Caw-blade

Caw-Blade was a standard deck, derived from a deck created by Brian Kibler named Caw-Go. Caw-Go itself was a play on words of a control archetype named Draw-Go, where one draws their card, plays a land, and passes the turn, holding counterspells in your hand.

Brian Kibler's deck only had 4 creatures, all Squadron Hawks, which is where the "caw" in which caw-go is derived. The deck used counterspells like Mana Leak and Spell Pierce, planeswalkers like Gideon Jura and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and then removal such as Day of Judgment, Journey to Nowhere, and Condemn to control the opponent and the board. With Jace, the Mind Sculptor being the power card, Squadron Hawk acted as a synergy engine; with the repeatable Brainstorm ability, the first Hawk would shuffle two unwanted cards away, and then searches for three more Hawks. Each subsequent Brainstorm would put back two Hawks and the third search them again. Jace could then bounce the Hawk if needed, restarting the cycle.

With Mirrodin Besieged, Sword of Feast and Famine was released. This card would be placed as a one-of in the caw-go decks, along with 4 Stoneforge Mystics, bringing the creature count to 8. The Stoneforge Mystic would search up a Sword of Feast and Famine, then cheat it into play with its ability, meaning it could not be countered. The sword would then be equipped to the Squadron Hawk, which meant in addition to the robust card advantage engine the control player now doubles its mana, letting it play tap-out control and draw-go control in the same game.

Then with the release of New Phyrexia, Batterskull was released, along with Sword of War and Peace. Now, in addition to a strong endgame and high-mana midgame, Stoneforge Mystic had to be killed on turn 2, as otherwise Batterskull would be cheated down. This closed the trifecta of strategies: it had easy board presence early, couldn't be pinched on mana in the midgame, and had an unparalleled card advantage endgame. The deck was deemed too powerful since no deck stood a chance against it in the metagame, so Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Stoneforge Mystic were banned from standard play.

The following deck list was piloted by Gerry Thompson in a StarCityGames open:

Caw-Blade

Download/Export

• Text
• MTGO
• Apprentice
• OCTGN
• decklist.org

Planeswalker (7)

3 Gideon Jura

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Creature (8)

4 Squadron Hawk

4 Stoneforge Mystic

Sorcery (8)

4 Day of Judgment

4 Preordain

Instant (8)

3 Lightning Bolt

2 Mana Leak

3 Spell Pierce

Artifact (2)

1 Sword of Body and Mind

1 Sword of Feast and Famine

Land (27)

3 Island

3 Mountain

4 Plains

4 Arid Mesa

3 Celestial Colonnade

2 Evolving Wilds

2 Glacial Fortress

3 Scalding Tarn

3 Seachrome Coast

Sideboard (15)

1 Basilisk Collar

4 Cunning Sparkmage

1 Inferno Titan

1 Sun Titan

1 Dispel

3 Divine Offering

4 Flashfreeze

See also

• Modern Cawblade deck