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Main » Articles » 5 Decks You Can't Miss This Week

5 Decks You Can't Miss This Week

Carlos Gutierrez
Posted on July 20, 2013
 Reddit

How is Magic 2014 going to shake up your favorite formats? Let's take a look at some of the cool decks that have been successful this week and see what your favorite formats look like as the new core set becomes legal.

Domri Rade has been pretty sweet for Naya Midrange decks in Standard. It helps clear the way for your Loxodon Smiters, digs for your bombs, and gives you reach in conjunction with Boros Reckoner. But what happens if we try to go a little bigger than Domri? That's what Todd Anderson is looking to find out with this new take on Naya featuring Garruk, Caller of Beasts:

Naya Garruk - Standard | Todd Anderson

This deck does a lot of cool things, but only if you can cast Garruk in a reasonable amount of time. To that end, you can try to curve Arbor Elf or Elvish Mystic into Elvish Archdruid so that you can go for Garruk, Caller of Beasts on turn three, but otherwise your biggest issue is going to be getting Garruk on time.

Once you resolve a Garruk, you can start digging for extra creatures and flooding the boards with mana creatures and Huntmaster of the Fells. At some point you'll hit a Craterhoof Behemoth with ten or more creatures in play and just kill your opponent.

Having sixteen mana creatures is a reasonable backup plan for casting giant monsters and helps to ensure that you hit six mana quickly. The issue is that if your opponent comes prepared to fight you Avacyn's Pilgrims, there's a pretty good chance that your deck just doesn't do anything until way too late.

At this point, most people know about Living End in Modern. But there's another cascade deck that has seen a little less play. Let's take a look at Spanky_kc's take on Restore Balance. This deck hasn't been especially popular in Modern, but Spanky_kc recently took it to a 4-0 finish in a Magic Online Daily Event.

Restore Balance - Modern | Spanky_kc, 4-0 Modern Daily Event

Restore Balance decks are built around maximizing their namesake. You want to use it as a sweeper, an Armageddon, and a Mind Twist, get a creature into play while your opponent is off balance, and end the game quickly thereafter. Most of the time this involves some amount of Firewild Borderpost and Greater Gargadons so that you can make sure you have very few lands in play when you cascade into Restore Balance[card].

[card]Nihilith is a sweet one for this deck too. You can suspend it the turn before you go off, and Restore Balance is all but guaranteed to put four or more cards into your opponent's graveyard. The interesting pieces of this deck are the manabase, cycling creatures, and Search for Tomorrow. The cyclers are here for the same reason they are in Living End; early on you can cycle them to dig for combo pieces, but later they're just 3/4's and 4/4's that can't be [card[Lightning Bolt" href="/p/Magic+The+Gathering/.

[card]Nihilith" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Restore+Balance%5Bcard%5D.%0D%0A%0D%0A%5Bcard%5DNihilith">Restore Balance[card].

[card]Nihilith is a sweet one for this deck too. You can suspend it the turn before you go off, and Restore Balance is all but guaranteed to put four or more cards into your opponent's graveyard. The interesting pieces of this deck are the manabase, cycling creatures, and Search for Tomorrow. The cyclers are here for the same reason they are in Living End; early on you can cycle them to dig for combo pieces, but later they're just 3/4's and 4/4's that can't be [card[Lightning Bolt">.

[card]Nihilith" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Restore+Balance%5Bcard%5D.%0D%0A%0D%0A%5Bcard%5DNihilith">Restore Balance[card].

[card]Nihilith is a sweet one for this deck too. You can suspend it the turn before you go off, and Restore Balance is all but guaranteed to put four or more cards into your opponent's graveyard. The interesting pieces of this deck are the manabase, cycling creatures, and Search for Tomorrow. The cyclers are here for the same reason they are in Living End; early on you can cycle them to dig for combo pieces, but later they're just 3/4's and 4/4's that can't be [card[Lightning Bolted. Search for Tomorrow helps you ramp into your Deadshot Minotaurs, but can also be suspended pre-Restore Balance.

The manabase is really what's most interesting here. As I said before, most Restore Balance decks are built around Borderposts from Alara Reborn. The problem with this is that it makes your mana awkward, since you're more dependent on basic lands. The way this mana base is built, you get manlands and great fixing, as well as Forbidden Orchard to turn on your Demonic Dreads.

Whenever combo became too dominant in Legacy, it meant that it was time for Merfolk to make a comeback. The combination of evasive Lords and cheap interactive spells is tough to beat for decks that need time to put together the correct combination of cards to get through your disruption. Combo is pretty good in Modern, but we haven't seen a ton of Merfolk. KITTEH is looking to change that:

Merfolk - Modern | KITTEH, 4-0 Modern Daily Event

I love Merfolk. It's the first Modern deck that I played, and the deck is surprisingly fast and resilient. It's only gotten better with the addition of Master of the Pearl Trident, Phantasmal Image, and Vapor Snag.

Aether Vial is the reason this is a deck. You play completely differently depending on whether or not you have this card. It lets you hit the critical mass of Lords that you need while leaving up mana or protecting yourself from Lightning Bolts. It lets you start doubling up on spells early on so that you can get a clock into play. You even get to do some incredibly degenerate things involving Aether Vial and MErrow Reejery. Aether Vial fits perfectly into this strategy, and it's importance can't be overstated.

Phantasmal Image is the other key card that started as a 2 of in most lists and overperforms every time. It's a Silvergill Adept when you need a body and to dig. It's another Lord. It's an out to Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte. Phantasmal Image does just about everything you could possibly want and does it all for just two mana.

Last, but not least, Vapor Snag is an awesome card for this deck. It gets Tarmogoyfs out of the way and fights through Melira, Sylvok Outcast or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker combos. It buys you can extra turn to get one more Lord into play and just kill your opponent. This slot used to be Cryptic Command in most Merfolk lists, but with

We've got one more Modern deck for this week, and this one is something completely different. We've seen a good amount of [card]Nephalia Drownyard[card] and [card]Jace, Memory Adept" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Aether+Vial%5B%2Fcard+in+your+deck+you+really+don%27t+ever+want+to+hit+four+lands.%0D%0A%0D%0A%3Chr+%2F%3E%0D%0A%0D%0AWe%27ve+got+one+more+Modern+deck+for+this+week%2C+and+this+one+is+something+completely+different.+We%27ve+seen+a+good+amount+of+%5Bcard%5DNephalia+Drownyard%5Bcard%5D+and+%5Bcard%5DJace%2C+Memory+Adept">Aether Vial[/card in your deck you really don't ever want to hit four lands.

We've got one more Modern deck for this week, and this one is something completely different. We've seen a good amount of [card]Nephalia Drownyard[card] and [card]Jace, Memory Adept action in Standard this year, but Sanity Grinding was the last time mill was a real strategy. Azazel1314 is looking to change that with his build of Modern mill:

Shelldock Mill - Modern | Azazel314, 4-0 Modern Daily Event

With Glimpse the Unthinkable, Archive Trap, and Mind Funeral, it's not hard to get your opponent to twenty cards, and then Shelldock Isle and Visions of Beyond should be able to get you the rest of the way. Surgical Extraction keeps your opponent off of key cards along the way while Crypt Incursion buys you time to finish the job.

Hedron Crab is an important card in this deck, and is the reason that Azazel1314 included cards like Oboro, Palace in the Clouds, just to keep hitting land drops. The two cards that seem a little out of place to me are Mesmeric Orb[card] and [card]Thought Scour. Mesmeric Orb seems much slower than your other engines, especially since you're looking to end the game by turn four or five. Thought Scour just seems underwhelming. Two cards is nothing when you're doing chunks of ten and thirteen.

I'd be thinking about playing with Snapcaster Mage and Inquisition of Kozilek/Thoughtseize. These give you more reach than Mesmeric Orb and Thoughtscour, and help to make sure you don't just die to fast combo like Storm and Splinter Twin. I'm excited to see a completely novel strategy be successful in Modern, and can't wait to see if it becomes more popular.

Finally, we've got our Commander deck of the week. I'm a huge fan of recursion in Commander, and most of my decks are built around setting up an engine and reucrring a few powerful cards until they end the game. That's exactly what Woohah is trying to do with his Glissa, the Traitor deck, and he does an awesome job of it. Let's take a look at his build of Glissa:

Glissa the Overlord - Commander | Woohah

This deck is just looking to get Glissa in play and keep her there. All of your equipment is designed to maximize your Glissa triggers; cards like Thornbite Staff turn Glissa into a repeatable removal spell; Darksteel Plate just keeps her on the board. Your triggers are frequently going to be targeting the cheap artifacts that Woohah is playing: Horizon Spellbomb, Nihil Spellbomb, and Executioner's Capsule for example. These help you to develop your mana so that you can continue to leverage Glissa's ability and start casting your giant creatures.

Your endgame is giant creatures that help keep you ahead on cards and creatures. Things like Harvester of Souls help you generate even more cards with Glissa, the Traitor[card], while [card]Grave Titan and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed are resilient threats that apply pressure while freeing up your mana to do other things. All of your cards are very powerful, but they still combine to be more than just a bunch of haymakers. They combine to let you attrition out almost anyone and ensure that Glissa will be the last creature standing.

There are a handful of cards that I'm surprised to see not making the cut. Wayfarer's Bauble is another cheap artifact that helps develop your mana. Sure, you'd rather be going for Solemn Simulacrum, but free lands are free lands, and those matter when you're trying to go deep with Glissa. Trading Post is another awesome card that seems like it's missing. Sacrifice random tokens and artifact creatures to rebuy multiple artifacts; sacrifice extra cheap artifacts to turn them into real cards; turn extra cards into life so you don't die to random Insurrection[card]s. [card]Salvaging Station might be another reasonable back-up Glissa. The only other thing I'd be looking to change is having more removal that doesn't rely on Glissa. Things like Geth's Verdict or Go for the Throat give you outs specifically to hexproof creatures that you can't get with Executioner's Capsule or Viridian Longbow.

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TAGS articles, standard, current events, deck lists, commander, modern, carlos gutierrez, 5 decks

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