Santa Claus has brought us the following sets to enjoy during the holidays:
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Gatecrash
- Betrayers of Kamigawa
- Urza’s Legacy
- Exodus
- Magic Origins
The Workshop at the North Pole must have slacked because those sets have a bunch of broken cards in them. Here’s the rundown:
While “FUN” may not be the first word that comes to mind when you see/hear the names of any of these cards, they do all have one thing in common: They have all been banned in a constructed format at one time or another in their existence. But here, at The Mythic Society’s Set Roulette, we treat all Magic cards equally and jam them all in the same format when the Magic Gods tell us to do so.
The Rules of Engagement
This format has the power cranked up to 11, here is your checklist to victory:
1- Your deck plays or can beat Survival of the Fittest + Vengevine
2- Your deck plays or can beat Emrakul + Goryo’s Vengeance or Oath of Druids
3- Your deck plays or can beat Bounding Krasis + Splinter Twin
Now, that’s a tall order with the limited resources we have. Where to start?
The Champions
Vengeful Survineval
This deck has more power in it than the Energizer Bunny! Being able to stuff as many broken things into one deck as we can is a great way of earning wins in this Holiday event. For those of you who have never experienced Survival of the Fittest + Vengevine, let me tell you; it's not easy to contain. Survival of the Fittest gives you the ability to search up all the Vengevines in your library, dump them into your graveyard and then play a couple Hangarback Walkers to reanimate them. But the danger of this deck doesn’t end there.
Survival of the Fittest, Frantic Search and Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy are all ways to discard Emrakul, which, with its shuffle trigger on the stack, can be reanimated at instant speed by Goryo’s Vengeance, causing the immediate annihilation of your opponents board.
If those were the only 2 things that this deck did, it would probably be enough, but there is more. Jace is another creature that can be reanimated due to Goryo’s Vengeance, and activating his ability with 5 or more cards in the graveyard will cause him to exile and since the planeswalker side of the Jace becomes a new object, it will not die at the end step due to Goryo’s Vengeance’s ability.
The nature of a survival deck means that it has silver bullets. Bone Shredder serves as a removal that also targets Emrakul. Bounding Krasis is there to foil opposing Vengeful Emrakuls from wreaking your battlefield. Spike Weaver is the fog machine necessary to keep opposing battlefields at bay, and Caustic Caterpillar is there to get rid of Survivals, Oaths, Tinker targets, Splinter Twins and any other pesky artifact or enchantment.
Lastly, there is the sideboard. Negate and Naturalize are pretty self explanatory, Infinity Obliteration is there for Vengevines, Emrakuls or Bounding Krasis. Languish cleans up any fair aggressive strategies that may exist. Vendetta is there to slow down aggro decks and stop you from getting twined. As for the last couple silver bullets, the Kira protects your Emrakul from being tapped down by Krasis when Vengeanced back into play. The last slot goes to the Snake Sniper whose job is to wrangle the giant tentacle monster.
Pastafarianism
This second hybrid deck attempts to exploit the creature denial power of Oath of Druids and the tutoring capacity of Tinker to cheat various large permanents onto the battlefield. Counter magic, draw spells and another tool box ensure that this deck’s main game plan is well executed. This is also the second deck that has the ability to recycle its cards thanks to Emrakul’s shuffle ability. Crawl Space is a silver bullet we want to have access to in order not to get overwhelmed by boardstates, also hindering the Splinter Twin combo. Quicksilver Amulet is there to drop the God of Spaghetti if it ever gets trapped in your hand. Orb of dreams cancels a massive army or Bounding Krasis as well as Goryo-animated Legends. Alhammarret’s Archive is there to turbo charge your cantrips into real card advantage. Finally, Ring of Gix gets the nod to keep Emrakul in check turn after turn. If all else fails, the good ol’ “Manland Plan” is a fine path to victory.
As far as sideboarding goes, Hidden Gibbons is there to pressure opposing control decks. Mage-Ring Responder is a Tinker target when Emrakul isn’t good enough. Ulamog is there to sidestep infinite oblivion. Aetherize is just some early insurance vs aggressive strategies able to overpower a single Aeon Tearer.
Twinker
Is every deck in this format a Hybrid? Well, the packages are so tight that it works. Temur Twin was a very successful deck back in 2015 Modern because it had a combo and a way to pressure opponents with cards like Tarmogoyf, as well as ways defend themselves with counterspells and removal. This version tries to do the same with Tinker. While Mage-Ring Responder may not be the best card you have ever gotten with a Tinker, the fact that Bounding Krasis is a card you play in this deck gives you a way to untap it without having to pay the full 7 mana. Hangarback doubles as Tinker fodder and a backup fair beatdown plan with the help of Umezawa’s Jitte.
The sideboard has some more hot stuff going on. Pia and Kiran Nalaar kick the control plan into high gear by giving you the possibility to throw useless artifacts at your opponents creatures or face. Ghirapur Aether Grid is standing in to make its best Grim Lavamancer impression. Goblin Welder turns your trinkets into treasure and your opponent’s big metal guy into an ashtray. Erratic Portal is a makeshift Rishadan Port, all the while being the world's best Rescue machine.
With all the different permutations of Survival + Vengevine, Tinker piles, Twin combos and Begrudging Emrakuls, can one really compete without these in their deck? The next section of decks thinks so
The Challengers
Medicine of Jukai
This is definitely a Set Roulette Special! The key interaction here is Tainted Remedy + Arcane Spells + Roar of Jukai. The card Roar of Jukai will never do anything. Ever. But you can splice it onto an arcane spell by choosing to have your opponent gain 5 life, turning the card Tainted Remedy into a deadly weapon. Luckily, there are other cards in the format that give your opponent life. Alms Beast granting your opponent’s creatures lifelink is another great interaction with Tainted Remedy. The last superstar is Devouring Flesh, turning its drawback into some serious damage.
Since this is more of a Control/Combo deck, it is important to have tools to contain the most broken things in the format. Blind Obedience is probably the best hate card in the deck. It stops you from dying to the Twin combo, from getting hit by a hasty Emrakul, and prevents you from getting hit with vengevines the turn they enter play. It also has cute interactions with Grim Monolith entering tapped, as well as Mage-Ring Responder.
The rest of the deck includes bread-and-butter cards like Read the Bones, Inquisition of Kozilek and Obzedat, Ghost Council, your alternate win condition.
The sideboard is where all the hate is at. Hallowed Moonlight removes Splinter Twin tokens, stops Oath of Druids, Goryo’s Vengeance, Vengevines and Tinker into Mage-Ring Responder. Infinite Obliteration removes combo pieces from your opponent’s deck. Merciless Eviction is the biggest “Catch All” there is, and Gideon Jura is just another angle of attack that doesn’t get hit by hate cards.
Death and Taxes
(Warning: Council’s Lieutenant was removed from this decklist and replaced by Daring Skyjek since the card is bugged on MTGO, its renowned ability does not trigger)
Good ol’ White Weenie, playing fair magic since 1993, Craig Wescoe would be proud. But like all successful white aggressive decks, we need some hate bears. Mother of Runes is the best white 1 drop in magic, no way you should ever play less than 4. Battalion is very present in this aggro deck, and with 15 1-drops, it gets there quite often. Frontline Medic lets you crash your team into opposing Vengevines unimpeded. Archangel of Tithes protects you from an army of Bounding Krasis (as long as you can protect it with your Mother of Runes so it doesn’t get tapped down). Student of Warfare having 3 powers worth of first strike allows him to fend off Vine Elementals or team up with Gideon Battle-Forged to eat them.
Sideboard wise, the hate continues with Hokori, Dust Drinker locking mana hungry decks out of their resources, Linvala, Keeper of Silence preventing Twins from proliferating since 2012, and Vryn’s Wingmare taxing those non-creature spells.
Summoning Goggles
Modeled off of Brad Nelson’s Pro Tour Innistrad Top 8 RG Ramp list, this deck looks to abuse the copying ability of Pyromancer’s Goggles to generate twice as many resources as normal. The slight twist that this format was able to include in the deck is the combination of In the Web of War and Devastating Summons to assemble a 1 turn kill. We also have access to a “Fireball” type effect in Clan Defiance, which, when copied, will have a similar game ending effect as the Devastating Summons combo. Ancient Stirrings has been a mainstay in Modern Tron decks for ages now, allowing the deck to find its key pieces. Since Grim Monolith and Pyromancer’s Goggles are both colorless, they can be snagged by the Rise of the Eldrazi common. All is Dust is another utility card that gets picked up by the green card selection spell.
In the sideboard, we can find Frenzied Tilling, a Ramp and Land Destruction spell rolled up into one, that is conveniently red to get copied by the goggles. This is made to hamper decks with greedier manabases, all the while getting you to a crucial high land count. Koziel gives you more fuel in the longer matchups, and Ring of Gix stops Emrakuls from attacking.
Looking forward to 2021
While not all cards will find a home in this weekend’s tournament, here is a list of cool things that could happen:
-Recurring Night + 2 Palinchrons
-Mind Over Matter + Urza’s Blueprints + Alhammarret’s Archive
-Spike Weaver + Erratic Portal
-Tallowisp + Eldrazi Conscription
-Demonic Pact + Disperse
-Shirei, Shizo’s Caretaker + Kami of False Hope
-Goryo’s Vengeance + Obzedat (Doesn’t get exiled by Vengeance)
Many more exciting and novel decks could be produced thanks to this format’s rich source of “build around cards”, but it is time to wrap up this month’s Set Roulette Metagame predictions with a special “Set Roulette Drinking Game” list
-Drink if a creature brought back by Goryo’s Vengeance gets tapped down by an opposing Bounding Krasis
-Drink if Vengevines get exiled by Hallowed Moonlight
-Drink if Frontline Medic gets sacrificed to counter an X spell
-Drink if a Splinter Twin resolves onto another creature than Bounding Krasis
-Drink if a player untaps their own Mage-Ring Responder with a Bounding Krasis
-Drink twice if a Splinter Twin Combo is interrupted by a Sickening Shoal from a tapped out opponent
-Drink twice if a goblin welder switches 2 opposing artifacts
-Finish your drink if a Player uses all 3 modes on the card Clan Defiance
Hope you come check out the event
