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 Database] and introducing them to everyone.
If 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 Eldritch Moon many new and powerful spirits were introduced to us and UW spirits became a prominent deck. However, with the loss of 《Reflector Mage》in Standard the deck soon fell out of favor. A spirit beatdown deck that also utilizes 《Stasis Snare》& powerful sweepers such as 《Fumigate》& 《Descend upon the Sinful》is a brilliant new approach.

You might think the sweepers will also kill your creatures, however the deck makes great use of 《Paradoxical Outcome》to return both 《Stasis Snare》& creatures such as 《Spell Queller》for amazing value on the end step, followed by a sweeper. In case you can’t find 《Paradoxical Outcome》the deck also plays 《Selfless Spirit》as another way to make sweepers one-sided.

With the release of Amonkhet this archetype could possibly see a resurgence, so keep an eye out!

One of the most important things in Magic is being able to calculate how much damage you will take next turn depending on your actions. In some case’s it’s quite easy, but with the prominence of 《Death's Shadow》or say Boggles calculating damage becomes a lot harder. Evaluating how much damage you’ll take is also quite hard when facing down prowess creatures.

Even with 《Gitaxian Probe》getting banned recently, in Modern low CMC spells are abundant and it’s not unusual to be casting upwards of three spells a turn. With this deck it’s quite easy to surprise an opponent by using 《Kari Zev's Expertise》to steal their creature and get an extra spell cast before swinging in for a huge amount.

The use of 《Stitch in Time》adds more variance to the deck but the element of surprise, where if you win the coin flip, then your opponent is definitely in for a bad time, but should you lose the flip you at least still get to trigger prowess or 《Young Pyromancer》so it’s not a complete waste.

Not giving your opponent the chance to correctly calculate damage is a great trick for any aggro deck, so the use of cards that few people are prepared for gives the deck an angle of attack that could lead to a few blowout scenarios.

Lately most 12 post lists tend to splash 1 or more colors, but the list here instead chooses to go back to its MUD roots.

Most of the spells are just there to help you ramp into big things but, cards such as 《$ Expedition Map》designed to search out 《Cloudpost》, 《Vesuva》and《Glimmerpost》. Once you’ve gathered enough “Locus” lands you use 《Candelabra of Tawnos》to untap them and generate an obscene amount of mana.

The deck also includes useful cards such as 《Thought-Knot Seer》, 《Endbringer》and 《Walking Ballista》that are great cards no matter when you play them.

With 4 《Pithing Needle》in the mainboard the deck loudly declares it won’t be challenged by its pesky nemesis, the 《Wasteland》. Depending on the meta this deck could be preferable over the Eldrazi Stompy version in beating for example BUG decks.

A Team-Frontier event was recently held at Hareruya, where 14 teams (42 players) competed. While this deck just barely missed out on first place, this unique deck performed admirably during the tournament.

An 《Aetherworks Marvel》deck with Black base to enable the use of the formats strongest black removal including 《Languish》, the deck preys on Atarka Red decks and with the use of 《Dark Petition》it always has a T5 《Languish》ready to annihilate opposing creatures.

Within the Frontier format all 3 modes of 《Sultai Charm》tend to be relevant, Exiling a mono-colored creature, removing a pesky 《Ensoul Artifact》or 《Smuggler's Copter》. I would also like to give the deck points for style in making 《Tezzeret the Schemer》work here, when he still hasn’t had a chance to shine in Standard.

One of the best parts of Frontier is if you played Standard recently there is usually a deck you can craft easily with just a few small additions. Still got your 《Aetherworks Marvel》cards lying around? Why not give it another spin in Frontier!

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 (Translated by: Emil Hoffman)