Regionals in Retrospect - Replenish

**I'm going to spend my next few articles going over decks that made top eight at Regionals. We have the full top eight decklists from Florida, New England, Northeast and Southeast, along with many individual reports. I'll consider the decks by category rather than by region. Both to deal with the most important decks first and so that I give more time for decks to trickle in where they're scarce, I'll go in descending order of the number of top eights a deck made. That means we start with Replenish. I've chosen thirteen decklists to analyze, plus a variant.

Replenish decks tend to look a lot like each other, with the last few slots of the deck being highly variable. The sideboards also vary wildly. It's hard to find one Replenish deck to use as a base; they all seem to have some unusual card in them. One of the available decklists is unique, the one played by Tom Guevin: It includes black for Parallax Nexus and Vampiric Tutor, and has to be considered separately. The rest map out like this:

All thirteen of them contain:

The numbers on the other cards differ from decklist to decklist.

Mana Sources: Everyone agrees the deck should have between twenty four and twenty six mana sources between lands and Diamonds. The majority of the decks played one of the Diamonds but not the other one. Which Diamond they chose varied. Both Diamonds have their advantages. Two decks chose to run both Diamonds, and three chose not to run any. Adarkar Wastes was used in all of the decklists but one, although two others played only three of them.

Rishadan Port was another option. Three of the decks played three or more Ports; no one else ran any. Either you thought Ports belonged in the deck or you didn't, and there was no middle ground. This is true in general; it's very rare to see a deck with two of these. It's impossible to know what portion of Replenish players played Ports, so you can't tell if this worked out or not.

What I think was the most interesting thing about the mana is that no one played a single depletion land. Saprazzan Skerry and Remote Farm were nowhere to be found. A substantial number of players played them at Regionals, and apparently very few if any of them succeeded. Was this riskier mana base not stable enough for a format like Regionals, or are the lands just bad? I think it's a combination of both.

Most versions had three Seal of Cleansing in them. Some versions had four, and one had only two. Seal of Cleansing is excellent in some matches and next to worthless in others, so running too many is dangerous but often quite good.

Seal of Removal showed up in only four of the decklists. This seems to have proven that it's not needed to survive into the middle game, although the card isn't terrible. Several other decks also sideboarded the Seal in multiples. I still think you don't need it, but I also certainly understand it, especially in a quick beatdown field, which may describe some Regionals very well.

Everyone wanted counter magic, but they disagreed what the right counter was, with the field almost evenly split between Counterspell and Lilting Refrain. Most of the decks used three or four of their chosen counter, while two decklists have four Counters and two Lilting Refrains. With the deck constantly tapping out but vulnerable to certain spells and often doing nothing on turn two, counters are good but not good enough to run too many.

The rest of the cards could be considered roguish choices. Two played four Brainstorms, as I chose to in my Mindripper decklist for Countdown to Regionals. One played four Accumulated Knowledge. Five of them played one to three copies of Frantic Search, but the card is far less popular in the deck than it was at first. Those who do stick with the card see it as a way out of Port and Tangle Wire locks, not as a way to draw and discard.

The last few cards are normal sideboard cards for Replenish that some players chose to maindeck. They may have thought that the cards were worthwhile in general, or they may have been presideboarding for their metagame. Either way, a few players played single copies of Trade Routes, Arcane Laboratory or Back to Basics and two players played Wrath of God, one playing two of them. The enchantments are there to Enlightened Tutor for against the right deck and to save sideboard space.

Again, the most surprising thing about these decklists is just how uniform they are. Any question of not running four Waves or Tides is gone. Frantic Search has been reduced to an anti-Tangle Wire card, not a card to use four of. Seal of Removal is something the very cautious or paranoid can play one or two of, but no more. At least three Seal of Cleansing belong. Mystical Tutor is good, but just one or maybe two, and not running any is fine too. There are a few minor variants, but none of them really disrupt the basic functioning of the deck except one, which runs only one Enlightened Tutor, but I'm sure this deck did less well overall than the normal version.

The sideboards vary more. They have to be adjusted more for the local metagame. There is much less good information on the net about what to sideboard in the deck. The sideboard is also influenced by what a player fears; some players are afraid of Ponza, for example, while others with a very similar decklist don't consider it a serious threat. I think it's easiest to divide the cards into categories:

The first category is enchantment (and artifact) removal. These cards are generally aimed at the mirror matchup more than anything else, although some of them can also come in against Bargain, and they help against any rogue deck using a lot of enchantments or a few important ones. Erase is the most popular card of this type, with ten of the decks boarding at least two and four of them having a full set. Erase is cheap and precise, often giving you exactly what you need against a deck that can bring enchantments back from the graveyard. Its cheap price also makes it easier to keep it available against Bargain. However, it is somewhat narrow. The majority of those without four Seal of Cleansing in the maindeck sideboarded the fourth one in; Seal is a lot more flexible. Two players sided in two Scours; it's hard to pull off, and a lot of enchantments can get out of the way, but pulling this off on the right target can be devastating. If you pull it off on Opalescence you could win the game right there. Finally, two players in New York City played four Peace and Quiet, which is basically useless against anything but another Replenish deck or enchantress and sometimes can't be cast when you need it to be due to a lack of a second target. However, when it works you get a very good two for one. As a side note, one player boarded one Energy Flux, basically a silver bullet for Tinker.

The second section would be 'fighting the counter war.' Earlier in the deck's development, it was assumed that Mana Short would be used to get around counters. Many players have found they can beat Accelerated Blue without them, but newer blue decks are tougher. Still, four of the thirteen decks decided that they didn't need Mana Short, and those that did use it usually used two instead of the old three. Another question is whether Mana Short is good in the mirror matchup. Similar to Mana Short, three players used one copy of Defense Grid, probably to tutor for and drop turn two. If it gets through, that should be game if you have a good follow up. Two other players just decided to go with the real thing, one putting in three Counterspell and the other two Lilting Refrain, and four tried to win a counter war without using too much mana with Misdirection, one using four of them and the rest using two.

The third section would be the land destruction and beatdown control. All but two decks used Wrath of God, with the number varying wildly between one and three. One used a single similarly minded Blinding Angel, which is more specialized and slower but potentially even stronger. Three decks used a Masticore, both as creature control and as an additional way to win if Scour resolves on Opalescence. Those who felt they just needed time used Seal of Removal, with six players boarding it in, normally about three of them. The rest of the anti-beatdown cards were aimed at colors. All but two decks had a CoP:Black for the new suicide and control black decks, and one also had Light of Day. Only one player used a CoP:Red, and one decided to use two Hibernation. The most popular color hoser was Chill, which often appeared in multiples. The biggest surprise there may be that four of the decks didn't have the first Chill to tutor for, two of them showing their total lack of respect for Ponza. The rest mostly split between one and two Chills, with one worried player using three. The other two players were the ones using only one Enlightened Tutor who instead used three Planar Birth and the one with four Misdirection for the land destruction. There were four total other Planar Births, and one other Trade Routes. The last card against land destruction was to just put in another Diamond, as three players did.

The rest of the sideboards were generally various silver bullets and some weirdness. Three players used a single Back to Basics. One used two Squee, Goblin Nabob and four Rootwater Thief, obviously having unusual ideas about what some matchups come down to. One tried a Spiritual Asylum, and one used a Fountain Watch. Finally, there's the most important bullet: Arcane Laboratory, enemy of Bargain players everywhere. All but three players had at least one lab available to them after boarding, and three of them had multiplies. Interestingly, one of the players made a disparaging comment about his Lab on his decklist in his report. Clearly its stock has gone down since Replenish started, when it was normally a maindeck card.

There are certainly other ways to build Replenish, and other interesting sideboard cards, many of which had not yet been thought of at Regionals. The format for Nationals may not be new, but hopefully the decks will not be totally old.

- Zvi Mowshowitz

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