Wolf Run Ramp

Yesterday I decided to unsleeve my deck and say it good bye but as I spent quite some time playing it I would like to share some information or feelings about it. Before when it was primarily me playing in standard tournaments now and then I played Solar Flare or Esper Control. This deck faired well and there was nothing I would like to change about it. My boyfriend after giving up on L5R decided to go back to Magic. I offered him that he could use my cards and that was the end of my Esper Control. My color choices were somewhere in Green + something. So I started with Wolf Run Red. It wasn't my build whatsoever. Probably Kibler's (Actually I had Iyanaga's deck sleeved up for testing purposes and from there I moved on). Anyway I made few changes to it and just tried playing with it.

Wolf Run Ravager ver. 2

Creatures[16]
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
3 Inferno Titan
4 Primeval Titan
3 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Acidic Slime
Sorcery [11]
4 Rampant Growth
4 Slagstorm
1 Whipflare
2 Green Sun's Zenith
Instant [4]
4 Galvanic Blast
Artifact [4]
4 Sphere of the Suns
Land [25]
4 Copperline Gorge
5 Forest
4 Inkmoth Nexus
3 Kessig Wolf Run
5 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag

First tournament I encountered RDW that killed me even after I played all my Huntmasters in the second game. I was unable to draw fourth land and the Sphere was depleted. In the third game I tried to survive and was later in the game killed by my own flipped Huntmaster. The secong game I lost was against Mono Green with Dungrove Elder. I managed to get rid of the first one, but I was unable to deal with the one that followed and I wasn't simply fast enough. I won the remaining 3 games but playing the deck did not feel right in any way.

I found out that being beaten by controls is not what I want and that the deck can't be played as a control in any way (my usual problem). My results were usually 2:2 or 3:3 and I did not like the deck at all. Time for a change came and the numbers of players playing this deck was thinning anyway. I discarded red and added white. I needed something that would help me fight control decks and a bit more against zombies and RDW. White has a very nice card - White Sun's Zenith and more control cards like Gideon. The removal side was Ratched Bomb for earlier threats, tokens and annoying planeswalkers and Day of Judgment. For fast decks Timely Reinforcements were enough and even White Sun's Zenith was capable of stopping aggro decks sometimes. I played 2 copies of White Sun's Zenith and I did not regret that.

Wolf Run White

Creature [12]
1 Acidic Slime
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Primeval Titan
4 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
Sorcery [10]
3 Day of Judgment
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Rampant Growth
Instant [2]
2 White Sun's Zenith
Artifact [6]
2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Sphere of the Suns
Enchantment [3]
3 Oblivion Ring
Land [25]
2 Evolving Wilds
4 Forest
4 Inkmoth Nexus
2 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Mountain
3 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
1 Rootbound Crag
4 Sunpetal Grove
Planeswalker [2]
2 Gideon Jura

I played with this deck and my results were either 4:0 or 3:1. Against controls it was way better. This deck played nice and I liked it much more than the red version, it also showed on my results. Quite soon though I realized that this deck is much slower and that sometimes I really want to play ramp 1 on T2, Solemn and Titan. After a long time of trying to play Wolf Run I realized that this should be the way the deck plays still not accepting that much. I was trying to figure out what makes this deck different from Valakut? I was usually winning with this deck except some losses against Twin combo. Valakut alone was capable of dealing with annoying creatures and was capable of instant win. When someone wanted to mess with it I went red aggro/burn strategy that won me many games and surprised many players. For some reason I never had such explosive games with Wolf Run so I wanted to make Wolf Run more like that. I took out the white and replaced it with black.

Wolf Run Black

Type II

Main Deck:
1 Acidic Slime
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Grave Titan
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
4 Primeval Titan
4 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

1 Batterskull
3 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Doom Blade
2 Go for the Throat
2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Rampant Growth
2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Sphere of the Suns

1 Dragonskull Summit
2 Evolving Wilds
7 Forest
4 Inkmoth Nexus
2 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Mountain
4 Swamp
4 Woodland Cemetery

Sideboard:
2 Autumn's Veil
1 Batterskull
2 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Doom Blade
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Naturalize
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

The black version simply needed to be fast. Grave Titan was capable of dealing with both RDW and Zombies and proved to be a bigger threat than any other titan. Grave Titan is not good against tokens but even Inferno Titan was like... killing one spirit when it came into play or hitting annoying planeswalker. Black version can also side in Curse of Death's Hold which helps a ton against all those annoying tokens, zombies and even mono red. One just has to be faster. The problem with this deck is that it is worse against control decks and delver. White was ok against Delver and 50/50 against UB. Red was better against Delver but was not that good against control decks. Black version is kinda meh. Either Thrun + Wolf Run early managed to win or Autumn's veil does the job. Really Cavern of Souls would come handy. My results with WR Black were slightly worse than with the White version. Still Black Sun's Zenith can hit creatures other WR can't really take care of and it can deal with other titans as well. Spot removal in black also can deal with such creatures even though we lose the possible burn spell hitting a planeswalker.

When playing with WR White I did not find a deck against which this version would be really good but the deck was good against more or less anything. WR Black is either good or bad. In overall I feel that it is the worst out of the three. Surprisingly I spent most of the time playing this version. Now it's a time for a change.