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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 September 21, 2013
 Reddit

The Theros is upon us, but it's still not legal just yet. In light of that, this week we're featuring a few awesome decks from Modern and Legacy, a Standard deck with some Theros action, and a Commander deck that has all kinds of God-goodness. These are five decks you just can't miss!

Jund dominated the Top 8 of Grand Prix Detroit, but there are other midrangey decks in Modern. We've seen various takes on Jund splashing all manner of colors, but they've always used green for Tarmogoyf, Abrupt Decay, and Scavenging Ooze. What happens if we cut the green out of these Jund decks? That's what Bahra has been trying to find out. This is the BWR Midrange deck he's been crushing Daily Events with:

Team Italia - Modern | Bahra, 4-0 Modern Daily Event

To me, the most exciting card in this deck is Grim Lavamancer. In a format defined by Deathrite Shaman, Steel Overseer, and Melira, Sylvok Outcast, a repeatable shock on an efficient body is exactly what I want to be doing. Grim Lavamancer can even counter Deathrite Shaman activations targeting cards in your graveyard. It seems almost impossible for creature decks to win through this effect, and just having Lavamancer in play should buy you enough time to find some more proactive disruption.

The second card that's exciting to me is Vault of the Archangel. If Jund variants are going to be dominating the format, then having Lingering Souls and Vault of the Archangel as a way to break stalemates seems absolutely incredible. Out of the sideboard, you have Mirran Crusader to swing these matchups even further in your favor.

On top of all of that, you have Sword of War and Peace to help fight all of the red removal in this format, buy time against red decks, or clock the control decks even faster. All told, this deck seems very well positioned, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it taking down events in the future.

Next we're heading into Legacy, where Avignon is showing that you don't have to break the bank to be successful. He's been slotting Stoneforge Mystic into an Affinity shell to great success. Let's take a look:

[Cardlist Title= Affinity - Legacy | Avignon, 3-1 Legacy Daily Event]

There are a lot of hateful things going on in this deck. Not only do you have the explosive starts that Affinity is well-known for; you also have Ancient Tomb into Chalice of the Void or Stoneforge Mystic into Batterskull to just shut down some decks. Stoneforge Mystic also functions as additional copies of Cranial Plating to help support your Etched Champion beatdown plan and also provides you with Umezawa's Jitte out of the sideboard against tribal decks like Elves.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about this deck is the sideboard possibilities. You can play any combination of artifact lands, Glimmervoids, Mox Opals and Springleaf Drum[/card to splash combinations of [card]Whipflare and Thoughtseize in addition to Dispatch or Galvanic Blast. Oblivion Ring sticks out as a strange card that Avignon has chosen to run, but seems reasonable as a catch-all answer to cards like Moat.

Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas is absolutely awesome out of the sideboard, since it beats Ensnaring Bridge and other cards that traditionally shut down creature decks. The card advantage is helpful against control decks, but it's primarily there as a pseudo-Fireball. While Mox Opals aren't the cheapest, they're easier to get a hold of than Wastelands, Force of Wills, or Underground Seas. If you've been looking for a cheap place to get into Legacy, this may be it!

Cloudpost is newly banned in Pauper, and that means that Legacy and Vintage are the only two formats in which the Locus engine is still legal. The ods of Cloudpost showing up in a format with Tangle Wire and Strip Mine seems pretty low, but the 12 Post does show up in Legacy from time to time. Zahori is a player who has been trying to deck in Legacy Daily Events for awhile now, and he's come to this interesting list:

12 Post - Legacy | zahori, 3-1 Modern Daily Event

The interesting thing about this list is that zahori has cut a lot of the acceleration from the deck. Previous iterations have run both Trinket Mage and Candelabra of Tawnos to power out Emrakul as early as possible. Zahori has cut those pieces for more midrangey effects like Deathrite Shaman and Oracle of Mul Daya. This makes your gameplan less explosive, but more consistent, especially in the face of Wasteland and graveyard-based combo decks.

So how exactly does this deck work? You use Cloudpost and Glimmerpost in conjunction with Vesuva to buy yourself time and generate huge quantities of mana. From there you can start casting enormous threats, like Primeval Titan and Thragtusk and set up your Eye of Ugin engine. Once you start tutoring up and casting Eldrazi, there isn't much most decks in the format can do. Alternatively, you can just Show and Tell your fatties into play the old fashioned way.

The thing that I like the most about this deck is the redundancy of Crop Rotation and Primeval Titan. These two let you consistently have access to your utility lands like Karakas, and make cards like Bojuka Bog and Cavern of Souls worth considering in your 75. This deck even has Glacial Chasm to tutor up against creature decks! While you can't recur Glacial Chasm like a Life from the Loam deck can, you can use your Glimmerposts to be able to pay the life turn after turn while you set up your Eldrazi end game.

Theros is here, and that means that there's a brand new Standard format right around the corner. This means blisteringly fast aggro decks, midrange decks packed with removal, and clunky control decks that haven't found their place in the metagame just yet. Fortunately, the one-and-only Gerry Thompson has a sweet White-based aggro deck that may well be the best place to start in this new format. Let's take a look:

[Cardlist Title= Selesnya Aggro - Standard | Gerry Thompson]

This deck seems incredibly well-positioned heading into the first few weeks of the new Standard. Your creatures are bigger and more resilient than the other aggro decks, you have Fleecemane Lion and Unlinching Courage to go over the top later in the game, and Brave the Elements for enormous blowouts mid-combat. Seems tough to fight through with a couple of Burning-Tree Emissarys and Lightning Strikes.

Against control decks, you still have efficient, resilient creatures, many of which demand a sweeper on their own. Back that up with Spear of Heliod for force the Supreme Verdict, and your instant-speed follow-ups like Advent of the Wurm and Selesnya Charm, and it seems like you'll be hard-pressed to lose to a Jace, Architect of Thought deck. Supreme Verdict is certainly the card that you're most afraid of, but I don't think that card will be especially prevalent in top-tier strategies for the first few weeks of the format.

Of course, Theros doesn't just mean new toys for Standard; we get plenty of new cards to brew with in Commander as well! One of my favorite archetypes in Commander is mono-Red, largely because of the sheer number of directions you can take a red deck in. You can go big with enormous Fireballs, get aggressive with Hellrider and company, or even try to attrition out your opponents with things like Goblin Welder. Beusapu is continuing in this tradition of interesting Red decks with his take on Purphoros, God of the Forge. Let's take a look:

Purphoros Aggro - Commander | Beusapu

This deck is all-in on doing awesome things with Purphoros, but that's a fine place to be in most Commander circles. Most people are running very few Disenchants and even fewer copies of Return to Dust to deal with something like Purphoros. As long as you carefully manage your devotion and make sure you don't turn him into a creature for Swords to Plowshares, you should be able to keep him on the board.

But what are we going to do with him while he's on the board? Whenever a creature hits play, Purphoros is going to deal damage to each of your opponents. To take advantage of that, Beusapu has packed his deck with as much token generation as possible. Imagine curving Purphoros into Tooth and Claw into Mogg War Marshal plus Empty the Warrens. That's four damage from the War Marshall, another eight from the Empty the Warrens, and you have six goblins in play that you can sacrifice to make three 3/1's and another goblin. That's twenty damage to each of your opponents. Untap, Firecat Blitz plus flashback? Seems good.

With damage output like that, Purphoros may very well become the face of aggressive Red decks in this format, and may necessitate playing additional ways to exile enchantments instead of relying on sweepers like Pernicious Deed and Austere Command. Purphoros could be an entire archetype unto himself, and I'm excited to find out just how far he can be pushed!

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

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