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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 September 7, 2013
 Reddit

The Theros previews have started rolling in, but we've still got a few weeks before we get to play with them in earnest. In the meantime, we've got five awesome decks ranging from Standard to Legacy featuring Time Warps, Maze's End, Amulet of Vigor, and more! Let's go ahead and get started.

We've seen a couple of attempts at Fog decks in this Standard format. The combination of Sphinx's Revelation and Urban Evolution are incredible at powering the decks that just want to chain card drawing spells into Fog and Elixir of Immortality. We've also seen Maze's End decks, mostly using Maze's End as a Thawing Glaciers effect. What happens when we mash the two together? That's what Convo tried for this Standard Daily Event:

Maze's End - Standard | Convo, 3-1 Standard Daily Event

That is thirty-one lands, twenty of which are Guildgates. Why such a high land count? Because you never want to miss a land drop. Every time you play a Gate, you're one land closer to winning with Maze's End. Your high land count ensures that you hit more often than not with Into the Wilds and practically guarantees that you'll hit your extra land drop off of Urban Evolution.

So how do you buy yourself enough time to hit ten Guildgates? There are a full twelve Fog effects in the maindeck, plus Cyclonic Rift and Terminus for backup. Other builds run thing like Warleader's Helix to get out of burn range; Hellrider in particular is especially problematic for the Fog builds. Potentially Snapcaster Mage is an awesome inclusion if you go the Warleader's Helix route, since you can Snapcaster both Warleader's Helix and Urban Evolution.

I really do think that there is room to trim a few of the basic lands in favor of cards like Sphinx's Revelation or Crackling Perimeter, to help make sure you get through the mid game and get to start activating your Maze's End and win the game. You could also try moving some of the copies of Assemble the Legion to the maindeck, since you can fog your way to four or more counters and just take over the game from there.

Two weeks ago, we took a look at Farfishere's Time Warp combo deck featuring Extraplanar Lens and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. That deck was pretty awesome, but has some clunky pieces that make it difficult to hit a critical mass of mana. Farfishere has continued tinkering with the deck, and has gotten the deck to a pretty sweet place. Let's take a look at where his deck has ended up:

[Cardlist Title= Time Warp Combo - Modern | Farfishere, 3-1 Modern Daily Event]

Farfishere has tuned this deck into a more efficient combo machine. You've got Serum Visions to set up Temporal Mastery and dig for Howling Mines or Jace, as well as Sleight of Hand to sculpt your draws.

You still have your suite of effectively sixteen Time Warps. Temporal Mastery plays double duty as an Explore in the early game, while Walk the Aeons lets you start really chaining turns together in the late game. Cryptic Command isn't really a Time Walk, but it's just as good against the Creature decks of the format, and it's not very likely that control decks are going to be able to do much if you have to pass the turn once or twice.

The most exciting change to the deck is that Farfishere cut Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Extraplaner Lens for a more streamlined combo kill in the form of Laboratory Maniac. This lets you cut the top end of your deck and provides a much more stable mana base, since you can't get randomly Stone Rained with the Lens.

One of the things I'm most interested in seeing in future builds of this deck is some number of Shelldock Isle. It's possible that the "Enters the battlefield tapped" lands mess with your curve too much, but it seems like it'd make it much easier to ensure that you can finish comboing once you start taking extra turns.

Modern is a format defined by Cryptic Command and Deathrite Shaman, right? It's a format where Birthing Pod and Splinter Twin are perfectly reasonable combo decks, and you can reasonably expect to live until turn three or four. Alternatively, you can just cast Primeval Titan on turn two. Check out the most recent take on the Amulet of Vigor combo decks:

Amulet Combo - Modern | Spanky_kc, 4-0 Modern Daily Event

So how exactly does this deck work? The deck is built around Amulet of Vigor in conjunction with Selesnya Sanctuary-esque bouncelands. The lands come into play tapped, you get any Amulet triggers, generate some mana, and pick up your Bounceland. Then you add in extra land drops with cards like Summer Bloom and Azusa, Lost but Seeking to generate huge amounts of mana in the first few turns of the game.

Once you cast Primeval Titan with Amulet of Vigor in play, things really get started. Prime Time fetching untapped lands is incredibly unfair, and this deck is truly poised to take advantage. You can start by fetching Boros Garrison and Slayer's Stronghold to haste up your titan and attack again. You can fetch Tolaria West and a bounceland to generate some mana and put Tolaria West into your hand. From there you can transmute for Summoner's Pact and fetch up another titan. Some builds go as far as to play Mosswort Bridge to give you more to cast free Primeval Titans.

The secret to this deck is knowing how to maximize the value of your bouncelands in conjunction with extra land drops. You can use them to get extra activations out of Slayer's Stronghold, or to reset Vesuva andGlimmerposts, or to rebuy a different bounceland to fix your colored mana situation.

All told, this is a very complex deck with a very high skill-cap, but it's a ton of fun to watch in action. You have some of the best game ones in the format, and the opportunity to sideboard into the Hivemind plus Pacts combo in subsequent games, or to just value your opponent to death with Rampaging Baloths. All told, this is a super fun deck with a very high skill-cap, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it continues to develop.

As combo continues to dominate Legacy, we've started to see a rise of various Chalice of the Void prison decks. Normally these decks function by trying to cast turn one Chalice of the Void using Mox Diamond or Ancient Tomb, and then follow up with additional prison pieces like Tangle Wire, Trinisphere, or Wasteland. Waterwho has a deck that gets to do all that while beating down with a turn two Lodestone Golem! Let's check out his take on Legacy MUD:

[Cardlist Title= MUD - Legacy| Waterwho, 3-1 Legacy Daily Event]

A deck like this is particularly powerful against the various tempo decks of the format. All of your Thorn of Amethysts and Tangle Wires make it so that they can't realistically cast spells. In the meantime, you're jamming Wurmcoil Engine or turn three. Seems fair, right? You also have an awesome game against combo, because you're basically pre-boarding all of your combo hate. Chalice of the Void on one all but shuts down Dredge and significantly slows down Show and Telldecks , and Chalice for zero is frequently game against Tendrils of Agony decks.

This is another deck that benefits greatly from the Magic 2014 Legend rule. Now additional Mox Opals act as Lotus Petals in the early turns, giving you more opportunities to jam lock pieces early on. Since Mox Opal helps generate colored mana, you could hate on combo and tempo a little more by playing additional white sources like Karakas and Ancient Den so that you could have Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.

To me, one of the most impressive cards in this deck is Precursor Golem. There aren't a ton of matchups where it's awesome, since Swords to Plowshares and Lightning Bolt are fairly ubiquitous in Legacy, but when you run into someone who doesn't have those, it's on. You can realistically cast a disruption spell on turn one, followed by nine power worth of creatures on turn two. There aren't many other decks in Legacy that can boast that.

Sometimes Commander turns into an arms race of sorts. People either start trying to go underneath one another, with faster combos and more efficient answers, or start trying to go bigger with more enormous and resilient threats. Sometimes you don't want to bother with the arms race; you just want to kill people. That's exactly what Gisela, Blade of Goldnight is awesome at doing; she doubles all damage dealt to your opponents, not just your damage; this means that the game is going to end in a hurry if she stays on the board. Let's take a look at how Andretgv sets up Gisela:

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight - Commander | Andretgv

There are a few really awesome things going on here. First and foremost, Basandra, Battle Seraph was made to team up with Gisela. Your opponents have to attack; but if they attack you their damage is halved? Seems like a good place to be to me. That's really the interesting thing about Gisela decks, is that the effect of any incidental damage or damage prevention becomes a really big deal. Orim's Thunder because a Lava Axe with value; Lightmine Field becomes a Moat. The real advantage of Gisela is that she's one of the most powerful, subtle rattlesnakes we've seen recently.

Additionally, you can just kill people out of nowhere. Gratuitous Violence and Furnace of Rath quadruple that damage being dealt to your opponents. Combined that kind of damage output, effects like Sword of Fire and Ice, Sword of War and Peace, or Inferno Titan go from "very good" to "end the game on the spot"

Two of the most exciting cards in Andretgv's deck are Bonfire of the Damned and Entreat the Angels. Miracles can be frustrating in competitive formats, but in Commander they make for the kind of epic moments that the games are all about.

Depending on how aggressive you feel like getting, cards like Sulfuric Vortex, Manabarbs, and Burning Earth are all easily abused with Gisela. You get to effectively shut off the damage from these cards - remember that damage to you is halved, rounded down - while your opponents are taking double - this time rounded up. It quickly becomes very difficult for your opponent to cast spells while you're still at a very healthy life total and have giant monsters in play. Sounds like a great time to me!

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

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