facebook

CoolStuffInc.com

Preorder MTG Bloomburrow today!
  
Account Meeple
Location IconLocations
Account MeepleLogin
0 Item
Advanced Search
   Sign In
Create Account
Main » Articles » 5 Decks You Can't Miss This Week

5 Decks You Can't Miss This Week

Carlos Gutierrez
Posted on August 9, 2014
 Reddit

While most players at Pro Tour Magic 2015 ended up on some kind of aggressive Red deck or midrangey Black or Green deck, Gabriel Nassif went somewhere completely different. Sure, a Sphinx's Revelation deck won the Pro Tour, but this isn't an ordinary Sphinx's Revelation deck. This is what happens when a Hall of Famer brings Maze's End to the table:

Maze's End ? Magic 2015 Standard | Gabriel Nassif, Pro Tour Magic 2015

The goal here is the same as it always has been. Chain card drawing and ramp spells into Fogs and enormous Sphinx's Revelations while you set up the Maze's End win condition. However, Nassif has done a few things differently now that Magic 2015 is in the picture that make the deck much more effective.

First, Nassif has elected to play singletons of the Guildgates instead of having them comprise the bulk of his manabase. This gives him more consistent access to the colors that he actually wants instead of making you lean more heavily on cards like Sylvan Caryatid[/car] and [card]Courser of Kruphix to help you cast your spells on time. The idea is this: if you can cast your spells, you have all the time in the world to set up the win. If you can't cast your spells, you're going to die before you can set it up anyway. This approach makes a lot of sense, but hasn't really been seen up to this point.

The second big change is the addition of Restock. Now you don't need things like Dictate of Kruphix to help you hit enough Fogs to stay alive. Now you can chain Sphinx's Revelation into Restock to get back Riot Control and Sphinx's Revelation. You can rebuy Urban Evolution to get that extra Guildgate into play and take a turn off of your clock. The flexibility that Restock gives you as the extra business spell is incredibly valuable and means it's much harder for you to whiff on action in the mid game and just die.

It was spectacular to see such an incredible player doing something so unique on Magic's biggest stage, and I certainly hope that we get to see one or two more takes on Maze's End before it rotates.

When you see Steam Vents in Modern, what jumps to the front of your mind? Almost universally, you're going to be thinking about the combo decks: Splinter Twin and Pyromancer Ascension. At Pro Tour Born of the Gods, we saw an awesome Blue-Red Blood Moon deck sweep through the Swiss rounds, but the deck never really took off. More controlling takes on Blue-Red decks featuring Keranos, God of Storms have started cropping up, and recently Isomorphic has taken the concept further, cutting the combo elements entirely. Let's look at Isomorphic's Blue-Red Control:

[Cardlist Title= Blue-Red Control ? Modern | isomorphic, 3-1 Modern Daily Event]

This deck looks fantastic for the current Modern metagame. You generate so much free advantage by forcing people to play in fear of the Splinter Twin combo that you're not running. If you're playing Steam Vents[/car] and running the draw-go plan, there's no way they can ignore the possibility of just being dead. That gives you all the time in the world to grind out your opponents with [card]Cryptic Command and Snapcaster Mages while they hold up Abrupt Decay for combo pieces that are never going to show up.

The best part is that you're like a pre-boarded Splinter Twin deck against the grindy match-ups. You already have your Batterskulls and Keranoses ready to go in game one. It's not even like you have to concede the creature matchups to generate all this advantage. You get to play a huge amount of removal plus Vedalken Shackles, which is almost impossible for a huge portion of the Modern metagame to beat.

This seems like a fantastic direction to take Blue-Red decks for at least a few weeks. Once people catch on that some builds may be moving away from the combo, you lose quite a bit of your edge. But Deceiver Exarch into Splinter Twin is something that people just have to respect, and that's something that you can capitalize on.

In Legacy, there's generally a large distinction between the fair decks and the unfair decks. Fair decks play things like Mother of Runes and Stoneforge Mystic. Unfair decks run Lion's Eye Diamond and Show and Tell. Things start getting more interesting when you can build decks that straddle the line between the two. That's what Todd Anderson has done with this aggressive take on the Dark Depths/Thespian's Stage:

Junk Depths ? Legacy | Todd Anderson

I love decks like this because you can attack from multiple angles. If your opponent is playing a fair deck, you can just curve Deathrite Shaman into Knight of the Reliquary and start Wastelanding your opponent out until you can smash them with your enormous Knight. You can also just jam Liliana of the Veil and start attrition-ing your opponent to death that way. Or you can just combo them out on turn two or three with some permutation of Living Wish, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Vampire Hexmage, and Dark Depths.

This deck feels very much like the RUG Tempo Twin deck championed by Patrick Dickmann at Pro Tour Born of the Gods. You have a ton of tutors to give the deck redundancy. You have powerful threats that must be answered immediately to give you openings to jam your combo. Or you can just kill your opponent if they don't respect your ability to put a Marit Lage into play.

A deck like this sacrifices resiliency in favor of power and flexibility. The Dark Depths combo is vulnerable to some of the most commonly played cards in the format. Not every deck is going to be prepared to deal with the rest of what your deck is doing though. The hope is that they either just die to Wastelands or Marit Lage early or that your combo and disruption buy you time to set up again and find something they can't deal with.

Drawing cards is one of the best feelings in all of Magic. There's a bit of tension around each draw step - it could be all but blank; it could be the perfect card. Sometimes you drawing ten cards at a time and it feels absolutely backbreaking. Sometimes you grind your opponent out one cantrip at a time and feel incredibly clever about it. READINREVERSE isn't interested in either of those. He wants to draw two cards. A lot. It's more than one, so it feels more unfair, but there are only so many times can you draw two cards before it starts to feel like an overwhelming advantage. This is Pyromancer Gush.

[Cardlist title= Pyromancer Gush ? Vintage | READINREVERSE, 3-1 Vintage Daily Event]

We've all seen the Gush plus Fastbond engine by now. Who doesn't like paying two life for two mana and two cards? The difference between this deck and many other Gush decks is that READINREVERSE isn't purely focused on tempoing his opponents out or comboing them out. READINREVERSE is doing a little of both.

On the one hand, you can Gush into Burning Wish into Yawgmoth's Will and just go completely degenerate. On the other, you can chain Gush and cantrips into Time Walk and counterspells with Young Pyromancer in play attack your opponent to death. The cutest thing about this deck? Skullclamp bridges both plans. The ability to turn extra tokens into cards is incredibly valuable. Whether you need extra counterspells to attack for lethal next turn or more Gushes to keep your combo going, Skullclamp helps you rip through your deck until you find exactly what it is you needed.

I have no idea if this deck is good in the developing Vintage metagame or not, but this deck does two of my absolute favorite things in all of Magic: Gush plus Fastbond and Skullclamp. Consequently, I'm really hoping that we continue to see more of this deck, and Skullclamp in particular.

Our last deck for the week is a Commander deck built by Rachmiel with a very specific purpose in mind. Commander is a format defined by excess. If a game goes on for long enough, tons of lands, cards, life, damage and more will start being thrown around like it's nothing. That's when Rachmiel pulls the trigger on his reversals that turn those resources into a game-ending liability. Let's take a look:

[Cardlist title= Tariel Reversal - Commander | Rachmiel]

In this deck, Tariel is the angel that punishes greed. Your goal is to sit back and not die while people start assembling their resources and gameplans. Cards like Norn's Annex and Dread encourage other players to progress the game, but leave you largely alone. Besides, it's not like Tariel is a real threat, right?

When the big spells come out, that's when you start kicking things in to gear and punishing people for their excesses. Boundless Realms? Acidic Soil. Doubling Season? Netherborn Phalanx. Test of Enurance? Soul Conduit. Your goal isn't to do something inherently powerful to kill the rest of the table. You can only kill people if they try to go too big. Reflect Damage is much better against a Blightsteel Colossus than it is against utility creatures crashing in for a few points a turn.

This is the kind of deck that thrives on being unexpected. Once people know what your win conditions are, they can play around them reasonably easily. Because of that, this is a great deck to play on Magic Online, or with new groups. Otherwise, you'll have to keep cycling through punisher cards and mechanics to keep your opponents guessing.

Order Magic 2015 singles, packs, and boxes at CoolStuffInc.com today!

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

Recent Articles

View Archive
Sell your cards and minis 25% credit bonus