Decklists contain the essence of Magic.

The cards included in a decklist tell us a tale, they do also show us something about what its creator was trying to achieve.

In short, to try and understand a decklist is
to try and understand the creators mind.

This article is devoted to finding interesting decklists from the [Deck Search] and introducing them to everyone.
Should you come across a decklist you like don’t hesitate to use it as inspiration or, tamper with it to make it into something of your own!

Without further ado, here are the 4 decklists that made the pick this time!

With the release of Oath of the Gatewatch, 《Thought-Knot Seer》 & 《Reality Smasher》 and their Eldrazi brethren rampaged through all of the older formats such as Modern, legacy & even in Vintage. Yet they never had much of a presence in Standard, mostly because they lack a 2 mana generating land to push them over the top. But perhaps there’s another way to make the Eldrazi shine in Standard.

Aether Revolt adds 《Spire of Industry》, which outperforms 《Corrupted Crossroads》 in this deck, and 《Cultivator's Caravan》 helps get your colors and activate the Spire. While the Caravan cant add colorless mana, it can also serve as an additional 5/5 attacker when it’s necessary making it a key piece of the deck.

With 《Scrapheap Scrounger》 & 《Fatal Push》 the deck is solidly in black, but with a small blue splash the deck can also play cards like 《Baral's Expertise》 which is incredibly strong vs opposing aggro decks especially GB ones.

If the game runs long enough our utility lands like 《Ruins of Oran-Rief》 & 《Sea Gate Wreckage》 help give us an advantage over non-control decks. Maybe the fourth deck to the enter the top tier together with GB, Vehicles & Saheeli combo could possibly be an Eldrazi deck?

Magic has for much of it’s history had creatures such as 《Leveler》 or 《Inverter of Truth》 that are clearly too strong for their mana cost, but instead had alternative restrictive costs due to their massively negative ETB effects. So, we have to find a way to counter their devastating ETB effects, in Legacy a deck has already done this for a long time, a.k.a the 《Phyrexian Dreadnought》《Stifle》 combo deck. For Modern we don’t have the dreadnaught but we instead get 《Hunted Horror》, a 7/7 Trampler for BB and other highly over-statted creatures.

The problem lies more with a way to 《Stifle》 their ETB effects, since we do not have the namesake card, we instead have to rely on 《Torpor Orb》 or 《Hushwing Gryff》 which so long as they are on the battlefield we don’t have to worry about the ETB effects, and they all fit snuggly into an Esper Control shell.

However there is another creature who has a drawback that makes 《Hunted Horror》 seem trifling in comparison. Yes, it’s the 《Eater of Days》, which has an ETB effect that makes you skip your next 2 turns, but so long as you can cancel that you get a 9/8 trampling flier for just 4 mana.

Since 《Splinter Twin》 got banned, 《Torpor Orb》 has not seen much play but lately the Saheeli Combo and 《Collected Company》 decks & a general abundance of ETB creatures can be seen in Modern, so the orbs can still be a thorn in your opponent’s side. Of course it’s always a pleasure to see the look on your opponent’s face when you play a maindeck 《Torpor Orb》 and they are on a deck that depends on creature ETB effects.

When we think of a 《Nimble Mongoose》 deck in Legacy it’s usually of the Canadian Threshold variety. Blue offers draw & counterspells, Green for it’s tough creatures and Red gives you the highly versatile 《Lightning Bolt》. While the metagame position of the deck isn’t all that great lately, there’s still plenty of aficionados playing it. This Sultai Mandrill deck is very similar but chooses to play black instead of red.

Black now has an excellent replacement for Lightning Bolt with the recently printed 《Fatal Push》. With lots of fetchlands and 《Wasteland》 in the deck triggering Revolt when its needed is near guaranteed, the spell can kill with the exception of Delve creatures, most of the Legacy creature staples. With the addition of Black the deck also gets to play 《Abrupt Decay》 so 《Counterbalance》 is now quite easy to deal with.

With no 《Tarmogoyf》 the deck almost exclusively works of 1 CMC cards so keeping mana up for 《Stifle》 is quite easy.

While you might think Threshold and Delve don’t mix well, the deck plays 《Thought Scour》 to help fill up the Graveyard, and should you not find a 《Thought Scour》 you can always just put back whichever non-synergistic piece you desire on the library with a 《Brainstorm》 and cracking a fetchland to get rid of it. Fans of the 《Nimble Mongoose》 could do worse than to try out this deck.

There are tons of different combos available, land combos, graveyard ones, Storm & more. However, the basis of a combo is still the resources and these are in most cases based on either Lands or the Graveyards. People often forget that there’s ultimately a third resource, namely your life total.

Here we have 《Lone Rider》 & 《Ajani's Pridemate》 offering up some sweet synergy in this deck to turn lifegain into a real advantage. However, it doesn’t stop there, the deck uses 《Gonti's Machinations》, then returning it with 《Restoration Specialist》 and 《Implement of Improvement》 to round out the lifegain arsenal.

With 《Ajani's Pridemate》 and 《Ajani Steadfast》 it’s incredibly easy to reach 30 life, where your 《Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim》 can start sacrificing creatures to exile your opponents. She works especially well with 《Scrapheap Scrounger》 due to its recursion ability.

The deck has a theme similar to the Modern soul sisters deck, turning lifegain into a legitimate wincon. For Frontier with the advent of new expansions we might get more options to expand on the lifegain theme in the future, so it might be wise to keep an eye on the “soul sisters” archetype in Frontier.

As a bonus I would also like to introduce the deck I played in the GP Shizuoka Main Event.

The key parts of the deck are the 《Inspiring Statuary》 and 《Aetherflux Reservoir》, which allow you to start casting spells at highly reduced costs as well as finish of the opponent after you’ve “stormed” off enough, which can be achieved by playing some of 0 mana artifacts and then returning them to hand through the use of 《Paradoxical Outcome》. Once you’ve gained enough life you activate 《Aetherflux Reservoir》 and Nuke the opponent’s face for 50 damage.

With an 《Inspiring Statuary》 in play 《Paradoxical Outcome》 can be cast for as little as a single blue mana. Should you also have a 《Sram, Senior Edificer》 in play it’s fairly easy to gain beyond even a 100 life.

One of the decks biggest weaknesses is how after playing 《Aetherflux Reservoir》 you are left defenseless for a turn, i sought to resolve this by adding 《Baral's Expertise》 to buy time & put it into play for free instead. Especially if you already happen to have an 《Inspiring Statuary》in play the 《Baral's Expertise》 can be cast as early as Turn 4 choosing to either buy time by bouncing opposing creatures or your own artifacts to continue storming off.

I choose to play 4 《Oath of Jace》 to help filter the deck and finding your key combo parts, this works great since you will often have plenty of extra lands to discard throughout the game and you can even return 《Oath of Jace》 to hand with 《Paradoxical Outcome》 for even more filtering goodness.

Post sideboard Many players side in 《Release the Gremlins》 so swapping to a beatdown plan with 《Gisela, the Broken Blade》 & 《Sphinx of the Final Word》 is often the best option for us. In all fairness I wouldn’t call the deck all that powerful, but when the deck works as it should and you get to play “Storm” in Standard, it’s just a whole lot of fun, especially for when you need a break from the grind. I would gladly recommend this deck for casual tournaments, but for larger events you shuld most likely stick to Mardu or Saheeli.

I hope I managed to pique your interest with some of the decks showcased, should they not have caught your fancy, feel free to browse the deck database at your own leisure!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Until next time.

Atsushi Ito (Translation by: Emil Hoffman)