While I won’t be using this card in today’s deck it did make me think of Maze’s End decks from Standard’s past, and my beginnings at playing with foil cards. Also with us nearing Halloween I’m sure some of you have visited your local hay/corn maze, and heck even going to the grocery store for me feels like I am running a maze.

Yes you heard that right. Maze’s End was when I started foiling out decks.

I attended a Dragon’s Maze pre-release, and although I did get a Ral Zarek out of my kit when the event was over no one wanted their promo Maze’s Ends so I picked up the cards, began to build with it, and after Theros came out it wound up looking like this.

It was at this same time I started getting into formats like Legacy (building Punishing Jund) and EDH, and while my primary focus has shifted to Modern I do have a lot of fond memories of those days where I was winning by playing a land.

Can we do this in Modern? I don’t see why not, and honestly if decks like Tezzerator are played we can do so with this. Might it be a poor choice for even FNM? Sure. Are there a lot of cards that can wreck this deck? Yeah, of course! However on those games that you do win it’s worth it. The goal of running the maze is to survive it, and sometimes you don’t.

Modern Maze’s End

Artifacts (4)
4 Expedition Map

Enchantments (3)
3 Ghostly Prison

Creatures (7)
4 Gatecreeper Vine
3 Wall of Omens

Instants (9)
4 Fog
3 Safe Passage
2 Negate

Planeswalkers (2)
2 Kiora, the Crashing Wave

Sorceries (10)
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Ancient Stirrings
2 Supreme Verdict

Lands (25)
4 Maze’s End
4 Windswept Heath
2 Azorius Guildgate
2 Selesnya Guildgate
2 Simic Guildgate
1 Boros Guildgate
1 Breeding Pool
1 Dimir Guildgate
1 Forest
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Gruul Guildgate
1 Izzet Guildgate
1 Orzhov Guildgate
1 Rakdos Guildgate
1 Temple Garden

Sideboard (15)
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Stony Silence
2 Crackling Perimeter
2 Naturalize
2 Damping Sphere
2 Swan Song
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Negate

How the deck works

Obviously the primary win condition is using Maze’s End‘s ability to search for the last guildgate to win the game. It’s a pretty powerful ability when you consider the totality of what it does, however how can we achieve such a feat.

I’ve looked over several decks. Some are Turbo Fog based (like the old Standard decks), some even focus on enchantments. However the primary way to win is by playing Lands. This is where I thought of another deck where lands are very important: Tron.

Cards such as Ancient Stirrings, Expedition Map, and Sylvan Scrying allow you to find any land as opposed to just basics in Tron. Why limit those cards to just Tron decks? Sure these lands, the guildgates, come into play tapped, but you have other ways to stay alive even when being tapped out.

• Gatecreeper Vine, and Wall of Omens are cards that either allow you to search for a land, or simply draw a card (which could be a guildgate). While one has more toughness than the other you only need to block with them, and them living is not vital to winning the game. Don’t be afraid to play these on turn three, and use the land you find to put into play.
• Supreme Verdict will often tap you out, but also wipe their board of creatures. This will leave you vulnerable to their next play, but we don’t have a reliable way to set up Terminus, and can’t afford our spell to be countered.
• Ghostly Prison might seem odd as it does also tap you out early, but it taxes your opponent forcing them to play more threats (and lands) to attack with more than one creature.
• Kiora, the Crashing Wave also taps you out, and is the primary win condition. If you can survive to get the emblem you can win even through one of your guildgates being removed from the game (or Maze’s End itself).

Keep in mind that Safe Passage prevents all damage not just combat damage. Nice Grapeshot you have there!

If you can get up to four lands where one is a Maze’s End without being interrupted you can start using your Maze’s End on their end step to ramp out guildgates.

In the sideboard

Some key cards in the sideboard:

• Crucible of Worlds: This card’s inclusion should be no surprise. With enough land destruction in Modern as it is you will need this to play lands from your graveyard.
• Ensnaring Bridge: Pairing this with your defenders will help you stabilize as you play all of the ramp cards in your hand. There are only a few ways to draw, but not enough to consistently keep cards in your hand so this will be beneficial.
• Naturalize: You will lose to Blood Moon.
• Swan Song: Speaking of the moon you can simply counter it. Coupled with your bridge and fog effects the 2/2 bird is not much of a worry.
• Crackling Perimeter: This is your alternate win condition. Use it wisely, but keep in mind it can take awhile to ping the opponent to zero.

In conclusion

This is a very rough draft, and you’ll want to make the changes necessary to your metagame. I think a lot of us have been waiting for key pieces to be presented to try it in Modern, but the pieces that Tron has used to great success are probably the ones we should have used from the very beginning. Finding specific lands is key to this deck’s strategy, and those cards are the best way to do that.

Thank you all for reading about this strange deck. I know this is on the fringe of the Modern format, but what cards would you use for the deck? How would you change the above? Do you already have a version of the deck built? Please comment below, and follow me on both Facebook as well as Twitter.

Next time with Halloween upon us I’ll shamble through another article to celebrate the rising of the dead.

Until then…

TAP MORE MANA!!!

Scott Campbell

Scott Campbell, better known as MTGPackFoils, has been playing Magic since he was 17 (which was in 1993). He’s known for loving decks such as Azorius Control, Jund, and others (especially in Modern). He is a husband, father, and a former nightclub DJ.

http://www.twitter.com/MTGPackFoils

Today I’m going to talk about one who devoted his whole life to worshiping dragons: Sarkhan Vol.

Sarkhan was a soldier in the Mardu Horde who grew tired of the bloodshed of war, became a shaman, and afterwords was touched by the spirit of an ancient dragon. He then cleared his foes from the battle (sparking in the process), left his home on Tarkir, and went searching for dragons. Eventually succumbing to the will of Nicol Bolas he wound up being forced into the Elder Dragon’s plot to release the Eldrazi, before returning to Tarkir’s past to save the Spirit Dragon, Ugin from Bolas’ claws of death.

There have been six (yes 6!) Planeswalkers featuring Sarkhan, and honestly some of these I’m not even going to use. If you wish to comment about them you can, but unlike the other two that I have looked it there are some Sarkhans that honestly I feel are too difficult to try to make playable. I’ll still comment on each of them though so they won’t be completely dismissed.

Sarkhan Vol

In my article about the Izzet League I talked about Runaway Steam-Kin. I think we can do something with that here.

Creatures (17)
4 Runaway Steam-Kin
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Winding Constrictor
3 Walking Ballista
2 Scavenging Ooze

Planeswalkers (2)
2 Sarkhan Vol

Enchantments (6)
4 Hardened Scales
2 Song of Freyalise

Spells (11)
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Atarka’s Command
2 Kolaghan’s Command
2 Dreadbore

Lands (24)
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Raging Ravine
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
1 Treetop Village
1 Wooded Foothills

How the deck works

Miracle Grow decks have a long history in Magic, and this may be a time to take a look at another version, albeit a more aggressive version, of the archetype. The synergy between the cards above can not be questioned, and with the addition of Hardened Scales your creatures can become more powerful than what your opposition has. There is one inherent flaw though in that your spells do have to have red in them in order for the primary creature in the deck (Runaway Steam-Kin) to be useful.

• Your ideal first turn is turn 1 Hardened Scales, and then play a Quirion Dryad or Winding Constrictor. If those survive playing a Runaway Steam-Kin into a Lightning Bolt will send you off to the races.
• Sarkhan Vol is your finisher. Although your creatures do not get counters from his first ability (but the creatures do based on the color of the spell he is) it could be the punch you need. You could also steal a blocker to finish them off.
• Song of Freyalise might seem like an odd inclusion, however being able to use your creatures for any color of mana can help you clear the path, deal some damage to your opponent, and once you get to the third chapter finish them off.

In the sideboard you will want discard spells like Duress, some form of graveyard hate (perhaps the third Scavenging Ooze), and Bow of Nylea would be a sweet one of if you are ever in a matchup where you have a board stall, and need either more counters or deathtouch.

I really wanted to fit Bloodhall Ooze in here, but found no room.

Sarkhan the Mad

Here we come to our first of the Sarkhans that honestly does not feel that great. He has no way to add counters to himself, and unless you have a creature on the board he has no true impact. If you were to build a deck with him I recommend using creatures with the Persist mechanic (like Kitchen Finks) or Undying mechanic (Geralf’s Messenger), or perhaps both. There may not be enough to facilitate a deck, and using his -2 ability first does not leave a lot of room for his 0 ability. He also requires running more than one to keep his abilities going. If you build a deck with him share it in the comments below.

Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

This one is my favorite of the Sarkhan planeswalkers, and embodies the spirit of Magic: the Gathering. In the beginning this game depicts you as a wizard traveling fantasy realms doing battle with others with your spells while summoning creatures. Since his spark ignited (which every time I hear that being used I always think of the Michael Bay Transformer movies) he has become a powerful adversary seeking the power of dragons, sometimes even turning himself into one.

Creatures (13)
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Tireless Tracker
2 Wood Elves

Enchantments (4)
4 Blood Moon

Planeswalkers (3)
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Spells (15)
4 Stone Rain
4 Farseek
3 Explore
2 Molten Rain
2 Lightning Bolt

Lands (25)
8 Forest
4 Field of Ruin
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Cinder Glade
2 Stomping Ground
1 Ghost Quarter

How the deck works

While we’re all familiar with the Gruul Ponza Scheme deck (that’s what I call it) this focuses on not only depleting your opponent’s lands but also searching for your own. Forgoing the Utopia Sprawl plan allows for other cards (such as your planeswalkers) to be played. Granted the planeswalker presence is a little light here, but I always envisioned this type of deck to go big through spells over creatures. Garruk, Primal Hunter also adds a steady stream of creatures, while your Field of Ruin plus Ghost Qaurter package complements your land destruction spells in your deck.

In the sideboard I would look at cards that oppose graveyard strategies as usual. I’m not sure how many slots you would want to devote to Scavenging Ooze or Grafdigger’s Cage though. Enchantment and Artifact hate are also slots you will want to use. This could be done with an Engineered Explosives as often times you’ll only need it for 2 against matchups such as the various Affinity decks and Bogles.

Outpost Siege might also be interesting in here.

Sarkhan Unbroken

While this Sarkhan is pretty neat my idea for this one would be similar to the one above, but with more focus on ramp spells to play a lot of dragons.

Creatures (15)
4 Arbor Elf
3 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Courser of Kruphix
2 Birds of Paradise
1 Dragonlord Atarka

Enchantments (6)
4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Frontier Siege

Planeswalkers (5)
3 Sarkhan Unbroken
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Spells (8)
4 Farseek
3 Explore
1 Cyclonic Rift

Lands (25)
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Forest
2 Stomping Ground
2 Mountain
1 Breeding Pool
1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
1 Island
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents

How the deck works

All ramp all the time. This deck wants more mana than you do in order to cast its large dragons. Dragons historically have had large mana costs, and in a deck splashing a third color it’s much needed. You have multiple directions here as you can ramp into Sarkhan Unbroken, or Stormbreath Dragon. Don’t forget that Stormbreath can go monstrous allowing you to deal damage on top of attacking. I know all of these words may have fallen on deaf ears as you are focused on the single Cyclonic Rift in the deck. With so much focus on ramp the deck will lack interaction, and you have to have a card that allows you to catch up. The Overload cost could be easy to obtain here.

Other things to look for are the Cavern of Souls allowing you to cast your dragons without being countered, and for any color. The Haven of the Spirit Dragon helps vs discard effects as well.

I really wanted to fit Thunderbreak Regent in here. I’m not sure where. That may show up later.

Sarkhan, Dragonsoul

This Sarkhan is from the planeswalker decks made for new players for Magic 2019. While there might be room for a cost this large his +1 does negligible damage, his -3  and -9 are similar to abilities seen on the last two versions of Sarkhan. For me this card feels unimaginative. Perhaps you may disagree? If so share your thoughts in the comments below.

Sarkhan, Fireblood

Now we get to perhaps the most powerful of the Sarkhan planeswalkers. Those that cost three mana to cast are some of the most powerful in the game, yet not all of them see equal play. Once I saw this card I imagined an actual “Dragon Stompy” deck for Modern, and although some have tried to create a version of it I think I might be onto something here.

Creatures (14)
4 Thunderbreak Regent
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Stormbreath Dragon
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Hazoret the Fervent

Artifact (4)
4 Chalice of the Void

Enchantments (4)
4 Blood Moon

Planeswalkers (5)
3 Sarkhan, Fireblood
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Spells (9)
4 Fiery Temper
3 Mizzium Mortars
2 Abrade

Lands (24)
8 Mountain
4 Arid Mesa
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Field of Ruin
2 Darksteel Citadel
2 Ghost Quarter

How the deck works

This mono red prison style deck is meant to lock the opponent out of low cost spells until you can plant a Blood Moon, and then deploy your threats to win. Having a variety of threats in dragons, or cards that can deal damage to the opponent can help win a game once the lock is in place which sometimes can be a problem with these style of decks.

Fiery Temper might seem odd, but with Sarkhan, Fireblood‘s +1 you could discard it, and then pay it’s madness cost. While minor this could come up.

So why does this deck run Darksteel Citadel? Synergy with Pia and Kiran Nalaar of course. Keep in mind the 2 damage that can be done when sacrificing artifacts including the Citadel.

The sideboard MIGHT be a problem. Enchantments are a big problem for mono red, and Ratchet Bomb is awfully slow against them. Graveyard hate, and land destruction may take up most of the slots in your board.

In conclusion

That’s a lot of variety even with 2 of them not really being playable. Each deck plays in it’s own unique way, and tries to focus on the abilities of the Sarkhan in the deck.

What are your thoughts? Have you played with any of these Sarkhans in your decks? Leave a comment, and make sure to follow me on both Facebook as well as Twitter.

NEXT WEEK…we’re going to run the Maze!

Until then…

TAP MORE MANA!!!

Scott Campbell

Scott Campbell, better known as MTGPackFoils, has been playing Magic since he was 17 (which was in 1993). He’s known for loving decks such as Azorius Control, Jund, and others (especially in Modern). He is a husband, father, and a former nightclub DJ.

http://www.twitter.com/MTGPackFoils

“Peasant” has a particular meaning for sixty-card decks – it’s usually a deck built from common cards, supplemented with a handful of uncommons. In Cube, it’s pretty hard to keep that ratio in place, so when we say “Peasant Cube”, we’re really just referring to a cube composed entirely of cards that are common or uncommon. It’s also referred to as “CUbe” in places. What makes these great to build is that half the cards you want to use are probably already in your binder! So let’s look at one way to go about constructing a peasant cube, starting with white.

The Rules

Usually, a card is considered legal for Peasant Cube if it’s had at least one printing at either common or uncommon rarity. So cards that were originally printed at common or uncommon and have since been upshifted in rarity are legal (like Pelakka Wurm), and cards that have started out as rare or mythic but have been downshifted are also legal (like Undead Gladiator). If you only have a printing with a rare or mythic symbol on it, that’s okay – it’s still allowed.
We’re going to try and stick to a curve for both creatures and non-creatures. We want to categorize cards according to their color identity, so anything with an activated ability or cost in an alternate color belongs out in the gold section (we’re looking at you, Momentary Blink and Lingering Souls).
We’re on a budget here, so for this article we’re not going to consider cards worth anything more than $3 (well, as of the time of writing this article, anyway … if only we could future-proof against spikes in card value)!
Finally, we’re aiming to build a 360-card cube, so we want to stick to the traditional 50 white cards, split between 25 creature and 25 non-creature. Rather than just mindlessly smashing together the top 50 cards, the best way to really tie a cube together is to use 20% of each color to tie the draft archetypes together, smooth out the curve and have a little fun. This means we’ll begin by looking for the twenty best creatures and twenty best non-creatures, and then pick and choose the last five of each ourselves.

What Makes a Good Peasant Cube Card?

So, we want to fill out the white section of a Peasant cube. What on earth makes a good card in this format? We’re pretty much talking about the cream of the common and uncommon crop here, so there are two big hints in how to pick a good one:

• Is it a staple in Vintage, Legacy or 1v1 EDH? Any card that can hang with the best rares and mythics in its environment is a pretty safe bet for a good card.
• Was it a high draft pick in the Limited environment for its release set? Or was it an absolute house at Pre-Release? Chances are that it’s a good Peasant Cube card too.

Now, we can look at something like MTGGoldfish’s current metagame decklists for the tournament / metagame staples – but there are literally about five white cards that make the list. For the high Limited picks, we could go off something like Frank Karsten’s ChannelFireball pick orders – but he only goes back to Theros, so we’d miss out on all these cool old cards that could make the list. So how do we find a decent list of cube-worthy commons and uncommons?

Fortunately for us, CubeTutor has us covered. It started out as a site to manage and test-draft your cube with, and there are now more than 40,000 cubes stored on the site. Even better than that, the site maintains an easily-filtered Top Cards List, giving us the ability to look at which Peasant-legal cards are run in the most cubes. And given that cubes of every size and shape are recorded there, the cards at the top of our list are going to be the ones that are eternal staples or Limited all-stars – exactly what we’re looking for. So, ready? Let’s go!

White Creatures

Staring at the top 20 white common and uncommon creatures on CubeTutor gives us the following:

• Porcelain Legionnaire
• Mother of Runes
• Flickerwisp
• Wall of Omens
• Doomed Traveler
• Fiend Hunter
• Kor Skyfisher
• Accorder Paladin
• Cloudgoat Ranger
• Seeker of the Way
• Elite Vanguard
• Gideon’s Lawkeeper
• Banisher Priest
• Mardu Woe-Reaper
• Serra Angel
• Thraben Inspector
• Steppe Lynx
• Kor Sanctifiers
• Savannah Lions
• Lone Missionary

You might recognise a few of those cards up there – Mother of Runes and Flickerwisp are firmly in the eternal staples list. And Cloudgoat Ranger and Serra Angel are both pretty infamous as Limited finishers. The rest show a strong bent towards a White Weenie archetype. Will the spells back that up?

White Spells

On the non-creature side, CubeTutor hands us the following twenty:

• Oblivion Ring
• Swords to Plowshares
• Path to Exile
• Journey to Nowhere
• Faith’s Fetters
• Disenchant
• Pacifism
• Spectral Procession
• Raise the Alarm
• Banishing Light
• Condemn
• Mana Tithe
• Enlightened Tutor
• Arrest
• Gather the Townsfolk
• Intangible Virtue
• Gods Willing
• Triplicate Spirits
• Cloudshift
• Sunlance

Well, that’s certainly more White Weenie – this time the token variety. Along with a heap of removal. There are a couple of cards in there that are going to blow our budget – let’s take care of them as we round out our fifty white cards.

Sticking to the Budget

Out of the forty cards we’ve highlighted so far, only two are over our $3 threshold – Path to Exile and Enlightened Tutor (Mother of Runes and Wall of Omens just scrape under, as of the time of writing). We’re not exactly going to be able to replace them with something similar but cheaper, so we’ll just pick the next two non-creature cards out of the CubeTutor list that are under $3 a copy. That gives us Midnight Haunting and Temporal Isolation.

Looking at the Curve

Okay, so we now have twenty creatures and twenty spells. Let’s check what our mana curves look like – this not only helps us to ensure we’re not too unbalanced with the casting costs of our selected cards, it also helps us to narrow down what we should be adding in our last ten cards.

If we look at the casting costs of of our creatures, we currently have a curve of 8-5-5-0-2-0 (meaning we have eight creatures with a converted mana cost of 1, five with a CMC of 2, five with a CMC of 3, and so on). We’re supposed to have a curve that evens out around CMC3-4, but we’re definitely not doing that here – we’re loaded with aggressive White Weenie creatures, and have gaping holes at CMC4 and CMC6. When we’re adding our last five creatures, we want to think about finishers that play well here.

The curve for the 20 non-creature spells is 6-7-4-1-0-2. Again, this is loaded with a lot of cheap removal and token production, and have a big gap around the CMC4-5 mark. When we’re adding our last five spells, we want to try and fill this hole.

Looking at the Draft Archetypes We Already Have

When considering what we want to add, we want to think about where we’re already strong. We currently have a pretty ridiculous suite of CMC1 White Weenie beaters, as well as a large number of token producers. Pretty much anything that buffs our small guys up, or helps us produce tokens, is going to make white play small, fast and angry.

Having Fun with the Final Adds

So here’s where we get to have fun and freewheel a bit as cube designers. We know roughly what is strong, we know roughly what sort of CMC we’re looking to fill, and we know roughly what sort of archetypes we’re looking at. So it’s time to work within those limits creatively.

Firstly, let’s add our last five creatures. We’ve worked out that we want cards that play well with tokens or White Weenie. We know we’re trying to fill holes in our mana curve at CMC4 and CMC6. And we know we want to stay under our $3-per-copy budget. So let’s try and add three CMC4 creatures and two CMC6+ finishers. At CMC4, there are two walk-up starts in Celestial Crusader and Goldnight Commander – they are both capable of buffing our smaller guys in effective and unexpected ways (sometimes to game-winning effect). Finally, let’s have some fun with the last of the three – Guardian of the Guildpact is very hard to deal with, and will still get buffed by the other two creatures we’ve just added. For our two CMC6+ finishers, Sentinel of the Eternal Watch was an Origins Limited first-pick, and Subjugator Angel might give us an on-the-spot win (especially if we start blinking it with some of the blink cards we already have). That’s a pretty good mix, and it gives us a more sensible mana curve of 8-5-5-3-2-2.

Now for our last five spells. We want to do something similar here, aiming to fill slots at CMC4-5. So let’s add three CMC4 spells and two CMC5 spells, once again aiming to encourage White Weenie and token strategies. At CMC4, Retreat to Emeria was almost custom-built for us – it lets us choose between the two archetypes we’re encouraging at any given moment.  Field of Souls is another great token producer, and Valor in Akros is basically a second Goldnight Commander effect. At CMC5, we find another Limited all-star in Knightly Valor and a great instant token producer in Take Up Arms. This gives our spells a curve of 6-7-4-4-2-2, which is again quite low, but still okay.

The Final Product

So we’ve now got our fifty cards! The best part about this list is that, while it’s full of strong removal and known Limited finishers, about 75% of the cards here are straight out of the bulk bin. If you haven’t got half of this stashed away in your boxes, your local card store sure will.

Our Peasant Cube’s white section now looks like the following:

White Creatures

CMC1

Doomed Traveler
Elite Vanguard
Gideon’s Lawkeeper
Mardu Woe-Reaper
Mother of Runes
Savannah Lions
Steppe Lynx
Thraben Inspector

CMC2

Accorder Paladin
Kor Skyfisher
Lone Missionary
Seeker of the Way
Wall of Omens

CMC3

Banisher Priest
Fiend Hunter
Flickerwisp
Kor Sanctifiers
Porcelain Legionnaire

CMC4

Celestial Crusader
Goldnight Commander
Guardian of the Guildpact

CMC5

Cloudgoat Ranger
Serra Angel

CMC6+

Sentinel of the Eternal Watch
Subjugator Angel

White Spells

CMC1

Cloudshift
Condemn
Gods Willing
Mana Tithe
Sunlance
Swords to Plowshares

CMC2

Disenchant
Gather the Townsfolk
Intangible Virtue
Journey to Nowhere
Pacifism
Raise the Alarm
Temporal Isolation

CMC3

Arrest
Banishing Light
Midnight Haunting
Oblivion Ring

CMC4

Faith’s Fetters
Field of Souls
Retreat to Emeria
Valor in Akros

CMC5

Knightly Valor
Take Up Arms

CMC6+

Spectral Procession
Triplicate Spirits

So that wraps white up. I hope that’s given you some ideas on how to construct your own white section of a Peasant cube! Is this definitive? Absolutely not. Go right ahead and replace half the bombs in here with your own 20 pet cards! I’ll be back next time to talk blue!

Martin Hughes

Martin first caught the Magic: the Gathering bug at university in Australia in 1995, just as Fourth Edition was released (naturally just missing the era of opening dual lands in booster packs). One degree, career, marriage and two kids later, he is still slinging cards across a kitchen table with friends and is spreading the infection to the next generation via cube, EDH and multiplayer formats.

Today though we’re going to talk about another planeswalker. Today’s spotlight will land on the Sangromancer himself: Sorin.

There have been four planeswalker cards featuring Sorin Markov in various casting costs, and he is quite the fan favorite among many in the Magic: the Gathering community (Editors Note: Also still stuck in a rock). I’ll go through each one, in order of release, and take a look at a possible deck for each of them. First up the original.

Sorin Markov

Mono Black Control

Creature
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Hypnotic Specter

Instant
3 Fatal Push
2 Tendrils of Corruption
2 Victim of Night
1 Murderous Cut
1 Dismember

Planeswalker
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Sorin Markov

Sorcery 
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Damnation
3 Read the Bones
3 Thoughtseize
2 Corrupt

Land
8 Swamps
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Field of Ruin
4 Marsh Flats
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Ghost Quarter

Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Rain of Tears
3 Collective Brutality
2 Liliana the Last Hope
2 Duress
1 Crucible of Worlds

How the deck works

Appearing for the first time in Zendikar Sorin Markov is designed for a heavy black build if not just mono black (which honestly is more likely). Unlike blue based control decks this deck cannot counter spells the opponent is playing (yes we are NOT going to play Dash Hopes. Sorry.) so we have to be proactive. This requires us to attack their hand, and play a lot of removal. Your manabase is also really simple allowing you to attack their mana with Field of Ruin, Ghost Quarter, and Fulminator Mage. While the fetchlands may not feel like they are necessary it does turn on Revolt for your Fatal Pushes.

Your primary way of winning is putting the opponent’s life total to 10 with Sorin Markov, and finishing them off with Corrupt. You can build up a lot of mana with the few permanents you have due to them having more than one black symbol in their mana costs so exploit that as much as you can while keeping your opponent in top deck mode. Your sideboard has additional hate for Big Mana decks with Rain of Tears, and plans for Burn, graveyard based decks, and blue based Control decks.

Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

Modern Esper Control

Creature
3 Snapcaster Mage

Enchantment
2 Search For Azcanta
1 Detention Sphere

Instant
4 Opt
3 Cryptic Command
3 Path To Exile
2 Fatal Push
1 Hyrogliphic Illumination
1 Logic Knot
1 Negate
1 Azorius Charm
1 Secure the Wastes
1 Spell Snare

Planeswalker
3 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Gideon Jura

Sorcery
4 Terminus
1 Timely Reinforcements

Land
4 Flooded Strand
3 Celestial Colonade
3 Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Field of Ruin
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Watery Grave

Sideboard
2 Spell Queller
2 Stony Silence
2 Dispel
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Celestial Purge
1 Disenchant
1 Negate
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb

How the deck works

Sorin, Lord of Innistrad was released in Dark Ascension, and until the next Sorin was released this one was my favorite. The ability to produce a lot of tokens with this Sorin makes him his own win condition, however I added a few more. This deck actually existed during the time of Innistrad through Return to Ravnica blocks, and did quite well for itself in that meta. I decided to make a few changes to the original list for Modern play. Let’s go over a few of these.

• Gideon Jura couples well with the other planeswalkers in the deck. Stalling any non-flying aggro from hitting you or damaging Gideon too much gives you time to clear the board (hopefully for the second time) before attacking for a lot of damage.
• Terminus is the best board wipe in Modern. If you run a deck that can cast it for one white mana you should run this over other sweepers.
• Secure the Wastes works great with Sorin’s emblem as you have a lot of 2/1 creatures, and those could end the game rather quickly on their own.

This deck only splashes black for cards like the aforementioned Sorin, Fatal Push, and a few sideboard cards. If you’re looking for a fun FNM deck to play I would start here. Yes the Azorius Charm looks strange, but it’s bounce ability works well with Field of Ruin, and the hidden mode of lifegain can be relevant.

Sorin, Solemn Visitor

Modern Abzan Midrange

Creature
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Grim Flayer
2 Tasigur the Golden Fang
2 Walking Ballista

Instant
3 Path to Exile
2 Fatal Push
1 Murderous Cut
1 Abrupt Decay

Planeswalker
3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Sorcery
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lingering Souls
2 Thoughtseize
1 Maelstrom Pulse

Land
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Verdant Catacomb
3 Marsh Flats
3 Shambling Vent
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Treetop Village
1 Twlight Mire
1 Windswept Heath

Sideboard
3 Fulminator Mage
3 Collective Brutality
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Stony Silence
2 Duress
1 Damnation
1 Celestial Purge
1 Grafdigger’s Cage

How the deck works

Before I stopped writing my “Speaking Casually” series of articles (and I may bring those back) I was going to write about a similar build of this deck. Although the above cards are the foundation of a token strategy this deck does focus a lot on green for quality midrange creatures. By landing an early Tarmogoyf, or Grim Flayer you start applying early pressure to your opponent. The later of those two can power them both if it connects which can be brutal when paired together. Your non-creature spell suite, while mana efficient, can also be situational. Path to Exile, for instance, doesn’t do well vs Azorius Control. However Lingering Souls does. Make sure to sideboard out the right cards in your matchups to capitalize on their effectiveness. The remainder of the deck is typical for a black/green/x deck currently in Modern with the exception of two cards:

• Tasigur the Golden Fang: Not typical for these lists, and his Delve mechanic may seem counter productive to the rest of the creatures in the deck, it’s ability can refill the graveyard for use again. You could even use Scavenging Ooze to limit the opponent’s choice of bad cards to give you when you activate Tasigur.
• Walking Ballista: This is something I saw this week at FNM, and damn does it seem sweet here. I should probably get a few copies for myself honestly as it’s even starting to see play in Control decks in Legacy. This card counts as two card types for Tarmogoyf and Grim Flayer.

As always there are ways to fight Tron in the sideboard, as well as Burn, Control, and artifact based decks. This would also be another neat deck to run at FNM if you can’t afford traditional midrange pieces like Liliana of the Veil, and Dark Confidant.

Sorin, Grim Nemesis

Modern Orzhov Prison

Creature
3 Wall of Omens

Enchantment
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Rest in Peace
2 Sphere of Safety
2 Ghostly Prison

Instant
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile

Planeswalker
2 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
2 Gideon of the Trials

Sorcery
4 Terminus
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
1 Timely Reinforcements

Land
5 Swamp
4 Field of Ruin
4 Marsh Flats
3 Plains
3 Shambling Vent
2 Godless Shrine
2 Isolated Chapel
1 Fetid Heath
1 Ghost Quarter

Sideboard
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Greater Auramancy
3 Duress
2 Stony Silence
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Gideon’s Intervention
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Anguished Unmaking

How the deck works

I’ll admit this one was a little tough, but I wanted to find a way to highlight each Sorin as they are all unique in some way. For instance this Sorin, which was released in Shadows Over Innistrad costs SIX MANA to play. That’s a lot, and if you aren’t ramping then how the heck are you going to play this? This is when I thought about a Prison style deck (Editors Note: Fitting deck style, considering he’s stuck in a rock). Let’s look a bit further.

• Ghostly Prison slows down aggro decks as the opponent would have to pay an extra two mana for each attacking creature. However we’re not stopping there with Enchantments.
• Sphere of Safety taxes the opponent even more for not only attacking you, but also your planeswalkers. That tax is equal to the number of enchantments you control as well.
• Gideon of the Trials while not an enchantment can still tax your opponent. With Wall of Omens in play, and even just Ghostly Prison the opponent may not be able to attack with everything. You have probably already used Gideon’s +1 ability to Fog a creature, and you’ll have removal in hand to deal with another.

So how do you win? Well drawing cards with Sorin, Grim Nemesis of course. It’s +1 ability slowly drains life from the opponent until you either have defeated them, or made a ton of 1/1 creatures with this. Imagine if your opponent has “an arbitrarily large life total” due to a combo. You wipe the board with Terminus, and then ultimate Sorin, Grim Nemesis. It sounds like a bad time for them.

In the sideboard you have more enchantments, and cards to deal with both Artifact decks, any deck that wants to interact with you, and ways to tax your opponent further with Gideon’s Intervention.

Whew.

Even though there are only four Sorins this was a little complex trying to find a home for each of them. Remember these decks are made to focus on the planeswalker himself, and build around it in some fashion.

What do you think of these decks? Are there any cards you think I have missed? Please leave a comment, and make sure to follow me on both Facebook as well as Twitter.

NEXT WEEK I will take a look at each of the guilds coming to us in Guilds of Ravnica. It will be a HUGE undertaking for me as it will be the first time I have done this, and I know many of you are asking me about my thoughts. Trust me. They are coming.

Until next week…

TAP MORE MANA!!!

Scott Campbell

Scott Campbell, better known as MTGPackFoils, has been playing Magic since he was 17 (which was in 1993). He’s known for loving decks such as Azorius Control, Jund, and others (especially in Modern). He is a husband, father, and a former nightclub DJ.

http://www.twitter.com/MTGPackFoils

The first question I ask back when someone asks me what deck they should play at XXXXX event is simple. What are your goals for playing Magic at this event? This question does throw some people off, but I feel it is the most important thing to consider both when choosing what deck to play, and in some cases what event(s) to play.  This refers more to lower-level events, but asking yourself that question will help guide you in deck decision, even at larger events (I’ll get back to larger events in a few; for now, let’s stick to weekly FNM style events). When attending weekly events at your LGS, you may find that you have many possible and varying goals week to week.

My current goal at FNM is simply to test out more cards, and variations on my Modern UW control deck.  On a week to week basis with that as my goal, I don’t necessarily consider what deck to play. Instead I consider what silly tech will I try out. Getting more practice with a deck is a viable goal for attending a weekly event.

Another scenario that comes up often is using Magic as a tool to just get outta the house.  Some weeks I just want to get out of my house (the one downside of working from home) and see my buds.  This means playing a deck like my current UW list, or a deck like Storm are off the table.  These are the weeks I gravitate towards Burn or a similar deck that will let the outcome of my match be decided in the first 7 minutes of the round. I can spend time between rounds talking to friends and trolling other guys playing grindy matchups.

On some rare occasions, my goal for a weekly event is to just plain have fun, not care about winning, and do things unexpected.  Have fun with my opponents by playing a deck they do not expect, or decks that leverage cards not commonly played.  With limited live MTG time these days, this scenario is few and far between.  A couple gems from this goal are my short love affair with Mono-Blue Turns (Back when Jace, the Mind Sculptor was banned, and Nexus of Fate was just a bad idea and not a card) and my short spell-slinging fling with Troll Worship. Brief Disclaimer: If you are strapped for cash and trying to earn credit or cash from weekly events, this is a terrible idea.  But loads of fun!

My final weekly goal for deck choice is the ‘HOLY COW, I just got this super sweet card, now I need to show it off to my friends’ goal.  It may sound strange that I would actually include this; but let’s face it, they call me Strictly Average for a reason. Recently, I acquired a playset of my most sought-after card.  The one I have always wanted, but never owned.  And that is the WCMQ Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. So, in order to properly show her off to my friends, I am working on shoring up a UW spirits list that will allow me to cast her in all of her foil glory. This deck probably will never see ultra-competitive play for me, as it’s just not my style.  But with a goal of sick brags, this deck choice is perfect.

Take a step back and look at this theory; ask yourself what your goals are for an event at the larger scale?  If you’re heading to a PPTQ, IQ, GP, or an Open, the level 1 answer is to win as many rounds as possible. If you are going to one of these events for the first time, or are generally a novice at higher level play, the answer is to play your most comfortable deck.  This ties into the goal of winning as many games as possible and getting better.

For those who regularly attend these events, the equation gets super complicated.  I mean, Differential Equations complicated. ‘Well, such and such a deck is better than this one.’ ‘So and so won an event last week with this one deck, everyone is gonna try to beat them with this other deck, and I am gonna be Smart and Level 3 them by choosing the deck that beats the deck that beats this other deck.’

This is all enough to make you go mad. Simply put, having clear goals for a larger event will help guide the deck choice. I attended a Standard PPTQ a while back, and it was after the emergence of RB vehicles style decks. My goal for that PPTQ was straightforward.  I didn’t want to lose to RB, so I crafted my deck to hose RB. (Truthfully this was a poor decision because I went 2-3 at the event).  Although I did terribly versus non-RB matches, I didn’t lose a single game to RB. Some may read this and think I failed because I went 2-3.  Nope, I succeeded in my goal.  I was happy with the outcome because it led to adjusting my overall decklist and playstyle for the rest of that standard format.  And Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Search For Azcanta have paid for themselves multiple times over in prizes.

I hope after sitting through this random stream of thought that the next time you ask yourself, or someone else, ‘What Deck should I play?’ you follow up with asking yourself ‘What are my goals at this event?’

Be Kind to eachother!

-Strictly

Jeremy Beardsley

Jeremy aka “Strictly Average” is an ‘average’ guy with ‘average’ plans. He is the creator and overboss of Strictly Average Gaming, which includes the Patreon group and StrictlyAverageMTG.com

https://strictlyaveragemtg.com

What is a Cube Draft?

Firstly, for the uninitiated, let’s talk about what a cube draft entails. Essentially, it’s the equivalent of holding a booster draft, except we’re doctoring the cards available. And they don’t come in foil wrapping. And instead of being down at the local store, we’re probably at your kitchen table with good friends, good food and good drink.
As per a normal booster draft, you need 45 cards per person (i.e. the equivalent of three boosters’ worth of cards). A cube size of 360 cards is considered standard, as this is enough cards for eight players to draft with, and is the equivalent of a draft pod at your local store. Those 360 cards are usually singleton copies, but there is no hard and fast rule. If you want to include multiple copies of a card in your cube, go right ahead.

Why Should I Run One?

I initially got into Cube because my playgroup was split down the middle – we had a few who had been playing since the beginning of Magic time, had some powerful cards, and had the disposable income to keep building upon that… and then we had a few who were newbies with only the last couple of years’ worth of cards, and/or they couldn’t afford to buy cards that helped them keep pace with the power players. Cube solves this problem by limiting the card pool and making the same level of power available to everyone.

As someone who has been playing for a while, it also gave me great joy to enable the newer players to discover some of the powerful old cards they wouldn’t ordinarily get to play. I distinctly remember a night early on where we had a new player draft Sneak Attack. Having never even seen it before, they tossed it into a deck full of angry red creatures, won the game with it, and said “Wow, that card’s even better than I thought it was! I can see why it’s worth so much.” As a cube designer, these are the moments that you want to take and frame.

As a draft format, Cube also takes the weathered old Spikes and net-deckers in your group and forces them to make decisions on the fly about their deck-building. Once you start getting used to drafting from the card pool, you begin to see combinations and archetypes that you wouldn’t have even thought about in a standard setting. It also teaches new players about good deck construction.

Finally, one of the best parts about putting your own cube together is then keeping it together, and figuring out what to change as time goes on and new sets come out. You will find that some members of your playgroup are totally into making these decisions with you, and it becomes a little bit of group excitement every time a new set comes out (e.g. “Wow, did you see the new merfolk that was spoilt today? That would be incredible in the cube! Maybe we should drop Storm Crow for it?”). Editor’s note – never!

Okay, So I Need 360 Cards Or So… How Do I Pick Them?

Just like designing an actual Magic set or building a deck, balance is important. We want to make sure we don’t favor one color over another, and we don’t want our curve all over the place. So we need to take care to have an even spread of colors and casting costs.
As a basic starting point for a 360-card cube, the following split is considered optimal:

• 50 mono-colored cards for each of the five colors (i.e. 50 black, 50 red…);
• 40 colorless cards;
• 40 non-basic land;
• 30 gold cards (i.e. cards with 2+ colors)

For each of the five colors, we want an even split of creature and non-creature cards, so a good starting point is to have 25 creatures and 25 non-creature spells in each color. Some cube designers consider green to be better at creatures and blue to be better at spells, so they weight these two colors differently (with green having a 33/17 split, and blue at 17/33 to counterbalance the cube).

It is also a good idea to have an even spread of cards across the color combinations in the gold section. Three cards per two-color combination / guild is a good baseline.
There are no true rules for colorless cards and non-basic lands, but I find it’s a good idea to have an even spread of color production across the land. Some people subscribe to the idea of splitting the colorless section out into 10 creatures, 10 equipment, 10 mana sources and 10 others, but again that’s totally up to you.

We also want to try and maintain a balanced curve, at least with our mono-colored cards as a minimum. This means, for example, that you don’t want to load up your 25 red creatures with 20+ dragons that cost 6 or more to cast – you want to spread out the casting costs evenly, with the majority sitting in the sweet spot of a converted mana cost at 3 or 4.
Some colors will likely want to have a lower curve than others. For example, red may want a pile of creatures and spells with a converted mana cost of 1. Green may want to have a higher number of creatures with hefty casting costs, encouraging you to ramp into them. How you design your curve is totally up to you – all that matters is that you have one, and it’s fair to all colors.

Some cube designers like to take this to the extreme and even have a mana curve for their colorless and gold cards. Personally, I haven’t bothered too much, especially with gold; my cubes haven’t suffered for it.

So I Have To Balance It, Curve It… This Sounds Complex…

Don’t worry – now that I’ve freaked you out with numbers, ratios and curves, this is where your creativity comes in. All the balancing ends up doing is limiting your choices when it comes to which cards you include. For example, you’ve just been limited to 25 white creatures, and you want to maintain a curve, so you probably want a maximum of five white creatures with a converted mana cost of 5. Did you want some angels? Things like Baneslayer Angel, Serra Angel and Archangel of Thune are probably already on the list if you have them and/or can afford them. Want to throw equipment around? Stonehewer Giant probably wants onboard. Want to play a totally non-viable enchantment theme just for fun? Celestial Ancient wants to join in. The point is that you’ve probably got some idea of the types of cards or archetypes you want to run in different areas, and with the limits we’ve put in place, you’ll find some of these slots filling up so fast that you’ll have to cut cards rather than add them.
If you want to make a particular archetype or theme playable within your cube, I’ve found through experience that the following guide works pretty well:

• Have about 3% of the cards in your cube support the theme or archetype. For a 360-card cube, this is around 10-11 cards;
• Try and spread the cards out on the curve (i.e. don’t make them all 3-drops);
• Make sure each of the cards is playable on its own in a vacuum. For example, Wizened Cenn is great if you’ve already drafted 10 other Kithkin cards, but you’re never going to play it on its own (well, not unless it’s the only 2CC 2/2 creature you put in the cube, anyway)!

Finally, if you find a card that plays across multiple archetypes, that makes it more draftable. As an example, I have both Knight Tribal and Soldier Tribal as themes in my main cube. They were both about ten cards wide, and both worked fairly well as archetypes. And then I stumbled upon a little card called Knight-Captain of Eos. It worked with both, so I threw it in for a laugh. It has never left (and a player has won a game with a Soldier Tribal deck that fogged their opponents out, too).

But This Sounds Expensive… I Want The Best Cards In Here, Right?

No, not at all. The great art of being a cube designer is working with the limits you’re presented with. Haven’t got a big budget? Limit the cards to things you either own or can buy for less than $1! I have a friend who has literally built a cube this way. It’s incredible fun, and still completely broken. He let me get Balance under an Arcane Savant one night. He responded by resolving Tinker for Inkwell Leviathan!

Haven’t got a big card pool? Throw in what you’ve got! One of the great things about the Cube format is that it’s basically unsolvable – there is no such thing as a perfect cube. You’ll soon discover the weak points of your cube once you’ve drafted it a few times (and then you’ll catch the “what cards exist that I can put in this slot” bug). When I built my initial cube in 2011, I had about 200-250 decent cards and a whole lot of holes to fill. But I’d bought a playset of Lorwyn commons and uncommons, and my playgroup liked tribal themes, so I filled all the holes with Lorwyn commons and uncommons. And surprise! It was still amazing fun (and some of those commons and uncommons became favorites and never left)! Imperious Perfect and Elvish Harbinger are still in there seven years later!

How Do I Draft It?

So you’ve got your 360 cards together and you want to actually give this a try with your friends. How do you shuffle up and distribute the cards?
There are a few out there who subscribe to just taking the entire 360 and just shuffling it all in one giant pile to see what you get. That works, but it produces some pretty wacky boosters. My preferred way to seed booster packs is the following:

• Split your cube out into the eight sections we had when we were designing it – the five colors, gold, non-basic land and colorless;
• Shuffle each of those piles well;
• Evenly distribute these piles into 24 stacks of 15 cards. There are plenty of ways to do this, but I generally hand each booster two cards from each of the monocolored piles, and then another five cards in some way from the last three. This tends to end up looking very similar to an actual real-life Magic booster;

If you’ve never drafted before, it works like this:

• Everyone sits in a circle around the table. Each player gets three 15-card boosters;
• Everyone picks up their first booster, picks one card from it, and passes the remaining 14 to the player on their left;
• You then get handed a 14-card booster. Pick one card from it and pass the other 13 left;
• Keep going until you’ve all run out of cards;
• Everyone picks up the second booster and does the same, but this time passes right;
• Finally, everyone picks up the third booster and does the same, but passes left again.

Everyone should now have 45 semi-cohesive cards to build a 40-card deck with. You usually want 23 non-land cards and 17 land. A cube should have 40-50 of each basic land type handy for players to complete their decks with. Once everyone has built their decks, you’re ready to go!

Some folks complain that drafting takes a chunk of time out of the evening when you just want to shuffle up and play. After a few drafts, you’ll actually find the group getting used to the cards and making faster pick choices. You’ll also find them enjoying having to make the hard decisions between the awesome cards in their boosters (and probably enjoy the agonizing looks you’ve put on some of their faces as they’re having to make those hard choices). It ends up being part of the fun in the long run.

If you haven’t got eight players, don’t stress – the rest of the cards stay in the box, and the players that are drafting are left with some quirky decisions when they try and draft particular archetypes (e.g. “Hmm… I’m going hard at Storm in this draft… I really hope Empty the Warrens isn’t still in the box!”).

So there you go – that’s the quick and dirty guide to creating and drafting your own cube! As a format, Cube can take you as shallow or as deep as you want to go – if you just want to slap 360 cards together and get going, you can. If you want to overthink every slot in the cube, you can do that too! I hope this at least encourages you to give the format a shot if you haven’t before – it is quite likely the most fun your playgroup can have at a kitchen table!

Martin Hughes

Martin first caught the Magic: the Gathering bug at university in Australia in 1995, just as Fourth Edition was released (naturally just missing the era of opening dual lands in booster packs). One degree, career, marriage and two kids later, he is still slinging cards across a kitchen table with friends and is spreading the infection to the next generation via cube, EDH and multiplayer formats.

Planeswalkers, first introduced in Lorwyn, have been a mainstay in many strategies since their release. From Jace Beleren being in Dimir Faeries, Chandra Nalaar supporting a Big Red strategy, and seeing other decks with Ajani Goldmane, Liliana Vess as well as Garruk Wildspeaker the early days of Planeswalkers in Magic found a home for them all.

These are always cards that players gravitate to first, and younger players get wide eyed when they pull one from a pack. I’ll always remember the time when a I sold a young player a booster pack of Magic 2015, and saw his eyes get huge when he pulled a foil Nissa, Worldwaker. Planeswalkers often times makes someone’s day, as well as saves them while in play.

So let’s take a look at one of them. Today we’ll talk about Gideon.

Gideon Jura

The first time we encountered Gideon was with the expansion Rise of Eldrazi. He appeared to fight the Eldrazi in order to not only save the plane of Zendikar, but also save the rest of the multiverse as well. He was also the first Planeswalker to be able to turn into a creature. While this version had a prevent all damage clause others later on would be indestructible when this happened.

His impact was immediate forming the first ever Superfriends deck in Standard, and honestly if you’re going to call your deck Superfriends it HAS to be Jeskai colors. He currently is at home in Azorius Control in Modern, but what if you wanted to build a Superfriends deck in Modern? Let’s take a look.

Modern Jeskai Superfriends

Creature (5)
3 Wall of Omens
2 Snapcaster Mage

Planeswalker (4)
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Gideon Jura
1 Ajani Vengeant

Sorcery (6)
4 Serum Visions
2 Supreme Verdict

Instant (17)
4 Path to Exile
3 Cryptic Command
3 Lightning Helix
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Electrolyze
1 Logic Knot
1 Negate

Enchantment (3)
2 Search For Azcanta
1 Detention Sphere

Land (25)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Celestial Colonnade
3 Island
2 Field of Ruin
2 Steam Vents
1 Arid Mesa
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Sulfur Falls

Sideboard (15)
4 Spreading Seas
2 Stony Silence
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Wear // Tear
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Celestial Purge
1 Negate
1 Dispel
1 Ghost Quarter

How the deck works

The plan is straightforward: Assemble the Superfriends.

• Gideon Jura will need to be played after a board sweeper, or if the board is mostly clear and he can survive the hit back. His +2 ability will be used the most until it’s time to turn the corner.
• Jace, the Mind Sculptor will hide behind Jura as well as Wall of Omens allowing you to gain the card advantage you need to win.
• Ajani Vengeant combos with Gideon Jura to keep the board cleared with both of their + abilities, and then will also start a light mana denial plan until the ultimate.

This deck does tend to go long so you’ll need to utilize your counterspells and removal efficiently to get these walkers deployed. You also have a solid sideboard plan vs Tron with Spreading Seas, Crucible of Worlds, and Ghost Quarter to team up with your Field of Ruin.

Gideon, Champion of Justice

The second offer of Gideon came in Gatecrash showing Gideon being a part of the Boros Legion. That one sentence is probably the best thing to say about this card. Arguably the worst Planeswalker ever printed his abilities lead me to believe he was meant to be a giant threat where his loyalty would be enough to win the game in one swing (or several if you active his ultimate). However, what if we did put him in a deck? What would it look like?

Boros Justice

Creature (4)
4 Wall of Omens

Enchantment (2)
2 Oblivion Ring

Instants (25)
4 Angelsong
4 Holy Day
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Safe Passage
3 Lightning Helix
2 Gideon’s Reproach
1 Aurelia’s Fury

Planeswalker (3)
3 Gideon, Champion of Justice

Sorcery (2)
2 Day of Judgment

Lands (24)
4 Arid Mesa
4 Field of Ruin
4 Inspiring Vantage
4 Plains
3 Mountain
2 Clifftop Retreat
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Ghost Quarter

Sideboard (15)
3 Damping Sphere
3 Repel the Abominable
2 Shatterstorm
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Combust
1 Crucible of Worlds

How the deck works

This deck is essentially a Fog deck. You want to blank the combat damage while building up Gideon’s loyalty. Once you are above 15 you can exile all other permanents (including lands), and then start attacking your opponent. Your burn spells help deal with creatures early, and may provide you some life as well. Wall of Omens, and Angelsong can also help you draw cards, and you can keep Tron off of their lands game 1 by being a 2 color deck.

In the sideboard you have some tech vs Storm. Dawn Charm can counter Gifts Ungiven as you are the target of that spell. Repel the Abominable is also a flavor win for the deck, as well as a way to stop Grapeshot from killing you.

Kytheon, Hero of Akros / Gideon, Battle-Forged

Since the first days of Magic: the Gathering the archetype White Weenie has been as much of a staple archetype just as Elves, and Goblins. Through all of the changes that have happened in the game there are only a few things for certain: Death, Taxes, and White Weenie being good.

When Magic Origins was released we had a chance to see the earliest days of five planeswalkers who would soon become known as The Gatewatch. One of these was Kytheon, Hero of Akros. Hailing from the plane of Theros, young Kytheon ran the streets until he was caught. Growing up he learned the power of Hieromancy, but failed being good at what he does (being an invulnerable warrior), and his spark ignited. Sending him to Alara, Zendikar, and other planes as well. He is the tank of the party, and is always ready to get into the Red Zone. If I was going to build a deck around this guy it would look like this.

Modern Death & Taxes

Creatures (29)
4 Blade Splicer
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Thalia’s Lieutenant
4 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
4 Thraben Inspector
3 Militia Bugler
2 Mirran Crusader

Artifacts (4)
4 Aether Vial

Instants (4)
4 Path to Exile

Lands (23)
10 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Shefet Dunes
1 Eiganjo Castle

Sideboard (15)
4 Damping Sphere
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Rest in Peace
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Selfless Spirit
1 Crucible of Worlds

How the deck works

Kytheon, Hero of Akros wants you to build a creature heavy deck, and as we see now in Modern one of the best ways to do this is with Aether Vial. Being able to deploy creatures on your opponent’s end step keeps the pressure going, and helps transform Kytheon, Hero of Akros sooner than later.

Once he is flipped you can find opportunities to protect your creatures by making them indestructible, or add in on the attacks. Leonin Arbiter also comes along for the ride to tax greedy decks via land destruction or fetchlands, and you can find more creatures to cast with Militia Bugler. Notice that it gets around an active Leonin Arbiter as well.

In the sideboard we have yet more cards to deal with degenerate mana decks, and a few copies of another Gideon we’ll talk about today.

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is quite powerful, and arguably the best Gideon card ever printed. While I feel Gideon Jura is the best this one is right up there with the original. This card was a mainstay in Standard during it’s entire rotation, yet does not see much play in Modern. He currently has a home in the sideboards of some Legacy Death & Taxes lists, but what can we do in Modern? In Standard he was part of many decks, one of which was (incorrectly imho) titled UW Flash. So let’s browse the internet for something close…

Modern Azorius Flash

Creature (8)
3 Augur of Bolas
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Restoration Angel
1 Vendilion Clique

Artifact (1)
1 Runechanter’s Pike

Enchantments (3)
2 Search for Azcanta
1 Detention Sphere

Instants (13)
4 Path to Exile
3 Cryptic Command
3 Thought Scour
1 Sphinx’s Revelation
1 Negate
1 Azorius Charm

Planeswalker (3)
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sorcery (7)
4 Serum Visions
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God

Lands (25)
4 Celestial Colonade
4 Field of Ruin
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Plains
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Prairie Stream

Sideboard (15)
2 Spell Queller
2 Stony Silence
2 Dispel
2 Sugical Extraction
1 Comandeer
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Negate
1 Ceremonius Rejection
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Academy Ruins
1 Cavern of Souls

How the deck works

Prior to the Innistrad block leaving Standard there was a deck that actually had flash creatures in it allow you to utilize those creatures for their come into play abilities, or cast spells from the graveyard again. Restoration Angel was the most prominent in that role allow you to get extra value from not only Snapcaster Mage, but also Augur of Bolas. This deck plays somewhat like a midrange deck with the focus being on tempo plays to stay ahead until you can cast your win conditions. We can’t have too many non-instant or sorcery card in the main deck, and you may want to cut some if you find him missing on some triggers, however being able to select the card you need sometimes is better than just drawing a raw card. If you find this card not working for you at all I would replace him with Wall of Omens.

If your creatures die then you can make some new ones with Moorland Haunt to keep the pressure going. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar also provides a steady stream of creatures, and once you enchant one with Runchanter’s Pike it’s difficult for the opponent to block.

Your sideboard also has some tricks up it’s sleeve including Torrential Gearhulk which would be amazing to blink with Restoration Angel.

Gideon, Martial Paragon

Gideon, Martial Paragon was the first Gideon exclusively found in the Planeswalker decks. These decks are made to buy, and play Friday Night Magic right out of the box without any changes. These type of decks first appeared with the Kaladesh expansion, and replaced the intro decks that were designed. Each deck like this has only one Planeswalker card, and is focused on that card. These are definitely neat in design, and may have some space to brew with, but they are not made for Tier 1 play to make sure they are accessible to everyone.

Unlike other Gideons this one seems to work best with creatures you control. What could we possible do with this?

Modern Orzhov Tokens

Enchantment (9)
4 Intangible Virtue
3 Bitterblossom
2 Legion’s Landing

Instant (7)
4 Path to Exile
2 Fatal Push
1 Anguished Unmaking

Planeswalker (5)
3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Gideon, Martial Paragon

Sorcery (15)
4 Lingering Souls
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
2 Spectral Procession
2 Collective Brutality

Land (24)
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Field of Ruin
4 Marsh Flats
4 Plains
2 Godless Shrine
2 Isolated Chapel
2 Swamp
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Vault of the Archangel

Sideboard (15)
4 Damping Sphere
2 Wrath of God
2 Auriok Champion
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Grafdigger’s Cage

How the deck works

We’re focused on Gideon’s +2 ability in this deck, and with the majority of our spells making creatures we can swarm the field consistently to keep the pressure going. Notice how I seem to always have this Field of Ruin + Ghost Quarter + (sometimes) Crucible of Worlds package in decks? It’s to make sure the deck has games against Tron and Titan Valakut decks. While building a brew is great one should ALWAYS prepare for this matchups with Big Mana decks as they are the easiest to incorporate into the deck.

Due to not have any counters, and more than likely tapping out on your turns you have a heavy discard package to be proactive with your plays, and keep the opponent off balance. If you land Gideon while having Sorin, Solemn Visitor and tokens on the field you should be close to wrapping up the game.

Gideon of the Trials

Now we get to the last Gideon on the list. This one provided to us in Amonkhet has the ability to prevent you from losing the game as long as you have a Gideon planeswalker in play. Any Gideon will do not just this one.

Sounds pretty powerful right? This card, along with Approach of the Second Sun, Settle the Wreckage, and Search for Azcanta helped Azorius Control get up off the mat in Standard. Some of these cards have made it over to Modern, however as of late this Gideon has seen little play.

Let’s change that shall we?

Solar Flare

Creature (10)
3 Sun Titan
3 Wall of Omens
3 Phantasmal Image
1 Snapcaster Mage

Enchantment (1)
1 Detention Sphere

Instant (7)
4 Path to Exile
2 Negate
1 Fatal Push

Planeswalker (5)
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Gideon of the Trials

Sorcery (12)
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lingering Souls
2 Thoughtseize
1 Unburial Rites
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Collective Brutality

Land (25)
4 Flooded Strand
3 Darkslick Shores
2 Concealed Courtyard
3 Polluted Delta
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Field of Ruin
2 Plains
2 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp

Sideboard (15)
4 Spreading Seas
2 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Bottle Gnomes
1 Celestial Purge
1 Negate
1 Collective Brutality
1 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ghost Quarter

How the deck works

Those of you familiar with my writings know how much I loved this version of Solar Flare. Using discard outlets like Liliana of the Veil as well as Collective Brutality will put cards in your graveyard that you can get back with Sun Titan. So with Gideon of the Trials as a card with the converted mana cost of three he seemed like a natural fit. If you have his emblem in play Sun Titan can keep Gideon in play if he ever goes to the yard.

This deck is a tap out control deck. The only cards you really need to worry about are those that impact the graveyard so stay focused on the main plan, and you should be able to survive long enough for a win.

Will you look at that. 6 Gideon decks? Yep. There’s a lot of room to brew in Modern with just one Planeswalker, and with the right foundation you can build a solid deck that you can take to your local FNM.

What are your thoughts on these decks? Which one is your favorite? Do you have a deck with Gideon? If not how would you build one? Please share them below, and make sure to follow me on both Facebook as well as Twitter. Make sure to also send me your questions via social media as I am doing a Q&A for my article on September 10th. Please see the corresponding posts on my Facebook page, as well as Twitter (probably easier on Facebook honestly).

Until next time, where we go back to Jund…

TAP MORE MANA!!!

Scott Campbell

Scott Campbell, better known as MTGPackFoils, has been playing Magic since he was 17 (which was in 1993). He’s known for loving decks such as Azorius Control, Jund, and others (especially in Modern). He is a husband, father, and a former nightclub DJ.

http://www.twitter.com/MTGPackFoils

Today I’m going to talk about one of my favorite formats, and highlight a few decks I played, or played against, during that time. For those of you who don’t know I have only been playing the game at an FNM level or above since 2006. Even though this has been my primary hobby since I graduated High School in 1993 it wasn’t until the summer of 2006 when my daughter asked me to teach her how to play. Once we got a handle on what was in Standard at the time we started buying cards, building decks, and taking our first step into playing Magic beyond the kitchen table. To be honest those were my favorite times playing the game, and I wished they lasted forever.

With all of that said let’s dig in.

Ravnica: City of Guilds through Future Sight

I jumped into this format with about a year to go before the first Ravnica block rotated, but it was a lot of fun. These were the formats in Standard during this time:

• Ravnica: City of Guilds
• Guildpact
• Dissension
• Coldsnap
• Time Spiral
• Planar Chaos
• Future Sight

Now during this era we did have 9th edition (which rotated out when 10th edition was released), but I wanted to focus on the core of this Standard for this section.

This era has so many great options for deck building. Plentiful dual lands, powerful spells in nearly every color combination, and each deck archetype felt different from the next. Diversity is always a great thing to have in Magic, and this era had it in spades.

Solar Flare

Creatures
4 Court Hussar
2 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
2 Angel of Despair
2 Skeletal Vampire

Spells
4 Wrath of God
4 Compulsive Research
4 Remand
4 Azorius Signet
4 Condemn
3 Persecute
2 Zombify
1 Dimir Signet

Lands
4 Godless Shrine
4 Watery Grave
3 Plains
3 Swamp
2 Azorius Chancery
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Urza’s Factory

Sideboard
4 Castigate
2 Confiscate
2 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Mortify
2 Peace of Mind
1 Debtors’ Knell
1 Faith’s Fetters
1 Dread Return

This deck, named when the Champions of Kamigawa block was still in Standard, was quite powerful. With card such as Remand, Wrath of God, and Condemn you were able to answer your opponent’s threats before playing your own win condition (and ususally for 3B thanks to Zombify). By discarding cards such as Akroma, Angel of Wrath you were able to utilize your graveyard as a resource to help propel you to victory. This was also one of the first decks to use Dread Return as some cards in the deck could make smaller creatures for you to use Dread Return for it’s flashback cost. Another version of this deck called Angelfire would remove the black cards, and play Red for Firemane Angel, Lightning Angel, and Demonfire among others.

Dredge

Creatures
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Drowned Rusalka
4 Magus of the Bazaar
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Narcomoeba
3 Llanowar Mentor
2 Flame-Kin Zealot
2 Bonded Fetch

Spells
4 Bridge from Below
3 Dread Return
2 Life from the Loam

Lands
4 Breeding Pool
4 Watery Grave
3 Gemstone Caverns
3 Gemstone Mine
3 Yavimaya Coast
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb

Sideboard
4 Wall of Roots
3 Krosan Grip
3 Pithing Needle
2 Golgari Brownscale
2 Darkblast
1 Blazing Archon

Dredge was a mechanic first introduced in Ravnica: City Of Guilds, and tied to the Golgari Swarm. It’s purpose was to provide you an everlasting army that would never die as long as you had cards to draw in your deck. The mechanic was fine, and seemed quite flavorful for the set.

Then Future Sight was released, and Bridge From Below  happened.

This one card powered Dredge decks to a level they have maintained since they left for Legacy. The fact that we had a future Legacy deck in Standard is quite awesome, and if you missed this Standard you missed a lot of fun. Bridge From Below only works in your graveyard, and only benefits you if your creatures die. When they do each one will trigger giving you a 2/2 Zombie token for each non-token creature killed this way. Token cards were not a part of Magic packs back then, so I had to use D&D Zombie minatures in order to represent my army. My battlefield was a mess, and I loved it! Drowned Rusalka, and Dread Return‘s flashback cost help you with killing your own creatures, and there are many outlets to discard cards, and then use your draws to Dredge back a card or two. This was the pinnacle for using your graveyard during this era, and it’s mechanic & namesake has become one of the many verbs of Magic: the Gathering.

Project X

Creatures
4 Loxodon Hierarch
4 Dark Confidant
4 Wall of Roots
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Crypt Champion
3 Saffi Eriksdotter
3 Essence Warden
2 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Ghost Council of Orzhova
1 Loaming Shaman
1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion

Spells
3 Chord of Calling
3 Castigate
3 Glittering Wish
1 Putrefy

Lands
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Temple Garden
2 Forest
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Brushland
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Godless Shrine
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Pendelhaven
1 Plains
1 Selesnya Sanctuary

Sideboard
4 Hypnotic Specter
2 Persecute
2 Castigate
1 Congregation at Dawn
1 Grave-Shell Scarab
1 Mortify
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Putrefy
1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
1 Saffi Eriksdotter

Now we get to the Junk (now known as Abzan) during this era of Standard. In this deck you play quality green creatures backed up by spells in both black and white. You had ways to ramp out to put multiple creatures on the field in one turn, gain a little life to stay ahead, and then combo off. The combo of Saffi Eriksdotter, and Crypt Champion allows you to either gain infinite life with Essence Warden, or if you have Teysa, Orzhov Scion you can gain infinite flying spirits, and you can do either on the opponent’s end step thanks to Chord of Calling. This deck was quite popular in it’s time for being a creature based deck that could obtain the combo quickly, and close out games in dramatic fashion. It was also supplemented by the sideboard with specific cards to hate on certain strategies it faced during it’s time in Standard. This deck could have legs in Modern, however most decks like this now are the remnants of Birthing Pod decks from Modern’s past that some of us call Faux Pod (known as Abzan Company now).

Izzet Wildfire

Creatures
3 Magnivore

Spells
4 Compulsive Research
4 Stone Rain
4 Boomerang
4 Remand
4 Pyroclasm
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Wildfire
3 Demolish
3 Ancestral Vision

Lands
8 Island
6 Mountain
4 Shivan Reef
4 Steam Vents
2 Izzet Boilerworks

Sideboard
4 Wipe Away
3 Cryoclasm
3 Trickbind
3 Repeal
2 Blood Moon

Speaking of decks that I think would do well in Modern this is one of them. This deck focused everything on your turn, and prevented your opponent from playing Magic. Having your land Boomeranged back to your hand is not fun (unless you are the one casting it), and if your opponent follows that up with an early Stone Rain then you are way behind. Once you get the super advantage any sorcery you play will be fueling a future Magnivore, and put it well out of reach of a Wildfire that you would cast. This deck was so consistent due to a lot of the cards having 3 or 4 copies each that it focused the strategy even more. Some versions of these decks during this era also played cards like Annex, and Defense Grid.

This wasn’t all for this era though. There were plenty of other decks that one would see across from them.

• GhaziGlare: A Selesnya colored aggressive deck that used Glare of Subdual, and Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree to keep opposing blockers tapped.
• Simic Aggro: A low to the ground Tempo Aggro deck with Plaxmanta protecting your team, and Mystic Snake countering opposing spells.
• Blink Riders: A Jeskai colored deck where cards like Momentary Blink allowed you to get extra use from creatures like Avalanche Riders, and Bogardan Hellkite!!!
• Dragonstorm: A deck based around the iconic card Dragonstorm, and allowed you to put all of your Bogardan Hellkites effectively taking them from 20 to 0.
• Izzet Tron: Cards with large mana costs require a lot of mana, and this variant of Tron was no different. YES! Urzatron lands were legal in Standard, AND NO ONE ASKED THEM TO BE BANNED!! What a world!!! With X in casting costs cards like Repeal, and Demonfire were often found here.

…and that’s STILL not everything!

For the game to have such a successful Standard era a few years after the mistakes during Mirrodin block was quite a feat, and they should be applauded for their efforts as it brought players back to the game. The best decks in this era changed very often, and although for some that may feel daunting it was a lot of fun while also being very challenging.

I went into this wanting to write about multiple Standard eras, however there was so much to talk about with this specific one I’ll make these articles stand alone instead. I hope you enjoyed reading about these decks from the past. We’re going to Ravnica this fall, and every time we have visited the plane in the past Standard has been a lot of fun.

What are your thoughts on the decks above? Did you also play during this era? If so what were some of your favorite memories of it? Please share them below, and make sure to follow me on both Facebook as well as Twitter. Make sure to also send me your questions via social media as I am doing a Q&A for my article on September 10th. Please see the corresponding posts on my Facebook page, as well as Twitter (probably easier on Facebook honestly).

Until next time when we being a new article series reviewing Planeswalkers…

TAP MORE MANA!!!

Scott Campbell

Scott Campbell, better known as MTGPackFoils, has been playing Magic since he was 17 (which was in 1993). He’s known for loving decks such as Azorius Control, Jund, and others (especially in Modern). He is a husband, father, and a former nightclub DJ.

http://www.twitter.com/MTGPackFoils

For those of you that caught my title pun, I didn’t actually play V:TES back in the day. Decipher Star Wars CCG ate up my disposable income once I moved on from Magic, and now that I think of it, I have a couple of pretty cool deck boxes that I am going to have to dig out to house 93/94 decks.

                                         (current deck boxes in use that I had kept from ‘back in the day’- 1996)

(classic Decipher Star Wars CCG deckboxes that I dug out of the dark recesses of a plastic storage bin, not coincidentally also full of boxes and binders of the old Star Wars cards! I think that Han frozen in carbonite will make a good home for my mono Blue artifact deck).

Last time I wrote, my 93/94 decks consisted of: mono Blue artifact ramp with Urza lands, R/G Kird Ape Berserk, Flying Men aggro blue (splashing green for Pendelhaven and pump) and mono Black. Since then, I have done some tuning and put some thought into how I might accomplish those upgrades (thanks to the Old School Discord server for being a great community!). In mono blue, I added a second Transmute Artifact to find what I need in a given situation and an Unlimited Nevinyrral’s Disk as a great answer to search up. Kird Ape Berserk now has a playset of the powerful green pump spell and 3/4 Taiga are Unlimited. Flying Men aggro has smoothed out its mana base with another Tropical Island, and mono black has found an Arabian Nights Sorceress Queen.

My most recent creation is a W/R fliers deck, with Rukh Eggs. All of my one- and two-drops are removal or are helping me get more mana to leverage the Land Tax, and then flying creatures can take over from there. If I get lucky, the Rukh Egg can block or be hatched from a timely Earthquake. Two Fellwar Stone are there in place of Mox Ruby and Mox Pearl, and with this many flying creatures it would be a luxury to have a Moat, but those are three cards that are currently out of my reach.

I don’t think that I’m taking enough advantage of cracking the eggs; perhaps adding the Preacher/City of Shadows combo would help accomplish that goal more consistently.

My nemesis:

This is the pride and joy of the friend who encouraged me to make my first 93/94 deck, and it’s pretty good at what it does- drawing cards, resetting hands and dealing damage one at a time from Black Vise and Underworld Dreams (often stacked together for double the fun!). I have been able to beat this beast of a deck on occasion (it’s weak to an early Blood Moon), but I really need to manage my removal and have early pressure in order to end the game before he can get his engine going.

The newest format that I was introduced to last month by my playgroup was one that I think would be a great way to introduce old/lapsed players to the world of 93/94- 60 card singleton, with restricted cards banned (sorry, Sol Ring and Chaos Orb), and further constricted to ABU cards (or same art/frame). I initially misunderstood the explanation, and built a G/W deck using EC rules. This left me with a nice curve and disruption, but I had used 17 cards from expansions that weren’t legal! Playing definitely hit the nostalgia notes for me, as when I first played the game having four of one card (especially a rare or a card from an older set) was not very common.  When you draw your powerful threat (or Lure a Thicket Basilisk) it feels like you’ve accomplished something!

My goal for next time is to have played more over the summer, and to have another deck to discuss. I’m hoping that it will be mono red, with Atog and artifacts.

Craig Simpson

Craig is a husband, and father of 4, living in the frozen north of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Outside of collecting cards to build old school decks with, he has a love for merfolk in modern and occasionally drafting online.

When Shards of Alara was released it added an extra layer of lore into the game. The setting was split between 5 multi-colored regions based on color groupings (collectively known as Shards), and each had their own unique archetypes that formed from them. The format also slowed down a whole lot, especially for a multi-colored set that followed a pair of (somewhat) multi-colored sets in Shadowmoor & Eventide. If you look at the back of a Magic card you can see the Shard color combinations.

If you start with White at the very top you look to each color on either side (example: Green on your left, Blue on your right). These Shards are named the following:

• GWU: Bant
• WUB: Esper
• UBR: Grixis
• BRG: Jund
• RGW: Naya

This was also the first block where we had Planeswalker cards in multiple expansions throughout the block, and they were also tied into the story happening on that plane. Before this set was released we did not have proper names for triple color decks, outside of naming them based on a key card or creature. Dralnu Teachings, for example, was an Esper Control based around Dralnu, Lich Lord and Mystical Teachings. However it wasn’t until after those key cards rotated out of Standard that we got the name Esper.

With all of that said there was a deck whose name, and popularity, continues to this day. That is Jund. It took the whole block for us to get to this level of power, and the Cascade mechanic is one of the most famous (or perhaps infamous) mechanics that came from this block. Loved as well as feared by players across the community, the archetype tries to provide it’s pilot value in the form of big threats early couple with removal, as well as hand disruption (which during Standard was mostly from the board).

Let’s take a look.

Jund (Shards of Alara through Magic 2011)

Creatures:
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Sprouting Thrinax
4 Putrid Leech
3 Broodmate Dragon
3 Siege-Gang Commander

Planeswalkers:
2 Garruk Wildspeaker

Spells:
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Terminate
4 Blightning
2 Maelstrom Pulse

Lands:
4 Forest
4 Raging Ravine
4 Savage Lands
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Mountain
3 Swamp
2 Dragonskull Summit
2 Lavaclaw Reaches

Sideboard:
4 Deathmark
3 Anathemancer
3 Great Sable Stag
2 Master of the Wild Hunt
2 Jund Charm
1 Pithing Needle

How the deck works

The deck relies on curving out a constant string of threats, while using your life total as a resource. Playing Putrid Leech, then Sprouting Thrinax, and then Bloodbraid Elf into another creature or removal spell helped push games into your favor. Cards like Garruk Wildspeaker also gave you both time, and mana until you could drop either Siege-Gang Commander, or the powerful Broodmate Dragon.

These are the cards that were really awesome during this era, Blightning truly being the strongest of this group. How many of you would want to staple a Lightning Bolt to a Mind Rot? If you didn’t raise your hand you might not be familiar with those cards. This was also during an era where you could still redirect damage going towards a player to their Planeswalker instead. Coupled with a powerful creature your opponent could lose 3 cards for your 3 mana, which is super efficient.

Cards like Terminate, Lightning Bolt, and even Maelstrom Pulse helped round out the spells portion of the deck. Some of these decks even ran Bituminous Blast which could let you cascade into Bloodbraid Elf, and then you would cascade again. Each of these being the most efficient cards for their abilities led Jund to be a powerhouse deck (especially after Faeries left the format).

Modern updates, question mark?

Honestly it would be difficult to not just play what we already have in Modern for Jund however you could do a few things with this version of the deck going forward.

• Tireless Tracker: This card is awesome. With the amount of lands this deck plays (as well at the fetchlands already in it) you’ll be able to generate a lot of value with just this one card. It is a “must answer” threat, and if ignored can get out of control.
• Farseek: To couple with the card above you can find any of your other basics with this card. Although there is no way to fetch Mountains with the current mana base this will help find the missing color you’ll need. Imagine casting Garruk Wildspeaker, then untapping 2 lands and casting Farseek. That’s quite the acceleration.
• Inquisition of Kozilek: The power of this card goes without saying. If you can land untapped mana on turn 1 you can cast this, or wait until later to clear the way for a big play. It’s also a lot cheaper if you are on a budget.
• Sarkhan, Fireblood: This is a new card coming out this week with the release of Core Set 2019 (which I’ll still call Magic: 2019). Sarkhan has 2 plus abilities, and one of them allows you to cast Broodmate Dragon a lot cheaper. You could probably substitute other creatures for Dragons if you go this route which would provide some large creatures on your side of the board. Your opponents at FNM may not be able to answer all of them.

These are just a few ideas that could be implemented. Will it win a Pro-Tour? Probably not. More than likely not. Will it be sweet to run at FNM aginst unexpected opponents? HECK YEAH!

One of the reasons I started this Speaking Casually series is to reach out to those players who maybe did not play Standard during these various eras, such as the Shards of Alara block through Magic: 2011. If you ask around at your FNM you may encounter many players who have only been playing since, for example, Khans of Tarkir (if not even more recent than that). There are a lot of good deck ideas of yesteryear that not only would be a lot of fun, but may also be light on the wallet too.

What do you think? What cards outside of this era would you try in a deck like this? Let me know in the comments below, and make sure to follow me on both Facebook as well as Twitter.

Until next time, where I dig deeper into the framework of Modern…

TAP MORE MANA!!!

-Scott (@MTGPackFoils)

Scott Campbell, better known as MTGPackFoils, has been playing Magic since he was 17 (which was in 1993). He’s known for loving decks such as Azorius Control, Jund, and others (especially in Modern). He is a husband, father, and a former nightclub DJ.

Scott Campbell

Scott Campbell, better known as MTGPackFoils, has been playing Magic since he was 17 (which was in 1993). He’s known for loving decks such as Azorius Control, Jund, and others (especially in Modern). He is a husband, father, and a former nightclub DJ.

http://www.twitter.com/MTGPackFoils