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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 January 2, 2016
 Reddit

Kick off your new year right with some of the craziest technology that your favorite Constructed formats have to offer. Oath of the Gatewatch preview season may be in full swing, but we’ve still got a good few weeks of Battle for Zendikar to play out first. This week, we’ll start in Standard with a fresh take on Sphinx's Tutelage. Then we’ll head to Modern where we have a Krark-Clan Ironworks deck, a new take on Aggro Loam, and a Black-White midrange deck featuring Myth Realized. Lastly, we’ll head to Legacy where we’ll find out what Centaur Vinecrasher can offer in one of Magic’s most degenerate formats. Let’s get started!

At one of the final Grand Prix before the fall rotation, Michael Majors took down Grand Prix San Diego with a Blue-Red Sphinx's Tutelage deck that used Tormenting Voice and Magmatic Insight alongside Treasure Cruise to tear through the deck and mill opponents out in a blisteringly fast fashion. The reason the deck was able to do so was because the format shifted towards slow, midrangey decks that couldn’t race the Sphinx's Tutelage clock. TQL7 thinks that the format has reached a similar place now, and is preying on that with a Blue-White take on the Blue Enchantment:

Blue-White Sphinx?s Tutelage ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | QTL7, 5-0 Standard League

The concept behind this deck is relatively straightforward. The idea is that you have a giant pile of cheap removal, draw spells, and Sphinx's Tutelages. The cheap removal spells like Pacifism and Silkwrap let you protect your life total while you dig through your deck for a Sphinx's Tutelage. Once you find a Tutelage, you’re off to the races.

At that point, your plan is to use draw spells like Ugin's Insight to keep your hand stocked with removal spells. Ugin's Insight is particularly powerful here because it allow you to scry looking for more Tutelages and Insights so you can keep chaining together draw spells and mill effects. It’s worth noting that this deck has fewer draw effects than the Blue-Red build from this summer. This means that you have to lean more heavily on Ugin's Insight, looting with Sphinx's Tutelage, and just leveraging your removal spells to gain natural draw steps.

This build is certainly much slower than the previous Blue-Red build, but the high density of removal spells makes you much more capable of interacting early against aggressive decks, particularly since none of the removal is damage-based and consequently will always kill their target. The downside is that you are much less capable of finding the first Sphinx's Tutelage, meaning that decks with countermagic or Dromoka's Commands have more time to find them. All told, the shell is interesting, and it seems likely that some variant is a reasonable strategy against the dearth of midrange decks in the format.

Since early on in the Modern format, Tron has been one of the most powerful decks in the format. Be it Blue-White variants, Blue-Red variants with Through the Breach, or the Green-Red monstrosity that has become most common, overpowering your opponent with gigantic Tron-fueled monsters has proven itself to be a top tier strategy in Modern. This week, FREEROLLIN has a fresh take on the archetype with a more combo-centric flair:

[Cardlist title=Krark-Clan Tron ? Modern | FREEROLLIN, 5-0 Modern League]

One of the biggest weaknesses of Tron as an archetype is that it is slow. Not slow in the sense that it takes many turns to win. Slow in the sense that you don’t start to do anything until turn three or four when Tron comes online. Even then, Wurmcoil Engine and Karn Liberated take a turn or two to really take over the game. Consequently, Tron lacks the immediate impact of other turn three and four decks like Scapeshift and Splinter Twin. When Tron does its thing, you’re disadvantaged. When Splinter Twin does its thing, you’re just dead.

FREEROLLIN is looking to shore up this weakness by removing the sorcery speed cards that don’t do anything for a turn or two. Instead, FREEROLLIN has opted to play a Krark-Clan Ironworks engine to fuel a combotastic finish. This has two advantages. The first is that Krark-Clan Ironworks gives you a way to reasonably win the game without assembling Tron. The second is that you can just win the game the turn you cast Ironworks, rather than having to untap to gain any real value.

The way the combo works is that you use your baubles and Ancient Stirrings to dig towards Tron and Krark-Clan Ironworks. Once you have an Ironworks, you can start sacrificing Ichor Wellsprings, Prophetic Prisms, and Chromatic Stars to net cards, mana, or both. Once you’ve cantripped through your deck and stocked your graveyard, you can cast Open the Vaults to net a huge amount of mana and cards and do it all over again until you can cast an Emrakul and end the game. Seems pretty sweet to me!

I’ve always had a soft spot for Life from the Loam strategies. Whether they’re fueling Solitary Confinement, Dark Depths combos, or just Raven's Crime attrition, I love any deck that uses lands to gain small bits of extra value. We’ve seen a couple of takes on Loam in Modern over the years, featuring cards like Desperate Ravings and Faithless Looting to turn the excess lands into real cards, but it’s been quite awhile since that strategy has really taken the spotlight. This just makes it especially exciting to see sheepje crushing a Modern league with a new take on Life from the Loam:

Four-Color Loam ? Modern | sheepje, 5-0 Modern League

The core strategy is the same as it’s always been. Loam plus random graveyard interactions and Retrace-esque effects. The difference is that we’ve got a couple of new toys to play with. Recent sets have added the ability to play Molten Vortex as a more efficient and less color-intensive Seismic Assault, as well as Murderous Cut and Vengeful Pharaoh.

More importantly, the format has been shifting away from the linear, hyper aggressive decks in favor of the more midrangey strategies like Jund and Splinter Twin. This means that the format is particularly vulnerable to a card like Smallpox, which few decks can leverage quite like a Loam strategy. Similarly, Zombie Infestation gives you a way to convert random lands into creatures that, while unimpressive, will eventually add up to a substantial board presence that your opponent has to interact with.

Even if your opponents are on a more aggressive strategy, Lingering Souls is an absurdly powerful card that will buy you all kinds of time, regardless of whether you draw it naturally or dredge it away with Loam. Similarly, Molten Vortex and Flame Jab let you consistently manage creatures like Glistener Elf and Steel Overseer. Finally, with big mana strategies being such a dominant force in the format, the ability to both dredge into and repeatedly rebuy Ghost Quarter enormously powerful option to have in the maindeck.

All told, this style of strategy seems to be well-positioned in the current format. Molten Vortex and Lingering Souls give you efficient ways to interact with creature decks, while the attrition engine of Life from the Loam give you a natural advantage against more midrangey strategies. The exact build may vary, substituting in cards like Liliana of the Veil or actual Seismic Assault, but the core concept is certainly solid.

Of course, there are other ways to play a game of attrition in Modern. Jund and Abzan variants play a kind of attrition game where they rip your hand to shreds, kill your important permanents, and try to maneuver the game in such a way that the only card left that matters is a creature land or Tarmogoyf to clock their opponent. This week, ashwojo has a new take on this kind of discard plus removal attrition strategy, and it’s one that has quite a few interesting choices.

[Cardlist title=Black-White Midrange ? Modern | ashwojo, 5-0 Modern League]

This deck is really interesting. A lot of the deck is very similar to Abzan and Jund – Thoughtseize and Inquisition, Liliana and Lingering Souls, and a smattering of flexible removal spells like Dismember and Victim of Night. Then there’s the rest of the deck, which is a lot more interesting. This deck manages to simultaneously go a little bigger than the other Black-Green decks, but also sneak in underneath them as well.

Cards like Gideon Jura and Phyrexian Arena allow this deck to play a long game a little better than the decks that top out at Siege Rhino and its ilk, particularly with Lingering Souls around to buy you time you get up to the top end of your curve. But that’s not the real superstar of this deck. That title belongs to Myth Realized.

Myth Realized was a really exciting card when it was first previewed, and some people thought the card could see serious Legacy play in a Blue shell packed with cantrips. It didn’t seem that out of the question for something similar to be reasonable in Modern, but the deck just never materialized. At least until now. The reason that Myth Realized is so absurd in this deck is because it comes down before anything else and just sits in play accumulating Lore counters while you trade resources. How does curving Myth Realized into Smallpox sound? It only gets better when it’s backed up by something like Wrench Mind or Liliana of the Veil. It doesn't take much for Myth Realized to just trump Tarmogoyf, and there aren't many cards that can say that.

Lastly, it’s interesting to consider the role of Erebos's Titan in this deck. This is a deck that is heavily geared towards winning Black-Green pseudo mirrors. Erebos's Titan is out of reach of both Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay, can be immune to the likes of Murderous Cut and Terminate, and the additional pressure on your opponent’s Path to Exiles makes it less likely that your opponent can deal with all three of Myth Realized, Erebos's Titan, and Gideon Jura.

Getting tired of every deck in Legacy doing generic good Blue stuff? Romariovidal may have the deck for you. This hateful deck hasn’t really had a breakout performance, but does pop up from time to time on Magic Online. If you’re looking to destroy lands, prevent your opponent from casting spells, and punish people for playing Islands, this seems like a great place to start:

[Cardlist title=Green-Black Stompy ? Legacy | romariovidal, 4-0 Legacy Daily Event]

Four. Maindeck. Choke. That more or less sums up what this deck is trying to do. Using a combination of Mox Diamond and Sol Lands, this deck wants to ramp out prison pieces like Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, and Choke as early as turn one. These cards, backed by Wasteland and Rolling Spoil to keep your opponent’s low on resources. This strategy is particularly powerful with Titania, Protector of Argoth and Knight of the Reliquary as Green Sun's Zenith targets to keep the Wastelands flowing.

Additionally, this deck has Sylvan Library to stay ahead on resources. Obstinate Baloth tags in to offset the lifeloss of Sylvan Library and combat Liliana of the Veil and Hymn to Tourach. Lastly, and perhaps most interestingly, Centaur Vinecrasher from the Commander 2015 product makes its Legacy debut. This pseudo-Terravore plays very well in this deck, given the density of Wastelands and other mana denial effects. Most importantly, this is a card that has a soft-immunity to non-Swords to Plowshares removal, given you the ability to grind out decks like Shardless Sultai and other Abrupt Decay decks by rebuying a gigantic monster with every Wasteland.

All told, this deck is super hateful and powerful, can come out of the gates shockingly fast, and can shut opponents out of the game starting as early as the first turn. If your metagame has a few too many Islands for your taste, I think romariovidal may be onto something.

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TAGS articles, standard, constructed, legacy, decklist, community, carlos gutierrez, 5 decks, five decks, five decks you can't miss this week, battle for zendikar standard

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