The Deck

Like many of you, I played a couple of events on Arena for Dungeons and Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms over the weekend; nicely, I won both.

In the first I played a with... The Deck. The Deck of Many Things, that is.

As a child, I remember poring over The Deck of Many Things in an original Gary Gygax hardcover of The Dungeon Master's Guide that I borrowed from the local library. "Why would I ever use this?" is a question I asked myself... and folks are still asking themselves. Like, if you Google "The Deck of Many Things" the first rich snippet on the Search Engine Results Page is "Is the Deck of Many Things Worth It?"

While sometimes you get enough experience points to advance to the next level for free, you're much more likely to have all your treasure disappear, be trapped in suspended animation, or be disintegrated.

People have made parody TikTok videos about it. For reals!

As such, I was a little apprehensive about playing it.

But like so many DnD players before me... I went for it.

For the most part it was actually great. You spend one more mana than a Jayemdae Tome to get it down, but then it's half the mana to operate, forever. You can trade creatures or get one removal spell into your graveyard and The Deck of Many Things can help you win games of long, grinding, attrition. I found myself, two or three wins in, wondering if it would be a Constructed viable card. Can we play a spell this slow?

Then I remembered why the card had such a dire reputation among DnD players.

So, I'm ruining this opponent. Just ruining them.

Fourth turn Grim Bounty.

Fifth Turn The Deck of Many Things.

The only card in my graveyard for the early turns is Grim Bounty, so you can imagine how their progression is going. My wife passes by. I curse!

"What's wrong?" she asks, genuinely worried something bad has happened.

"Well, after a quarter century they decided to add dice rolling to Magic: The Gathering, and..."

"Oh," she replied, seeing where this was going. "Maybe this will be what finally inspires you to give it up."

So, my hand was two Grim Bounties. Two! I roll... very, very low. Basically, I had a 90 or so percent chance to keep ruining my opponent, but instead I discarded my hand; which happened to be two outstanding removal cards. Still, I assumed I'd come back. The Deck of Many Things is a powerful card advantage engine, after all!

Punch line: They also had The Deck of Many Things and were able to out-grind me thanks to a few Green classes. Ouch. 14/14 basic lands to the jaw were not easy to pace.

So anyway?

It turns out I was not alone in thinking about The Deck of Many Things in Constructed. Over the first weekend of Dungeons and Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms being legal, it's already acquired a fan:

Mono-Green Deck of Many Things | AFR Standard | Bernastorres, 27th Place MTGO Standard Challenge 7/10/2021

• Creatures (23)
• 3 Questing Beast
• 4 Gemrazer
• 4 Kazandu Mammoth
• 4 Lovestruck Beast
• 4 Swarm Shambler
• 4 Werewolf Pack Leader

• Sorceries (5)
• 2 Blizzard Brawl
• 3 Primal Might

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Ranger Class

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 The Deck of Many Things
• 2 Esika's Chariot
• 3 The Great Henge

• Lands (23)
• 19 Snow-Covered Forest
• 4 Faceless Haven

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Blizzard Brawl
• 3 Chainweb Aracnir
• 2 Garruk, Unleashed
• 3 Scavenging Ooze
• 2 Shadowspear
• 2 Snakeskin Veil
• 2 Vivien, Monsters' Advocate

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On the one hand: Wow. The Deck of Many Things! On the one hand, I'm a little iffy on The Deck of Many Things in this deck. Mono-Green already has so many copies of The Great Henge, which provides a similar route to advantage. Also, Green is one of the worst colors in terms of getting a key card into the graveyard to continually re-buy.

On the other hand, it's an archetype that seems poised for a comeback. BERNASTORRES only finished 27th in this event, but other Mono-Green mavericks had similar ideas, even sans The Deck of Many Things.

Mono-Green Ranger | AFR Standard | Bolov0, 5-0 MTGO Standard League

• Creatures (27)
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 3 Lovestruck Beast
• 3 Questing Beast
• 4 Gemrazer
• 4 Kazandu Mammoth
• 4 Swarm Shambler
• 4 Stonecoil Serpent
• 4 Werewolf Pack Leader

• Instants (2)
• 2 Snakeskin Veil

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Primal Might

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Ranger Class

• Lands (23)
• 18 Snow-Covered Forest
• 2 Faceless Haven
• 3 Lair of the Hydra

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Questing Beast
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Snakeskin Veil
• 2 Garruk, Unleashed
• 4 Garruk's Harbinger
• 2 Ram Through
• 4 Run Afoul

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This 5-0 list from BOLOV0 is a bit sleeker. Instead of Esika's Chariot, BOLOV0 played a couple of Snakeskin Veils for a much faster game plan. No grinding here... Four Primal Mights; no copies of The Great Henge, even in the sideboard.

But like BERNASTORRES, BOLOV0 adopted many cards from the new set.

Werewolf Pack Leader is just an absurd card. Watchwolf to start, with a built-in self-pumping mana dump. More than anything else... How much do you really need to grind? Werewolf Pack Leader will trigger Pack Tactics with Primal Might or alongside almost any other creature in this deck.

Ranger Class might be even better. For you get a Grizzly Bears... Or rather, a Wolf token. The Level 2 is absurd if you draw nothing else, and obviously gets Werewolf Pack Leader up and going quickly. Once you get to Level 3 that's like a Planeswalker Ultimate! Given sufficient time, Ranger Class is one of the most profound single cards we've seen in a long time. It has the fundamental "body" near playability, and for a pretty minor additional investment, starts making attrition very difficult for the opponent. Come Level 3, it becomes nearly impossible to beat fighting fair. As an enchantment, it widely falls into the Lucky Clover pile... A card that isn't that powerful, but one that is inexpensive to get onto the battlefield, that requires specific removal to interact with reliably.

I'm excited to see what this card does in the coming months; and really don't think it's likely to get banned.

As for the other new source of card advantage that Mono-Green kind of picked up from the new set? My recommendation is to keep your hand as low as possible if you're going to try The Deck of Many Things. At zero cards you don't have any chance of discarding your hand... But you also don't have a hand to discard. I like one just in case you are afraid of hitting 20. 20 can be very good or very not-good depending, and you don't necessarily get to pick. Yes, hitting the opponent's Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger is really and truly living the dream... But what if you sided in The Deck of Many Things to grind out a Control mage? You really might not want to be bringing back a creature of your own, no matter the size. This is a card that rewards active play. So, while you get to activate The Deck of Many Things for half the cost of a Jayemdae Tome, it is actively not good at Jayemdae Tome-type things, i.e. building an insurmountable cardboard advantage if you're an Old School Azorius Control player. Get stuff, get it out, trade it. Make sure you have a little something in your graveyard, and not too miuch of a hand when tapping two.

The Triumph

Cards like The Deck of Many Things and Ranger Class were far from the only new incremental advantage permanents to score perfect records out of the gate this weekend. Venturing into the Dungeon isn't quite as good as drawing a card (in fact you have to get through an entire Dungeon to draw one sometimes!)... But if you play enough Dungeon-centric cards you can build quite the advantage.

Consider this two-mana champion:

Triumphant Adventurer is actually awesome. With both first strike and deathtouch, no one will want to block it. So, it can keep attacking! And even though it only attacks for one, it can Venture into the Dungeon over and over.

Add some buddies...

... And you can be ripping through multiple Dungeons per game!

Black-White Venture | AFR Standard | NotAPro, 5-0 MTGO Standard League

• Creatures (29)
• 2 Elite Spellbinder
• 3 Acererak the Archlich
• 4 Ebondeath, Dracolich
• 4 Loyal Warhound
• 4 Luminarch Aspirant
• 4 Nadaar, Selfless Paladin
• 4 Selfless Savior
• 4 Triumphant Adventurer

• Instants (7)
• 3 Heartless Act
• 4 Vanishing Verse

• Land (24)
• 7 Plains
• 6 Swamp
• 3 Temple of Silence
• 4 Brightclimb Pathway // Grimclimb Pathway
• 4 Shineshadow Snarl

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Closing Statement
• 1 Elspeth Conquers Death
• 3 Elspeth's Nightmare
• 2 Epic Downfall
• 2 Fracture
• 1 Giant Killer
• 1 Kunoros, Hound of Athreos
• 1 Runed Halo
• 1 Shadowspear
• 2 Tormod's Crypt

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Personally, I think Triumphant Adventurer is the best Dungeon-centric card in the current list due to its speed and consistent punching power; but both Nadaar and especially Acererak are bigger. But in a deck of so many advantage-generating creatures, all pale in comparison to this one's Dracolich.

It will be interesting to see if a deck with lots of disparate ways to get ahead - Loyal Warhound acceleration, Ebondeath, Dracolich inevitability - will continue to be the home for Triumphant Adventurer, which is so specific in its plan.

The Case for Field of Ruin

Mono-White Angels | AFR Standard | Karatedom, 9th Place MTGO Standard Challenge 7/11/2021

• Creatures (33)
• 1 Legion Angel
• 1 Skyclave Apparition
• 2 Drannith Magistrate
• 2 Skyclave Cleric
• 3 Selfless Savior
• 4 Alseid of Life's Bounty
• 4 Elite Spellbinder
• 4 Luminarch Aspirant
• 4 Righteous Valkyrie
• 4 Speaker of the Heavens
• 4 Youthful Valkyrie

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 Search for Glory

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 The Book of Exalted Deeds

• Lands (22)
• 18 Snow-Covered Plains
• 4 Faceless Haven

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Drannith Magistrate
• 3 Legion Angel
• 2 Skyclave Apparition
• 3 Baneslayer Angel
• 2 Dawnbringer Cleric
• 3 Portable Hole

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This deck is so cool.

On its face it's the Angels deck we've been clamoring for but never really got before. Angels, Angels everywhere, right?

So many Angels you will get tons of life from Righteous Valkyrie and get paid off by Speaker of the Heavens. So much life triggering The Book of Exalted Deeds will seem trivial. At your leisure - and especially when you can milk a lot of Youthful Valkyrie triggers and can sit behind Alseid of Life's Bounty or Selfless Savior - you can actually use The Book of Exalted Deeds.

But really?

There might be no rush. Just keep gaining three or more. Just keep getting Angels, right? To be fair, many decks can't compete with just that engine. It's a little clunky to start, but once it does? Playing fair against you is tough.

What do you think they'll say when you actually play unfair?

This, my friends, is an Angel.

That means that you can get The Book of Exalted Deeds out with Faceless Haven and almost any other combination of five additional lands and win the game. Probably.

Three mana go into the Faceless Haven. One can even be from the Haven itself, which taps for snow. Then sends the Book's sacrifice effect into the Haven. The Haven will get an Enlightenment counter, which it will not lose even when it reverts to non-creature land mode.

At the end of the day, the opponent either has land destruction (like, say, a Field of Ruin) or they will eventually be decked by your Faceless Haven. Yorion decks will be decked. So will anyone smaller. Just don't expose your Faceless Haven to removal from that point on, and you will win almost by default.

And if you do expose it? You've got Selfless Savior and Alseid of Life's Bounty, always remember!

This version has one Search for Glory, which can get either side of the combo. Faceless Haven is Snow, and The Book of Exalted Deeds is Legendary.

With cards like this and Mazemind Tome in Standard, my gut is that we will see more, much more from The Book of Exalted Deeds before this is all over.

LOVE

MIKE