Bad Touch: Deck Tech

(This deck review was written and submitted by Gamelen. The author made Top 2 and Top 8 everytime he used it in MPDC, and it has inspired many players so thanks to him for sharing his thoughts on it and contributing to the Clan's blog). 

Bad Touch is a Golgari control deck in Standard Pauper that is based primarily around the powerful devotion mechanic.  It seeks long games with board stalls while digging for multiple copies of Gray Merchant of Asphodel to slowly establish control before punching through the final points of damage.

Preface: Devotion to Black

Like in Mono Black Control, the latent power Gray Merchant of Asphodel takes center stage.  It stalls the game against aggressive opponents and can close games out of nowhere.  The full potential of devotion only becomes apparent when two conditions are met:

1. The battlefield is controlled
2. The opponent’s hand is empty (or known)

The first goal is mostly self-explanatory.  Devotion counts the number of black mana symbols among Bad Touch’s permanents, so naturally the deck looks to keep a lot of black permanents in play.  A balance must be struck between developing the devotion count and ensuring the game goes long enough to cast Gray Merchant and Disciple of Phenax at opportune times.

The second goal of devotion decks is to eliminate answers from its opponent’s hand.  Instant speed removal can reduce, or even eliminate, the devotion count in response to Gray Merchant or Disciple of Phenax by removing the creature with the ability on the stack.  Counter spells negate the power of these cards outright.

Mono Black Control fulfills both of these conditions and is one of the most solid decks in the format.  However, with the Ravnica guildgates still available splashing a second color is quite easy to do and may well be worth the effort.

Bad Touch

Bad Touch forsakes maximizing the power of a single Gray Merchant or Disciple of Phenax for the ability to resolve those creatures more reliably and in multiples.

Creatures

4 Deadly Recluse

3 Corpse Hauler

4 Sluiceway Scorpion

4 Disciple of Phenax

Stranger Danger

4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Spells

4 Grisly Salvage

3 Altar's Reap

2 Read the Bones

2 March of the Returned

4 Devour Flesh

4 Stab Wound

Lands

8 Forest

10 Swamp

4 Golgari Guildgate

Sideboard

4 Duress

3 Sewer Shambler

3 Naturalize

2 Crypt Incursion

3 Pharika's Cure

Devotion Goals

In order to accomplish the first or our two devotion goals, we’re running Deadly Recluse and Sluiceway Scorpion to trade with our opponent’s best attackers while casting Grisly Salvage and Read the Bones to look for our Merchants and Disciples.  Devotion creatures are better in multiples and that’s how we’re going to cast them.

We play many cards that trade better than 1-for-1 to force our opponent’s hand empty.  We’re drawing cards at every opportunity, looking at our opponent’s hand, forcing discards, recurring high impact creatures, trading up with deathtouch, and scavenging in the late game.

Card Choices - Creatures

4 Deadly Recluse

Recluse blocks and trades with almost anything and only costs 2 mana.  It also wears scavenge counters well and will often trade for multiple blockers in the late game. 

3 Corpse Hauler

Hauler recurs Gray Merchants, blocks early when necessary, and beats for two late game where your opponents don’t want to target it with removal (making it another surprisingly effective scavenge target).

4 Sluiceway Scorpion

Scorpion attacks and blocks well while still being an unattractive target for removal.  This card is very flexible and provides extra value from Grisly Salvage.

4 Disciple of Phenax

Disciple might be the best card in the deck.  It usually trades 1-for-1 just from the discard, but it also reveals the opponent’s hand, blocks, and adds to devotion.  It’s not uncommon to cast Gray Merchant before Disciple of Phenax to prioritize card advantage over life totals.

4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Gray Merchant is the biggest reason to play black.  In close games it preserves life while whittling down the opponent.  In winning positions it ends the game.

Card Choices - Spells

4 Grisly Salvage

Grisly Salvage digs through 5 cards looking for Merchants while putting scorpions into the graveyard.  It also gives us a way to use the 2 mana we hold up for Altar’s Reap or Devour Flesh and is an excellent end-of-turn play.  Remember that Grisly Salvage can get lands when the shuffler isn’t cooperating.

3 Altar's Reap

Stab Wound on your Gray Merchant is horrible and can lose you the game.  Bad Touch also likes to recur creatures from the graveyard and benefits more from sacrificing its creatures than most other decks.

2 Read the Bones

Long games are won by card advantage and it’s hard to do better than Read the Bones.  There could easily be more than 2 of these in the deck.

2 March of the Returned

A 2-for-1 that gets exactly the cards you want.  Resolving this spell will often win the game, but also opens you to the graveyard hate that many opponents will sideboard.

4 Devour Flesh

Devour Flesh is one of the cheapest removal spells in the format and can also get you out of a Stab Wound.  Casting this card early helps mask when you have an Altar’s Reap.

4 Stab Wound

Sometimes Stab Wound forces opponents to remove their own creatures, but other times it gives your opponent a blocker that you don’t want to attack into, and still others it gets knocked off by a Gods Willing.  I go back and forth on this card.  If I can find room for Basilica Screecher it might stay, otherwise I may replace it with Grisly Spectacle.

Card Choices – Sideboard

The sideboard is by far the least refined part of this deck.  This is merely the sideboard I ran in MPDC 23.04.

4 Duress

Blue based control decks will counter your important spells and draw more cards than you can discard.  Hitting their important spells early or before resolving a Disciple of Phenax is important to maintaining card advantage.

3 Sewer Shambler

Many of the other powerful decks in the format contain swamps and Sewer Shambler helps break the effective mirror match.  The cheap scavenge makes it very flexible.

3 Naturalize

Ethereal Armor is a serious problem, especially with Hopeful Eidolon.  Naturalize may not be the answer.  This choice is untested.

2 Crypt Incursion

Incursion is good in the mirror when countering March of the Returned and Corpse Hauler and is serviceable against aggressive decks.  It has limited use in the Mill match where it can counter their Crypt Incursions, and is better than running a dead card.

3 Pharika's Cure

Fast aggressive decks and Extort both run many 2 toughness creatures that can end the game before you’re ready.  The removal is more important than the life gain, but it’s a nice bonus.

Metagame and Matchups: Early Thoughts

This format is still very young, but there are a few decks that you can expect to see at MPDC.  The popular decks that I remember facing are:

• Mono Black Control
• Orzhov Extort
• Selesnya Enchants
• Boros
• Dimir Mill
• Azorius Control

I will attempt to briefly summarize my thoughts on these matches.

Mono Black Control

This is effectively the mirror match.  Basilica Screecher needs to be dealt with early before it does too much extort damage.  Try to keep their devotion low enough that you can avoid revealing too much of your hand to Disciple of Phenax.  Conversely, cast Disciples to tear apart their hand and try to keep them top decking so your Grisly Salvages and scavenge counters can carry the match.  Try to play around their Corpse Haulers and make sure to save Altar’s Reap for Stab Wound.

Orzhov Extort

Kill anything that has the word “extort” on it immediately.  Those points add up quickly and are an absolute priority.  Disciple usually comes online quickly enough to pick the last creature out of their hand.

Selesnya Enchants

Ethereal Armor and Auramancer (for Ethereal Armor) are the cards that matter.  Deathtouch does a good job at keeping the rest in check.

Boros

The new Boros lists tend to run 30 or more of the most efficient creatures in the format.  I don’t believe I’ve played this matchup yet, but it could be very difficult.  Keeping them off of battalion will make it easier to block which is important since Bad Touch doesn’t have very many removal spells.  Be careful of getting blown out by Madcap Skills when relying on blockers.

Dimir Mill

You will lose this match.  This is the number one reason not to play Bad Touch.  Mill’s opening hands can be shaky and punishing them with Duress is important.  I’m also considering Mind Rot as a sideboard option, which may at least give us a chance to defeat mana-screwed opponents.  Depending on how Mill decks evolve the alternative anti-Mill strategy proposed by gwyned may be appropriate: http://writeradept.blogspot.fr/2013/11/beating-dimir-mill.html

Azorius Control

This match is an absolute headache.  It is just difficult to keep track of everything they can do.   Resolving Disciple of Phenax is important to get a look at their hand to know when they have Celestial Flare, Essence Scatter, and perhaps most importantly Last Breath.  Deathtouch does a good job of getting through Court Hussar, but Deputy of Acquittals and Archaeomancer can accumulate card advantage quickly.  I have a winning record against this deck, but I don’t know if I should.

Evolution

Bad Touch is far from settled in my mind.  There are many cards that I’m considering trying while exploring Golgari in Standard Pauper.  Without going into detail, here are the possibilities that have piqued my interest:

Grisly Spectacle

Basilica Screecher

Sedge Scorpion

Baleful Eidolon

Trestle Troll

Terrus Wurm

Rubbleback Rhino

Commune with the Gods

Wildwood Rebirth

Shrivel

Drown in Filth

Cremate

Beckon Apparition

Mind Rot

I welcome anybody to play this deck and let me know how they do with it!  It leads to interesting and frequently close games in which you press a minute advantage over many turns.  Good luck to all of you Standard Pauper Players and may all of your decks earn interesting names!

-Gamelen