Back when Den Protector was still in Standard, we briefly saw some sweet decks featuring Crush of Tentacles tricks. These decks would cast Explosive Vegetation early on and utilize permanent-based value engines like Oath of Nissa and Nissa, Vastwood Seer to sift through your deck and get ahead on lands. Then you’d set up a lock with Den Protector and Crush of Tentacles and win the game at your leisure with Part the Waterveil and Lumbering Falls. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen that style of deck in Standard, but perhaps there’s space in this format for a new competitor:

Temur Crush of Tentacles ? Amonkhet Standard | Lunik, 5-0 Standard League

• Creatures (3)
• 3 World Breaker

• Intantss (7)
• 2 Dissenter's Deliverance
• 2 Lightning Axe
• 3 Kozilek's Return

• Sorceries (23)
• 2 Crush of Tentacles
• 2 Nissa's Renewal
• 3 Cathartic Reunion
• 4 Contingency Plan
• 4 Part the Waterveil
• 4 Pieces of the Puzzle
• 4 Splendid Reclamation

• Lands (27)
• 1 Forest
• 4 Island
• 4 Mountain
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 2 Spirebluff Canal
• 3 Botanical Sanctum
• 3 Lumbering Falls
• 4 Aether Hub
• 4 Sheltered Thicket

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Ceremonious Rejection
• 2 Dispel
• 1 Magma Spray
• 3 Negate
• 2 Rise from the Tides
• 2 Sweltering Suns
• 3 Thing in the Ice

Buy This Deck

Don’t be fooled by the flashy top end. This deck is first and foremost a Splendid Reclamation deck. You’re playing Pieces of the Puzzle, Cathartic Reunion, and Contingency Plan to stock your graveyard and filter through your deck to find the first copy of Splendid Reclamation. From there, you can start casting haymakers, Nissa's Renewals, or Part the Waterveils until your opponent is dead.

The idea here is that your top end is on par with Aetherworks Marvel, but that perhaps Splendid Reclamation combined with all these cantrips is a more consistent way of generating enough resources to execute that top end. Maybe you don’t need to cast Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger; perhaps just ramping into World Breaker is good enough? This seems particularly true when you can just sacrifice lands to buy back World Breaker and then get those lands back with Splendid Reclamation.

It’s unfortunate that Crush of Tentacles has been relegated to support duty here, but without Den Protector in the format to make a loop, the card is largely just here as a way to reset the board when you’re too far behind. Surging it with Contingency Plan or Pieces of the Puzzle isn’t out of the question, given just how much mana this deck can generate. However, the complete lack of one-mana spells indicates that surged Crush of Tentacles isn’t a high priority.

If you’re looking for an exciting alternative to Aetherworks Marvel that throws some Time Walks and graveyard shenanigans into the mix, this deck seems like a completely reasonable choice. You’re still vulnerable to counterspells backed by Torrential Gearhulk, but you have all the same tools as Aetherworks Marvel to fight against both controlling and aggressive strategies; you’re just much more likely to be able to find all those tools given the deck’s ability to churn through and find particular spells.