One of the biggest breakout cards of Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad was Cryptolith Rite. The Pro Tour showed us just how easy it is to generate a board full of tokens, which means Cryptolith Rite goes from a 2-mana, do-nothing enchantment to a monstrously powerful mana engine. We’ve mostly seen Rites as a way to power Duskwatch Recruiter and Westvale Abbey, but it can also be used to power an infinite combo, as romanny has shown:

Four-Color Rites ? Shadows over Innistrad Standard | romanny, 5-0 Standard League

• Creatures (29)
• 2 Zulaport Cutthroat
• 3 Brood Monitor
• 4 Catacomb Sifter
• 4 Duskwatch Recruiter
• 4 Eldrazi Displacer
• 4 Elvish Visionary
• 4 Loam Dryad
• 4 Reflector Mage

• Spells (8)
• 4 Collected Company
• 4 Cryptolith Rite

• Lands (23)
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Forest
• 1 Hissing Quagmire
• 1 Shambling Vent
• 3 Caves of Koilos
• 3 Evolving Wilds
• 3 Westvale Abbey
• 4 Llanowar Wastes
• 4 Yavimaya Coast

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Dromoka's Command
• 2 Drowner of Hope
• 1 Enlightened Ascetic
• 3 Fleshbag Marauder
• 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 2 Negate
• 1 Thought-Knot Seer
• 3 Transgress the Mind

Buy This Deck

This deck is very much reminiscent of the Rally the Ancestors decks of the previous Standard format. The difference is rather than Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Rally, this deck leans on Cryptolith Rite to enable a different set of interactions. First and foremost, this is yet another Collected Company deck very capable of using Cryptolith Rite to flip Westvale Abbey very early on in the game. Secondly, this deck is more than capable of tempoing opponents out with efficient creatures backed by Reflector Mage and Zulaport Cutthroat. However, this deck also has the ability to combo off and kill the opponent.

The combo in this deck is Brood Monitor plus Eldrazi Displacer. On its own, Brood Monitor brings along exactly enough mana to activate Eldrazi Displacer, which can blink the Brood Monitor and rebuy the tokens. This means you can have infinitely many creatures enter the battlefield and hit the graveyard, but not generate any additional mana or creatures. This means you need either a Zulaport Cutthroat or Catacomb Sifter in play to actually do anything. With infinite creatures dying, Zulaport Cutthroat just kills your opponent, while Catacomb Sifter gives you infinite Scrying, which means you can make sure you have a Cutthroat on top of your library to win on your following turn.

The power of this deck is in its flexibility. All of your cards are powerful, and you have the ability to just play a value-oriented Collected Company game. You can also turbo out Oremdahl against opponents who are less prepared for the hasty demon, or just sculpt a combo kill against opponents who can’t interact effectively with the combo kill. The raw power of the individual cards and flexibility of the game-plan is very reminiscent of the Rally the Ancestors deck from the previous Standard, but only time will tell if this four-color build of Cryptolith Rite can reach the same level of dominance.