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Decks Inspired by Ikoria
Hello happy readers!
I hope that you are having an awesome and safe day today!
Today I want to dive into four 60 card decks that are inspired by the latest hotness of Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths. Want to take a gander at a few? Great!
This is Serrated Scorpion, a minor card that most folks may have skipped past. Don't! Why not? It's a one-drop that's 40% of a Kokusho, the Evening Star:
Remember this guy? Loads of decks were build around killing him and then recurring him. He was a dominant force in casual and was even banned in Commander for years! It was the most powerful legendary since Akroma, Angel of Wrath and it was ubiquitous at kitchen tables. For six mana, you got a solid body, and a ton of life when it died against 5 life lost to each of your foes - which is great in casual land.
The value of Serrated Scorpion is in its mega-cheap cost! It's a powerful way to loop dorks.
Take Phyrexian Altar:
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As you can see, you can sacrifice a dork for one mana. Well if you sacrifice a Serrated Scorpion for a single Black mana, then you can get the mana to recast it if you can loop it back to your hand. The classic way to do that is Enduring Renewal. When it dies, your recur it to your hand, and then you can recast it over and over again, killing folks with its death trigger.
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Another way to loop this is with another sacrifice effect like Viscera Seer and Carnival of Souls. The Carnival of Souls makes the Black mana you'll need to recast the Serrated Scorpion. Then you sacrifice to a Viscera Seer, scry, and then and recur it to your hand and recast it with the mana from Carnival of Souls. In this iteration, the life gained from the death is more than that lost from Carnival, so that it not a worry. Again, just repeat until you win.
I am running both combos here to give you the redundancy you need to combo off and win!
Don't sleep on Serrated Scorpion!
Wicked Serration | Casual | Abe Sargent
- Creatures (14)
- 2 Karmic Guide
- 4 Serrated Scorpion
- 4 Viscera Seer
- 4 Woe Strider
- Planeswalkers (2)
- 2 Liliana Vess
- Instants (4)
- 4 Swords to Plowshares
- Sorceries (6)
- 1 Ambition's Cost
- 1 Demonic Tutor
- 4 Ancient Craving
- Enchantments (4)
- 4 Enduring Renewal
- Artifacts (4)
- 4 Phyrexian Altar
- Lands (24)
- 8 Plains
- 8 Swamp
- 4 Godless Shrine
- 4 Silent Clearing
And there we are! I hope that you enjoyed this first deck!
Now let's move to something a little sweeter than a combo kill.
Hello Song of Creation fans! When I read this for the first time, I thought:
(Ability 1) Great! Everyone likes lands!
(Ability 2) Even better! Netting two cards for every spell you cast is awesome!
(Ability 3) .....hmmm....I think I can make it work.
My goal today with this card is to go outside of the norm. Let's dig into Ire of Kaminari. Not sure what that is?
Sure!
It's this card! My goal with this Ire of Kaminari is to fill up my graveyard with a dense amount of Arcane spells, and then kill someone in one hit. In order to make this work, I need at least 24 Arcane spells. Luckily I am in the colors to push Arcane!
Let's take a look:
Song of Kaminari | Casual | Abe Sargent
- Creatures (4)
- 4 Hana Kami
- Instants (16)
- 4 Glacial Ray
- 4 Ire of Kaminari
- 4 Peer Through Depths
- 4 Wear Away
- Sorceries (13)
- 1 Wheel of Fortune
- 1 Windfall
- 2 Eerie Procession
- 2 Eye of Nowhere
- 3 Reforge the Soul
- 4 Kodama's Reach
- Enchantments (4)
- 4 Song of Creation
- Lands (23)
- 5 Forest
- 5 Island
- 5 Mountain
- 4 Frontier Bivouac
- 4 Ketria Triome
And there you have it! My Arcane spells fall into three paradigms. Removal like Wear Away and Glacial Ray, land searching of Kodama's Reach, and the mad card digging fun times of Peer Through Depths or tutoring with Eerie Procession. I also tossed in some draw seven fun times.
Arcane spells for the win! Now wasn't that more fun and synergetic than your typical Serrated Scorpion combo kill above? No? You didn't like the combo aspect of this one either?
Okay!
How about now?
Mutate King!
There are more than 30 creatures out there with mutate. Why not create a deck that's entirely exclusive to mutate and mutate synergies so that you can see how well they may play together? Great!
Here is my main inspiration:
Brokkos, Apex of Forever should play quite well in a deck that is designed to maximize mutations! It has an amazing ability to come back from the graveyard over and over again.
Now I want value mutates in my colors:
Such as Boneyard Lurker! This mutates and lets you grab a key dead permanent from a fetchland to a key dork that was killed. It'll also help to push back again the card disadvantage of Mutate. I'll add in a full 8 fetches into the deck to help.
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The Trumpeting Gnarr is here to make a bunch of dorks that you can also mutate! Free 3/3s for you is a cool ability to keep up the red zone pressure! I love Cavern Whisperer's ability to hurt your opponent's hands as well! Wanna draw cards instead? Dreamtail Heron to the rescue!
I also added in removal of various sorts like Gemrazer and Dirge Bat.
This deck is exclusively Ikoria cards! Ready?
Mutating with Sultai | Casual | Abe Sargent
- Companion (1)
- 1 Keruga, the Macrosage
- Creatures (36)
- 2 Auspicious Starrix
- 2 Brokkos, Apex of Power
- 2 Chittering Harvester
- 2 Dirge Bat
- 2 Gemrazer
- 2 Otrimi, the Ever-Playful
- 2 Parcelbeast
- 2 Sawtusk Demolisher
- 4 Boneyard Lurker
- 4 Cavern Whisperer
- 4 Dreamtail Heron
- 4 Migratory Greathorn
- 4 Trumpeting Gnarr
- Lands (24)
- 5 Island
- 5 Swamp
- 6 Forest
- 4 Evolving Wilds
- 4 Zagoth Triome
It also has one Companion -
Everything costs three mana or more. It's also a fun, free mutate body and card drawing engine at the same time! We also have great card advantage machines in there as well. Enjoy!
How about one more deck and then we'll call it?
Let's do a Standard brew:
My inspiration for this brew is the fun uncommon Sprite Dragon from this set. Unlike the temporary boosting spells we've seen with this effect, this is permanent. I also love that haste. Later in the game you could cast it and then cast one or two spells, and swing with a 2/2 or 3/3 that turn. It's really strong!
Another card here helps to play into this theme:
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Rielle is basically a non-flying, non-trample version of Spellheart Chimera which I played when it was legal in Standard long ago. I might run two, but I want to see what's available first. Note that there are a lot of cycling and discard effects in this set like Cathartic Reunion and Channeled Force.
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I really enjoy Fire Prophecy from this set as a potential burn spell as you can loop an extra land later in the game. It can't hit a player or even a planeswalker so it does have some Limited aspects to it, but I do like it. Flame Spill is fine as a decent addition, although I'd prefer my three mana burns to be more flexible.
Over in Blue, Neutralize is certainly a better option than Cancel as you can cycle it if needed (although I doubt that would be the case, its nice insurance).
Here is where I am digging:
Sprite Izzet | Casual | Abe Sargent
- Creatures (8)
- 4 Crackling Drake
- 4 Sprite Dragon
- Planeswalkers (2)
- 2 Chandra, Acolyte of Flame
- Instants (18)
- 2 Neutralize
- 4 Chemister's Insight
- 4 Fire Prophecy
- 4 Ionize
- 4 Opt
- Sorceries (8)
- 1 Invade the City
- 2 Bond of Insight
- 2 Light up the Stage
- 3 Callous Dismissal
- Lands (22)
- 7 Island
- 7 Mountain
- 4 Evolving Wilds
- 4 Temple of Epiphany
I went with Crackling Drake as my buddy as it won't care if I exile stuff from my graveyard with jump-start or Chandra, Acolyte of Flame's exiling effect. The Sprite will keep growing from those spells being cast. Enjoy!
And there you are! Anything in here that I missed? Any ideas that suggest themselves to you? Just let me know!
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