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Main » Articles » Kaldheim's Last Hoorah

Kaldheim's Last Hoorah

Mike Likes
Posted on April 15, 2021
 Reddit

Hello everyone. With the prerelease for Strixhaven: School of Mages taking place this weekend, it's almost time to begin brewing decks with these new cards. But there's still one more week until Strixhaven is Standard legal, so we'll be taking a look at some more decks you can play to have a fun time during this lull period. All of these decks recently won six or more matches in a row on Magic Arena during play by players at Platinum or Mythic ranking. Let's get started.

Shrines

We'll get started with a deck that features cards that have a subtype that was originally in the Kamigawa block. Let's take a look at the deck.

Shrines | KHM Standard | Unknown Platinum/Mythic Ranked Player

Shrines were originally introduced in Champions of Kamigawa. These enchantments all triggered at the beginning of your upkeep, and they provided a benefit that scaled based on the number of Shrines you controlled. Our current set of Shrines was released in Core Set 2021, and they trigger at the beginning of your precombat main phase. Like their predecessors, they also provide different effects that scale based on the number of Shrines you control. In this deck, Sanctum of Stone Fangs is the only Shrine that is capable of winning the game for you, as all of the other Shrines have abilities that don't directly impact your opponent.

The main route to victory with this deck will be through the use of one of your sideboard cards. You have access to these cards in two ways. The first is by casting the Adventure side of Fae of Wishes. The second is with the third chapter of The Raven's Warning. Both of these cards allow you to access cards from outside of the game, and in Standard games this will be cards from your sideboard. Most likely, you'll want to get Ugin, the Spirit Dragon from your sideboard, as this is a planeswalker that is capable of winning games all by himself.

Tibalt's Trickery

Next, I have a deck that either wins quickly, or loses quickly. Let's check it out.

Tibalt's Trickery | KHM Standard | Unknown Platinum/Mythic Ranked Player

The goal of this deck is to cheat cards with a high mana value into play with the use of Genesis Ultimatum. To begin the game, you'll want to mulligan aggressively to ensure that you have a copy of Tibalt's Trickery and one of your artifact spells that has a mana value of zero (Tormod's Crypt or Stonecoil Serpent). On your second turn, you'll cast your zero mana value artifact, following it up with Tibalt's Trickery. This will counter the zero mana spell and mill anywhere from one to three cards from your library. Tibalt's Trickery will then have you exile cards from your library until you exile a nonland card with a different name than the card that was countered.

You'll be hoping to exile a copy of Genesis Ultimatum, which will then be cast for free and can allow you to put one or more of your large creatures into play. If you don't succeed in finding a copy of Genesis Ultimatum, you're hoping to find one of these large creatures such as Dream Trawler or Koma, Cosmos Serpent. By cheating one of these into play, you'll likely be able to wrap up the game in a few turns. What you don't want to see, though, is another copy of Tibalt's Trickery or the other zero mana artifact, as this will cause your plans of domination to fall apart.

Dimir Rogues

The next deck I have for you features two different ways to win. Let's take a look at the deck.

Dimir Rogues | KHM Standard | Unknown Platinum/Mythic Ranked Player

The Rogues in this deck can often act as a typical route to victory for you. Soaring Thought-Thief gives a bonus of +1/+0 to all of your Rogues as long as your opponent has eight or more cards in their graveyard. When this same threshold is met, Thieves' Guild Enforcer gets a +2/+1 bonus, plus deathtouch. Both Soaring Thought-Thief and Merfolk Windrobber have flying, making them evasive threats. By attacking with these creatures, you can often deal enough damage to win the game.

Alternatively, you might find yourself in a position where you can mill them out of their deck instead. When Thieves' Guild Enforcer or enters the battlefield, your opponent will mill two cards. The same effect will happen whenever another Rogue comes into play for you while you have Thieves' Guild Enforcer on the battlefield. Merfolk Windrobber mills one card whenever it deals combat damage to a player. Soaring Thought-Thief mills your opponent of two cards whenever one or more Rogues you control attack. Finally, Ruin Crab will mill your opponent's deck of three cards whenever you achieve landfall. By combining all of these milling effects, you'll often be able to mill your opponent's library entirely in just a few turns.

Abzan Deathtouch

The final deck I have for you is based around the deathtouch ability and has the potential to be a nightmare to play against. Let's take a look at it.

Abzan Deathtouch | KHM Standard | Unknown Platinum/Mythic Ranked Player

I've written past articles about deathtouch decks, but those decks were nothing like this one. Fynn, the Fangbearer allows you to win the game via poison counters if enough of your attackers with deathtouch deal combat damage to your opponent. It's a great alternative way of winning games, and your opponent may be unable to stop it from happening. While other decks can stall out if there's not a copy of Fynn, the Fangbearer in play, this deck doesn't have as much trouble. That's because other decks rely on playing creatures that have deathtouch, and these creatures have relatively low power levels. That makes it difficult to deal twenty points of damage if Fynn is nowhere to be seen.

This deck avoids that problem by playing creatures that mutate. These mutating creatures can often increase the power of a creature with deathtouch, turning them into powerhouses capable of winning games with or without Fynn, the Fangbearer in play. This deck also uses a few copies of Eerie Ultimatum to help rebuild your forces later in the game. This spell can help you go from zero creatures in play to up to ten immediately, and can completely overwhelm your opponent.

Wrapping Up

This should be my last article writing about decks that feature cards from Kaldheim. It has been a fun set, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the decks that are created using cards from Strixhaven: School of Mages. Join me next week when we start taking a look at some of these new decks.

What do you think of these decks? Do you have any suggestions for improvements? Let me know by leaving a comment below. Also, feel free to share this article with your friends anywhere on social media. And be sure to join me here again next week as I continue my search for innovative decks in Standard. I'll see you then!

-Mike Likes

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, analysis, decklist, mike likes, khm standard, 04152021

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