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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 October 16, 2015
 Reddit

It’s been two weeks since Battle for Zendikar was released, and things are beginning to get interesting as we approach the Pro Tour. This week we’ll take a look at how Standard is developing with two decks featuring U/R devoid shenanigans and Drana, Liberator of Malakir respectively. Then we move to Modern to see a new take on Mono-Green Devotion. We’ll look at how Jace, Vryn's Prodigy is affecting Legacy in a sweet Pox brew, and we’ll end our tour with a Mono-White Commander deck with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite at the helm. Let’s get started!

The Eldrazi are back in Standard, but they’re not quite the same as they were. Last time around, the most impactful Eldrazi were the legendary titans that could be ramped out through combinations of Primeval Titan, Everflowing Chalice, and Eldrazi Temple. Now, if you want to channel our new Eldrazi overlords, Manu S believes that you should play the cheaper, more aggressive Eldrazi with the devoid mechanic. Let’s look at his take on Grixis Devoid:

Grixis Devoid ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Manu S, 3-1 Standard Daily Event

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This deck combines a number of powerful cards that haven’t had much of a home in recent months. Ghostfire Blade makes its return to Standard, this time alongside cheap devoid Creatures like Mist Intruder and Salvage Drone rather than Ornithopter and Ensoul Artifact. All told, the goal of this deck is very similar to the Blue-Red Artifacts deck from the previous Standard. You want to flood the board with cheap Eldrazi, taking advantage of Herald of Kozilek to deploy your threats more efficiently and Ruination Guide to dump your hand into play and start crashing in for huge chunks of damage.

Between Ghostfire Blade, Ruination Guide, and Herald of Kozilek, this deck is certainly capable of incredibly powerful draws that can win games through almost anything. That’s not the end of the story though; if also has ways to win from behind. Blight Herder does a fantastic Whirler Rogue impression in this deck, giving up evasion but providing a full four colorless Creatures to help you hit a critical mass of attackers. Additionally, this deck can to cast Brutal Expulsion, which is powerful in decks that try to gain an early board advantage and stay ahead for the duration of the game.

We’ve seen plenty of aggressive decks early on in this Standard format, but they’ve been mostly Red- or Green-based despite the presence of several enormously powerful and efficient Black threats in the format, like Bloodsoaked Champion and Drana, Liberator of Malakir. _OVC_ is looking to bring these underappreciated cards back into the limelight with this exciting take on Red-Black Aggro:

Red-Black Aggro ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | _OVC_, 3-1 Standard Daily Event

With eleven one-drops backed by Drana, Liberator of Malakir, this deck is going to be able to steal a lot of games before they even start. Additionally, the staying power of Flamewake Phoenix and raw power of Thunderbreak Regent make this a deck that is more than capable of winning through one or two removal spells, Deathmist Raptors, or Siege Rhinos. As long as your opponent whiffs on their handful of Radiant Flames, Languishes, or Crux of Fates, you ought to be in pretty good shape.

One of the big appeals to this deck is the ability to play Forerunner of Slaughter. It’s an aggressively costed card, but it hasn’t had a home, up to this point. In this deck, this card plays a critical role as both a reasonable 2-drop and 3-drop due to its ability to give itself haste. Gore-House Chainwalker is a completely reasonable card; and, while we might not be excited about 3/2 haste for three, it allows you to curve a 1-drop into double 1-drop into Forerunner of Slaughter to put enormous pressure on your opponent.

If you’re looking for an aggressive deck that sacrifices some of the explosiveness of the Temur Battle Rage decks for a little more staying power and resiliency, this is a fantastic choice. An aggro deck that goes just a little bit bigger, but can take to the skies to fight against the largely ground-based Megamorph decks might be just what you’re looking for.

In most cases, Modern is all about efficiency. Lightning Bolt and Thoughtseize are the most efficient removal spells. Goblin Guide and Glistener Elf are the most efficient threats. Mox Opal and Urza lands are the most efficient ways to ramp mana. For some decks, though, it’s not all about efficiency. Sometimes you have to go big and try to overpower your opponent by doing something crazy. That’s what anhau has done with an updated look at Mono-Green devotion:

Mono-Green Devotion ? Modern | anhau, 3-1 Modern Daily Event

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The fundamental premise of this deck is relatively straightforward. You’re looking to combine Arbor Elf with Utopia Sprawl and Overgrowth to ramp out enormous threats very early on in the game. The interesting thing about this deck is that it gives up on a lot of the more midrangey cards in favor of going all-in on doing something huge. Voyaging Satyr over Burning-Tree Emissary cuts back on your absurd Nykthos openings, but gives more opportunities to cast your giant threats early on in the game.

The key threats in this deck are Tooth and Nail and Primal Command. Tooth and Nail lets you win on the spot by finding Emrakul and Xenagos, God of Revels to bash for huge hasty damage and annihilate your opponent’s board in the process. Primal Command buys you a ton of time, either by putting a land on top of your opponent’s deck or by gaining life against the more aggressive decks. A key feature of this deck is the ability to lock your opponent under Primal Commands by first finding Eternal Witness and then Temur Sabertooth. With enough mana, this combination allows you to bounce Eternal Witness to rebuy your Primal Command every turn and bury your opponent in extra life, lock them out of their draw step, or just tutor up threats until they die.

It is interesting that this deck has opted to play Harmonize over something like Garruk Wildspeaker. Garruk is a card that can be cast as early as turn two off of Arbor Elf into Utopia Sprawl, which provides an incredible board presence both offensively and defensively while also ramping you an absurd amount early on in the game. Harmonize certainly appears to give you more staying power in games that are more about hitting land drops, but Garruk is a versatile and explosive threat that is certainly worth considering.

Jace, Vryn's Prodigy made an early bid for the most influential card in Magic Origins, as it very quickly made its presence known in both Standard and Modern. At first, people played around with Jace in Legacy takes on Reanimator and Sultai control builds, but that never really seemed to go anywhere. This week, Michael Majors is looking to change that with a handful of awesome Legacy brews prominently featuring Vryn’s Prodigy. One of the most exciting decks is a new build of Pox with a moderate Blue splash:

Pox ? Legacy | Michael Majors

We’ve seen takes on Mono-Black Pox in Legacy before. These are decks that rely on Smallpox, Liliana of the Veil, and Sinkhole to lock opponents out of the game while you slowly work at their life total with Mishra's Factory, Cursed Scroll, and Nether Spirit. The power of those decks is their ability to cast an early Liliana of the Veil off of Dark Ritual or Mox Diamond and lock you under Sinkholes and Smallpoxes while Liliana gets to work on your hand.

Michael’s addition of Jace improves this strategy in a number of ways. Firstly, now you have another early Planeswalker that sits in play while you bury your opponent in Stone Rains. Not only that, but Jace allows you to flash back Smallpox and Sinkhole to ensure that your opponent never gets out from under the lock. Not only that, but you gain access to Brainstorm to help mitigate flooding and ensure that you have access to a constant stream of disruption.

For many years, Pox has been a deck that has struggled with consistency. Your best cards, Liliana and Smallpox, are absolutely spectacular, especially when backed by Hymn to Tourach and Sinkhole. Your draws without multiple copies of these cards are fairly weak. The addition of Jace lets you add another efficient threat while maximizing your access to the most powerful cards in your deck, which is a really big deal for this style of deck.

For many people, Commander is all about trying to do cool things. Unfortunately, for the rest of the table, those cool things can verge on degenerate or game-breaking. Whether your opponents are doing something crazy with the graveyard, mana rocks, equipment, or some other ridiculous combination of cards, sometimes you just have to be able to shut that down. This week we have a Commander deck built by TinyTrashDeer that plays eminently fair Magic — and makes sure that you do too.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite ? Commander | TinyTrashDeer

  • Commander (0)

The game-plan of this deck is tried and true: token generation plus anthems equals dead opponents. All told, it’s a relatively simple plan. Sure, there are all kinds of tricks you can get up to with the likes of Ashnod's Altar and Skullclamp, but those aren’t the focus of the deck, and that’s important.

Why? Because focusing on tokens and anthems means that you can play all kinds of hateful cards that shut down degenerate strategies. Sure, it’s unfortunate to cast Stony Silence when you have Phyrexian Altar, but it’s more important to make sure the Voltron deck doesn’t go off with Grafted Exoskeleton. Sure, Emeria, the Sky Ruin is powerful, but Rest in Peace shuts off all kinds of powerful engines in Commander. The same goes for Suppression Field, Aura of Silence, Containment Priest, and more. These cards all force your opponents to play a fair game of Magic, which you are very well-suited to win by just trumping their creatures with Elesh Norn.

It’s also important to note the kinds of token generation that are included in this deck. Sure, there are the big, swingy effects like White Sun's Zenith and Entreat the Angels, but the focus of the deck is on more efficient token generation like Emeria Angel, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, and Precinct Captain. This focus lets you apply an enormous amount of pressure to your opponents early in the game. You cast a cheap threat, and on subsequent turns you evaluate the board. Is someone threatening to do something busted? Cast a hate-bear or disruptive enchantment. Otherwise, anthem up and attack to start closing the game out.

There are two big risks with this style of deck, however. The first is that you will draw the wrong pieces of hate against the wrong opponents. Stony Silence doesn’t matter against Karador, Ghost Chieftain, while Arcum Dagsson probably doesn’t care very much about Rest in Peace. Cards like Enlightened Tutor and Idyllic Tutor can help mitigate this issue, but the issue is always going to exist. Second, even if you do have the right pieces of hate, you have to worry about the political implications. If your hate cards are enough of a nuisance to enough players at the table, you won’t be making many friends. Of course, that doesn’t matter if you can just cast Elesh Norn and kill them, does it?

The Battle for Zendikar is here. Order singles, booster packs and more at CoolStuffInc.com today!

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, deck lists, legacy, decks, commander, modern, community, brew, carlos gutierrez, 5 decks, five decks, #mtgbfz, five decks you can't miss this week, battle for zendikar

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