facebook

CoolStuffInc.com

Turn your cards and minis into cash! Maximize your value with our 25% store credit bonus!
  
Account Meeple
Location IconLocations
Account MeepleLogin
0 Item
Advanced Search
   Sign In
Create Account
Main » Articles » Getting Creative

Getting Creative

Brad Wojceshonek
Posted on May 16, 2011
 Reddit

Guys, I have the coolest, most innovative combo deck for you today! It involves a bulk rare from Rise of the Eldrazi and an innocuous little uncommon from New Phyrexia. Check it out:

"DeceiverTwin"

See, you play Deceiver Exarch, and then . . .

And then . . .

You already know, huh? Everyone has been talking about the deck for three weeks already? Well, then. This is more awkward than the time I convinced my roommate Cory that our friend’s semiformal party was, in fact, a costume party.

He Wasn't Pleased
He wasn't pleased

I guess that’s what I get for working on a preconstructed deck while the rest of the world played with the new toys. I’ll just have to dig a little deeper to find the decks few people are talking about.

First up is a Grand Architect deck, something I’ve been working on since Scars of Mirrodin came out. The thing that’s been holding this deck back is that it is entirely reliant on keep Grand Architect alive. Spellskite, a creature that I just keep finding applications for, is perfect for the job. Another helpful friend is Phyrexian Metamorph, which not only doubles up your Architect to preempt opposing removal spells, but can also copy Treasure Mage to keep giving you threats. Of course, once you stick that first Wurmcoil, you might as well just clone that instead.

"New Architexia"

Step 1: Find Grand Architect. This is where Preordain and those janky Augury Owls come in. Step 2: Generate lots of mana. Don’t forget you can make Spellskite Blue with Grand Architect to get effectively +1 to your mana pool (only for artifacts, of course). Step 3: Play huge bombs. Myr Battlesphere is the only one that passes the Jace test, so search him up with Treasure Mage against Blue (unless you have the Spellskite). Mindslaver is the best option against Valakut, while Wurmcoil is obviously the nuts against creature decks.

Fun plays you can make with this deck:

Turn-two Owl. Turn-three Architect, tap both for Metamorph (take 2, float 1), tap Metamorph for Tumble Magnet. 10 mana next turn for Treasure Mage/Myr Battlesphere, plus the active Magnet to stop whatever you need to.

Turn-two Spellskite. Turn-three Architect. Turn-four Treasure Mage, make Spellskite Blue and tap everything for 6 mana, play Wurmcoil Engine (with Spellskite to make sure he sticks around).

Not every game needs to play out so explosively. Spellskite, Tumble Magnet, and Mana Leak do a fine job of keeping you alive until you hit 6 mana naturally, if that’s what you have to do. My only regret is that Caged Sun didn’t make the list, but that card seems better suited in a deck that doesn’t play Grand Architect. Once you have the Wizard and a Treasure Mage in play, you don’t really need a Mana Flare. Besides, Caged Sun works best with x spells, and Grand Architect can’t help you with those. Here’s a Caged Sun deck I’m toying with:

"Big Red Sun"

Pretty similar to the Architect deck, but not as reliant on a single card. Moltensteel Dragon and Caged Sun are a powerful combination, and can both be fetched up with Treasure Mage. Red Sun's Zenith is great early game for killing Vengevines, and can combo with the Sun late for the big finale. Koth comes down as early as turn three to kill planeswalkers, pump Moltensteel Dragon, and go ultimate (maybe with the help of Contagion Engine).

Galvanic Blast seems better than Lightning Bolt in a Deceiver Exarch/Spellskite world, plus we already have 3-toughness-or-less covered with Slagstorm. Metamorph is a great utility spell in this deck, giving us mana, removal, or a threat, depending on what we need (and have on the board). I would like to squeeze a couple of Kuldotha Phoenixes as a nice, resilient threat versus control, but I couldn’t find room in the main deck.

As much as I love Treasure Mage, he tends to play best in control decks, and I’m an aggro player at heart. This is the deck I currently have sleeved up in my primary deck box:

"Steel the One v2.0"

I love Gitaxian Probe in this deck. It lets us cheat a tiny bit on land, while also making our deck smaller so we can find Tempered Steel faster. It tells us what to name with Revoker, whether to play that third creature when we fear Day of Judgment, and when to leave mana up for our counters. The 2 damage is inconsequential, considering we’re playing one of the most aggressive decks in the format.

The counters give us outs to Wrath spells, Gideon, and Primeval Titans, plus they allow us to interact with DeceiverTwin. Our biggest fear is a Mystic vialing in a Batterskull, which may merit playing more Revokers in the main. If they play fair and drop him on turn five, we can easily counter or race it, but that guy is a monster on the third turn.

Red decks can give us some trouble, what with their Arc Trails and Lightning Bolts, so I’ve included a four-pack of Etched Champion in the board. Kor Firewalker was initially in the spot, but now that Dismember exists, it isn’t the trump card it used to be. Etched Champion is good against Vampires, too, a deck that is poised to pick up some steam with the addition of Lashwrithe. Spellskite comes in for the Red matchup, and also for DeceiverTwin. Phyrexian Revoker can name Deceiver Exarch to preempt the enchantment, so it comes in against the combo. Divine Offering is necessary against Sword of War and Peace and Batterskull, plus has some utility against the Machine Red and Tezzeret decks that are likely to turn up. Act of Aggression is the ultimate trump to Titans and Wurmcoils, and I’m happy I don’t have to play Red to get my Mark of Mutiny on. The random Flashfreeze gives us just a tiny bit more control in the Valakut and R/U/G matchups.

This deck sacrifices some of the explosiveness of straight mono-White or White/Red in order to have counterspells for Primeval Titan, which seems like a pretty good place to be. You can still play three artifact guys and Mox Opal on turn one followed by a turn-two Tempered Steel; the only difference is that you might have a Spell Pierce for the turn-three Slagstorm.

Something Completely Different

The first three decks in this article at least aspired to be competitive; the three coming up are not for the faint of heart. I’m going to take a look at some of the (rightfully) overlooked combos that are possible in Standard, and build decks around them that are varying degrees of bad and/or insane. Consider the following decks as jumping-off points for your own crazy brewing.

People have been trying to break Birthing Pod, so I thought I’d give it a shot, too. As a repeatable effect that lets you search up creatures and put them in the graveyard, the first card I looked to pair it with was Necrotic Ooze.

Conley Woods built a pretty awesome Ooze deck for Extended, so I’m already familiar with how good the card is with Fauna Shaman. The only question was, what combos are available in Standard?

Combo 1: Allies

Here’s one game-winning board state: Necrotic Ooze and any two Allies in play. Soliton, Bloodrite Invoker, and Harabaz Druid in the graveyard. Tap Ooze for uu (Druid), untap thanks to Soliton, floating u. You now can generate infinite mana, and Invoker means infinite damage.

Note the mana costs here: 2, 3, 4, 5 (Harabaz, Invoker, Ooze, Soliton)—perfect for Birthing Pod. Of course, sacrificing the Ooze leaves us Oozeless, so we should probably grab an Entomber Exarch in that spot instead. Exarch can rebuy one of our Allies if we’re short, or make sure the coast is clear with a Duress. We can cap the chain off with a Sun Titan to get back our 3-drop, which we can convert into an Ooze via the Pod. To aid in all this Podding, we’ll play a Trinket Mage and a Voltaic Key.

The tricky part is getting two Allies in play, as it means we have to fill our deck with pretty bad cards. I went White, which provides the best and cheapest Allies, as well as Ondu Cleric, which can give us life to turn into Pod activations. Oh, and I added Sea Gate Loremaster, which means infinite cards when you’re comboing off, in case you’re on the Fauna Shaman plan and can’t find your Invoker right away. Here’s the whole crazy concoction:

"Ally Need Is a Birthing Pod"

It’s wacky and cumbersome, but it’s a start.

Combo 2: Phyrebreathing

You have Necrotic Ooze in play and 3 mana (2 are Red) in your pool. In your graveyard, you have Pestilent Souleater, Immolating Souleater, and Spikeshot Elder. You pay 12 life to give your ooze +6/+0, and 2 more life to give him Infect. Then, you use the Elder’s ability to shoot your opponent for 10 poison.

A big problem with this version is that it requires a lot of life to get started. You could just use mana if you have it, but who has that kind of time? Another option is life gain, but there aren’t many good choices. I’m throwing in a Gladehart that you can get some life out of on the way up the Pod chain.

Elder → Immolating Souleater → Grazing Gladehart → Necrotic Ooze provides a partial chain. You need to Pod up to Pestilent Souleater, but that requires sacrificing Necrotic Ooze. You can nab a different 4-drop (Obstinate Baloth), but either way, you’re going to need to naturally draw one of the pieces. Here’s a list that goes all four-ofs, so you have a shot at pulling it off.

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Grazing Gladehart

1 Obstinate Baloth

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Fauna Shaman

4 Lotus Cobra

4 Necrotic Ooze

4 Spikeshot Elder

2 Spellskite

4 Immolating Souleater

4 Pestilent Souleater

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Birthing Pod

[/Spells]

[Lands]

2 Mountain

3 Swamp

5 Forest

2 Misty Rainforest

4 Blackcleave Cliffs

4 Copperline Gorge

4 Verdant Catacombs

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

Note that you don’t have to win in one big turn if you don’t want to. Ooze with Elder in the ’yard is already pretty decent. Ooze with Infect + Elder is a three-turn clock, or less if you can activate it twice. Oh, and don’t forget, with a Birds in your graveyard, you can tap the Ooze to get 1 of the Red mana you need.

The two lists above are untested, and I’m not even entirely sure they can actually win games in real life. They are simply intended to illustrate that Necrotic Ooze is, in fact, still in the format, and he has some applications with Birthing Pod. The hope is that someone reading this can find a much simpler combo and turn the deck into a machine.

Hey, at least I’m spreading the love to all the Johnnies out there.

Speaking of Johnnies, CJHobbes posted a comment in one of my articles a few weeks back pointing out that Xenograft and Turntimber Ranger gives you infinite Wolf Ally tokens! I thought that was an awesome enough interaction to build a fun deck around.

As long as we’re playing Xenograft in our Ally deck, we should take the opportunity to figure out which creature in Standard would make for the best Ally ever. I’m voting for Bloodghast, since he can trigger our Allies multiple times a turn.

Viscera Seer will help us find our Xenograft, and Fauna Shaman tutors up Turntimber Ranger. Vivisection is pretty sweet with Bloodghast, and you can always sacrifice a Viscera Seer or an unnecessary Ally. Harabaz Druid is my favorite Ally, and he’s at his best in this three-color special that wins with 5-drops. Oran-Rief Survivalist is a fine man who helps us fill up our Ally quota. Halimar Excavator is a cheap, solid blocker that turns infinite Wolf Allies into a win on the spot. Sea Gate Loremaster puts in another appearance as an expensive way to dig for Xenograft when you’re desperate.

That’s right, two Ally-based combo decks in one article. You won’t find that anywhere else!

"House Stark"

Remember, the deck can have some aggressive draws, but the endgame is all about infinite Wolf Allies. The Lannisters win if you don’t summon your Dire Wolves.

All right, we should stop here. If I brew any more, you might be looking at some kind of zany Bloodghast/Bloodthrone Vampire/Mortician Beetle/Fresh Meat nonsense.

Nath’d again!

As usual, thanks for reading.

Brad Wojceshonek

bradwoj at gmail dot com

@BJWOJ on Twitter

TAGS articles, constructed, standard

Recent Articles

View Archive
Sell your cards and minis 25% credit bonus