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Three New Amigos on the Block

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I have my own brews for Standard but today I wanted to give you new decks that have finished well recently in tournaments. I want to give you decks that have been tried out, are new, and could very easily compete with the best decks and become Tier One on their own. In fact, they’ve all finished highly already, so feel confident to take them to your next tournament. However, if you truly want to get rewarded then test these decks out and see what could make them better, these decks have been put on the map, but you can keep there! The three decks we’ll be going over today are U/B Metallurgic Summonings, W/R Midrange, and B/U Zombies. Okay, so I deceived you in the title of this article. It’s two new amigos and one that’s not played very often but is very good. That title was just too long and drawn out, so we’ll just stick with what we got, okay? ANYWAY! Let’s start with the one I’m most excited about, shall we?

Metallurgic Summonings


Metallurgic Summonings
The original list came from Giovanni Agbuya, he placed first with this deck at a PPTQ in the Philippines. I made some modifications to his list and this is where I ended up. The deck actually performs pretty well against the two biggest decks in the format, G/B Delirium and U/W Flash. U/W Flash can out tempo you if they curve out, but that can also just about happen to anyone.

The original list played Grip of Desolation. While the card is sweet to flashback with Torrential Gearhulk, it’s also just very clunky. The deck already has seven cards that cost 6 mana without accelerating our mana. That paired with the fact that it doesn’t kill Emrakul, the Promised End made me shave the Grip of Desolation.

The deck just tries to stall the game long enough with removal and countermagic until it can drop a Metallurgic Summonings which will basically give all your spells additional text that will allow them to create X/X tokens whenever cast. It turns every spell into a creature! That’s absolutely insane with any spell, especially Part the Waterveil or Torrential Gearhulk. An awakened Part the Waterveil should just spell game over. Keep in mind that Metallurgic Summonings has a second mode too. Re-buying all your instants and sorceries if you control at least six artifacts. Thankfully the card makes artifacts on its own. While it’s usually not needed, sometimes it can be relevant. Especially if you just need to re-buy that Ruinous Path to remove an Emrakul, the Promised End.

The Sideboard

Thing in the Ice
The sideboard of any deck is super important since you’ll play more sideboarded games then non-sideboard games. It’s always the hardest to build and while this one has legs, I’m not sure it’s the most optimal sideboard. I think these are the “untouchables”, in other words the cards you shouldn’t remove.

I feel like everything else can be tinkered with. You want the Negates for any control matchup or Aetherworks Marvel decks. Thing in the Ice is your best threat/answer to the aggressive decks in the format since it buys you time and will eventually flip which buys you more time and/or can serve as a threat. Ob Nixilis Reignited is great against grindy matchups and he’s also very good insurance against Emrakul, the Promised End. Especially if you keep it at or above six loyalty. I feel like you want at least access to one Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet for the aggro decks, especially the ones that utilize their graveyard.

The deck has legs and it’s a nice break from B/G Delirium and U/W Flash. So, make sure to take it out for a spin if you like fun Magic!

W/R Midrange

Next up is another deck that is really cool. Any deck that can meld Gisela, the Broken Blade and Bruna, the Fading Light into Brisela, Voice of Nightmares gets my seal of approval.


Veteran Motorist
Tenjum finished in tenth place, right outside of the top eight with this sweet deck. I actually played against him (playing B/G Delirium) and I felt like my only way to win against him was to play Liliana, the Last Hope on turn three and just protect it and ride the ultimate to victory, unfortunately for me I learned that in Game 2 and got demolished in Game 3.

The deck has the R/W vehicles shell in that it plays Smuggler's Copter, Thraben Inspector, Veteran Motorist, and Stasis Snare. That’s where all similarities end though. Tenjum took the “go bigger” idea and applied it here. He can easily curve out on you the same way a vehicles deck can but if you manage to recover or go into the mid-late game, it’s still not nearly over. In fact, the deck is still favored during those stages. Things like Gisela, Bruna, Brisela, Thalia's Lancers, Archangel Avacyn, and Skysovereign, Consul Flagship can all easily take over the game or bury you in card advantage. Speaking of Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, that card is criminally underplayed. NEWSFLASH! FLYING INFERNO TITAN IS GOOD! It destroys Planeswalkers, creatures, and players alike. This ship doesn’t discriminate. It’s going down and taking everyone and everything with it.

Nahiri, the Harbinger
I really like all the angles of attack with this deck. It has so much going on but I don’t think it’s too much. You can end games with creatures and Smuggler's Copter then you have a card drawing engine in Nahiri, the Harbinger, Copter, and Inspector. You’ll also attack the player with Nahiri since she will not only filter your hand but also threaten to ultimate. You can’t get anything crazy like Emrakul, the Promised End with Nahiri’s Ultimate but you don’t need to. Something like Thalia's Lancers, Linvala, the Preserver, or even the for mentioned Skysovereign, Consul Flagship are just simply enough with cluttering your deck down with something like Emrakul. On top of attacking them with creatures and Planeswalkers, you also have an insane late game by melding Bruna and Gisela into Brisela! This deck is literally just doing it all!

I’d personally try to fit Gideon, Ally of Zendikar main deck. That card is just so powerful and I’d like to have access to it in the main. It’s either medium to insane in any given matchup. A permanent that constantly spits out 2/2s must be answered in one form or another or it will take over the game. I know Nahiri, the Harbinger is good, but is it truly better than Gideon? I’m not so sure. You don’t even necessarily have to cut Nahiri, you cut run like a 3/2 spilt if you wanted. All I’m saying is if you have access to Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, you should have some number of copies in your main deck.

U/B Zombies

The last deck I want to deck about is ye ole’ zombos! Brrrraaaaiinnnnns and stuff.


Prized Amalgam
FNOOP went undefeated in his league with this deck. I really do believe Prized Amalgam is underplayed and this deck takes really good advantage of it. The format has no way to interact with graveyards so you never have to worry about losing access to your graveyard. The deck’s plan is simple. Get Prized Amalgam and/or Scrapheap Scrounger into your graveyard and begin recurring them with Scrapheap Scrounger itself or Haunted Dead. You have plenty of ways to get the cards into your graveyard while also gaining value from doing it. Discarding a Scrapheap Scrounger or Prized Amalgam to a Smuggler's Copter will mean you basically just drew a card with Smuggler's Copter instead of looting.

Voldaren Pariah is basically the Black Avacyn except you can Madness her into play with the plethora of ways this decks has to discard cards. I believe Voldaren Pariah is underplayed, maybe it’s because her Madness cost is very restrictive and/or sacrificing three other creatures just isn’t easy to do. That is unless you’re playing a zombie deck. Flipping the Pariah into an Abolisher of Bloodlines is backbreaking. It’s like a mini plague wind and against B/G Delirium it’s a fantastic answer to Emrakul since they will have to have three other creatures in play which is highly unlikely without Ishkanah, Grafwidow. Pariah also isn’t legendary which is great if you’re going to be discarding multiples of them. The main deck has a ton of value, redundancy, and resiliency, I really like what it’s doing.

Distended Mindbender
As for the Sideboard, I’m a huge fan of Distended Mindbender right now, especially if you’re sacrificing a Prized Amalgam or Scrapheap Scrounger to the mind destroying Eldrazi. Keep in mind people can’t even attempt to Murder or Stasis Snare it before its trigger resolves which means it’s usually pretty hard to remove unless your opponent has multiple removal spells. I also like the Spell Shrivels from out of the sideboard because I honestly would never expect this deck to have them. I’m sure you can catch many people out of left field with that one. Lastly, we got the big boat again. I approve, Skysovereign, Consul Flagship is slowly picking up steam. Now in sideboard, one day in a lot of decks as one offs! Boom!

Well I’ll be playing in the SCG Invitational in Atlanta as this article goes up. I’m not 100% sure what I’ll be playing but it may be the boogeyman in both Standard and Modern, I’ll let you guys try to figure both those decks out in the comments. Need to top eight this even to have a shot at the Player’s Championship at the end of the year. Top eight or win the whole thing, honestly at this point I’d be okay for either!

As always, thank you for reading and supporting my content.

Hopefully next week I’ll give a first-place tournament report for you, one can dream, right?

Until next time,

Ali Aintrazi

Follow me @Alieldrazi


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