Hello everyone!

I just came back from Wizards headquarters in Renton, after playing Magic Online Championship. As you probably know, I finished second playing 4C Copy Cat in Standard. In this article I would like to tell you why I think the deck is great, and more importantly share my insight on the Mardu matchup, which I think is the most important matchup if you plan to play GP New Jersey or Barcelona. Unfortunately, after those GPs there will be another Ban announcement on March 13 and I think neither Mardu nor 4C Copy Cat will survive in the form we know them. I believe 《Gideon, Ally of Zendikar》 and 《Felidar Guardian》 will be banned. So do you still want to learn more about 4C Copy Cat?

Mardu and the 4 Color Copy Cat Standard

Is this Standard a two deck format? Right now, I believe so. I think both decks are absurdly powerful and make everything else look bad. If you want to beat them, it is doable, but if you beat one you are losing badly to second one. If someone has a deck that has good matchup against both, he will win one of those upcoming GPs easily. If you want to beat Mardu, best bet would probably be Brad Nelson’s GB energy with 《Aethersphere Harvester》s. But guess what, this deck can’t ever beat 4C Copy Cat. And it goes other way too, one of the best decks against 4C is Jeskai Saheeli, but that deck has such a hard time against Mardu that people basically stopped playing it. The matchup between those two decks is close, but if Mardu players start adapting more to beating 4C, they will have the upper hand and there is not much you can do as a 4C player.

4 Color Copy Cat

This is the 75 I played at MOCS.

I believe the maindeck is better than other configurations (《Aetherworks Marvel》, 《Elder Deep-Fiend》, 《Cloudblazer》). Only change I could see doing is replacing one 《Chandra, Torch of Defiance》 with 《Tamiyo, Field Researcher》, becase she is so much better against Mardu.

The Manabase is not great and maybe those last three lands (2 《Game Trail》, 1 《Evolving Wilds》) can be swapped for something else. The deck plays 21 lands, 4 《Attune with Aether》, 4 《Servant of the Conduit》 and 4 《Oath of Nissa》 so flooding out is a real thing, and that is why having something as powerful as Chandra that wins the game by itself is more important than another support card like 《Elder Deep-Fiend》.

Matchup vs Mardu

So how to win the most important matchup? Unfortunately, there is no easy way. Games play out very differently, but I’ll point out which things you need to prioritize and what is not all that important. Sometimes you need to be aggressive, then sometimes you need to prevent as much damage as you can while playing around certain cards and in some games the only thing that matters is if you can assemble the combo fast enough. When to do what? Read on and I’ll try to make sense of it.

Grinding them out

Most common way to win after sideboarding, but a bit harder to do game 1. After sideboarding you have good answers for most of their threats, but game 1 you are pretty soft to 《Heart of Kiran》, which kills you really fast so long games are not that common if they have it. You have only 《Harnessed Lightning》and 《Whirler Virtuoso》 that can interact with it well, but only 《Harnessed Lightning》 is a good answer.

《Whirler Virtuoso》 gives you some time, but eventually you will run out of energy if you don’t combo them out in that time. Important thing to realize is that if you can lure them into blocking with 《Heart of Kiran》, then you kill it afterwards with Chandra or her Oath. Throwing away a creature or two might very well be worth it if you manage to kill 《Heart of Kiran》. Just keep in mind that they can have additional copies in hand, so if they give up their Heart for not much (unless they have no other options) always consider that they may have additional copies. 《Aethersphere Harvester》 is another card that is annoying in game 1, because similarly to Heart, you don’t have enough answers to flying vehicles. At least this one doesn’t kill you too fast, but on the other hand it makes racing pretty much impossible. After sideboard, with 《Release the Gremlins》 being the major trump card, it is way easier to take control of the game and value them out. Release should usually be played as a 5 mana card, but don’t hesitate to kill Heart on turn 3 with it if you are under a lot of pressure! Your cards are generally better, so if you get to the lategame with a high enough lifetotal you should be fine.

Combo kills

This is the easiest way to finish the game and your main route to victory in game 1. They don’t have that many answers to the combo in first game, but keep in mind that a 《Fatal Push》 together with a Clue will stop 《Felidar Guardian》 from making an army.

Turn 2 Servant into turn 3 Felidar is the nut draw that makes it very hard for them to keep up 3 mana for 《Unlicensed Disintegration》, because they shouldn’t have enough pressure in play at that point. With that said, I think having the Felidar in play on turn 3 is very threatening, even if you don’t have a Saheeli, so you should consider playing it right there even if you can’t get any real value out of it’s ETB trigger, even if you might have a slightly “better” play for the turn. It may just cause them to make awkward plays, such as Disintegrating your Felidar on their turn, instead of putting you under more pressure with something like 《Gideon, Ally of Zendikar》. This deck wins a huge percentage of it’s games by assembling the combo, but not on turn 4 like many people would think. Usually it is on turn 6 or 7, when you already have something else going in play that your opponent has to respond to instead of keeping up mana for Disintegration. Your goal should be to have something in play, usually Planeswalkers that demand answers so you can run away the game with combo. If they respect the combo and don’t respect what you already have in play, you can easily play the value game and generate a card or two during those turns they refuse to tap out, eventually besting them with a superior board presence.

Being aggressive

This doesn’t happen that often in this matchup as in others, but is also an important angle the deck can provide so you have to keep it in mind. Lot of cards in the deck deal some extra points of damage to opponent, and it really adds up. Probably the biggest overperformer in this is 《Oath of Chandra》. Saheeli is also very good at unloading some damage with it’s -2 ability, and Chandra deals two damage as her main plus ability. Games where you need to be aggressive against Mardu are those where you are not close to assembling combo and have some clock on you, like 《Heart of Kiran》, or in games where you are flooding out.

It is important to realize that in some games you would rather race 《Scrapheap Scrounger》 with 《Rogue Refiner》 than trading them. Like I said, Oath does a great job there, especially with Saheeli if you are on offensive, and the best part is that after it makes the copy of creature that gives you some value and does some damage, you still have a Planeswalker in play, which they have to kill or it will create some more value. And if they need to attack with their creatures instead of blocking, that makes them even more vulnerable on next turn.

Sideboarding against Mardu

This one is hard to generalize, but I can help you figure out what cards you want to bring in when. On the draw you just need to survive against their most aggressive draws. Flooding out shouldn’t be that big of a concern, so you should just keep your deck streamlined as game one, with some better answers for their threats. If you know they are boarding out 《Toolcraft Exemplar》 and bringing in heavier stuff, you should board in 《Negate》 or two too.

On the draw, they might be boarding out 《Toolcraft Exemplar》s if their sideboard allows it and bringing in more Planeswalkers and 《Skysovereign, Consul Flagship》. Against that plan 《Negate》 is at its best and 《Tireless Tracker》 should also be considered, because games will go long and there is real possibility of flooding. 《Servant of the Conduit》isn’t that needed because they have good answers for your cards, so you would rather have cards generating value and be a bit slower, than drawing Servants later in the game. One general note about sideboarding is that 《Oath of Nissa》 is sideboarded out when you are bringing in about 3+ spells instead of hits for it. This I show I would generally board in the dark, but keep in mind that you should be responding to what your opponent is doing and not sideboarding blindly. Some might be surprised by cutting Virtuoso, but he is very bad in multiples and you have good answers for their threats after SB, so you don’t need a card that only gives you time and doesn’t trade profitably agaisnt theirs. Saheeli gets cut because you don’t need to combo them out that often and she does nothing in multiples and is really bad when you get behind and are not killing them with Felidar, and on the play you are advantaged so you don’t want to lose games to drawing multiple cards that do very little.

On the Draw

Out

In

On the Play

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In

Mirror

Mirror is quite random, because both of you have very few answers to combo game one (only 《Harnessed Lightning》, some might play 1 《Shock》) and the deck snowballs very fast. So if one of you gets something going, like Chandra, it is very hard to get back into game. With that said, I would sideboard like this, assuming my opponent keeps most of his combo in. Keep in mind that there are lot of cards that you can bring in, depending a lot on what your opponent does. Authority is great when they have 8 combo pieces, but if they plan to side out combo, you should not board it in. 《Negate》 is great for Planeswalker battles, but you can fall behind to creatures if you have many of them. 《Tamiyo, Field Researcher》 is good with Virtuoso and when you have the game slowed down with Authority, but pretty bad otherwise.

VS. Mirror

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GB

There are many versions of GB, but most of them are great matchup for this deck, mainly because 《Oath of Chandra》 is messed up card against them. The best GB version against you is aggressive energy with 《Greenbelt Rampager》, but that one is still fine matchup. There are not many card in sb for the matchup, but 《Baral's Expertise》 is a huge swing against their big creatures, and the only other card I would consider bringing in against slower versions is Tireless Tracker, so you are better against discard. I would sideboard like this against every version but the energy aggro one, and against them I would side in 0-2 Trackers, depending how much discard they have. Against grindy versions I would suggest siding in one more Tracker for Servant (play) or Saheeli (draw).

VS. GB

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Tips for you

There are plenty of small things you have to keep in mind when playing this deck, so I have some tips for you.

– Deck plays 29 mana sources and 4 《Oath of Nissa》, so mulligan 5 land 2 spells hands unless they are really good (usually combo, value creatures like Refiner and something, Servant and Chandra on the play might be a keep too). Just don’t blindly keep 4 lands Attune 2 Harness, because you are not winning with that hand against anything

– If you kill a combo hate creature on your turn and then want to go off, keep in mind that you just turned 《Fatal Push》 on.

– Always expect Gideon coming down on turn 4 when playing agaisnt Mardu and try to plan for that, which usually means playing Virtuoso on turn 3 instead of something better like Refiner, but can also mean playing 《Oath of Chandra》 to kill 《Thraben Inspector》, so you can play Chandra and kill Gideon on next turn (unless they +1).

– With Virtuoso in play, keep in mind that if you have 《Aether Hub》 and no other white sources, you might want to make one less Thopter just to have a Felidar as a live draw.

– Usually you want to draw cards with Refiner, Tamiyo and Oath before scrying with Saheeli, because you want to have as much information as possible before you scry. That is of course, unless you desperately need something specific or just a play for the turn.

– Scry with Saheeli and then Chandra +1 is usually the correct sequence, because setting up top card for Chandra is huge.

– 《Release the Gremlins》 make X tokens, even if one or more of the targets are not there upon resolution, you always need to have at least one target remaining, otherwise it fizzles. Most common example is Release targeting 《Walking Ballista》 and 《Heart of Kiran》, with them sacrificing the Ballista to kill something and you making two gremlins.

– 《Felidar Guardian》 resetting Planeswalkers is a very powerful play, with both Chandra and Tamiyo

– Sequencing lands is hard! Keep in mind that there are 2《Game Trail》 in the deck, so you want to keep 《Forest》 or 《Mountain》 in hand for as long time as possible.

– Play cards that give you energy before playing Virtuoso during that turn, so if they kill him in response to his trigger, you get more Thopters.

– Mardu players might start playing 《Shock》s maindeck instead of 《Fatal Push》 (or at least some) so keep that in mind.

– When keeping a hand, try not to count 《Oath of Nissa》 as a land. This especially means not keeping one landers with Oath if they are not that great otherwise. Oath can give you land or business spell, but don’t count on it giving you what you need every single time (sometimes you even miss!)

That’s it for today. I think this deck is great and I will most likely play GP Barcelona this week with similar, if not identical decklist. I think sideboard might be improved, especially for mirror, but that is all I have right now. With that said, I wish you all good luck at those two GPs, because like I said, I think we will have some changes in Standard after that.

Lukas Blohon

Lukas Blohon
He’s represented the Czech Republic on the international magic stage for a long time.
Always devoted to his goal of becoming a better magic player, as remarked on by fellow Czech pro Petr Sochurek few people work as hard as Blohon at improving their game.

Achievements include a PT: Dark Ascension Top 8, GP Brussels 2015 Champion, 6 GP Top 8’s & just recently he was the PT: Eldritch Moon Champion. Now he joins the Hareruya Pros to continue making his mark on magic history.

Read more articles by Lukas Blohon