There have been rumblings about new cards from Conspiracy affecting eternal formats, but most of the discussion has been focused on cards like Sanctum Prelate and Recruiter of the Guard. That’s why it’s so shocking to see a combo deck centered around Spy Kit. This deck is certainly still in development, but has a ton of potential purely due to the amount of redundancy. Let’s take a look:

Spy Kit Combo ? Legacy | adrieng

• Creatures (12)
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 3 Stoneforge Mystic
• 3 Veteran Explorer
• 2 Worldspine Wurm

• Spells (30)
• 4 Abrupt Decay
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Cabal Therapy
• 4 Mask of the Mimic
• 4 Spy Kit
• 3 Gitaxian Probe
• 2 Engineered Explosives
• 2 Merchant Scroll
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 1 Batterskull

• Lands (18)
• 2 Island
• 2 Forest
• 1 Swamp
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 3 Tropical Island
• 2 Bayou
• 2 Savannah
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 1 Verdant Catacombs

Buy This Deck

The core of this deck is very similar to other four-color midrange decks. If you swap Birds of Paradise for Deathrite Shaman, you’ve got the same kind of package of Brainstorm, Abrupt Decay, Cabal Therapy, and mana acceleration with Stoneforge Mystic giving flexibility to find powerful singletons against various strategies.

The difference here is the presence of Spy Kit and Mask of the Mimic. The combo is that you can suit up a random creature, even a Dryad Arbor with a Spy Kit so that it has the name of every non-Legendary creature. Then you can cast Mask of the Mimic, sacrificing that creature, to tutor up an enormous non-Legendary creature – Worldspine Wurm in this case. Other options include Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Inkwell Leviathan, Blightsteel Colossus, Tidespout Tyrant, or potentially Craterhoof Behemoth.

Part of the problem with this combo is that it’s much less efficient than just casting Natural Order. You have to invest four mana just to cast and equip Spy Kit, and then find a Mask of the Mimic on top of that. The upside is that you can find non-Green creatures and that you can try to combo at instant speed.

The question is whether the potential to combo is worth the extra work and sacrificed deck slots. Similarly, it’s interesting to consider how many copies of Spy Kit and Mask of the Mimic are really necessary. It’s not hard to imagine trimming Veteran Explorer, two or three copies of Spy Kit, and one or two copies of Mask of the Mimic to make room for better midrange cards, additional cantrips, or countermagic.

All told, the combo here has a lot of moving pieces for Legacy, and is vulnerable to much of the disruption and hate that people are already playing. That said, the ability to toe the line between midrange and combo is an interesting place to be, and could force your opponent into some pretty awkward situations assuming you can find an appropriate balance between the two roles.