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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 June 28, 2014
 Reddit

Looking to get aggressive in Standard without packing it in to Pack Rat and Polukranos, World Eater? Caleb Durward may just have the deck for you. It's time for a devotion deck that has the tools to play both control and aggro and that really has the ability to contain other creature decks. Let's take a look at Red-Blue Devotion:

[Cardlist Title= RU Devotion - Standard | Caleb Durward]

On the one hand, it's easy to say that this is just Mono-Red Devotion with a few tweaks. On the other hand, Izzet Staticaster plus Gorgon's Head. There's no arguing with a wombo-combo like that in this Standard. Sure, sometimes Abrupt Decay happens, but those are generally going to get pointed at random aggressive guys. Sometimes you'll assemble your combo against the various creature decks and just win. Sometimes you'll just go over the top with Stormbreath Dragon and busted Nykthos turns.

I like that this deck has a lot of flexibility. This Mono-Red skeleton has performed well over the course of this Standard format and has proved itself to be a good foundation for a number of different strategies. The big switch here is that you get Staticaster to shut down the other creature decks as opposed to something like Chained to the Rocks[/card or [card]Dreadbore. Sure, you might have to work a little harder, but your combo is way better than anything the other splashes can bring to bear if you can get it set up.

This may not be the thing to bring Mono-Red back up to the top tier of Standard play, but it's definitely a sweet interaction to jam at an FNM!

This week, Drew Levin continues his quest to break Disciple of Deceit in Legacy. This time with a deck jammed full of different combo pieces. Will you have all the answers? Does it matter if you have answers when Disciple is a thing? Let's find out:

Disciple Combo - Legacy | Drew Levin

This deck is sweet. I love that you get to just pack your deck full of some of the most powerful combos in Legacy and just tie everything together with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Disciple of Deceit. Who needs to mess around with Chalice of the Void and other interactive cards. Let's just cast combo pieces until our opponent dies.

There are a lot of subtle interactions in this deck, primarily fueled by the interaction between Goblin Welder and Disciple of Deceit. When so many of your combo pieces can be cashed in for other combo pieces, the sheer redundancy of this kind of strategy is going to be difficult for many fair decks to really battle against. With regards to the unfair decks, you've got the power of Mox Opal to help you get a turn ahead and steal games you wouldn't otherwise win.

I'm not sure that this deck is degenerate enough to seriously compete with the other combo decks in Legacy, but I'm excited to see that Disciple of Deceit has so much potential in the format. First [car]Squadron Hawk" href="/p/Magic+The+Gathering/Dreadbore" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Chained+to+the+Rocks%5B%2Fcard+or+%5Bcard%5DDreadbore">Chained to the Rocks[/card or [card]Dreadbore. Sure, you might have to work a little harder, but your combo is way better than anything the other splashes can bring to bear if you can get it set up.

This may not be the thing to bring Mono-Red back up to the top tier of Standard play, but it's definitely a sweet interaction to jam at an FNM!

This week, Drew Levin continues his quest to break Disciple of Deceit in Legacy. This time with a deck jammed full of different combo pieces. Will you have all the answers? Does it matter if you have answers when Disciple is a thing? Let's find out:

Disciple Combo - Legacy | Drew Levin

This deck is sweet. I love that you get to just pack your deck full of some of the most powerful combos in Legacy and just tie everything together with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Disciple of Deceit. Who needs to mess around with Chalice of the Void and other interactive cards. Let's just cast combo pieces until our opponent dies.

There are a lot of subtle interactions in this deck, primarily fueled by the interaction between Goblin Welder and Disciple of Deceit. When so many of your combo pieces can be cashed in for other combo pieces, the sheer redundancy of this kind of strategy is going to be difficult for many fair decks to really battle against. With regards to the unfair decks, you've got the power of Mox Opal to help you get a turn ahead and steal games you wouldn't otherwise win.

I'm not sure that this deck is degenerate enough to seriously compete with the other combo decks in Legacy, but I'm excited to see that Disciple of Deceit has so much potential in the format. First [car]Squadron Hawk">Dreadbore" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Chained+to+the+Rocks%5B%2Fcard+or+%5Bcard%5DDreadbore">Chained to the Rocks[/card or [card]Dreadbore. Sure, you might have to work a little harder, but your combo is way better than anything the other splashes can bring to bear if you can get it set up.

This may not be the thing to bring Mono-Red back up to the top tier of Standard play, but it's definitely a sweet interaction to jam at an FNM!

This week, Drew Levin continues his quest to break Disciple of Deceit in Legacy. This time with a deck jammed full of different combo pieces. Will you have all the answers? Does it matter if you have answers when Disciple is a thing? Let's find out:

Disciple Combo - Legacy | Drew Levin

This deck is sweet. I love that you get to just pack your deck full of some of the most powerful combos in Legacy and just tie everything together with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Disciple of Deceit. Who needs to mess around with Chalice of the Void and other interactive cards. Let's just cast combo pieces until our opponent dies.

There are a lot of subtle interactions in this deck, primarily fueled by the interaction between Goblin Welder and Disciple of Deceit. When so many of your combo pieces can be cashed in for other combo pieces, the sheer redundancy of this kind of strategy is going to be difficult for many fair decks to really battle against. With regards to the unfair decks, you've got the power of Mox Opal to help you get a turn ahead and steal games you wouldn't otherwise win.

I'm not sure that this deck is degenerate enough to seriously compete with the other combo decks in Legacy, but I'm excited to see that Disciple of Deceit has so much potential in the format. First [car]Squadron Hawk, now Goblin Welder - I'm excited to find out what's next for Disciple of Deceit.

Maybe you're not into jamming powerful combos. Maybe you want to channel your inner Timmy and go over the top of absolutely everything. Where there's a Cloudpost, there's a way. We've seen Mono-Green takes on 12 Post with the Dark Depths combo to steal games, but into_play has put together a Blue-Green version that's a little more interactive. Let's take a look:

[Cardlist Title=12 Post - Legacy | into_play, 3-1 Legacy Daily Event]

This is an exciting deck to me because it shows the flexibility of the 12 Post engine. You can be all in on ramping out Primeval Titans and casting enormous fatties as early as possible. Or you can sit back, Repeal a Delver of Secrets, and just hit your land drops. We even get to play Brainstorm to shuffle away Eldrazi that show up to the party a little too early! Sure, you're a little vulnerable to Wasteland, but maindeck Pithing Needles and Crop Rotation go a long way towards mitigating that weakness as best as possible.

One thing that's not immediately apparent is the shear inevitability this strategy has over other fair decks. You can take infinite turns by bouncing your Emrakul with Karakas. Hate cards like Ensnaring Bridge keeping you down? Just bounce and recast Ulamog. Even if you get Wastelanded off of Karakas, you can pretty easily discard an Eldrazi to shuffle up and find it again. As long as there's time, your Eye of Ugin engine will let you do just about anything you need to in order to take down a game.

This deck is super powerful and has a number of incredibly favorable matchups in the current format. However, combo decks are a nightmare. Notice that this deck has a full nine cards that have the potential to come in against combo decks. Some variants go even further with effects like Leyline of Sanctity. If you're willing to accept the game one losses or just don't expect to see many Show and Tells or Lion's Eye Diamonds, this may just be the deck for you.

Vintage. Magic's most powerful format, dominated by Oath of Druids, Bazaar of Baghdad, Tendrils of Agony, and...Lord of Atlantis? Twenty years later and WraithHunter is still bringing the beatdowns with Lord of Atlantis and fishy company in Vintage Magic.

[Cardlist title= Merfolk - Vintage | WraithHunter, 3-1 Vintage Daily Event]

Ignoring archetypes, Vintage is a format dominated by Blue decks. That means that large, Islandwalking threats backed by cheap permission is going to be awesome. Even if you're not playing against Islands, your creatures are still capable of brawling with Lodestone Golem, but more often than not just your clock is going to be good enough. This deck won Vintage Champs last year, so there's got to be something awesome going on, right?

There's just something nostalgic about seeing this style of deck still putting up finishes in 2014. There are even some awesome additions from recent sets! Phantasmal Image has incredible utility as a Clone or Griselbrand and Blightsteel Colossus or just a backup lord. True-Name Nemesis can break open the board stalls that crop up in creature mirrors. Every once in awhile, you get powerful upgrades to the suite of countermagic a la Steel Sabotage and Mental Misstep. All told, I'm glad this archetype still exists, and I can't wait to see if the fish are still around 10 years from now.

We'll wrap up this week with a quick look at what may be the most hyped Commander out of Conspiracy: Brago, King Eternal. Ever since he was first spoiled, people were excited that the UWx Momentary Blink decks finally had someone to take the helm that was synergistic, proactive, and powerful. There's certainly plenty of powerful "Enters the Battlefield" effects for Brago to break, but the reason I picked up Pinguis's deck is because he doesn't just focus on creatures and Enters the Battlefield effects. There are all kinds of sweet interactions here, and I know he's only scratching the surface:

[Cardlist title=Next Level Blink - Commander | Pinguis]

The thing that really surprised me is how brutal Brago gets with some of the enchantments that Blue-White can bring to bear in Commander. I mean, resetting Reality Acid every turn is sort of brutal. Using Treachery to tap out on your turn, steal the best creature and untap your lands to hold up counterspells? That's not remotely fair! You even get to blink your Act of Authority[/card every turn to regain control of it or reset your [card]Mystic Remora the cumulative upkeep is bearable. These are the kind of powerful, unique interactions that make Brago much more than the Crystal Shard upgrade he seemed like at first.

I'm especially excited about the interaction between Brago and Planeswalkers. Sure, you don't get to double up on abilities that turn, but resetting their loyalty can be very powerful. Being able to use negative loyalty abilities every turn is a good way to pull ahead, and Brago gives all of your guys pseudo-vigilance to help defend your companions.

And don't forget, on top of all of this you have the typical, brutally powerful Blue-White blink shenanigans with cards like Glen Elendra Archmage, Draining Whelk, and Reveillark. That's a proven, powerful engine all its own, but the non-land tricks are really what put this Brago deck over the top.

Order Conspiracy singles, packs, and boxes at CoolStuffInc.com today!

TAGS articles, constructed, current events, vintage, deck lists, legacy, decks, commander, carlos gutierrez, 5 decks

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