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Main » Articles » 5 Decks You Can't Miss This Week

5 Decks You Can't Miss This Week

Carlos Gutierrez
Posted on January 10, 2014
 Reddit

This week we've got five decks across Standard, Modern, Legacy, and Commander. We'll start in Standard with a new take on Fog, then head into Modern to take a look a UR Snapcaster Mage Control deck and a Gifts Ungiven Rock deck. Last, we'll take a look at Legacy and Commander to see a new take on UW Control with Venser the Sojourner and an awesome Zirilan of the Claw Commander deck.

Sometimes three colors just aren't enough to keep up with the powerful devotion cards in Standard. When that happens, maybe it's time to go a little deeper. That's exactly what Ehhh has done, taking a Bant ramp deck and touching red for a powerful end game in Assemble the Legion. Let's take a closer look:

Four-Color Fog - Standard | ehhh, 4-0, Standard Daily Event

I like what this deck is doing in a world defined by Pack Rat. The combination of Elspeth or Assemble the Legion and Fog give you an awesome way to clog up the ground while you dig into your Supreme Verdicts and Detention Spheres. I also love Urban Evolution in Sphinx's Revelation decks, because it gives you something powerful to bridge the gap between Revelations for two or three and Revelations for five or six.

I also really like Bow of Nylea in this deck. We haven't seen this card show up a ton, but it really does give you a ton of inevitability and flexibility. You can shoot down Cloudfin Raptors, keep your life total out of the red zone, pump your tokens so they can trade up, or start recycling your Sphinx's Revelations and Fogs. Bow of Nylea does just a little of everything, accruing small advantages turn after turn, which is exactly what this deck is trying to do.

Basically, this deck is just executing the traditional control plan, but backed by powerful accelerants in the form of Sylvan Caryatid and Urban Evolution. These help you start resolving your Jaces and Sphinx's Revelations a few turns earlier, which is becoming increasingly critical in this aggressive, creature-oriented format.

No one loves control decks more than Andrew Cuneo, so it's exciting to see him take on a format where Control has been largely underplayed. How does Andrew approach building a control deck to fight against everything from Karn Liberated to Arcbound Ravager to Splinter Twin? Let's take a look at Andrew's take on Blue-Red Control:

[Cardlist Title= UR Control - Modern | Gainsay, 3-1 Modern Daily Event]

You can tell a lot about Modern by looking at the way that Andrew has built this control deck. After all, Andrew is the man who said that Elspeths and Aetherlings were training wheels in Standard Blue-White Control. Andrew prefers to win games with utter inevitability; things like Elixir of Immortality, for example. In this format, he's had to resort to playing Thudermaw Hellkites, which help him turn the corner and kill his opponents quickly in combination with Lightning Bolts backed by Snapcaster Mage.

It's bee a long time since we've seen a Vedalken Shackles control deck really put up a dominating performance in the Modern metagame, and I hope that this might signal a return of that strategy. When a format is as creature-oriented as most of Modern, it's just as awesome to be able to use Shackles to break up Splinter Twin or Melira, Sylvok Outcast combos as it is to use it to dominate the board against an aggressive deck.

I really like where this deck is situated, trying to fit right between the midrangey Jund variants and the Sphinx's Revelation control decks. This deck has essentially the same gameplan as the Spinter Twin decks in the format, tempoing out your opponent with tricky Blue and Red instants while you set up your end game. The key difference is that Andrew's deck has more space for control elements, but can't randomly win the game if his opponent taps out. Time will tell if that's an effective place to be in this format.

Gifts Ungiven is one of the coolest cards in Modern. No other card in Magic encourages the same kind of deckbuilding and intense decision-making as building an awesome Gifts deck. We've seen a couple of takes on Gifts Ungiven in Modern, but Lewis Laskin's newest take adds a few new and exciting cards. Let's take a look at his Gifts Rock deck:

Gifts Rock - Modern | lewlaswkin, 4-0 Modern Daily Event

This deck does a little bit of everything, which is exactly what I love. Sylvan Caryatid is an incredible inclusion to this style of deck, giving you additional fixing and acceleration as well as a 0/3 body against aggressive decks. This deck is all about casting an early Gifts Ungiven and using the advantage generated to either win the game outright or buy time to resolve another backbreaking Gifts.

Besides that, we've got a pretty standard take on the archetype. You have the Raven's Crime[card], [card]Tectonic Edge, Life from the Loam package to fight control decks with, Unburial Rites packages with various powerful creatures, and all kinds of Snapcaster Mage shenanigans. What I like most about this particular build is the use of Grave Titan over something like Sun Titan. Grave Titan does the same kind of thing, but gives you an immediate board presence, where Sun Titan frequently only rebuys a land. This makes Grave Titan a little better against both midrange decks with spot removal and aggro decks, since it floods the board with bodies.

One thing that's interesting is that Lewis has decided to play with Remands over additional discard spells. I tend to feel that the additional discard is better in Gifts piles and plays better with any additional copies of Snapcaster Mage or Eternal Witness that you may choose to run.

This deck is nothing if not flexible, and there is near infinite variations and alterations you could make to this list to adapt it for what you expect to play against. Anything from moving sweepers to the maindeck and adding Engineered Explosives to fitting in a Godo, Bandit Warlod so you can Unburial Rites a Batterskull into play; this deck can do it all.

What Planeswalker do you think of when you think of Legacy? Whatever your answer was, I doubt it was Blue-White Control for the Legacy format:

[Cardlist Title=UW Control - Legacy | Fizzeler, 3-1 Legacy Daily Event]

Interestingly enough, this deck looks a lot more like a Modern deck than a Legacy one. Using Venser, [card]Fiend Hunter" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Venser%2C+the+Sojourner%5Bcard%5D.+Fortunately+for+us%2C+that%27s+exactly+what+Fizzeler+brewed+up%3A+an+interesting+and+powerful+take+on+the+Blue-White+Planeswalker.+Let%27s+take+a+look+at+this+interesting+build+of+%3Ca+href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wizards.com%2FMagic%2FDigital%2FMagicOnlineTourn.aspx%3Fx%3Dmtg%2Fdigital%2Fmagiconline%2Ftourn%2F6569313%22+target%3D%22_blank%22%3EBlue-White+Control%3C%2Fa%3E+for+the+Legacy+format%3A%0D%0A%0D%0A%5BCardlist+Title%3DUW+Control+-+Legacy+%7C+Fizzeler%2C+3-1+Legacy+Daily+Event%5D%0D%0A%5BLands%5D%0D%0A2++Arid+Mesa%0D%0A1++Cavern+of+Souls%0D%0A3++Flooded+Strand%0D%0A1++Glacial+Fortress%0D%0A5++Island%0D%0A1++Karakas%0D%0A2++Mutavault%0D%0A4++Plains%0D%0A2++Scalding+Tarn%0D%0A1++Tundra%0D%0A%5B%2FLands%5D%0D%0A%5BCreatures%5D%0D%0A1++Fiend+Hunter%0D%0A1++Flickerwisp%0D%0A1++Glen+Elendra+Archmage%0D%0A3++Mulldrifter%0D%0A1++Phyrexian+Revoker%0D%0A3++Restoration+Angel%0D%0A2++Snapcaster+Mage%0D%0A3++Spellstutter+Sprite%0D%0A2++Vendilion+Clique%0D%0A1++Venser%2C+Shaper+Savant%0D%0A1++Wall+of+Omens%0D%0A%5B%2FCreatures%5D%0D%0A%5BSpells%5D%0D%0A4++Brainstorm%0D%0A1++Celestial+Flare%0D%0A3++Force+of+Will%0D%0A2++Jace%2C+the+Mind+Sculptor%0D%0A1++Oblivion+Ring%0D%0A2++Ponder%0D%0A4++Swords+to+Plowshares%0D%0A2++Venser%2C+the+Sojourner%0D%0A%5B%2FSpells%5D%0D%0A%5BSideboard%5D%0D%0A1++Celestial+Flare%0D%0A1++Counterspell%0D%0A1++Detention+Sphere%0D%0A1++Ethersworn+Canonist%0D%0A1++Force+of+Will%0D%0A1++Leonin+Relic-Warder%0D%0A2++Meddling+Mage%0D%0A1++Moat%0D%0A1++Oblivion+Ring%0D%0A1++Phyrexian+Revoker%0D%0A2++Rest+in+Peace%0D%0A2++Spell+Pierce%0D%0A%5B%2FSideboard%5D%0D%0A%5B%2FCardlist%5D%0D%0A%0D%0AInterestingly+enough%2C+this+deck+looks+a+lot+more+like+a+Modern+deck+than+a+Legacy+one.+Using+Venser%2C+%5Bcard%5DFiend+Hunter">Venser, the Sojourner[card]. Fortunately for us, that's exactly what Fizzeler brewed up: an interesting and powerful take on the Blue-White Planeswalker. Let's take a look at this interesting build of Blue-White Control for the Legacy format:

[Cardlist Title=UW Control - Legacy | Fizzeler, 3-1 Legacy Daily Event]

Interestingly enough, this deck looks a lot more like a Modern deck than a Legacy one. Using Venser, [card]Fiend Hunter, Restoration Angel, and Flickerwisp to blink value creatures like Mulldrifter and Snapcaster Mage doesn't seem like it should be fast enough when Legacy is dominated by Show and Tell and Stoneforge Mystic decks, and the value creature plan doesn't seem especially powerful against True-Name Nemesis.

The thing is, the Blue-White suite of answers is very powerful. It's hard to argue with Swords to Plowshares[card] and [card]Force of Will[card], especially backed by the powerful lategame of [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor. When you've got a ton of ways to control the early game and generate card advantage in the midgame, it's easy for your more powerful cards to just take over a game.

Restoration Angel seems especially impressive in this deck. She dominated Standard, is very good in Modern, and has seen top table play in Vintage, so it seems reasonable that she would be awesome in Legacy as well. What she really does is enable you to stall the board against aggressive decks while chipping in damage and generating value. Against something like Elves or Mono-White, you just play series of good blockers that generate cards, flicker them a few times, stall the board, and use Venser to make your team unblockable. Seems good to me.

Everyone loves to knock on Red in Commander. It's the color without a ton of card advantage, tutoring, or recursion, which are commonly considered the most powerful effects in the format. This week we've got an awesome deck that turns these ideas on their head and gives us a chance to see how the most powerful and iconic red cards in Magic hold up against the other colors. Get ready for some Dragons, because we're taking a look at VelociraptorAHH's build of Zirilan of the Claw:

[Cardlist title=Dragon Toolbox of Hatred - Commander | VelociraptorAHH]

I love all of the things this deck is going. You have a toolbox of Dragons that do powerful things, ways to recur them so Zirilan can tutor them up over and over again, all backed by the best ramp, removal, and recursion red has to offer. This deck a number of very powerful, very aggressive things and can very easily overwhelm a game with powerful Dragons.

So let's start with the end game, shall we? What happens when you start dropping Bogardan Hellkite and Dragon Tyrant into play every turn? It gets tough for opponents to really answer threats like that over and over, and the damage you get in each time they whiff on removal is pretty significant. Steel Hellkite and Hellkite Tyrant, and Knollspine Dragon give you pretty good ways to control the board and generate card advantage. The plan is to sacrifice your dragons before Zirilan exiles them, and then rebuy them with things like Elixir of Immortality and Reito Lantern.

The thing I like the most is that this deck can legitimately use Worldgorger Dragon. This card is most often just pure combo bait, but you can actually use it to protect yourself from sweepers and other removal. Just tutor up your Dragon, exile your board, and when your dragon dies you can get all your things back. Just be careful your opponents don't kill your dragon in response to the first trigger, otherwise your board is gone forever.

When the Dragon plan doesn't work, you've got the standard Red backup plan: artifacts. There aren't many colors that can abuse Spine of Ish Sah and Surveryer's Scope quite like the deck with Goblin Welder and Trash for Treasure, after all. And even Zirilan backed up with powerful equipment like the various Swords of Protection and Value can get pretty scary pretty fast.

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TAGS articles, standard, current events, deck lists, legacy, decks, commander, modern, carlos gutierrez, 5 decks

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