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Main » Articles » Decks Inspired by Shadows over Innistrad

Decks Inspired by Shadows over Innistrad

Abe Sargent
Posted on March 28, 2016
 Reddit

Well, the time has come. After a few weeks of spoiler season and gung-ho merriment, we now have the full spoiler for Shadows over Innistrad. What cards have been spoiled that you want to use? What tweaks your deck-building fancies?

For me, I’m also pulled in odd directions. Sometimes, a card suggests a place in a current deck or just a new tweak on an old concept. Other times, cards go into wonky directions and pull me with them.

So today, I want to bring to you a handful of decks that were inspired by one or more cards from our return to good evil ol‘ Innistrad.

They Went that Way

Ghostway was always a great spell, but the problem was that, sometimes, the effects would hurt you. I’d sit with it in my hand and not want to lose +1/+1 counters from my stuff, or I stole a creature and didn’t want to give it back. It also killed my token creatures permanently. So since Eerie Interlude is a selective version of Ghostway, it rates a lot more highly.

Blink-o-Matic ? Casual | Abe Sargent

I just wanted to build a quick and dirty shell for your various blink stuff here. This is just meant to be illustrative of the sort of options you have when you cast Eerie Interlude and Flicker out all of the good creatures you want to without being forced to send them all to the fright zone.

Next up, I included a bunch if typical casual entries into this sort of deck—you expect to see stuff like Mulldrifter, Kor Cartographer, Wall of Omens, and both Deadeye Navigator and Brago, King Eternal.

I love Sunblast Angel here as a power-sweeping effect at times—and a bit of a beater and game-winner as well. This is the perfect example of a creature that you would never play with Ghostway. You might now always want to kill all of the tapped stuff. You might have an ally, or someone whom you are using as a bit of a speed bump to keep yourself from being the next target. But with Eerie Interlude, you can use it as needed.

There is an epic number of creatures that have similar enters-the-battlefield effects to harness. From Man-o'-War to Custodi Squire, you can fill a ton of decklists, so salt this meal to taste.

Clue-Do

Clue Beats ? Casual | Abe Sargent

I just love the idea of swinging with a 4/4 Clue token. Don’t you? The goal of this deck is to drop a ton of Clue tokens, use those to fuel artifact-loving cards and effects, and then animate a Clue with an Ensoul Artifact. The first place I looked was at cards that make your Clues, such as Tamiyo’s Journal or Magnifying Glass. I even added some ways to make multiple Clues, like the Erdwal Illuminator, as an example.

Clues can be sacrificed for cards. Because of this, your deck is constantly making and sacrificing artifacts. Seems like a lovely home for Sludge Strider. That way, your Clues become a winning condition by draining people of life. Another good adjunct is Whirler Rogue, which brings a pair of Thopter tokens when it arrives, so it adds to your artifact count. You can tap two artifacts, such as Clue tokens, to make someone unblockable as well. Might I suggest your transformed Daring Sleuth, now a Clue making Bearer of Overwhelming Truths? Don’t forget your Broodstar either. That’s a smash and a half!

Check out a card like Gild. It exiles a creature, and you make a Gold token, which will do all of the fun things your Clues do. Want to smash with a 4/4 Gold token? I bet you do! While you are peering at some cardboard, give a gander to Ongoing Investigation as well. You make Clues when you smash people, and I even made sure to include a few lands that can tap for any mana, so you can make a green mana to activate it and make Clues.

If you want to push your artifact-land count hard, toss in the artifact lands as well, like Seat of the Synod. And you could obviously mine a lot of territory to find synergetic themes. The Esper colors have a lot to offer this deck’s theme.

Of Tombs and Demons

I really like Westvale Abbey. It seems to be a fun card, and it just resonates with me while reminding me of some older cards. How about a shell like this one for it?

Worshipping at the Abbey ? Casual | Abe Sargent

I liked the idea of sacrificing a group of creatures for a major effect—in this case, it’s to transform the Abbey and gain the big, giant, Demon beater. It reminded me a bit of an old-school card called Hecatomb, so in went that ancient enchantment as well. Sacrifice four creatures for it, and then, for the rest of the game, you can tap your Swamps to deal 1 damage to things. It’s a powerful ability if you have the fodder to use. That’s where a card like Sengir Autocrat comes into play. It brings with it a trio of 0/1 Serf tokens. That’s four creatures, the same number needed to bring out a Hecatomb or one shy of the number needed to activate an Abbey. It’s a great supplement here. And we have more, from Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder’s Thrull potential to Abhorrent Overlord’s Harpy tokens and the Zombies of cards like Ghoulcaller Gisa and Syphon Flesh—they are all here to send to the madness. Even Liliana, Heretical Healer can bring a Zombie to the battlefield when she transforms. We have some subtle cards, from Spoils of Blood to Promise of Power. You can sacrifice creatures to pump up the Flesh Carver or to trigger Blood Artist. This is a fun and deeply layered deck, whether using Hecatomb or securing the services of Ormendahl, Profane Prince.

Poxes for Everyone

Everybody knows that I have a massive love of all things Pox. There’s a card that’s in Shadows of Innistrad that really tweaks my fancy for Pox: Vessel of Malignity. That might not have been the card you thought I’d really look forward to running. In order to give you my reasons for loving its potential, let’s look at Pox.

Pox
Pox is a great card for older formats that can support it perfectly, and I’ve run a Legacy Pox deck as my main Legacy deck for more than a decade. Now, that deck has gone through a lot of changes, and cards that are just outstanding for it, like Liliana of the Veil, really push the deck’s power level up.

Pox decks have two ways of playing the game you need to understand. The first is math. When you cast Pox, you want to maximize those resources of yours that Pox effects by having X times 3, and you want to devastate your opponent by having 3X + 1—I know, math sucks. Here, let me show you.

Assume I have three lands and my opponent controls four. Cast Pox. Now my opponent loses two lands, and I lose just one. If my foe has five lands, he or she still loses two, but it’s a smaller proportion of his or her stuff. You can drop the opponent from four creatures to two, from seven cards to four, and so forth. You want to be a three or six of your stuff, and one, four, or seven of your foe’s. (This is why, after winning a match and knowing my foes will probably go first, I always want to have all four Poxes in my deck, to maximize my chance of Poxing on my fourth turn, hitting two of the opponent’s lands and then dropping my own.)

Because of this, you often want to drop a card from your hand to bring you down to three or six cards. Suppose I have five cards in my hand and want to Pox soon. I can drop the Vessel just to drop a card from my hand, and then Pox, leaving three cards, so I just discard one. Pox skips enchantments, so you’ll be fine on the backswing.

Another issue Pox has is how to win the game. Different people use different methods. Creature lands like Mishra's Factory are often seen since they dodge Poxes. I like a pair of Nether Spirits—they come back for free, but you can have more than one at the same time, or else you’ll be in a bad place. I also enjoy seeing a lot of artifacts like Cursed Scroll or The Rack. Since your deck invariably strips your foes of their hands via cards like Hymn to Tourach, Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, Pox, and Liliana, a card like The Rack can win pretty quickly. One of the major issues is that your foes can get out from behind one by just keeping cards in their hands. And if you have run out of gas, often they’ll build their hands back up and then assault you with the right answer, which they have an elevated chance of drawing after surviving for a few turns. I’ve regularly brought someone to 1 or 3 life only to fail to finish the job. (Other winning conditions I’ve used include Bloodchief Ascension, but Quest for the Nihil Stone never works well.)

That’s where Vessel comes in. Drop in early when you need to, and then hold onto it until later when you truly need it. Sacrifice it, force someone to exile two cards from his or her hand, and that’s that. I’ve moved away from The Rack recently, and I think this could bring it back. Here’s a quick decklist I’ll to see what’s what:

Pox of Malignity ? Casual | Abe Sargent

I have Factory, Nether Spirit, and Rack as win cons, and the Vessel in here to see how it plays out. I have high hopes that a pair of Vessels can push my deck into the next level, but testing is still required.

And that concludes another quartet of deck fun! With the world now fully aware of all of the new cards Shadows over Innistrad will bring, what are looking at? What do you want to try out in your decks?

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TAGS articles, casual, abe sargent, brewing, brew, shadows over innistrad, #mtgsoi

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