facebook

CoolStuffInc.com

MTG Universes Beyond Fallout available now!
   Sign In
Create Account

Frozen Stiff

Reddit

At the beginning of Shadows over Innistrad Standard, we saw a crazy Blue-Red Pyromancer's Goggles deck. The deck utilized Pyromancer's Goggles to generate card advantage off of Magmatic Insight and Tormenting Voice as well as board advantage with Fiery Temper and Lightning Axe. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen much of the deck in recent weeks, but Eldritch Moon may change some of that. Ross Merriam has a new take on the Blue-Red Control archetype that eschews the slow, flashy engine of Pyromancer's Goggles for the raw efficiency of Goblin Dark-Dwellers:


On the face of it, this deck looks very similar to the Grixis decks we saw during Shadows over Innistrad Standard. The backbone of the deck is just efficient removal backed by Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Goblin Dark-Dwellers. The key difference here is the inclusion of three new cards from Eldritch Moon that allow you to play straight Blue-Red rather than splashing Black.

The big reasons to splash Black were for the inclusion of cards like Read the Bones, Painful Truths, Languish, and Ruinous Path. Effectively, you picked up better card selection spells, more versatile removal spells, and even a win condition in Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. So what are the pickups that make these effects less desirable? First, let’s start with the big winners: Take Inventory and Galvanic Bombardment. These two cards give you the ability to churn through your deck and efficiently deal with threats all the way up to Reality Smasher.

The key to this engine is that you can use Tormenting Voice and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy to get the first copies of these effects out of the way without having to invest in casting the cards. This means that you can cycle through your deck looking for the second, third, and fourth copy while making them more effective. Additionally, when you rebuy these cards with Goblin Dark-Dwellers and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, you can cast Take Inventory for three and four cards more than once per game.

Then there’s the question of closing out games. Right now, Standard is about going wide. That makes Niblis of Frost an incredible win condition. If you can cast it on turn five or six with one or two spells up, you’re pretty safe from a card like Dromoka's Command or Grasp of Darkness. Not only that, but each removal spell you cast before combat gets to deal with two creatures, since you’ll kill one and tap another. All of this while pumping your Niblis of Frost so that you can get aggressive and close the game out.

As long as the format is all about cheap creatures and efficient interaction, this deck seems like a fantastic choice. If you can get your Take Inventory engine revving, you get to cast all the most efficient removal and keep the cards flowing, which is exactly what you want to be doing against the likes of Bant Company and Human variants.


Order Eldritch Moon at CoolStuffInc.com today!

Limited time 30% buy trade in bonus buylist