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Main » Articles » 5 Decks You Can't Miss This Week

5 Decks You Can't Miss This Week

Carlos Gutierrez
Posted on May 17, 2014
 Reddit

It's the eve of Pro Tour Journey into Nyx. The players are gathering in Atlanta. Will players continue to devote themselves to Thassa and Erebos as they have in Standard? Or will this Block Constructed Pro Tour bring us exciting new combinations? Perhaps Heliod or Iroas can make a splash. Perhaps obscure infinite combos will break the format. What are the key players in the Theros Block Constructed metagame heading into the Pro Tour? Let's run down the top five performers.

What's the best kind of thing to do when people are still messing around with Sphinx's Revelation and Underworld Connections? Just kill them dead. There are several flavors of aggressie Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx decks that are trying to just overwhelm the Black- and Blue-based control decks before they can develop their mana and card advantage engines enough to fight back. The most exciting new take on Nykthos may just be Gerry Thompson's take on Tomoharu Saito's Mono-Green Devotion shell:

[Cardlist Title= Mono-Green Devotion - Journey into Nyx Standard | Gerry Thompson]

This deck got a major upgrade in the form of Eidolon of Blossoms. It may not seem like much, but Eidolon slots perfectly into this deck, both as a devotion enabler and another mechanism of keeping the cards flowing through the midgame and letting you fight through cards like Supreme Verdict. Now you've got both Garruk, Caller of Beast and Eidolon of Blossoms as cards that can single-handedly defeat attrition-based strategies.

The big advantage to this deck is that you're capable of going over the top of the fair aggressive decks and just overpowering the more controlling decks. Using a combination of Eidolon and Garruk, you can keep up on cards. The difference is that Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx allows you to cast all of your cards while the Sphinx's Revelation decks can cast just one Keranos, God of Storms or Elspeth, Sun's Champion.

The other upside is that you get powerful cards like Nylea's Disciple to swing the aggressive matchups in your favor. An even bigger deal? Your card advantage engines make it very easy for you to consistently dig into your powerful sideboard cards that can dominate matchups. Speaking of swingy sideboard cards, take a look at the full four Setessan Tactics in the sideboard. If you've got a board of moderately sized creatures, Setessan Tactics amounts to a three to four mana Plague Wind against other creature decks in the early turns of the game.

This deck has a little bit of everything. Aggression, ramp, card advantage, and powerful sideboard options. If you want to have a blast jamming Eidolon of Blossoms, this is probably where I'd start.

Another week, another Woo Brew. This time Travis has built A Modern take on Greg Hatch's explorations of Sky Hussar and cheap creatures in Legacy. Greg jammed his deck full of cheap, disruption and powerful creatures and used a combination of Ninja of the Deep Hours and Sky Hussar to keep the countermagic flowing. Travis's build in Modern may not get Daze and Flusterstorm, but it does get a few cool toys to play with:

Vial Wizards - Modern | Travis Woo

The plan is the same. Cheap creatures enable Sky Hussar and help you stay ahead of your opponent and keep the counterspells coming. The difference is how you're getting it done. Aether Vial plus Voidmage Prodigy is an unbelievable combination. Aether Vial lets you cheat your creatures out and play them as surprises. Flash wizards can bring the beats for a few turns before being sacrificed to counter stray Splinter Twins. These creatures can also turn into extra cards off of Sky Hussar to make sure you keep hitting Wizards.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about this deck is that Aether Vial makes Voidmage Prodigy uncounterable. From that point on, your counterspells are abilities, not actual spells. The funny thing about abilities? They can't be Remanded, Mana Leaked, or Cryptic Commanded. This means that Kai Budde gives you the Last Word on whether or not most spells resolve unless your opponent can deal with him.

By the way, that's not going to be easy. Spellstutter Sprite hits discard spells, Lightning Bolt, and Flame Slash all day, and then gives you a Wizard to sacrifice down the line. Kira, Great Glass-Spinner means they've got to point two removal spells at him before even getting a chance. And in the meantime? You've worked your way up to Grand Architect, Master of Waves and Thassa, God of the Sea to close out the game.

This seems like a very powerful Faeries-esque deck in the current, combo-ridden metagame. Having an abundance of cheap, hard counterspells is very powerful as long as you can get the first few Wizards to stick. If that's the goal, Cavern of Souls may be an upgrade to some Islands and fetches. Regardless, the Voidmage Prodigy, Spellstutter Sprite, and Aether Vial shell is something I can certainly see becoming a real player in the Modern metagame.

Wizards aren't your thing? How about Artifacts? Affinity is always an option, but what if you're more of a Trading Post kind of wizard? Besides having an awesome name, SirPsychoMantis has put together a sweet Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas deck that seems very well-positioned in the online metagame. This deck is very focused on defeating random aggressive decks and combo decks. Let's take a look at this new take on Tezzerator.

[Cardlist Title=UB Tezzeret - Modern | SirPsychoMantis, 3-1 Modern Daily Event]

What I like about SirPsychoMantis's build is that it eschews some of the clunkier cards like Wurmcoil Engine in favor of a leaner, more efficient mana curve. Forget going big, this deck is interested in locking up the board with a bunch of utility artifacts. You've got Trinket Mage and two kinds of Tezzerets to help you dig into Chalice of the Void and Executioner's Capsule to sit in play and prevent Grapeshot and Splinter Twin combos respectively.

On top of those bullets, you've got Nihil Spellbomb to shut down Tarmogoyfs and Engineered Explosives to sweep away Cranial Plating and Steel Overseer. When you go a little bigger, your Tezzerets can help find Spellskites and Ensnaring Bridge, which can both lock the game down until you can ultimate Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas for enough to win the game outright.

Ensnaring Bridge is an especially powerful effect in this format because so many decks are all about attack with large creatures. Tarmogoyf, Ethereal Armor, Cranial Plating, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and Primeval Titan are all completely shut down by this three-mana artifact, and that means that you'll get a lot of free wins.

A few weeks ago, Drew Levin talked about how Disciple of Deceit was one of the most interesting Journey into Nyx cards for Legacy. That week we saw a BUG deck that tutored for Diabolic Edict, Snapcaster Mage, and Hymn to Tourachs. What happens if you dream a little bigger? Pich is a young player who has recently posted a very interesting take on Disciple of Deceit featuring the multi-format all star Squadron Hawk:

[Cardlist title= Disciple's Caw - Legacy | Pich]

This deck is awesome. There are so many things going on that I don't even know where to start. Squadron Hawk is the card that ties everything together, which already means that I'm completely on board. Disciple of Deceit lets you turn Squadron Hawks into Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry or helps you find the Hawks to get the engine going. Squadron Hawk also enables the Gitaxian Probe/Cabal Therapy engine in this deck.

I'm a little sad that there's only one Brainstorm to go with the Hawks, but Disciple of Deceit can tutor it up at will to get the full Ancestral Recall going. Not only that, but Disciple of Deceit can turn extra copies of Cabal Therapy and such into awesome one-drop bullets like Pithing Needle and Meekstone to buy you time until you can lock the game down with the Thopter-Sword combo.

I'll be honest, I love everything this deck is trying to do, but it may be a little too much. Trying to combine so many pieces means that there's little space for cards that are powerful on their own like Force of Will and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Maybe the synergy can overcome the low raw power of the pieces, but what happens when your Thoughtcasts draw into Springleaf Drum and bad singletons instead?

I think that there's a lot of play in this shell. There's a ton of flexibility in the singletons, sideboard, and there are certainly a few flex slots in the main deck. This shell does a lot of different things, and I have to imagine that some combination of those has to be good enough to be a reasonable player in the format. The question is how to fit all the pieces together.

How big can you go in Commander? Infinite, sure, but that's kind of a given. What if we cut out all of the infinite combos. What if we're talking about straight-up tapping lands for literal hundreds of mana? I've always had a soft spot for Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant, and I'm excited to see that players like trees are keeping the dream alive:

[Cardlist title=Sasaya Combo - Commander | trees]

  • Commander (0)

59 lands? Count me in. The entire plan with this deck is to keep your hand filled with lands utilizing cards like Armillary Sphere and Seek the Horizon. If you've played nothing but Snow-Covered Forests and flip Sasaya on turn five you've ramped up to 25, and that's when the absurdity starts.

Earthcraft would be infinite with any token generator. Nemata, Grove Guardian threatens to kill the entire table in short order. Kamahl, Fist of Krosa threatens multiple Overruns. Genesis Wave all but wins the game on the spot. All of the lands off of the Wave enter the battlefield untapped, so suddenly your lands tap for 10ish mana each. You've probably flipped over Eternal Witness or Citanul Flute for Witness so you can Genesis Wave again. Flipping your deck into play seems like a powerful thing to be doing.

That's not all. You can also go for the Tooth and Nail by finding Seedborn Muse and Eternal Witness, then rebuying Tooth and Nail for Kamahl plus Masticore. This deck is built to focus on destroying all of your opponents' lands with that combo, but there are plenty of other directions to head in once you've got a hundreds of mana at your disposal. You can even fit in a Panglacial Wurm to just drop into play if you're in the market for such things.

One of the deceptively powerful cards in this deck is Journey of Discovery, because it functions as both a way to stock your hand to flip Sasaya and an absurdly busted ritual once you've gotten it done. Imagine starting with five lands and 25 mana. Two of them cast an entwined Journey of Discovery with four mana floating. Now your remaining five untapped lands give you an absurd 35 mana. What you do with that mana is completely up to you.

So what do you think will happen come Friday? Which decks are poised to break out at this tournament? Which cards are under appreciated and ready to smash unsuspecting opponents? What are you expecting to see in Atlanta this weekend?

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TAGS articles, standard, current events, deck lists, legacy, decks, commander, modern, carlos gutierrez, 5 decks

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