Decks Inspired by Core Set 2020

Posted on July 2, 2019

Hello folks; I hope that you are having an awesome-tasic day today.

Ready for new decks from new cards? That's what the new sets do, right? More cards! More decks! More fun!

What cards have ignited my deck-building planeswalker spark? Let's take a look and see!

Swamp-A-Thon

The first card that inspired me is Dread Presence. It turns Swamps into a winning condition or a card drawing engine, as you have the need and desire. That led me into a fun place - Swamps matter and Swamps ramping.

Consider Liliana's Shade, or her Dark Realms iteration.

Her Shade can fetch out a Swamp while also providing a mana sink for your Black mana, thus doing strong double duty. Her Dark Realms can +1 for Swamps as well, so you can ramp, ramp, and ramp away with Liliana and her Shade.

Korlash, Heir to Blackblade also plays into Swamp ramping fun times if you draw more than one. He's also good at punching above his four cost as his size swells with your Swamp-ness. Both Korlash and the Shade can win games in the red zone, which gives you attacking routes as well as Swamp Drop Drains on foes.

Because I was doing Swamps anyways, I decided to add in Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, as they were obvious additions.

Then I embraced my Black-ness. In leapt cards like Nightmare Incursion, Corrupt, and Mind Sludge.

Here's my deck!

Swamp-A-Thon | Casual | Abe Sargent

Planeswalkers (4)
4 Liliana of the Dark Realms

Instants (2)
2 Tendrils of Corruption

Enchantments (4)
4 Phyrexian Arena

So here you are. I tossed in some synergetic cards like Staff of the Death Magus and Lashwrithe as well as the card-drawing tethered to life loss of Phyrexian Arena. You can also see Burglar Rat here, as a great early two-drop you can cast and block with while you are waiting to set up. It's a fun dork to disrupt others' plans as well. The cards I chose are meant to be flexible. You could run Underworld Connections in lieu of the Arena, or many other spells and effects. Lashwrithe could swap out for many other effects like Nightmare Lash or Nightmare proper. I hope you enjoy it!

All right, that was fun! What next...

Octoprophet!

I do like this card as it's fun as a concept and card name. Now I do think its creature type was a missed opportunity. Here are some cards with the name "Prophet" in the game thus far:

Here we go! For the record, just 11 creatures before now have the "Prophet" concept somewhere in their name. 10 of them have Shaman, Wizard, or Cleric as one of their creature types, and the lone one that didn't before now was the Eldrazi Drone Prophet of Distortion.

Come on now! We could have had an Octopus Wizard; an Octopus Shaman, or an Octopus Cleric! That was a missed opportunity.

Still, c'est la vie.

Let's build around our new Octopus buddy, right?

Right!

Let's do Izzet scry...

Imagine a deck where every single card in the deck scryed! Burn and bounce. Card drawing and creatures. Lands and artifacts. They all scry. Why do we care?

Great question! Simple answer - because you want to win the game. Not only would a deck of scry cards help you have maximum flexibility as you could select much of your deck, but they will also trigger Knowledge and Power. And this is how you win the game.

Let's begin with some of the creatures we'll be running alongside our Octoprophet

These are strong examples to illustrate the path this deck will be walking down. Faerie Seer is a valued 1-drop from Modern Horizons; let's give it a whirl. We have the powerful Sphinx of Foresight which can give you a free scry 3 on your first turn, and then a free scry each upkeep. The benefits of this is that you don't have to invest mana for the scrying effect, so you'll have the mana free for Knowledge and Power triggers. Cryptic Annelid enters the battlefield and brings with it a nasty three scry triggers, while you can activate Stormchaser Chimera.

What about support spells?

All four of these are making an appearance in my build. The Magma Jet serves as burn while the Dissolve is the only hard counter in the deck. We have card drawing with Ugin's Insight and mass and recursive scrying with the Mystic Speculation. As a result, we have a number of options here for your delight.

Here's your deck!

Izzet Scry | Casual | Abe Sargent

Instants (8)
4 Dissolve
4 Magma Jet

Enchantments (4)
4 Knowledge and Power

Artifacts (2)
2 Crystal Ball

And there you are. Izzet scry fun times...

What would you like next?

Great question!

Have you dug into Rienne, Angel of Rebirth?

She is the new buy-a-box promo for this set, and she brings a fun multicolored matters deck to the Naya colors for Commander or other casual formats. She reminds me a lot of Knight of New Alara:

Knight of New Alara is strong as it gives your multicolored dorks a bigger Anthem effect as they have more and more colors. Rienne has three colors, so with a Knight out, she'd be a 8/7. Nasty, I know.

And that reminds me of Civic Saber and Conqueror's Flail:

The former is a cheap 1-drop and one-activation effect that can a whole bunch of numbers to the front end of the dork in question. The latter gives a bigger butt and adds the ability to shut down opposing hijinks on your turn. Go get a drink! You can't do anything on my turn anyway!

And those remind me of multicolored triggers like Pyroconvergence and Lobber Crew or enablers such as Bloom Tender and reward such as the converge cards in your colors.

Let's make a quick 60 card with this to use as inspiration for your kitchen table.

Rienne of New Alara | Casual | Abe Sargent

Artifacts (2)
2 Conqueror's Flail

Here's my deck. I love Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist here. With one Knight of New Alara out, she's 5/4 first strike, and with Rienne pumping her front or a Flail on her she's strong. And she can be dropped early. She's also very strong with a because not more than one opposing dork can block when she swings, and not more than one can swing back. If you bring the heat with her 6/4 first strike or something, she'll be hard to stop and can win pretty quickly. Swinging on the 4th turn with her at 5/4 is tough.

Also, don't forget Rienne's death trigger here, as if someone kills a precious Mirri or Knight of New Alara, you'll just get them back!

My deck originally included 4 Knight of Autumn, but I felt that the 2-drop Qasali Pridemage and its exalted was the better fit. It's sacrifice effect plays better with Rienne, and dropping it on turn two into Mirri is strong. Goblin Legionnaire Is here as a solid 2-drop that's on curve and can punch with the best of them that also offers a dying-for-the-cause concept that Rienne will work around.

I also enjoy the roles that both Gaddock Teeg and Saffi Eriksdotter play here. Gaddock Teeg helps to force folks to play fair. Note that I have nothing in my deck this will stop (I pulled Pyroconvergence from my initial build as well). Meanwhile, Saffi will sacrifice to stop something from dying (like Rienne) and then you can recur her too. She's a strong set of protection for your deck!

And there's my Rienne deck! How about one more deck and we'll call it? Deal? Deal!

Can I create a combo win with Risen Reef and Horde of Notions? Maybe with Conspiracy or Kaleidostone to help with the Elemental typing and mana-making? You could make sure your land is untapped with Amulet of Vigor. You could use something like Deceiver Exarch to untap another land, to help with the Horde activation cost. You would need to make sure that the top card of the deck is a land, and that you could sacrifice your dork each time, and then have one effect like a death trigger or arrival trigger than can win you the game, but yes, you could make it work! You'd also need a way to wash your mana into the various colors, with something like Orochi Leafcaller or Chromatic Lantern. It'd be like a ten-card combo, but it works.

For example, if your land that entered the battlefield tapped for two mana like a Karoo land, and it was untapped with Amulet of Vigor, and then your creature was the Exarch that, on arrival, untapped a land or artifact that could tap for three mana, then you could have five mana up and running.

But what about Avatar of Growth? It's already an Elemental - it can allow everyone to fetch two basics on arrival, and they arrive untapped for your immediate arrival. Plus, that's in addition to the Risen Reef trigger, and you won't have to play some weird creature type games. You can also make two mana of any color off a Morselhoarder as an Elemental as well. There are some other beefy options out there as well that play into this theme nicely once you've fleshed it out like Greenwarden of Murasa or Avenger of Zendikar.

But I suspect that any such deep build would be a little hard to pull off in 60 cards.

So, let's do a fun theme instead in this vein, but without the 52-card combo.

Attack of the Reef | Casual | Casual

Artifacts (1)
1 Gilded Lotus

And there we go!

I am running multiple shells from Core Set 2020 here. The first? It's Yarok, who can get you double the enters-the-battlefield triggers from your Elementals arriving at the battlefield and punching people in the face. So, when I drop Embodiment of Spring when I control Risen Reef, then I resolve the Reef trigger twice and will look at the top card and maybe get two lands, but certainly two cards. And if I cast Mulldrifter with one copy of each out? Oh, my Jupiter. So many cards! My other engine here is New Omnath. New Omnath is strong because if I have, say, six Elementals when it arrives to the battlefield, then I can shoot a player, 'walker, or critter for 6 damage to the face, likely killing many non-players. With a Yarok out, I can shoot twice, and that's a lot of damage! Note that each land you drop will let you toss a counter onto a dork and those will also trigger Yarok too. Nasty-ness awaits!

I hope that you enjoyed this deck. Nope; it doesn't have the death machine combo kill of the first idea, but it has synergies built on synergies!

Did any of these four builds inspire you? Anything you want to try out? What 2020 cards are going to making the cut in your decks? Thanks for reading!

TAGS articles, casual, kitchen table, abe sargent, decklist, core set 2020, #mtgm20, 07022019

Decks Inspired by Core Set 2020

Swamp-A-Thon

Swamp-A-Thon | Casual | Abe Sargent

Izzet Scry | Casual | Abe Sargent

Rienne of New Alara | Casual | Abe Sargent

Attack of the Reef | Casual | Casual

Recent Articles

Five Predictions For Pro Tour Outlaws Of Thunder Junction

Standard Big Izzet Artifacts with Ali Aintrazi

This Week in Magic: Friday, April 26

Top Ten #2 from Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Commanding Commander – Durnan of the Yawning Portal

Five Mono-Colored Lists for Outlaws of Thunder Junction Standard

Ranking the Mythics of Gatecrash

Playing Standard Annie Legends

How Should I Upgrade the Desert Bloom Precon?

Lessons Learned from Outlaws of Thunder Junction Prerelease