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Main » Articles » More Decks Inspired by Ixalan

More Decks Inspired by Ixalan

Abe Sargent
Posted on September 18, 2017
 Reddit

Hello all, and welcome back to another article of decks that were inspired by all things Ixalan. We now have a full spoiler all ready to go and ready to rock and drop in early measure!

Last week I wrote up a bunch of decks inspired by cards, and now I wanted to bring some more deck-age to you. What cards from the set inspire your deck-building juices?

Here are some of mine!

Shapers of Nature and Herald of Secret Streams

Who likes counters?

How about this Warrior?

I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice the +1/+1 counter theme of the River Herald Merfolk is very similar to the Simic one in the same colors, right? So, let’s tap into that rich history for some cool synergy!

Simic River Heralds ? Casual | Abe Sargent

And there we are!

Frankly there were waaaaay too many good options out there. I ran these, but I am sure you can see an epic gigagram more out there in the history of the colors. So yes, you can see Armorcraft Judge and Crowned Ceratok and the Cytoplast Root-Kin. Fangren Firstborn! Fathom Mage! Master Biomancer!

Now one +1/+1 card that I think goes under-appreciated is Avatar of the Resolute, so I put a play set in. Here take a look:

Avatar of the Resolute

They work perfectly in these decks. Firstly, they are a powerful 3/2 reach, trampling body for gg and already beat on curve powerfully. And when they arrive, they get counters equal to the number of other critters you have with counters, making them perfect later as well, when you get a 5/4 or a 7/6 for 2 mana. When you are looking into pro-counter cards to pair with the newest injection of counter hotness here in Ixalan, I could not recommend these more, given just how powerful they are early and later.

Counters for the win!!!

Deadeye Plunderers

Artifacts are great and Treasure has some solid cachet built among casual players already. Deadeye Plunderers is one of my favorite in the genre for a few major reasons. Let’s take a look at why:

  1. You can make Treasure with extra mana you have laying around. This can build up a lot of Treasure for later exploiting, much like a Blue Mana Battery or Iceberg.

  2. Unlike a storage effect, you are not putting a bunch of eggs in one basket. You can put 5 or 7 counters on one of those effects getting ready for a big turn, and then all of the sudden someone smashes your pretty Black Mana Battery or Bottomless Pit and then you are done. And all of that work went to naught.

  3. In the meantime, the Plunderers are a decent size at 3/3 for 5 mana.

  4. They make artifacts, rather than put counters on something, so they will trigger any enters-the-battlefield triggers that like it when another artifact joins the party or cares about the number of artifacts you have . . . 

  5.  . . .  which leads me to the final point. They get bigger as you put the Treasure out there, and swell, so you can use their ability as a combat trick. Given that you will likely be running them in decks with artifacts, they also get bigger for everything from a Sol Ring to a Lightning Greaves to a Lapis Lazuli Talisman.

And that’s a lot of coolness about these guys! Let’s build a quick Standard legal artifact deck that seeks to bring some pirating good times to Kaladesh beyond the Sky Raiders of Kari Zev.

Pirates or Artificers? ? Ixalan Standard | Abe Sargent

This deck uses a lot of artifacts for things like improvise, cheap creatures, and lots of fun stuff. Don’t sleep on the adjunct artifacts from Ixalan in

I thought they would fit right in alongside Artificers, improvise, and Servo Schematics. We also have some Tezzeret fun times and great cards to consider for your deck-building pleasure!

Repeating Barrage

This might be one of my favorite cards in the whole set. Why?

Well, compare it to a card that was very dominant during its day:

Hammer of Bogardan

This is the Hammer of Bogardan. Why was it so good? Unlike a lot of removal, its ability to come back repeatedly made it both an early removal spell in the vein of Lightning Bolt or Incinerate as well as a longer game answer as well, with the potential for card advantage and player-killing. Now the Hammer is good because each upkeep you can bring it back, without any additional triggers. However, to bring it back, you had to commit during your upkeep. You had to do so with imperfect knowledge. You never knew what you were drawing, so you often had to make a tough decision.

On the other hand, Repeating Barrage can be brought back in your second main phase, which is when you have perfect information. But it requires you to have attacked. You won’t always be able to recur it back for hand for more burning. Now, the raid part that keeps you from only playing it is not a trigger, but a condition of using the ability. But in play, this is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Only after you have attacked, but as many times as you want past the attack.

The first thing I thought of when I saw this was the Infinite Attack combo in Green and Red where you could use this kill with your infinite mana. If you aren’t familiar with this combo, here is how it works:

You need:

  1. A Red effect that lets you spend mana to untap your team after you have attacked. These need to be repeatable. Examples include:

    2. Aggravated Assault
    Hellkite Charger

  2. You need a way to untap your lands after combat. Typically you do this with a hit trigger, although there are a few other ways out there. Again, two major examples include:

    3. Sword of Feast and Famine
    Nature's Will

As well as other cards like Bear Umbra. As you can see, both Nature's Will and Sword of Feast and Famine will untap your lands after you smash. The idea is to tap lands to trigger Aggravated Assault or Hellkite Charger or whatever. When you can done that, you untap after smashing and get more attack phases and main changes.

Now there are a few roadblocks in this combo, and it is very easy to disrupt. Getting hits in, having enough lands, etc. But you can see the various results too. So this shell is the first place I thought of for Repeating Barrage. You can ramp up mana by tapping extra lands each step, and then recur it and replay it over and over again. This gives you a non-creature based way of killing someone that is not dying easily to your creature damage. And you can use the Barrage early for removal as you need without letting go of a valuable combo piece.

So here’s a quick Barrage shell for that:

Infinite Smashing Awaits ? Casual | Abe Sargent

This deck uses very synergetic cards like Avenging Druid (which I swear, goes into more decks than pretty much any other card in Green ever made), to ramp up lands early while swinging, and I used Raid of Mardu Heart-Piercer as well as the beating good times of FTK, and take a serious look at the majesty of Savage Ventmaw here. Swing. Activate the Aggravated Assault and have an extra mana left over! You can use that extra mana and extra attacks for the Repeating Barrage without untapping lands or anything else. We’ve also got the clever Squirrel Nest if you are in an untapping mood with Bear Umbra, Nature's Will, or Sword of Feast and Famine.

Now there are countless decks out there that swing and want to reliably do stuff in the red zone, many of which are Red. And the Barrage fits so many of them. It’s particularly valuable in a grind-y format like Commander that wants to take the longer road to victory and seeks card advantage.

Revel in Riches

Revel Fun Times!

In tomorrow’s Top Ten Cards from Ixalan, this card will be charting, unquestionably. Where? Tune in to find out!

But in the meantime, I want to do a little building around it today.

I wanted to just give you two quick shells to illustrate ways to win with Revel.

U/B Revel Control ? Casual | Abe Sargent

This deck is a control deck that wants to kill and blow up a bunch of stuff in order to get the Treasures, while also running a few Treasuring options too, but nothing too major. It’s not selling out for the five-mana sorcery Contract Killing to get some Treasure, as an example. Nope! We’re running a few cards, and then leaning on the killing to help. Mutilate and Damnation are both here to give you cheaper four-mana sweeping options for the board.

Now, there are a few cool options I was thinking about adding in to ensure my foe had enough creatures to kill for wins.

They include:

Forbidden Orchard
Hunted Phantasm

And if you dipped into Red?

Varchild's War-Riders

All of those, among many more, would give your foe a lot of creatures for the dying. Now, if you don’t want to wait until later to kill them off, and you are leaning Red anyway, than might I suggest a certain Red enchantment from Weatherlight?

Aether Flash

And those are all fun ways to get creature kills from the Revelling.

A third way would be to instead push a different vector entirely.

Doubling Season awaits . . . 

Doubling your Treasure ? Casual | Abe Sargent

And there we go, with Doubling Season fun times commencing!

Now, note that with a Doubling Season out, the previously janky Contract Killing becomes a tour-de-force. Here let me show you:

  1. You control precisely one Revel in Riches.

  2. You control precisely one Doubling Season

You cast Contract Killing . . . 

You destroy target creature your foe controls. Now . . .  what happens?

Well, first, you’ll normally get two Treasure tokens from the Contract Killing, but with the Season out, you get four instead.

But, with the Revel in Riches, you’ll get another token from it, and that token also doubles. So a single Contract Killing will get you SIX Treasure tokens with just a single copy each of Revel and Season under your control.

You could try to find a way to play and replay the Contract Killing, with cards like Spellbinder that come to mind . . . 

Spellbinder

But, on the other hand, you can just ease back and easily get to ten Treasure tokens from there! You get two per death with the Revel out. Consider Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet. Tap it and slay something, and make some sweet, sexy Treasure tokens while also making a token creature that’ll be subject to another with the Doubling Season out. You’ll find a lot of these cool synergies out there both in this deck and elsewhere when you start digging.

So get your Treasure on! From Hunted Phantasm to Doubling Season to a simple Damnation, you can find a lot of awesome treasure from the depths with the Revel in Riches.

And that’s not all. We have lots of greats cards for your decks here! I know you’ll want to toss them out there for Magic-ing your friends at your next casual gaming night. What cards inspire you?

Ixalan is now available for Preorder! Pick up sealed product and singles as they're posted!

TAGS articles, casual, kitchen table, abe sargent, decklist, ixalan, #mtgxln, 09182017

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