Hey everyone! I hope you all had a good week. Today I would like to talk about the deck I took to a third-place finish at the Standard Starcity Games Classic in Baltimore. It felt very powerful and consistent all day and I did not drop a match in the swiss. I know some people are tired of hearing about Nexus of Fate but I wanted to share this list since I had such a high finish with it and it is only two colors instead of the traditional three colors.

Time Stamps:

Match 1 - 00:01:55

Match 2 - 00:33:20

Match 3 - 00:50:39

Match 4 - 01:09:20

Match 5 - 01:20:52

Match 6 - 01:35:04

Simic Nexus | Allegiance Standard | Ali Aintrazi

• Creatures (7)
• 3 Hydroid Krasis
• 4 Frilled Mystic

• Instants (21)
• 2 Precognitive Perception
• 3 Blink of an Eye
• 4 Chemister's Insight
• 4 Growth Spiral
• 4 Nexus of Fate
• 4 Root Snare

• Enchantments (7)
• 3 Search for Azcanta
• 4 Wilderness Reclamation

• Lands (25)
• 4 Island
• 6 Forest
• 1 Arch of Orazca
• 2 Simic Guildgate
• 4 Breeding Pool
• 4 Hinterland Harbor
• 4 Memorial to Genius

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Murmuring Mystic
• 3 Pelakka Wurm
• 4 Negate
• 3 Crushing Canopy
• 1 The Immortal Sun
• 1 Nezahal, Primal Tide
• 1 River's Rebuke

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First off, we are playing two colors because we don't want Red for Expansion // Explosion or White for Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. We are a combo deck instead of a "turbo fog" deck. Teferi draws you cards slowly over time unlike Hydroid Krasis which draws cards immediately and gains you life. This immediate draw allows us to consistently combo off when we are ready. This is also true for Precognitive Perception which is just absurd with Wilderness Reclamation, allowing you to find the card you need fast and reliably. I do not want Red here because I don't want Expansion // Explosion and must rely more on Wilderness Reclamation. Reclamation is already an amazing card and I'd rather play cards that work very well with it but don't take up deck slots and are not dead draws. For example, Memorial to Genius is excellent with Wilderness Reclamation but it does not take up deck space like Expansion // Explosion would.

Sideboard

This is how I typically Sideboard against the big decks in the metagame, but by no means is this set-in stone. Sideboard differently if you see a strange card or believe a certain card is better than another.

Esper Control:

• -4 Root Snare
• -1 Nexus of Fate
• -1 Precognitive Perception
• -1 Blink of an Eye
• +4 Negate
• +3 Crushing Canopy (Search for Azcanta and Thief)

I feel favored in this matchup. Youu just have so many things that they need to answer and you honestly just have to deal with Thief of Sanity and that's basically it.

Mono-Blue Tempo:

• -4 Frilled Mystic
• -1 Root Snare
• -1 Precognitive Perception
• -1 Nexus of Fate
• +2 Negate
• +2 Murmuring Mystic
• +3 Crushing Canopy

This is a rough matchup, especially when they have Curious Obsession, but Canopies and Murmuring Mystics help. Frilled Mystic is bad here because they are the better tempo deck and they have flying creatures.

Aggro:

• -4 Frilled Mystic
• +2 Murmuring Mystic
• +1 River's Rebuke
• +1 Pelakka Wurm

Frilled Mystic is not good against 1-drops. Birbs and a 1/5 creature is great at blocking their small creatures.

Mono-Red:

• -4 Nexus of Fate
• -3 Search for Azcanta
• +3 Pelakka Wurm
• +4 Negate

Game plan here is to just Wurm and Krasis them out while stopping key burn spells / Light up the Stage.

Sultai Midrange:

• -1 Blink of an Eye
• -1 Root Snare
• -1 Nexus of Fate
• -1 Search for Azcanta
• +1 The Immortal Sun
• +3 Pelakka Wurm

You can bring in River's Rebuke but they don't usually swarm you games two and three which is why I actually cut a Root Snare when they bring in Duress and Negate. If they have Thief of Sanity, then do not bring in the Pelakka Wurms. Instead bring in two Crushing Canopies and leave in Blink of an Eye.

Other Nexus Decks:

• -4 Root Snare
• -3 Blink of an Eye
• -1 Precognitive Perception
• +4 Negate
• +3 Crushing Canopy
• +1 Nezahal, Primal Tide (Not sold on this one, Precognitive Perception could be better, but I like that it lets you draw Negate when your opponent is chaining Nexi)

That's it for today, hope you have a great weekend and enjoy the article / gameplay.

As always, thanks for reading,

Ali Aintrazi

Follow me @AliEldrazi

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