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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 January 12, 2013
 Reddit

Welcome back to Decks You Can’t Miss! This week, we have five more awesome decks for you to take a look at. Since Grand Prix: Atlantic City is this weekend, let’s start with a Standard tokens list that goes way over the top of most Standard decks:

[Cardlist Title=Junk Tokens – Standard| The_Co, 3-1 Standard Daily Event]

The_Co went 3–1 in a Standard Daily Event with this seventy-five, featuring a number of the cards you might expect from this kind of archetype as well as a few real gems. Lingering Souls and Intangible Virtue are par for the course. Midnight Haunting and Gather the Townsfolk aren’t too surprising either. But how about Druids' Repository?

Druids' Repository is actually pretty insane in this deck. There aren’t many sweepers being played in Standard, so you’ll have plenty of chances to charge up your Repository. That, in turn, lets you fight through counterspells by casting multiple spells in a turn or power through board stalls thanks to the flashback on Increasing Devotion. The lack of Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and Vault of the Archangel main-decked means you’ll have a tough time against things like mono-red, but by the same token, the density of bomby cards such as Collective Blessing means you can break board stalls wide open.



The next list is a variant on a staple of the Pauper format. U/R Cloudpost has been a solid Tier 1 deck since the printing of Glimmerpost, largely due to its flexibility and powerful late game. The Cloudpost mirror is generally considered among the most grindy, miserable matchups in the format, and unfortunately, there aren’t many ways to break the mirror. Until now:

[Cardlist Title=G/U Post Combo – Pauper|Shaffawaffa5, 3–1 Pauper Daily Event]

Shaffawaffa5’s list is exciting for a couple of reasons. The density of cantrip effects and tutors means you can assemble the Cloudpost engine more consistently. This lets you cast more spells and draw more cards and end the chain with a Temporal Fissure. This is devastating in any attrition-based matchup, particularly the mirror, in which Temporal Fissure for just two or three can shut your opponent out of the game.

This edge in the attrition mirrors come at a cost, however. Without red removal like Flame Slash, your aggro matchups are much worse. Shaffawaffa5 tries to mitigate this with a plethora of cheap roadblocks such as Oona's Gatewarden and Moment's Peace. Similarly, the lack of countermagic takes away from your combo matchup, but if you can stall these strategies enough to resolve a Temporal Fissure, you might be able to steal the game regardless.



It’s an exciting time to be playing Modern. The format is dominated by Jund, which is less interesting, but the presence of a top-tier deck gives people something to metagame against. That leads to some awesome brews:

[Cardlist Title=W/B/R Midrange – Modern| walshi4life, Fourteenth in Magic Online PTQ 01/05]

Walshi4Life’s list has many of the same tools that Jund does, which gives it game against the bulk of the format. Lingering Souls, cheap discard, and Dark Confidant will just steal games, while Basilisk Collar plus Mortarpod help you grind out other midrangey creatures decks.

This also gives you access to Restoration Angel over Bloodbraid Elf, which could certainly be an upgrade. It has flash and bigger stats, and it turns Blade Splicer into a brick wall against creature decks—like Jund.

One thing that does surprise me is that there’s no Sword of Feast and Famine in Walshi4Life’s deck. Steelshaper's Gift lets you find the Sword when you want it, and the card seems very good against the unfair decks and Jund when it’s backed by cheap disruption and aggressive creatures.



This deck is even more exciting because a number of players have been consistently going 3–1 and 4–0 in Daily Events with similar lists. We already knew that Bant Poison was a powerful player in the metagame, but what about mono-black Poison?

[Cardlist Title=Deckname – Modern| _XuXa_, 4-0 Modern Daily Event]

This list is awesome. Who would have thought you’d see a deck playing four Howltooth Hollow crushing Daily Events? Looking at the list, though, it’s built on very sound principles. The abundance of cheap removal and discard give you game against the entirety of the format. You have two of the most resilient threats in the format—Phyrexian Crusader and Inkmoth Nexus—plus the ability to kill out of nowhere with Runechanter's Pike.

I mean, let’s be honest. How many decks are prepared for Wrench Mind as a Hymn to Tourach? How does combo handle Inquisition of Kozilek into Wrench Mind into Raven's Crime plus retrace? How many answers does Jund have for a Phyrexian Crusader?

This deck has been doing very well recently, and it’s no surprise why. It attacks the metagame from a unique and interesting angle, while still doing something powerful, efficient, and proactive. That’s a recipe for success if I’ve ever seen one.



We've also got a sweet Commander deck for the week. This one was provided by @yugular_mp, and all of the potential interactions have me absolutely giddy. Yugular’s deck is led by Karona, False God, and the goal is to Voltron her up and bash some faces in. The interesting part is how he turns Karona’s downside into a powerful tool to kill opponents more quickly:

[Cardlist Title=Karona Voltron – Commander| Yugular_mp]

  • Commander (0)

You can discuss the deck with Yugular on Twitter or on the Pauper to the People forums. This deck uses cards such as Ghostly Prison and Vow of Wildness to make sure Karona will be bashing other players. This means that you’re effectively gaining extra combat steps when you give Karona to other players. I love decks that are built to take advantage of the disadvantages of cards, and this definitely fits the bill.

There are a lot of the splashy cards you’d expect at the top of the curve and plenty of utility spells, but let’s take some time to look at some of the interactions. Homeward Path lets you take back your Karona in the middle of someone else’s turn or even combat step. In addition, you have Unquestioned Authority—to make sure Karona never becomes chumped—as well as Totem-Guide Hartebeest and Sovereigns of Lost Alara—to tutor up whatever Aura is most appropriate.

The interesting thing is that, unlike a lot of Voltron strategies, there’s a lot of flexibility to be had in this shell. You’ll need a requisite number of cards that discourage your opponents from turning Karona against you, but besides that, you don’t have to dedicate many slots to increasing your damage output because you get so many extra combat steps. This deck is very unique, and it’s something I’m very excited to start exploring.



That’s all we have for this week. Once again, be sure to let us know what you think. Do you like what we’re doing? Wish we were covered a particular format more? Let us know what kind of decks you’d like to see more of by leaving a comment or tweeting @GatheringMagic on Twitter.

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, current events, deck lists, decks, commander, modern, pauper, brew

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