Welcome back, folks!

I have a bit of a confession to make. I really like Fate Reforged cards! There are a lot of potential opportunities with the new stuff that have tweaked my card-dar. A few weeks ago, I brought you a quartet of sixty-card decks inspired by cards from FRF.

And you know what?

There are still a lot of deck ideas bopping around in this ol’ head of mine. So let’s unwrap another four-set of fun, and we’ll delve into additional synergies, combos, and interesting intersections of cards that lead me down Deck Lane.

Let’s take a gander at those deck-lists right now!

I Make Morphs

I Make Morphs ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Aphetto Exterminator
• 2 Ruthless Ripper
• 2 Soul Collector
• 4 Grim Haruspex
• 4 Qarsi High Priest
• 4 Skinthinner
• 4 Sultai Emissary

• Spells (12)
• 2 Ghastly Conscription
• 4 Bitter Revelation
• 2 Palace Siege
• 4 Sensei's Divining Top

• Lands (26)
• 22 Swamp
• 4 Zoetic Cavern

Buy This Deck

Take a look at Skinthinner. When you turn it face up, you get to Terror something. That’s a pretty good ability, and if it’s turned over due to manifest, you don’t have to spend the full 5 mana on its morph—you can just pay the of its casting cost. That’s suddenly a very powerful Skinthinner.

So I began to look at stuff like Aphetto Exterminator. We can turn up Soul Collector for a bigger dork—or Ruthless Ripper to surprise-bring-out out a deathtouch guy. We even had room for a full play set of Grim Haruspex, which seems to really congeal around the Qarsi High Priest’s sacrificing. A play set of Zoetic Caverns joins it, and we now rock a large number of cards that can morph.

This is really important because the more morphs we have, the better we can disguise stuff. You can manifest anything, and if you have a chance, you can turn it up easily enough. All of the various morphs will make the table seem like a loaded shell game in your favor.

Just toss in a bit of support, such as card-draw, Palace Siege (to bring back dead and sacrificed stuff), and Sensei's Divining Top to set up your Qarsi Manifesto. Good luck!

What’s next in the queue?

Land Ho!

Land Ho! ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (24)
• 2 Garruk's Horde
• 2 Genesis Hydra
• 2 Hooded Hydra
• 2 Lifeblood Hydra
• 4 Ainok Guide
• 4 Fa'adiyah Seer
• 4 Gilt-Leaf Seer
• 4 Treefolk Harbinger

• Spells (10)
• 2 Artisan's Sorrow
• 2 Mulch
• 2 Into the Wilds
• 4 Rowen

• Lands (26)
• 26 Forest

Buy This Deck

When I saw Ainok Guide in the spoiler, I thought that it would pair nicely with Rowen. I just sort of filed away that interaction into the back of my brain until I needed to come up with some more ideas for your typical sixty-card deck. You simply play the Guide, search your library for a basic land, place it on top, and then, when you draw your first card next turn, you reveal the land you grabbed from the Ainok Guide, and you can draw an extra card due to Rowen. Another card that can pull off the Rowen trick is Into the Wilds, which is simpler in some respects (just triggers in your upkeep) but weaker (you can use Rowen to draw extra cards in other people’s turns; Into the Wilds just works once).

After we’ve added in this combination of cards, where’s the next step to look? Well, it seems that Sensei's Divining Top would work, but let’s push myself into different directions and not always play the obvious cards. (We used it earlier today anyway.) For similar reasons, let’s stay clear of Oracle of Mul Daya and Courser of Kruphix.

Where is the next place to investigate? Take a look at Fa'adiyah Seer from Planar Chaos, a reprint/side-print of Sindbad from blue. You draw-and-reveal a card, and if it’s a land, you keep it. This gives you instant gratification from Ainok Guide and company.

Now that we’ve added in a bunch of lands and acceleration, I like running a few Hydras as high-end creatures that are flexible to your mana availability. If it’s the midgame and you don’t have a lot out yet, you can unmorph Hooded Hydra into a solid beater. And you can certainly toss out a 4/4 Lifeblood Hydra and then attack or block with it suicidally, and kill it so you can gain four cards and 4 life from its death. Then, you can drop a nasty beater later when you have the time and the mana. That scalability is a powerful intoxicant in this sort of deck.

You could toss in something like Lost in the Woods, too, I suppose, if you want some defense.

Lands are great, but what direction could we consider next?

Taco Tuesday

Taco Tuesday ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Silver Drake
• 1 Somnomancer
• 2 Aether Adept
• 2 Keymaster Rogue
• 2 Leonin Relic-Warder
• 2 Mulldrifter
• 2 Sea Gate Oracle
• 2 Whitemane Lion
• 3 Arashin Cleric
• 3 Temple Acolyte
• 4 Suture Priest

• Spells (12)
• 3 Ghostly Flicker
• 4 Momentary Blink
• 2 Tranquil Grove
• 3 Crystal Shard

• Lands (24)
• 10 Island
• 10 Plains
• 4 Azorius Chancery

Buy This Deck

I was introduced to the power of the Taco (Temple ACOlyte) back when Jason Chapman was writing a weekly column on Peasant Magic over on ThePojo.com. (That was a long time ago.) Peasant is a format in which you can run five uncommons in your deck, and it otherwise must be just commons.

The build of this deck is simple enough. Rock some strong creatures with enters-the-battlefield triggers, and then have a few ways of abusing them with self-bouncing and flickering. And that’s it; the deck isn’t the most original we’ve ever seen.

Beyond the Taco Twins, we have stuff that drops early and often to mug up the red zone with potential blockers. Take a look at Sea Gate Oracle as one example. It’s a solid 1/3, and when it arrives, you keep the best-of-the-top-two cards on your library. Using and reusing it will allow you to draw more cards. The Oracle has a nice butt, too, and it can block for a while and add to your defense while you build your mana and slow yourself down with bouncing and flickering tricks.

Now I’ve added some fun tricks along those lines. We have a full set of Momentary Blink, and they join a triad of Ghostly Flicker for seven instant Flicker spells that you can use to set up additional triggers. That’s certainly not bad at all.

Now add to it the bounce of Crystal Shard. They take up three of my precious uncommon slots, but they are an awesome choice because you can spend just 1 blue mana to bounce anything you want back to your hand. Block and bounce, keep your stuff safe from targeted removal, and gain another trigger off that creature when you replay it. Don’t forget you can also target opposing creatures when your opponent taps out or to force him or her to use up mana to lock him or her out of doing tricks at the end of his or her turn before you untap. It’s a great card!

We also are rocking some Aether Adept to bounce the opponent’s stuff (and you can use it on yourself if you really need to). Don’t worry, some defensive self-bounce jumps in, such as Whitemane Lion. Flash it out to bounce one of your own creatures. You can also drop a Silver Drake on your turn to do the same, and that gives you a 3/3 flyer for just 3 mana. Check out Keymaster Rogue, with self-bounce built in, and it yields one of the best creatures in this deck. It’s a powerful winning condition, sneaking in hits after you’ve stalled the game with stuff like defensive creatures, tempo, and life-gain triggers.

For my final two uncommons, I rocked Leonin Relic-Warder. It’s a great card at exiling annoying artifacts and enchantments permanently in this sort of deck. Here’s how:

1. Play Leonin Relic-Warder.
2. After it arrives, place the trigger on the stack with the opponent’s card you want to exile.
3. Before the trigger resolves, use an instant ability to remove Leonin Relic-Warder from play (such as Crystal Shard, Momentary Blink, Whitemane Lion, etc.).
4. After it leaves, place the leaves-play trigger on the stack from the Relic-Warder.
5. Now resolve everything. The leaves-play trigger goes first, and you return what was exiled. But nothing was exiled yet (it’s still on the stack), so nothing happens.
6. The final trigger resolves, and the target is exiled.

I tossed in a pair of these as my final two uncommons; they are an obvious choice as an avenue to handle annoying artifacts and enchantments permanently.

And there is your Peasant Magic Flicker deck—enjoy!

Three decks done; what’s left? What about a crazy combo deck?

Singularity’s Blade

Singularity?s Blade ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (20)
• 1 Aether Adept
• 1 Aethersnipe
• 1 Clever Impersonator
• 1 Dakra Mystic
• 1 Draining Whelk
• 1 Fog Bank
• 1 Frost Titan
• 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1 Looter il-Kor
• 1 Man-o'-War
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
• 1 Sphinx of Uthuun
• 1 Tradewind Rider
• 1 Silver Myr
• 1 Thassa, God of the Sea
• 4 Empress Galina

• Spells (14)
• 4 Leyline of Singularity
• 2 Champion's Helm
• 4 Heroes' Podium
• 4 Hero's Blade

• Lands (26)
• 22 Island
• 2 Seafarer's Quay
• 2 Minamo, School at Water's Edge

Buy This Deck

So Hero's Blade provides a free equip when a legendary creature arrives. Well, guess what. Leyline of Singularity makes everything (other than lands) a legendary card. So now anything that enters the battlefield on your side can be equipped by a Blade for free.

The obvious place to begin was with Empress Galina, who will steal opposing legendary cards. Since your opponent is also affected by the Leyline of Singularity, you can steal every dork he or she has. She can even steal noncreatures, such as legendary artifacts, Planeswalkers, and enchantments that were made so by your Leyline! That’s pretty nasty, and unlike a lot of stealing cards, she can untap and keep on stealing stuff. She’s pretty good.

After tossing her in, I looked to things like Heroes' Podium that will pump all of your stuff, or Champion's Helm to give hexproof to your stuff in addition to other things. We can really amp up your newly minted legendary team, right?

Hmm . . . What about Minamo, School at Water's Edge? With the Leyline out, you can untap any of your creatures with it. You have to respect that. Shoot, we can even rock Seafarer's Quay to give your whole team banding. (Well, it’s banding with other legends, but that’s basically banding since all of your dorks are legendary folks and therefore have banding with other legends.)

For the rest of the deck, I tossed in one each of a large variety of blue stuff across the spectrum to prevent hitting the legendary rule. I wanted more of Empress Galina and the key cards like Hero's Blade and Heroes' Podium in order to draw more and survive removal. But for the rest, I just dipped into card-draw, bounce, beating, and even a pair of counterspell critters (Draining Whelk and Glen Elendra Archmage).

This is the sort of fun Johnny deck that a card like Hero's Blade can really help out. So get your legendary beatdown ready, folks!

And that concludes a tour of four more decks that were inspired by cards from Fate Reforged. I hope you found something in here to spark your own deck-dom. What inspires your creative deck-building juices? What directions are you considering?

See you next week,

Abe Sargent