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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 18, 2013
 Reddit

Pro Tour Theros is in the books, and Magic Online has had plenty of time to start messing around with all of the new cards. What decks and strategies have emerged as frontrunners? What kind of awesome interactions are just on the fringe of playability? Let's take a look at some awesome decks and find out:

Blue Devotion may have been the star of Pro Tour Theros, but Black Devotion is the deck that's picked up the most steam on Magic Online. Is this the best Thoughtseize deck in the format? Is the power of Gray Merchant of Asphodel enough to keep you in the game against aggro decks? Let's take a look at Akerlund's list from a Standard Daily Event:

Mono-Black Devotion - Standard | Akerlund, 4-0 Standard Daily Event

  • Creatures (0)

I'm a big fan of a lot of things about this deck; you've got a strong game against many of the explosive devotion-based decks because you play so many removal spells. You're perfectly content to spend the early turns trading Devour Flesh for Frostburn Weird and Burning-Tree Emissary and then grinding things out with Underworld Connections and Erebos, God of the Dead.

Your discard spells let you disrupt the card advantage engines and win conditions of the control decks, each of your creatures is a threat that must be answered, and Grey Merchant even gives you obscene amounts of reach. You can even lean on Erebos's effect to prevent the lifegain portion of Sphinx's Revelation.

The biggest key to making a deck like this function is finding the appropriate mix of removal spells between Doom Blade[/car], [card]Ultimate Price, and Devour Flesh, as well as the ideal combination of card drawing engines between Erebos, Underworld Connections, and Read the Bones. If there's one thing that we learned from Black-Green decks of last season, it's that removal, card advantage, and lifegain are a powerful combination, particularly when Desecration Demon ties the whole package together.

Speaking of Black-Green decks, there's a new one in town. You can't really take a controlling stance anymore with the rotation of Thragtusk, but Leopoldo M has a new, aggressive take on the archetype. Let's take a look:

[Cardlist Title= Golgari Beatdown - Standard | Leopoldo M, 3-1 Standard Daily Event]

There are a couple of things that I really like about this list; namely that it gives a home to Boon Satyr and Varolz. These two cards are awesome in aggressive decks as ways to combat some of the more midrangey, removal-based decks. I'm a little surprised to see zero copies of Corpsejack Menace, since you're already playing Scavenging Ooze, Varolz, and other miscellaneous evolve and scavenge effects.

I find it particularly interesting that there's only one one-drop in the deck. Experiment One is particularly awesome when it's backed by Boon Satyr and Desecration Demon, but seems awfully lonely, but it's dubious whether or not Elvish Mystic really offers much utility to this style of deck.

My biggest question about this deck is whether Scavenging Ooze is enough to help race the mono-colored aggressive decks of the format, mostly red- and blue-based devotion decks.

Going in to Pro Tour Theros, mono-Red was the defining aggro deck of the format. At the Pro Tour, red decks were crushed by the Blue Devotion and Esper Control decks. So what happens when you try to go a little bigger? That's what gaffaflaff is trying with his take on Boros Aggro:

Boros - Standard | gaffaflaff, 3-1 Standard Daily Event

There are a lot of really cool things going on here. The deck is built around Ogre Battledriver and Purphoros, God of the Forge. These two let you turn tokens into huge quantities of damage and reach, and really give you the opportunity to go over the top of other midrangey decks.

Young Pyromancer and Assemble the Legion are your primary token engines, and you've got plenty of burn spells to keep creatures off your back while you get those engines revving. At some point, you're going to start resolving Boros Reckoner and Chandra's Phoenix to further stabilize the board or start getting in damage. From there, Purhporos and Ogre Battledriver give you ways to force through huge amounts of damage in the midgame and set yourself up to burn them out with your sixteen direct damage spells.

Anger of the Gods seems a little out of place, and might prefer to be something like Flames of the Firebrand or Chain to the Rocks, but it's hard to say without getting more games in. One thing's for sure: I'm really excited to find out if decks like this have a place in the metagame. A format where Purphoros is taking over the top tables of Standard events sounds pretty exciting to me!

Beck/Call was suppose to be the card that heralded the return of Combo Elves to Modern. Unfortunately, we've barely seen the deck cracking the money finishes in Daily Events, much less the top finishes on the Grand Prix circuit. Emrys4242 is looking to change that with his unique take on the archetype. Let's take a look at what he's done:

[Cardlist Title= Elves - Modern | emrys4242, 3-1 Modern Daily Event]

That's right, zero copies of Beck/Call, but he's running four Lead the Stampede. I think Emrys may be on to something here. Sure, Lead the Stampede doesn't give you the explosive power that Beck/Call does, but it's hard to set up the mana to really abuse Beck/Call if a format with [car]Lightning Bolt" href="/p/Magic+The+Gathering/Ultimate Price" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Doom+Blade%5B%2Fcar%5D%2C+%5Bcard%5DUltimate+Price">Doom Blade[/car], [card]Ultimate Price, and Devour Flesh, as well as the ideal combination of card drawing engines between Erebos, Underworld Connections, and Read the Bones. If there's one thing that we learned from Black-Green decks of last season, it's that removal, card advantage, and lifegain are a powerful combination, particularly when Desecration Demon ties the whole package together.

Speaking of Black-Green decks, there's a new one in town. You can't really take a controlling stance anymore with the rotation of Thragtusk, but Leopoldo M has a new, aggressive take on the archetype. Let's take a look:

[Cardlist Title= Golgari Beatdown - Standard | Leopoldo M, 3-1 Standard Daily Event]

There are a couple of things that I really like about this list; namely that it gives a home to Boon Satyr and Varolz. These two cards are awesome in aggressive decks as ways to combat some of the more midrangey, removal-based decks. I'm a little surprised to see zero copies of Corpsejack Menace, since you're already playing Scavenging Ooze, Varolz, and other miscellaneous evolve and scavenge effects.

I find it particularly interesting that there's only one one-drop in the deck. Experiment One is particularly awesome when it's backed by Boon Satyr and Desecration Demon, but seems awfully lonely, but it's dubious whether or not Elvish Mystic really offers much utility to this style of deck.

My biggest question about this deck is whether Scavenging Ooze is enough to help race the mono-colored aggressive decks of the format, mostly red- and blue-based devotion decks.

Going in to Pro Tour Theros, mono-Red was the defining aggro deck of the format. At the Pro Tour, red decks were crushed by the Blue Devotion and Esper Control decks. So what happens when you try to go a little bigger? That's what gaffaflaff is trying with his take on Boros Aggro:

Boros - Standard | gaffaflaff, 3-1 Standard Daily Event

There are a lot of really cool things going on here. The deck is built around Ogre Battledriver and Purphoros, God of the Forge. These two let you turn tokens into huge quantities of damage and reach, and really give you the opportunity to go over the top of other midrangey decks.

Young Pyromancer and Assemble the Legion are your primary token engines, and you've got plenty of burn spells to keep creatures off your back while you get those engines revving. At some point, you're going to start resolving Boros Reckoner and Chandra's Phoenix to further stabilize the board or start getting in damage. From there, Purhporos and Ogre Battledriver give you ways to force through huge amounts of damage in the midgame and set yourself up to burn them out with your sixteen direct damage spells.

Anger of the Gods seems a little out of place, and might prefer to be something like Flames of the Firebrand or Chain to the Rocks, but it's hard to say without getting more games in. One thing's for sure: I'm really excited to find out if decks like this have a place in the metagame. A format where Purphoros is taking over the top tables of Standard events sounds pretty exciting to me!

Beck/Call was suppose to be the card that heralded the return of Combo Elves to Modern. Unfortunately, we've barely seen the deck cracking the money finishes in Daily Events, much less the top finishes on the Grand Prix circuit. Emrys4242 is looking to change that with his unique take on the archetype. Let's take a look at what he's done:

[Cardlist Title= Elves - Modern | emrys4242, 3-1 Modern Daily Event]

That's right, zero copies of Beck/Call, but he's running four Lead the Stampede. I think Emrys may be on to something here. Sure, Lead the Stampede doesn't give you the explosive power that Beck/Call does, but it's hard to set up the mana to really abuse Beck/Call if a format with [car]Lightning Bolt">Ultimate Price" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Doom+Blade%5B%2Fcar%5D%2C+%5Bcard%5DUltimate+Price">Doom Blade[/car], [card]Ultimate Price, and Devour Flesh, as well as the ideal combination of card drawing engines between Erebos, Underworld Connections, and Read the Bones. If there's one thing that we learned from Black-Green decks of last season, it's that removal, card advantage, and lifegain are a powerful combination, particularly when Desecration Demon ties the whole package together.

Speaking of Black-Green decks, there's a new one in town. You can't really take a controlling stance anymore with the rotation of Thragtusk, but Leopoldo M has a new, aggressive take on the archetype. Let's take a look:

[Cardlist Title= Golgari Beatdown - Standard | Leopoldo M, 3-1 Standard Daily Event]

There are a couple of things that I really like about this list; namely that it gives a home to Boon Satyr and Varolz. These two cards are awesome in aggressive decks as ways to combat some of the more midrangey, removal-based decks. I'm a little surprised to see zero copies of Corpsejack Menace, since you're already playing Scavenging Ooze, Varolz, and other miscellaneous evolve and scavenge effects.

I find it particularly interesting that there's only one one-drop in the deck. Experiment One is particularly awesome when it's backed by Boon Satyr and Desecration Demon, but seems awfully lonely, but it's dubious whether or not Elvish Mystic really offers much utility to this style of deck.

My biggest question about this deck is whether Scavenging Ooze is enough to help race the mono-colored aggressive decks of the format, mostly red- and blue-based devotion decks.

Going in to Pro Tour Theros, mono-Red was the defining aggro deck of the format. At the Pro Tour, red decks were crushed by the Blue Devotion and Esper Control decks. So what happens when you try to go a little bigger? That's what gaffaflaff is trying with his take on Boros Aggro:

Boros - Standard | gaffaflaff, 3-1 Standard Daily Event

There are a lot of really cool things going on here. The deck is built around Ogre Battledriver and Purphoros, God of the Forge. These two let you turn tokens into huge quantities of damage and reach, and really give you the opportunity to go over the top of other midrangey decks.

Young Pyromancer and Assemble the Legion are your primary token engines, and you've got plenty of burn spells to keep creatures off your back while you get those engines revving. At some point, you're going to start resolving Boros Reckoner and Chandra's Phoenix to further stabilize the board or start getting in damage. From there, Purhporos and Ogre Battledriver give you ways to force through huge amounts of damage in the midgame and set yourself up to burn them out with your sixteen direct damage spells.

Anger of the Gods seems a little out of place, and might prefer to be something like Flames of the Firebrand or Chain to the Rocks, but it's hard to say without getting more games in. One thing's for sure: I'm really excited to find out if decks like this have a place in the metagame. A format where Purphoros is taking over the top tables of Standard events sounds pretty exciting to me!

Beck/Call was suppose to be the card that heralded the return of Combo Elves to Modern. Unfortunately, we've barely seen the deck cracking the money finishes in Daily Events, much less the top finishes on the Grand Prix circuit. Emrys4242 is looking to change that with his unique take on the archetype. Let's take a look at what he's done:

[Cardlist Title= Elves - Modern | emrys4242, 3-1 Modern Daily Event]

That's right, zero copies of Beck/Call, but he's running four Lead the Stampede. I think Emrys may be on to something here. Sure, Lead the Stampede doesn't give you the explosive power that Beck/Call does, but it's hard to set up the mana to really abuse Beck/Call if a format with [car]Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix, and Inquisition of Kozilek.

When two-thirds of your deck is creatures, you're going to be hitting 3 or more creatures off of Lead the Stampede more often than not, and that gives you the power to fight through multiple removal spells and still assemble your big mana engine, which seems like exactly what you want to do in an attrition-based format like Modern.

My biggest concern with this deck is your ability to consistently find Craterhoof Behemoth if you're playing zero copies of Chord of Calling and lack the infinite engine of Cloudstone Curio. This deck seems much better positioned in attrition-based games, but has given up some of the free wins that previous iterations of Combo Elves have boasted. This all leads me to wonder: is Lead the Stampede the missing piece of technology that Elf decks have needed in Modern?

For our last deck, let's take a look at a Legacy deck by OneStepBehind that features a real gem. We've seen various iterations of Griselbrand combo, from Reanimator to Show and Tell to Shallow Grave storm. But how about Stronghold Gambit?

BR Reanimator - Legacy | OneStepBehind, 3-1 Legacy Daily Event

This deck is sweet. It's very reminiscent of the Goryo's Vengeance decks that people have been playing in Modern, but you get to play some of the more powerful fast mana and disruption effects that are available in Legacy.

The idea here is that you can just kill your opponent with Entomb or Faithless Looting setting up a reanimated Emrakul. Or you can set up a Griselbrand, draw a bunch of cards, tear your opponent's hand to shreds with Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize, and then Stronghold Gambit a fatty into play once you've stripped the creatures from your opponent's hand.

Sure, you have to do a lot more work for your Show and Tell effect, but you're less vulnerable to things like Detention Sphere, and have a more proactive disruption plan. I'm a little surprised at the lack of Gitaxian Probes to go with Cabal Therapy and to see if you have to wait to play around Daze, Force of Will, or Flusterstorm, but I suppose that Thoughtseize fills that role nicely as well.

I don't know if this deck can really compete with the blue-based Show and Tell decks, since you're giving up Brainstorm and Ponder for Faithless Looting, but I'm certainly excited to see that people can still find gems like Stronghold Gambit and make them work in a format as powerful as Legacy.

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

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