deck that I recently picked up after a long break: Lucky Thirteen. This is more of a fun deck that gets some laughs when it works and gets the obvious “I told you so” when it doesn’t. What I have basically been running is a Jund build that rather than taking the aggro control route like traditional Jund it takes a more control route being mostly based in black with green and red for cards like Punishing Fire, Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay. Let’s take a look at the list in its most recent form.
Lucky Thirteen
| Lands (23) 2 Badlands 3 Bayou 3 Bloodstained Mire 1 Forest 3 Grove of the Burnwillows 1 Swamp 2 Taiga 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 4 Verdant Catacombs 3 Wasteland Creatures (13) 4 Dark Confidant 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Tarmogoyf 1 Tree of Perdition Spells (24) 2 Abrupt Decay 2 Collective Brutality 2 Fatal Push 3 Hymn to Tourach 3 Liliana of the Veil 3 Punishing Fire 2 Sylvan Library 4 Thoughtseize 3 Triskaidekaphobia | Sideboard (15) 3 Choke 2 Life from the Loam 3 Nature’s Claim 2 Slaughter Games 3 Surgical Extraction 2 Toxic Deluge |
The main difference is that I have more of a focus on black with cards like Hymn to Tourach and have moved the Life from the Loam to the the sideboard. I added an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to help support the further black focus (though on stream I actually forgot about this and ran the original fourth Bloodstained Mire).
If you check in with the stream you already know that I ran this deck to a decent 4-1 finish. My one loss to was Jeff Hooglund himself on Mono Red Sneak Attack. Turns out having a greedy mana base loses to Blood Moon when you can’t fetch your basics. On that note I have decided to update the mana base a bit to include additional basics and reduce the amount of lands that are non black and irrelevant under a Blood Moon. I feel this will give us better chances at beating decks focused on Moon as well as Wasteland.
While I did have multiple kills throughout the night Triskaidekaphobia, I also died to it myself. The same match against Mono Red Sneak Attack I left a Fiery Confluence in his hand despite him having multiple ways to cheat fatties into play. After having resolved a Triskaidekaphobia I then died to my opponent using Fiery Confluence to set my life to Thirteen. Obviously a very poor mistake but it happens when you don’t plan ahead appropriately.
Outside of that simple mistake and the mana base I was very happy with the list and the only other change that I would consider is switching the Slaughter Games for Lost Legacy. Now that the deck is much more black focused the double black should be easy enough to cast and with a Deathrite Shaman I can cast it turn two against Storm which is much better against fast combo than a few targeted discard effects. Although they did help me in a win against TES and the one game I took off Mono Red, Lost Legacy taking an entire win condition from my opponents deck is obviously far better.
Here is the updated list if I had to run it back tomorrow:
Lucky Thirteen
| Lands (23) 2 Badlands 2 Bayou 4 Bloodstained Mire 1 Forest 2 Grove of the Burnwillows 2 Swamp 1 Taiga 2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 4 Verdant Catacombs 3 Wastelan Creatures (13) 4 Dark Confidant 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Tarmogoyf 1 Tree of Perdition Spells (24) 2 Abrupt Decay 2 Collective Brutality 2 Fatal Push 3 Hymn to Tourach 3 Liliana of the Veil 3 Punishing Fire 2 Sylvan Library 4 Thoughtseize 3 Triskaidekaphobia | Sideboard (15) 1 Abrupt Decay 2 Choke 2 Life from the Loam 3 Lost Legacy 2 Nature’s Claim 3 Surgical Extraction 2 Toxic Deluge |
If you missed the stream you can check out the raw video here. I hope you all enjoyed discussing Lucky Thirteen we’ll see you again soon!
Happy brewing to each and every one of you. If anyone has an idea for a brew that they would like to see, I will gladly take requests and challenges on twitter or in email at [email protected].
Aaron Gazzaniga works part time at a game store and in his off time has been an avid magic player/brewer since 2003. Having begun in Odyssey Standard Block and always favoring control and prison style decks, we come to this moment in time where Aaron finally gets to talk about and share his ideas. If you want to contact Aaron tweet @aarongazzaniga