Desperate Ravings- Snap-judgement (not blade)

So basically, in this standard format, I want to be playing snapcaster mage as a four of, lots of counterspells, some sort of engine, a bunch of card advantage, and a consistent, cohesive plan that my deck is trying to accomplish every game, and to be able to do that consistently. I've been working on a deck that I believe does at least some of these things well enough for me to consider playing some version of it at states-

Snap-Judgement

4 snapcaster mage
4 burning vengeance

4 geistflame
4 think twice
3 desperate ravings
4 mana leak
4 dissipate
3 beast within
4 slagstorm
1 incinerate

5 islands
3 mountains
2 forests
4 hinterland harbor
4 sulfur falls
4 copperline gorge
3 rootbound crag

Sb
3 mental misstep
3 ancient grudge
3 thrun
3 mayor of avabruck
3 tree of redemption

- so some people might be asking why I'm not playing thrun or mayor main deck over burning vengeance, and the reason is that burning vengeance is an almost impossible to deal with threat, much like thrun, but it also doesn't get trumped by Liliana of the veil, one of the soon to be most prolific cards in standard, for those who can afford the heavy price tag anyway. Burning vengeance is also acceptable against the aggro decks and very very good against any deck that is trying to play a control game. I could just be stone wrong, and find out that thrun is simply the much more powerful card and ultimately the more efficient, if less fun, finisher. Now onto some matchups and boars plans.

Mono-red
-4 burning vengeance
-4 think twice
-3 disspate
+3 mental misstep
+3 thrun
+2 ancient grudge
+3 tree of redemption

-ill admit the mono-red matchup isn't great. Game one, you can win if you have a geistflame or a slagstorm early, but you are inherently poor against them because your plan is to gain card advantage with flashback spells with a burning vengeance. Turns out, that's a little slow. Fortunately shrine isn't the best against you, because you have beast withins, and an early slagstorm for two or three guys buys a metric ton of time. Game two, it gets interesting, as suddenly the matchup shifts completely. Now your nnot just durdling around with free shocks and 7 Think twice, you get to use early removal and your missteps to get to turn four, and then start rolling out trees and thruns. If you feel like you need more help, you can probably jam some spellskite in the board, maybe cutting a mayor and a grudge. So I expect red deck to be maybe the most important matchup at states and probably all season, because of its availability, its raw power, and its draw to people that just always play red.

Solar Flare
-4 slagstorm
-2 geistflame
+3 mayor of avabruck
+3 thrun the last troll

So solar flare. People say this is the best deck but to be honest an effective 12 counterspells what with snapcaster kind of tear them apart. Game one you need to look for an opening to resolve vengeance when they can't just kill you by busting out a sun Titan, which shouldn't be too hard. They have a ton of dead cards maindeck, what with all their removal spells and wraths and such. The game should go long, but as long as you extract value from everything you should be able to kill them fairly easily. Don't be afraid to get aggressive with beast withins late game. Eot beast my land, snapcaster, do it gain puts 8 power on board and presumably shocks them. Game two, you sideboard out your removal for hard to deal with creatures... Right after they sideboarded their wraths and spot removal out. You can steal game two with an early mayor or thrun, but if your on the thrun plan please don't get blown out by a Sun Titan or a Liliana. Just be careful with your threats, but worst come to worst, you can grind them out again with vengeance. If they have spheres you should probably bring some ancient grudges, maybe two for the blowouts, and for the shocks.

Aggresive white decks-

-Boarding against these decks is weird. If you know or think they have swords, ancient grudge is really good. Thrun is decent, and he blocks all day. One of the only real ways to lose these games is if they play a hero and you just roll over to it, which believe me is not fun, not at all. Sometime you want to cut think twice, but sometimes you cut geistflame, depending on their creature sweet. Slagstorm is a house in this matchup.

Pod Variants-
-4 think twice
-1 incinerate
+3 mayor of avabruck
+2 ancient grudge

-Basically, this matchup isn't even funny. Game one, you have 4 geistflames for their mana dorks and pod has a very hard time dealing with getting slagstormed. Counterspells are secretly really good against them two, because they can't pod a creature up if they don't have any creatures. Playing against junk pod is slightly different, as you need to keep a dissipate back for the unburial rites. Other than that, use burning vengeance to mow creatures down and counter the pod or the creatures that will inevitably come after. Game two is even more lopsided, depending on their board, because if you ever play a mayor, they are sort of dead. Most pod lists don't play removal and mayor gets out of control quickly. Ancient grudge is just sort of a kick in the nuts, as now they have to rely on beats, instead of a value game, and that's exactly where you want them to be. I don't think pod in its current incarnation is even a real option if you want to win a tournament because the other decks in the format can outvalue you, while also playing countermagic.

I really feel like with some work, this RUG deck, either with thruns, mayors, burning vengeance, or some other endgame can put some pressure on the metagame and come out on top. This deck is not simple to pilot, and there are many subtle decisions that could end up costing or winning you the game. If you pick this deck up, already play it, or just have some different ideas, shoot me a messege on Facebook or twitter. Happy brewing, and whatever you do, please don't join the football team.

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