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Main » Articles » Five Decks You Can't Miss This Week

Five Decks You Can't Miss This Week

Carlos Gutierrez
Posted on May 4, 2013
 Reddit

Welcome back! This is the weekend of the Dragon's Maze Prerelease, and that means this is the first week where we've got the whole set to look at. People are starting to explore which cards they think will make an impact on their favorite constructed formats, and we're going to get some awesome decks out of it. Let's start off in Standard:

It takes something pretty powerful to create an entirely new archetype in an eternal format. Jarvis thinks that Beck // Call is enough to make Combo Elves a thing in Modern, and he's not the only one. Beck // Call is a two-mana Glimpse of Nature, and while Modern doesn't have Wirewood Symbiote or Green Sun's Zenith, Glimpse changes everything. Let's look at the list from his article.

"Beck Elves - Modern | Jarvis Yu"

Summoner's Pact is just as good as Green Sun's Zenith as long as you finish the game that turn. Pact and Ranger of Eos are awesome for setting up your mana engine of Nettle Sentinel plus Heritage Druid. If you've already got your mana engine, you can tutor up an Elvish Visionary to go with your Cloudstone Curio for more mana and card drawing. One you've generated a ton of mana, cards, and Elves, you can use Regal Force [and Craterhoof Behemoth to put the game out of reach.

At first glance, it seems like one of the big problems for this deck is that it doesn't have a backup plan. This deck isn't as resilient or explosive as the Legacy builds, and so discard hitting Beck // Call or removal for Heritage Druid can leave your deck a little anemic. It's possible that this deck wants Elvish Archdruid and other Lords just as a way to put your guys out of Pyroclasm range and give you a way to grind out games if you can't combo.

Mana Drain is a card that has defined Vintage for a very long time. People have been using the Mana Drain to power out Mindslavers and Tezzeret, the Seekers well before they are due to hit play, and take over games by cheating on mana.

Plasm Capture is no Mana Drain, but it does a pretty good impression. Here's Josh Silvestri's first take on Bant with Plasm Capture:

"Plasm Capture Bant - Standard | Josh Silvestri

Besides mana cost, the most important distinction between Mana Drain and Plasm Capture is that Plasm Capture generates colored mana, and that's something Josh is very happy to take advantage of.

This is a deck fundamentally built around Plasm Capture. You want to use Farseek and mana dorks to accelerate into it and counter the first thing you can that costs a reasonable amount. Then you get to do absurd things like untap and Thragtusk plus Restoration Angel, or cast turn four Angel of Serenity. Maybe you "just" untap and cast a giant Sphinx's Revelation. And all of that is possible if you counter a Boros Reckoner. Just imagine countering a Thragtusk or Sphinx's Revelation will let you do.

No matter what you're doing with it, Plasm Capture seems like a way to break some of the midrangey Thragtusk matchups by letting you accelerate into the late game. You either get to cheat in one of your late game bombs or accelerate into a double spell turn that puts you very far ahead in the midgame.

One thing is for sure, Plasm Capture enables some incredibly powerful sequences, and I can't wait to see what comes of it.

Bant Auras is a deck that has stayed on the fringe of the Standard metagame ever since Jon Stern took down Grand Prix Atlantic City back in January. That deck is poised to make somewhat of a comeback with Unflinching Courage in Dragon's Maze, but that's not the deck I want to talk about this week.

The deck I want to focus on is one built by TCGPlayer writer, Anthony Lowry and featured in a video deck tech by Frank Lepore. Anthony's deck is similar to Bant Auras, but with an important distinction. Let's look at the deck that Anthony took Anthony to second in his PTQ, and his friend to first:

[Cardlist title="UWR Auras - Standard | Anthony Lowry, 2nd Place PTQ]

So here's the big question: what does Red do for you that Green doesn't? Green provides The answer looks to be that red is a little more all-in, but lets you be more aggressive. Furor of the Bitten and Madcap Skills turn Invisible Stalker into a very fast clock. These extra auras mean that you can just mulligan into a threat and you're almost guaranteed to have one or two auras to build your own Dragon.

There are two other big edges to playing Red over Green. The first is Boros Charm. Suddenly Supreme Verdict doesn't trump your strategy anymore. That's huge. Boros Charm gives you resiliency to sweepers and two ways to force through the last few points of damage, either by making bad attacks or just going to the dome. The other big addition is Slayer's Stronghold. This is yet another card that helps you force through the last few points of damage. Just imagine hasting up a Geist of Saint Traft after a sweeper.

This seems like a very powerful twist on an existing deck, and certainly one to keep in mind post Dragon's Maze

Our last competitive deck is a Legacy deck built by none other than Luis Scott-Vargas himself. Luis assembled a sweet Blue-Red combo deck with a Counterbalance engine as backup. Let's take a look at the deck that he 3-1'd a Legacy Daily Event with in this video:

[Cardlist title="UR Helm Combo - Legacy | lsv, 3-1 Legacy Daily EVent]

Let's start with the combo. You're trying to assemble Helm of Awakening and two Sensei's Divining Tops. That will let you cycle through your two Tops for infinite storm, and then you can Grapeshot your opponent out.

While you're trying to assemble your combo, you can buy time with value creatures, countermagic, and Counterbalance. Your control engine gives you game against Combo. Your combo kill lets you sidestep the aggro decks. Your Accumulated Knowledge and redundancy let you force through your combo against the control decks of the format.

One of the strengths and weaknesses of the deck is that it's trying to do so much. When you draw the right pieces of your deck against the right opponents, then you've got a game on your hands. It kind of looks like this is two distinct decks that are mashed together. The first is a traditional Blue-based Counterbalance deck with Accumulate Knowledge for the control mirrors.

The second is a little more unique and seems like it could be a new direction to explore. That deck looks like an Ancient Tomb-based combo deck built around Trinket Mage and Helm of Awakening. Maybe we can shoehorn the Helm of Awakening and Helm of Obedience/Rest in Piece or Painter's Servant/Grindstone combos into the same deck and just jam combo pieces until your opponent is dead.

Last week we started looking at Dragon's Maze Legends with Andrew Wilson's Melek, Izzet Paragon deck. This week we're going counter crazy with Vorel of the Hull Clade. Doubling counters is a very powerful ability, and I can't wait to see what kind of Vorel interactions people come up with. Let's start with Danissimus's build of Vorel:

Vorel of the Hull Clade - Commander | Danissimus

This deck is some kind of awesome. What I like about this deck is that almost every card is built to interact with Vorel in some way. From lands like Hickory Woodlot, protection like Plaxcaster Frogling, and win conditions like Darksteel Reactor, Vorel is taken into consideration at every level of deckbuilding.

I also like that this deck is built in such a way that Vorel can provide just about every concievable resource you could possibly need. Mana? Fertilid and Everflowing Chalice. Cards? Zameck Guildmage. Life? Eternity Vessel. You even get to turn counters into removal with cards like Suncrusher and Woodfall Primus.

You'd think that a deck that is this focused on abusing its Commander would fall apart if their Commander is countered or tucked, but I don't think that's true here. Sure, your engine becomes much slower, but this deck is certainly capable of grinding games out with graft and prolierate if Vorel gets answered. The short of it is that this deck has access to just about every resource you could need, plenty of ways to interact meaningfully and go over the top of other players, and does awesome things like power out gigantic Orochi Hatcherys and draw a billion cards by doubling up on Myojin of Seeing Winds. Who could want anything more?

Of course, that's not the end of the Vorel interactions. We could always try Etched Oracle, Simic Manipulator, Champion of Lambholt, and Wild Beastmaster. And those are just to start! There are so many potential interactions with Vorel that I'm sure it'll take a good long while before we've fully explored the options.

Order Dragon's Maze singles and boxes today!

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, current events, deck lists, legacy, commander, modern, carlos gutierrez, decks of the week

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