Hello folks! I hope you are having a great Monday today! Are you excited by the new opportunities of Core Set 2019? I am!

New sets bring new cards bring new ideas bring new decks. NEW DECKS, Y'ALL!!!

Let's take a look at some decks that were inspired by the latest release from Wizards.

Arcades's Winning Combo

Here's how this works.

You need to start with:

Arcades, the Strategist is a fun Commander card or draft archetype to aim for. You can do a lot of fun stuff with it. For four mana, you can get this 3/5 vigilance flyer out that can swing and keep back to block. 4 mana means you can get it out quickly then start churning cards for those Defenders that are dropping their bodies.

But there's also a cool combo here.

This is Shield Sphere:

The great thing about Shield Sphere is just how good it is with Arcades. It's a zero drop 6/6 that won't get smaller. It only shrinks as it blocks on defense, not when it swings on offense. So, you have a free 6/6 that draws you a card on arrival with no disadvantages. Even without any combo aspects beyond Arcades, it's a great card on its own, and you can easily win with an aggro deck mentality by dropping these post Arcades and just smashing hard.

But it's free cost suggests a cool combo for me. Self-bounce!

This is Equilibrium. When you cast a dork, just invest a mana, and you can bounce another dork. You can use this for your own Shield Sphere. And then just recast it. Now you can't bounce what you've played. It's not on the battlefield, so you will need to chain two creatures. As long as one is a Defender, you should be good to go. This is also great to bounce opposing stuff to slow them down. It's also a cool cast-trigger, and thus a Counterspell effect on the creature won't stop Equilibriums' bounce trigger. That's something you won't want to forget.

But you have probably already seen the issue here! This is no longer free. You can't cast and recast Shield Sphere for one mana, you'll run out of mana. True. It's limited to four or six uses before you have used your mana, and sure, you still drew a bunch of cards, but it's limited. Typically. But that's okay, I noticed the same thing.

This is Earthcraft. You can tap an untapped dork to untap any basic land of your choice. That's pretty strong. Here's how you chain Shield Spheres:

Once you have drawn your deck, you can find some one-of victory conditions that you don't need more than one copy mugging up your deck.

I chose:

Cast the first one you draw, to help win, or discard stuff to tap down blocker and swing with your giant Defender army. I also added in Wall of Blossoms for card drawing and blocking early, mana dorks including Sylvan Caryatid, Wall of Mulch to sacrifice for cards to keep the card flow going, and Perimeter Captain as an ideal early drop to push defending and life gain.

Now, the cool thing here is that most of these engines are good without going big. Take Earthcraft as a great example. With a bunch of cheap defenders getting cast early, you can tap them to make mana and quickly get to a place where you can cast the bigger stuff. You can cast the cost on Mind Over Matter with a single Island with Earthcraft and some walks. Shield Sphere is basically a 0/6 free Birds of Paradise that can tap the turn it's played for mana. Equilibrium is great with cheap cost because you can use your Wall of Blossoms or Wall of Mulch to tap and bounce something. And you can tap your defenders for the mana you need to get Equilibriums, even without the combos here. They all work together.

You could also add in things like Fertile Ground on a basic land to increase your mana yield each time you Earthcraft to make a ton of mana.

Here we go!

Draw your Deck, Kill the World -- Kitchen Table | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (27)
• 2 Psychosis Crawler
• 2 Wall of Mulch
• 3 Perimeter Captain
• 4 Arcades, the Strategist
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 4 Shield Sphere
• 4 Sylvan Caryatid
• 4 Wall of Blossoms

• Enchantments (9)
• 1 Mind over Matter
• 4 Earthcraft
• 4 Equilibrium

• Lands (24)
• 5 Plains
• 7 Island
• 8 Forest
• 4 Mana Confluence

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So what do you think of my Arcades next?

What's next? How about something less Jenny and more Tammy?

Elder Dragon Slam

The goal is this deck is to get all five Elder Dragons onto the battlefield at the same time!

The main colors are Green and Red and I am using things like Sarkhan, Fireblood; Dragon's Hoard to help accelerate to Full Dragon.

If you want a Planeswalker who likes Dragons, Sarkhan is the best, and I even called on some of his other versions that can go Dragon crazy as well, but a 3-drop that accelerates Dragons by two turns while also looting is pretty strong.

I wanted to dip into Green as my color of choice to ramp out Dragons. I thought about Dragonstorm, but that's too hard to make work. Instead we'll do Tooth and Nail, which gets two Dragons.

While I'm at it, I decided to toss in one set each of the Dragonlords from Tarkir that are also Elder Dragons, as well as The Ur-Dragon, it's Scion, and even Ramos, Dragon Engine! I mean, why not? In for a penny, in for a pound, aye?

Elder Dragon Stomp -- Kitchen Table | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Bladewing the Risen
• 1 Dragonlord Atarka
• 1 Dragonlord Dromoka
• 1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
• 1 Dragonlord Ojutai
• 1 Dragonlord Silumgar
• 1 Lathliss, Dragon Queen
• 1 Utvara Hellkite
• 1 Ramos, Dragon Engine
• 1 Scion of the Ur-Dragon
• 1 The Ur-Dragon
• 2 Arcades, the Strategist
• 2 Chromium, the Mutable
• 2 Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
• 2 Palladia-Mors, the Ruiner
• 2 Vaevictus Asmadi, the Dire
• 4 Birds of Paradise

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 1 Sarkhan the Mad
• 1 Sarkhan Unbroken
• 2 Sarkhan, Fireblood

• Sorceries (6)
• 2 Tooth and Nail
• 4 Cultivate

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Dragon Tempest

• Artifacts (2)
• 2 Dragon's Hoard

• Lands (28)
• 2 Island
• 2 Mountain
• 2 Plains
• 2 Swamp
• 6 Forest
• 2 Cavern of Souls
• 4 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
• 4 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
• 4 Mana Confluence

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There we are! I know we are way above 60 cards, but I don't care. Your Timmy doesn't either! Dragons for the win!

You know what? That inspires me! Why don't I do a Commander deck that also tries to get every Elder Dragon legendary dork into play, but that does so from a different angle . . . 

Scion of the Graveyard -- Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (1)
• 1 Scion of the Ur-Dragon

• Creatures (40)
• 1 Arcades, the Strategist
• 1 Atarka, World Render
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Bladewing the Risen
• 1 Bogardan Hellkite
• 1 Boneyard Scourge
• 1 Chromium, the Mutable
• 1 Darigaaz Reincarnated
• 1 Dragonlord Atarka
• 1 Dragonlord Dromoka
• 1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
• 1 Dragonlord Ojutai
• 1 Dragonlord Silumgar
• 1 Dromoka, the Eternal
• 1 Ebon Dragon
• 1 Eternal Dragon
• 1 Glorybringer
• 1 Hellkite Tyrant
• 1 Hoard-Smelter Dragon
• 1 Karrthus, Tyrant ofJund
• 1 Knollspine Dragon
• 1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1 Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury
• 1 Lathliss, Dragon Queen
• 1 Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
• 1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
• 1 Ojutai, Soul of Winter
• 1 O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami
• 1 Palladia-Mors, the Ruiner
• 1 Ramos, Dragon Engine
• 1 Scalelord Reckoner
• 1 Scourge of Valkas
• 1 Silumgar, the Drifting Death
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 The Ur-Dragon
• 1 Thunderbreak Regent
• 1 Utvara Hellkite
• 1 Vaevictus Asmadi, the Dire
• 1 Zirilan of the Claw

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Sarkhan, Fireblood
• 1 Sarkhan the Mad
• 1 Sarkhan Unbroken

• Instants (4)
• 1 Dragonlord's Prerogative
• 1 Kindred Summons
• 1 Sarkhan's Triumph
• 1 Utter End

• Sorceries (13)
• 1 All Hallow's Eve
• 1 Crux of Fate
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Distant Melody
• 1 Eureka
• 1 Explosive Vegetation
• 1 Fearsome Awakening
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Living Death
• 1 Patriarch's Bidding
• 1 Tooth and Nail
• 1 Twilight's Call
• 1 Vindicate

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Crucible of Fire
• 1 Dragon Tempest

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Belbe's Portal
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Door of Destinies
• 1 Dragon's Hoard
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (34)
• 3 Island
• 3 Plains
• 4 Swamp
• 5 Mountain
• 6 Forest
• 1 Cascading Cataracts
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Rupture Spire
• 1 Transguild Promenade
• 1 Unclaimed Territory

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This deck wants to drop Scion of the Ur-Dragon onto the battlefield, and then spend mana to load up your graveyard with Elder Dragons. Then once you have a nice, stocked, graveyard, this deck wants to cast a mass-recursion spell and fling them all onto the battlefield in one fell swoop.

We have four mass recursion options for your consideration

Each of these plays into this space in different ways, but they all will bring back your Dragon horde. My favorite is probably the Bidding, as unlike the other options, my foes aren't likely getting all of their creatures back like I am. And if you do have someone with a tribal theme deck that is getting back all of their dorks, then it's still a cheaper Twilight's Call.

In addition to Tooth and Nail, I have some other ways of dropping Dragons onto the battlefield. You have got to get those Dragons out!

I thought about pushing every legendary Dragon in here, like the Champions of Kamigawa cycle, Invasion cycle, the Planar Chaos cycle, stuff like Karrthus, Prossh, and more. And then you could run legendary support, like Primevals' Glorious Rebirth from Dominaria. With enough gold Dragons in your deck, cards, how about Dragon Arch?

So there are a lot of ways to push the deck into different spaces while still being fair to the people involved.

What about some draconic planeswalkers? You could rock one of the Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker cards and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. They'll also come to your Rebirth if you went the legendary route.

Frankly, forget Liliana's Contract. There should be an alternate winning condition for Dragons that counts their names and such as well! What about Epic Struggle or Mortal Combat as cool alternate wins?

There are a lot of ways you could mine in this direction that support your deck.

I hope that you enjoyed this look at a few decks inspired by Core Set 2019! Are you ready to rock? What are you waiting to unleash on your folks? Anything in here I used that you are excited to break as well? Let's do it!