It has been a while since my last article, which was kind of irrelevant and late. I would let people know about the Super IQ happening this weekend, but I’m not exactly sure what I’m playing yet. I have some decks in mind that I might want to play. I will not be playing in the Legacy event, but I will be playing in the Standard event. So here are some of the decks I have been contemplating.
The first deck that comes to mind is a combination of the two decks that I wanted to play.
U/R Delver
| Creatures (13) 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Snapcaster Mage 3 Vexing Devil 2 Grim Lavamancer Spells (24) 4 Brimstone Volley 4 Galvanic Blast 4 Incinerate 4 Shrine of Burning Rage 4 Ponder 4 Thunderous Wrath Lands (23) 4 Sulfur Falls 2 Desolate Lighthouse 1 Evolving Wilds 9 Island 7 Mountain | Sideboard (15) 4 Mana Leak 2 Ancient Grudge 2 Combust 4 Pillar of Flame 3 Surgical Extraction |
The deck basically looks like Red Deck Wins with a splash of blue for some card draw and counterspells. Well, that’s the same mentality I had when I built it. To me, it was already a good deck, but I didn’t think it was good enough to beat the other decks that weren’t aggro or midrange. This deck reminds me of the Legacy burn decks that splashed blue for Brainstorm. Red Deck Wins is good but sometimes runs out of pressure; the blue provides that extra bit of damage needed to kill your opponent, by drawing and searching for cards with the Ponders. The Ponders aren’t the only blue cards in here. In fact, a vital win condition is Delver in this deck.
If you aren’t winning with burn, a flipped Delver usually does the job. I had a hard time putting in the Thunderous Wraths, because they would only be good Miracled, with only 23 land, it would almost never get hard casted. But Thunderous Wrath is 5 damage for 1 red—that is insane. It will flip a delver and potentially win the game. The Vexing Devils are 1 red, deal 4 damage basically every time you play it; enough said. The Desolate Lighthouse lands are just a bonus card, but they draw cards and feed Lavamancers. Seems good.
The last little bit I want to say about this deck is the sideboard. I put the Combust in for specifically for Angel of Jubilation and White Human cards like Hero of Bladehold. The Pillar of Flames are also specifically for cards like Strangleroot Geist, but it kills the majority of the cards in the RG Aggro decks.
The next deck I would like to introduce is a deck my friend has been testing and the results have been pretty good.
B/W Tokens
| Creatures (13) 4 Champion of the Parish 4 Doomed Traveler 2 Hero of Bladehold 3 Angel of Jubilation Spells (23) 2 Go for the Throat 3 Midnight Haunting 4 Gather the Townsfolk 4 Lingering Souls 2 Oblivion Rings 4 Honor of the Pure 4 Intangible Virtue Lands (24) 13 Plains 4 Swamp 3 Vault of the Archangel 4 Isolated Chapel | Sideboard (14) 3 Celestial Purge 2 Riders of Gavony 2 Nihil Spellbomb 3 Revoke Exisitance 2 Shrine of Loyal Legions 2 Timely Reinforcments |
This deck doesn’t have many new additions to it, but the very few that it does have makes the token deck that much better. The Angel of Jubilation is another anthem effect and it stops stuff like Dismember and Corrosive Gales from being splashed in certain decks. It’s also a 3/3 flyer. Bonus! The other cards are just traditional to the tokens deck, but they are still good. Another addition to this deck is in the sideboard the 2 Riders of Gavony, which provide all your humans with protection from any creature type and when the deck is running 16 humans, after you side them in, it’s pretty relevant, especially against R/G Aggro.
This next deck is an upgraded version of a Frites deck and a control deck except the colors are slightly different.
R/W/B Frites
Now this deck is a little odd to me because I believe you can’t have the best of both worlds in this deck. The deck to me looks more like a control deck than Frites. I personally don’t like Torch Fiend in any deck except maybe Red Deck Wins and only as a 2 of in that deck. The deck to me seems like a good deck, because you have cards like Lingering Souls, Barter in Blood and Slagstorm to help you buy time in the early turns so you live long enough to play your big dudes. unless you get the nuts and get an Titan or Elesh Norn turn 4 then you just win.
Now the Last deck I want to address has potential to be a decent control deck in this very fast metagame, but probably needs a lot of work.
U/W Reaver Control
| Creatures (6) 3 Snapcaster Mage 3 Drogskol Reaver Spells (28) 4 Day of Judgement 2 Terminus 4 Forbidden Alchemy 4 Mana Leak 4 Think Twice 4 Lingering Souls 2 Unburial Rites 2 Tamiyo, Moon Sage 2 Gideon Jura Lands (26) 4 Seachrome Coast 4 Glacial Fortress 4 Darkslick Shores 1 Isolated Chapel 1 Drowned Catacomb 1 Evolving Wilds 1 Swamp 6 Island 4 Plains |
This deck is a work in progress. I played my friend Jeff against this deck which, I think, is running a different build then this, and it was winning pretty consistently, but that was against Blue Black Control (which isn’t real after this set comes out). Playing 6 Wrath effects in a deck seems necessary for this kind of metagame. The Mana Leaks are a little sketchy because everyone is probably going to be using the new Cavern of Souls card, so those might hit the sideboard along with some other counterspells. I like the deck because it has a lot of win conditions, but the main one is Drogskol Reaver, which is just new and fun. You also have the new Planeswalker Tamiyo, Moon Sage which is also a very fun card. The best card in here is definitely the Unburial Rites. Whenever I killed a Drogskol Reaver it always came back for a second or third time which is incredibly annoying and hard to deal with. Another fun little combo that we could throw in this deck could Pristine Talisman. It ramps you into your Reaver and when Reaver is in play, it’s a “gain 1 life, draw a card” artifact. Who doesn’t like that?
So I hope these decks have inspired you to make them, or watch out for them at the Super IQ this weekend and maybe in the somewhat near future one of these decks will be a tier 1 deck. Comment below about what you think of them and feel free to make suggestions to any of the decks you have seen here and you can always send decklists to me at [email protected] and I will test them and write about them next time.
The Snapcastro Mage
Team Fall From Hell