In this experiment, we use a block of blue cards to generate enough mana to silently sing away all our opponent’s memories.

When previews come around for new sets, my focus is always on finding new cards that let me combo in new and different ways. Now, a lot of design space has been used up over the twenty years of Magic, so even new and unique designs don’t offer different types of combos. For example, last week’s deck with Athreos, God of Passage isn’t too distinct from things we could do with Enduring Renewal.

In a similar vein, the concept of tapping and untapping creatures repeatedly isn’t a new one, but Thassa's Ire offers a new option for pulling it off. It’s pretty cheap at only , though paying for each tap or untap is pretty steep. That said, we can work with it. For example, any creature that can tap for at least 5 mana and have it be blue sometimes can go infinite with Thassa's Ire—and that’s on top of the utility of being able to use the Ire to tap down opposing creatures. Wirewood Channeler with sufficient Elves or Harabaz Druid with sufficient Allies would do the trick, as would Karametra's Acolyte, Priest of Titania, or Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary with a Nomadic Elf around to help out.

When I have so many options, I often prefer to limit myself, and that’s why today’s deck is Block. If you like any of the ideas here, you can expand to whatever format you prefer, from formatless casual to Commander to Modern to current Standard to future Standard with the soon-to-be-announced Fall set.

Makin’ Mana

Karametra's Acolyte can make a bunch of mana, but none of it is blue. And without a Nomadic Elf, we’ll eventually use up our Islands while paying to untap the Acolyte. We can potentially generate a lot of green mana with Karametra's Acolyte, but it’s not an infinite amount.

The two cards that actually can fill our needs are Voyaging Satyr and Kiora's Follower. Now, they obviously don’t make mana, but they can untap permanents that can, such as Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Nykthos is not a creature, so it can’t be untapped by Thassa's Ire, but it does have a similar activated ability to Karametra's Acolyte’s, which we were considering above. This turns our two-card combo into a three-card combo, but considering we’re playing in Block—and I don’t tend to like two-card combos anyway—I have no problem with that.

How Much Mana?

Kiora's Follower and Thassa's Ire offer one devotion to blue each, so we need five more, in addition to our three cards, to start going off. Like the Standard Mono-Blue Devotion archetype, we’ll be including a bunch of low-cost blue permanents, though we don’t have the luxury of Tidebinder Mage or Frostburn Weird. Fortunately, Journey into Nyx offers a few interesting new options for blue permanents.

Incidentally, this does mean this list will be much more focused on blue, and since Voyaging Satyr doesn’t offer any blue devotion, it gets the boot. It’s possible this concept would be much more successful with the Satyr’s inclusion, but for today, we’ll try something different.

Setting Up and Going Off

With the goals of the deck outlined, I’ll go over the other cards and describe the reasons for their inclusions and their potential.

Dakra Mystic – This is another sweet uncommon, though its fate seems a bit murkier. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of it, but it could just as easily fade away. For us, though, it’s great. It offers one blue devotion, and it helps us dig for the cards we need—we can even gauge whether the potential draw is something we want before we give our opponent too much sweet stuff. In addition, once we do have infinite mana, we may find ourselves something to do with it. Fortunately, Thassa's Ire offers an outlet for the mana as long as we have creatures we can tap for value. Dakra Mystic is one such creature, allowing us to dig as deeply as we need to into our library.

Retraction Helix – This is a good way to buy time while we set up. It lets us tap our Disciple of Deceit without having to attack, and with Kiora's Followers and Thassa's Ire around, we may even get two or three Unsummons out of it. And when we have infinite mana, we can bounce all of our opponent’s nonland permanents.

Stratus Walk – This is another point of devotion. It replaces itself and lets our creatures get through for damage, giving our Disciple of Deceit another excuse to become tapped.

Divination and Bident of Thassa – These are ways to draw cards and dig us deeper. The Bident also gives us a crucial two devotion.

Traveler's Amulet – Our mostly-mono-blue deck splashes both Kiora's Follower and Disciple of Deceit. The Amulet will help us find the Forest or Swamp we need, and it’s also a 1-mana spell, meaning the Disciple can transmute it into something more important for the situation—such as a Thassa's Ire.

Arbiter of the Ideal – With all our blue devotion, Nykthos, and low-mana permanents, there’s a chance we can play this guy early and maybe start pumping out additional stuff in enchantment form. In addition, however, when we are going off with infinite blue mana, the Arbiter will let us put into play as many of the permanents in our library as we like.

Siren of the Silent Song – Similarly, Siren of the Silent Song can become infinitely inspired, and it serves as our primary win condition when we exile all of our opponent’s library in one turn. Incidentally, as a 3-drop, we can just start bringing the beats and picking apart our opponent’s hand early.

Ire for the Follower ? Theros Block | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (19)
• 2 Hypnotic Siren
• 2 Siren of the Silent Song
• 3 Arbiter of the Ideal
• 4 Dakra Mystic
• 4 Disciple of Deceit
• 4 Kiora's Follower

• Spells (19)
• 4 Retraction Helix
• 4 Divination
• 3 Stratus Walk
• 3 Thassa's Ire
• 4 Traveler's Amulet
• 1 Bident of Thassa

• Lands (22)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Swamp
• 8 Island
• 4 Temple of Deceit
• 4 Temple of Mystery
• 4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Buy This Deck

Thassa and Kiora don’t exactly get along, so it’s no surprise to see Thassa's Ire pointed at Kiora's Follower. That does bring up the question of how anyone’s—even a god’s—ire would untap things, but I suppose we shouldn’t think about it too hard.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com