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Do you enjoy drawing Magic cards? Do you think fun is a zero sum game? Do you derive enjoyment from your opponent slumping helplessly into their chair while you play Magic and they do not?
Well then - do I have the deck for you!
Today I would like to share with you what has quickly become my favorite combo deck in this format:
Esper Amulet Combo | Guilds Standard | Jeff Hoogland
- Creatures (1)
- 1 Chromium, the Mutable
- Instants (25)
- 2 Nexus of Fate
- 3 Settle the Wreckage
- 4 Anticipate
- 4 Opt
- 4 Radical Idea
- 4 Revitalize
- 4 Ritual of Rejuvenation
- Sorceries (6)
- 2 Cleansing Nova
- 4 Discovery // Dispersal
- Enchantments (2)
- 2 Search for Azcanta
- Artifacts (3)
- 3 Primal Amulet
- Lands (23)
- 6 Plains
- 9 Island
- 1 Memorial to Folly
- 3 Drowned Catacomb
- 4 Glacial Fortress
I'd like to start by highlighting what might not be an obvious combo in the deck. The way it works is when we flip Primal Amulet into Primal Wellspring we can set ourselves up to take an unlimited number of turns with Nexus of Fate.
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We do this by thinning out our deck down to the point where we can find a copy of Nexus of Fate every other turn to take two additional turns. Then once we build up enough extra turns we can start attacking for lethal with our difficult to interact with finisher:
Chromium is our finish of choice for a few reasons. First is that in the event he winds up in our graveyard at some point, our copy of Memorial to Folly can fish him back out once we are ready to start winning the game. The second is that splashing a small amount of Black for Chromium allows us to also play the Dispersal half of Discovery // Dispersal. In addition to offering utility for stalling the board, Dispersal also gives us a Game 1 answer to Settle the Wreckage by copying Dispersal multiple times with Primal Wellspring to run our opponent's hand out of cards.
Past our win condition and combo elements, the bulk of our deck is a pile of cantrips that allows us to see a large number of cards each game:
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All of these cards that draw more cards not only help us find our combo pieces, but they also thin our deck out so we can find our Nexuses consistently in the late game. Discovery is especially useful for thinning in the late game because it can remove three cards from our deck by putting two into our graveyard and then drawing another.
Revitalize and Ritual of Rejuvenation are the worst card selection of all our cantrips, but that is because they also provide a bit of utility. Buffering our health total against aggressive decks - especially with a Primal Wellspring to double up - can often buy us multiple turns.
Past our cantrips we also have a couple copies of Search for Azcanta to help provide us with card selection in the early game, and massive card advantage in the late game. Games that we are winning often involve making enough land drops that we get to a point where we can cast a Nexus of Fate and activate Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin every turn.
The last couple of spells in our main deck are some sweepers to help keep the board under control:
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This is hands down the best Settle the Wreckage deck in the format. This is because of the squeeze you end up putting opponents in by making the choose between playing around Settle the Wreckage or a life gain spell every combat step. Often they choose wrong and you get to punish them for their decision.
Sideboarding and Playing the Deck
VS Aggro:
Creature based aggressive decks are easily this archetype's best matchups. Between our eight lifegain cantrips and our variety of board clears, they often have a hard time beating us down before we can start comboing off. Post board they will become a bit more trim against us by cutting otherwise dead removal, but I think Amulet is still a favorite in even the post board games.
VS 
Midrange:
This matchup tends to be favored for Amulet pre-board when they have minimal interaction, while being difficult post board when they have more disruption.
The most important cards from the Green-Black side of the matchup are:
Many lists have been eschewing Trophy in favor of other removal lately thankfully, with some playing none at all. This is their single best card against us though since it can kill even Primal Wellspring as a land. Trophy is also an instant which makes it much harder to sequence around.
Vivien is annoying, but not unbeatable. Games that Amulet beats a Viven in play generally play out in one of two ways. One way is we cast a Nexus of Fate at their end of turn, so we have two turns in a row to play, flip Amulet, and start comboing. The other is we wait until we have eight lands in play, play Amulet out and then immediately chain four cantrips together to flip it over so we can combo on a later turn.
Duress is annoying because it makes our copies of Settle the Wreckage far less good. Normally we can be very liberal with our life total, saving Settle for the lethal attack. When a Duress could pop up and take our sweeper though this becomes far less appealing. A good player will hold their Duress till they want to attack for lethal, a bad one will fire it off right away.
VS Jeskai Control:
- +4 Negate
- +1 Nexus of Fate
- +2 The Eldest Reborn
- +1 Chromium, the Mutable
- +1 Search for Azcanta
- -3 Settle the Wreckage
- -2 Cleansing Nova
- -4 Ritual of Rejuvenation
This matchup tends to be difficult Game 1 - especially if they know to save their counter spells for our copies of Primal Amulet. Occasionally we can steal Game 1 though with a fast Chromium followed up by a Nexus of Fate or two. Post board things get better for us though when we get to cut our sweepers and bring in additional threats and counter magic of our own.
Something that is important for sequencing in this matchup, is that we can often bait a counter spell at our opponent's end step by casting Nexus of Fate. Even in the event they let our Nexus resolve - having two turns in a row with all our mana often gives us the time we need to get whatever else we need to resolve.
Things to keep in mind in this matchup are that our opponent's Cleansing Novas can destroy our artifacts and enchantments. Also that Settle the Wreckage can easily eat our Chromium - so when we start comboing we want to make sure we put ourselves in a position to beat this card when possible.
VS 
Drakes:
- +3 Ixalan's Binding
- +2 The Eldest Reborn
- +1 Chromium, the Mutable
- -4 Ritual of Rejuvenation
- -2 Revitalize
This is one of our harder matchups. The Drakes deck not only puts a fast clock into play, but also often packs counter magic to back it up. Spell Pierce Game 1 gets joined by Negates and Disdainful Stroke post board which can make it really hard to combo early on.
Post board we pivot into being more of a control deck - doing our best to keep all their threats off the board so we have time to set up a combo turn through their disruption. We bring in our second copy of Chromium here because in a pinch he can act as a block - eating smaller Drakes and Phoenix inside of combo.
You'll note in my sideboard plans here I never board in my copy of Sorcerous Spyglass - this is an extra board slot I have been toying with. I have mostly been using the Spyglass as a method of turning off opposing Field of Ruins that pop up in the format on occasion.
Wrapping Up
If you are interested in seeing this deck play out in all of its card drawing, turn taking, durdling glory you can find some YouTube videos on my website here.
Have a question about the deck I did cover above? Let me know in a comment below.
