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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 November 23, 2013
 Reddit

Another week, five new decks to take a look at. This week we've got a pair of awesome new devotion decks from Standard that ramp up to Angel of Serenity and Sphinx's Revelation. Moving on into Eternal formats, we've got two Land-based decks in Modern and Legacy that I"m very excited about. Finally, we're rounding the week out by starting our investigation of Commander 2013 Legends with a great Shattergang Brothers deck. Let's get started:

Devotion in Standard is nothing new, but White has been sort of left out of the Nykthos shenanigans. Curving Precint Captain into Boros Reckoner seems pretty good, but the question is what to do with your devotion - what's the Master of Waves or Gray Merchant for white decks? That's the question that Barbajoue is looking to answer with his take on Mono-White:

Mono-White Devotion - Standard | Barbajoue, 2nd Place MTGO Standard Event

What I like about this deck is that, preboard, it's a no nonsense White creature deck that goes over the top of other midrangey aggro decks. Instead of your curve topping out with Frontline Medic, you go all the way up to Elspeth and Angel of Serenity to trump the creature mirrors. What's more, you have multiple mana sinks like Heliod and his Spear as additional mechanisms of leveraging your excess mana.

After sideboarding, you can become less of a linear tap-out deck and add suites of answers that are appropriate for the matchup. Because you're playing black lands maindeck, you can have Thoughtseize for Sphinx's Revelation decks, Doom Blade for creature decks, and Blood Baron of Vizkopa for random aggro decks.

All told, this is basically just a White aggro deck that has a huge edge in creature mirrors because it uses Nykthos to go big. You can still just curve out and steal games, but now you've got a mana engine and curve that just smash the popular aggressive decks.

We've seen a couple of takes on Green-Red and Green-Blue ramp decks in this format, largely focusing on the interaction between Voyaging Satyr and Nykothos, Shrine to Nix. This mana engine lets you power out enormous creatures and dominate the board with monstrosities like Polukranos and Arbor Colossus. What happens if you put that mana into Sphinx's Revelation instead? That's what Wirecat wants to find out:

[Cardlist Title= Bant Devotion - Standard | Wirecat, 1st Place MTGO Standard Event]

When you see four copies of Prophet of Kruphix, you know something sweet has to be going on. Wirecat is trying to do a lot of awesome things with this deck, using mana creatures and Nykthos to power out enormous fatties on his turn and Sphinx's Revelations on his opponent's turns. This deck is nothing if not ambitious, but sometimes that's exactly what the format calls for.

Honestly, the thing that I find most surprising about this deck is that you're only playing two Nykthos and two Voyaging Station. I would have thought you'd play three of the Legendary land and four Satyrs in your big mana deck. Fundamentally, even if this deck is trying to play a more controlling role, it's still a big mana deck that wants to ramp into things like Plasm Capture and Primeval Bounty.

If your idea of going big is casting Sphinx's Revelation for 10 instead of Arbor Colossus, this seems like a pretty good place to start.

Seismic Assault is one of the decks in Modern that is very difficult to play but can be very rewarding. Players like Jabberwocki have taken down multiple large events with ]Life from the Loam online, and have more than proven that the deck is viable. But what happens when you add Young Pyromancer to the mix?

Pyromancer Loam - Modern | Swine Flu, 1st Place MTGO Modern Event

The problem with Loam decks in Modern has always been that it's hard to close games. In the early game you exchange a flurry of discard and other interactive spells, then use Life from the Loam to attrition your opponent out of the game. The problem is that you only have a couple of manlands, Tarmogoyfs, and Seismic Assaults to really end a game.

Now, you have Young Pyromancer[/car] in the [card]Dark Confidant slot, serving as a way to bridge your early and late game plans. When you're going to cast at least Life from the Loam every turn, Young Pyromancer lets you chump Tarmogoyf forever or even get your beatdown going early in the game.

Young Pyromancer is also a way better topdeck than Dark Confidant late in the game. In just one turn you can cast Life from the Loam, as well as a couple of retrace spells and assemble a small army and threaten to put the game out of your opponent's reach, where Dark Confidant would just be threatening to draw a few cards.

I don't know if this is the direction Loam decks should be taking in the future, but it's certainly an interesting variation that I'm excited to try out.

When the Legend rule changed, a new Dark Depths combo was introduced to Legacy. Suddenly, you could use Thespian's Stage to make an uncounterable, instant-speed Marit Lage. The problem is that we still haven't found the best shell for that combo, so it's taken a back seat to things like Show and Tell and Ad Nauseam. But that doesn't mean that Dark Depths isn't good enough for Legacy. Let's take a look at this build by Phil3579:

[Cardlist Title=Dark Depths - Legacy | Phil3579, 2nd Place MTGO Legacy Event]

There are a lot of things that I like about this deck. You've got plenty of discard to disrupt combo opponents or get rid of your opponent's Stifles. You have Sensei's Divining Top to help dig to your twelve combo pieces and Gitaxian Probe to see if the way is clear. You even have Crucible of Worlds to recur combo pieces. This deck is very proactive and does exactly two things. It stops your opponent from winning or interacting and makes Marit Lage.

I'm surprised that there are zero copies of either Expedition Map or Wasteland in Phil's deck. It seems like, if you're already playing Crucible of Worlds, Wasteland is a good way to keep greedy three- and four-color decks from interacting with you. Besides, if you played a few Expedition Maps instead of Sensei's Divining Tops and Thespian's Stage, you'd only have to play one or two copies of Wasteland. Of course, then you'd be more hesitant to use Pithing Needle on Wasteland to protect your combo, but that's a choice I think I'd be comfortable making.

I'm also a little surprised to see zero copies of Liliana of the Veil. Dark Ritual into Liliana seems incredibly powerful in a deck that basically just wants to deny its opponent spells. Liliana will eat away at your opponents resources while you assemble your combo, and gives you a way to protect yourself from Nimble Mongoose and such out of the tempo decks.

All in all, I really like this deck in Legacy right now. You've got a cheap, resilient combo backed by quite a bit of disruption, and I think that means that you should be favored against other fast combo decks. You may have a little more trouble in the aggressive matchups where you're under more pressure and your hand disruption is less effective, but more and more Legacy is shifting away from creatures and towards Show and Tell and Dark Ritual.

Now that we'e given you some time to get in some games with the new Legends from Commander 2013, it's time to start seeing what the new guys can do. The first Commander I'm excited to take a look at is the Shattergang Brothers. These guys seemed like a sweet way to generate synergy, card advantage, and board control all at once, and those are three of my favorite things. Today's list comes from Steamsteam on MTGSalvation:

[Cardlist title=Shattergang Brothers - Commander | Steamsteam]

There are a lot of cool things going on here, and the exciting thing is that this is just scratching the surface. You've got the usual suspects for a sacrifice-themed deck like Reassembling Skeleton, Skullclamp, and Spitebellow, backed by some ramp, recursion, and Wheel of Fortune effects. That's already a recipe for success.

But then we also get to consider that some of your lands are removal spells. Blinkmoth Nexus can kill either creatures or artifacts, and we could play additional copies of Mishra's Factory, Inkmoth Nexus, and even Crucible of Worlds if we wanted to go even deeper on that theme. Of course, we could also play more manlands like Mutavault or Artifact Lands like Darksteel Citadel if one type is more problematic than the other.

What I like most about this deck is its ability to consistently find and sacrifice Mindslicer. So few decks are prepared to just discard their entire hand early in the game. Once you hit them with Mindslicer once, this deck is built to recur Mindslicer to make sure your opponents don't topdeck out of the situation. On top of all of that, the Jund color combination is one of the best at topdeck wars, since so many of your cards are great utility answers and powerful threats.

Last, I just love how this deck is capable of converting all of its cards into valuable resources. Shattergang Brothers turn all of your cards into removal, but things like Blood Artist, Trading Post, and Shivan Harvest let you convert those into other resources as well. This ensures that you always have something to do with your mana and some way to interact profitably with the gamestate.

What are some of your cards and interactions for Shattergang Brothers decks?

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

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