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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 June 8, 2013
 Reddit

We've had some time to play with Dragon's Maze, and now the formats are starting to shift and evolve. Let's take a look at some of the awesome decks that have shown up this week. Let's get started!

Forget Thragtusk, let's get ready to go big with Craterhoof Behemoth and Elderscale Wurm! Are you ready to channel your inner Timmy with nielsen333's deck from a Standard Daily Event?

Big Green - Standard | nielsen333, 4-0 Standard Daily Event

Mana creatures like Arbor Elf are some of the most powerful creatures in Magic. They accelerate you into powerful mid-game plays, bring the beatdowns, and can even fix your mana. The issue with these kinds of decks is often that your deck is significantly worse without an early mana creature and that drawing an Avacyn's Pilgrim on turn ten is pretty miserable.

Nielsen333 fixes this problem by maxing out on mana creatures, playing the full four Avacyn's Pilrims, Arbor Elfs and Somberwald Sages. He's even playing Elvish Archdruid for value. This means that you're always going to have access to the explosive mana you need.

He solves the second problem by making sure that the rest of his deck interacts favorably with excess mana creatures. Wolfir Silverheart and Gavony Township let you grind out the game, while Soul of the Harvest ensures that you don't run out of gas.

Dragon's Maze brought with it both Sire of Insanity and Voice of Resurgence, and since those cards have been legal, we've seen a huge downswing in the number of Sphinx's Revelation decks being played in Standard. These cards mean that control is finally dead, right? Not according to purpler, who has been putting up consistent results in Standard Daily Events with this Grixis control deck:

Grixis Control - Standard | purpler, 4-0 Standard Daily Event

There are a few cards here that I'm very excited about. Master of Cruelties and Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius are two cards that I'm very excited to see, even if just as singletons. They're both incredibly powerful, and capable of taking over games if you resolve them on a reasonably stable board.

Basically, Esper was awesome in the previous format because it had the best matchup aainst other Sphinx's Revelation decks, and all of those decks had reasonable matchups against the creature decks. Now, the creature decks are good against Sphinx's Revelation, which means we need a control deck that can beat up on creatures. When you trade in your Sphinx's Revelations for Olivia Voldarens and Dreadbore, you're going to be better set up against creatures.

I think that Tamiyo, the Moon Sage and Jace, Architect of Thought are awesome substitutions for Sphinx's Revelation for the new Standard. You want to curve out removal and start tapping out for threats that continually impact the board and help you keep Sire of Insanity and Voice of Resurgence under control, instead of sitting back on countermagic and Sphinx's Revelations.

I would love to see some number of Desperate Ravings and Runechanter's Pike, but that's probably just me.

When Modern first became a format, there were a number of people playing UWR Isochron Scepter decks, featuring Lightning Helix, Remand, and other sweet instants. Since Jund has taken over the format and Affinity has risen to the top tier and brought artifact hate into the format, we've seen that entire strategy disappear. Does dustinhaley have what it takes to bring it back?

RW Scepter - Modern | dustinhaley1, 3-1 Modern Daily Event

This deck is awesome. You get all of the removal you could ever possibly need against aggro and creature-based combo. From Magma Jet and Lightning Helix for Goblin Guide to Porphyry Nodes and Condemn for Tarmogoyf, there's no creature this deck isn't prepared to answer. You even have Dawn Charm and Ensnaring Bridge to just lock the game down against aggressive decks.

Not only that, but you've got game against combo and control as well, since you can just stick Isochron Scepter[/card[ plus [card]Silence or Blood Moon. You can end the game with a combination of Boros Charm and Lightning Helix. Boros Charm does double duty as a win condition and a way to protect your Scepters.

I think a splash for a manland of some kind to help close out the game may not be out of the question, and you're almost certainly going to want a more consistent game against control decks. Perhaps a splash for Snapcaster Mage and Celestial Colonnade or discard and Lavaclaw Reaches?

Legacy is an awesome format. Where else can you see the most powerful cards in Magic like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Dark Ritual being cast along with Vexing Sphinx? That's right, Vexing Sphinx. This week, Caleb Durward took a look at Maffei Roberto's take on RUG Delver with Vexing Sphinx, and after some tweaking he came up with something sweet:

Vexing RUG - Legacy | Caleb Durward

You can't look at this list and tell me you don't want to "go off" with Vexing Sphinx plus Deep Analysis, Life from the Loam, or Punishing Fire. All of these cards minimize the cumulative upkeep cost, letting you beat down for four and ramp up your age counters so that you can draw into enough Lightning Bolts to make sure your opponent is dead.

This deck takes the powerful RUG Delver shell that has been proven time and again, and goes just a little bit bigger. Your Vexing Sphinx is just big enough to fight through Lightning Bolt, Delver of Secrets, and Vendilion Clique, while also providing you a way to restock your hand and grind out the late game. It's not even out of the question that you could hold off a Tarmogoyf for a few turns.

The most interesting thing about this take on RUG is that you get to play with Life from the Loam and Punishing Fire, which give you a number of awesome interactions with Life from the Loam and Faithless Looting. While other RUG decks Stifle and Wasteland and the run out of gas, you'll be able to continue casting spells and grinding down your opponent's life total.

We're in the home stretch, but we've still got four Dragon's Maze Legends to go! This week we're going to take a look at an aggressive take on Varolz, the Scar-Striped. This little guy generated quite a bit of hype when he was first previewed, and a number of people expected him to make waves in Modern and Legacy in conjunction with Death's Shadow and Phyrexian Dreadnaught. Let's see if capitacom can get him to live up to the hype! Let's take a look:

Varolz Agro - Commander | capitacom

This deck is sweet. You've got quite a few creatures with very high power relative to their mana cost that are very easy to get into the graveyard. Once they're there, you can either scavenge onto Varolz and get your beatdown on or just combo people to death with an infect creature. Inkmoth Nexus in particular is a terrifying card in this style of deck, because it's only a creature on your turn, keeps all of the scavenge counters, and has evasion.

Capitacom also has Lotleth Troll and Oona's Prowler as discard outlets to power Varolz. Those cards are especially powerful with Golgari Grave-Troll to help you find your big scavenge effects. Speakin of great cards for scavenge, let's look at Skullbriar, the Walking Grave. You can scavenge onto him to apply pressure early on, and after he dies you can reuse the counters for Varolz later; that's a pretty awesome it interaction, and one I'm excited to try myself.

The other thing to notice is just how low this deck's curve is and how aggressive the creatures are. You can absolutely just curve out into Beastmaster Ascension or Triumph of the Horde and kill people that way. Alternatively, you can grind them out with Dark Confidant and Ad Nauseam. With your average mana cost being somewhere between one and two, these cards are both absolutely incredible at giving you longevity.

The only card that I'd try to make space for in this shell is Nim Deathmantle, for a few reasons. It's a very powerful card that you can sink your excess mana into, especially when your Commander is a sacrifice outlet. A card like that will let you grind out decks that you'd lose long games to ordinarily, particularly in combination with Eternal Witness. Adding this card would require having a few more "Enters the Battlefield" effects, but may be worth it if you want to go a little bigger.

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

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