Post by sdfkjgh on May 7, 2020 21:14:47 GMT
Dicking Around in Tosche Station, pt. 14: Ikoria Twofer
Well, here it is, my much-hyped Ikoria Standard decks column. But first, some background. On a fairly recent episode of Magic Mics (not sure which), Evan, Reuben, and Erin first talked about the memey goodness that is Sharknado, and someone in chat nicknamed it Decree of Jawstice. In response, I declared that any deck that used it should be named Street Sharks. Leave me alone, I was only 10 or 11 at the time. I’m pretty sure you all watched some godawful crap when you were stung, yupid, and didn’t know any better.
Anyway, in that or another episode of Magic Mics, someone commented that Rielle, the Everwise and Song of Creation is a combo, and that got me salivating. So, as soon as Ikoria released on Arena, I did something I never thought I’d do: I brewed up a control deck. I know, but considering my lack of experience in doing such things, and my lack of success with the damn thing, it doesn’t seem so strange.
Street Sharks
Sideboard
Mebbe it’s a better deck than I thought, it’s just the pilot that’s utter trash. I wouldn’t put it past him, he acts like a totally spoiled, petulant child whenever he’s paired against a control deck, conceding early and refusing to play against control. It’s completely wrecked his record.
As you can imagine, I was feeling rather bummed out by my failure with that deck, so I went into my free Sealed event (bought both preorder bundles, because apparently I like to collect the pets) with a little trepidation. Among my rares were King Caesar, Awoken Titan, Nethroi, Apex of Death, and (I think) Battra, Dark Destroyer & Ruinous Ultimatum. So, I guess I’m going 4 color? The rest of my pool had 1 or 2 Cloudpiercer, 3 or 4 Essence Symbiote, an Auspicious Starrix, 1-3 Fertilid, 2 or 3 Vulpikeet, 3 Farfinder, 1 Mothra's Great Cocoon, 2-3 Zagoth Mamba, 1-2 Humble Naturalist, maybe 1 or 2 Majestic Auricorn, and various other cards.
I didn’t lose a single match.
This was something special, so I knew I had to flesh it out into a Standard deck. After much tweaking, here’s what I got:
Os Mutantes
Sideboard
I swear, this new set feels like that Old Spice commercial, and I'm all for it.
SurgeonGeneral Commander: Hello, planeswalkers. Look at your creature. Now back to me. Now back at your creature. Now back to me! Sadly, it isn't me, but if you started mutating things onto and under it, it could become a close approximation of me. Look down. Back up. Where are you? You're on Ikoria with the Commander Your Creature Could Mutate Into! What's in your hand? Back at me! I have it! It's a Giant Oyster with two copies of that creature with mutate you love. Look again. Those cards have now mutated onto your creature! Anything is possible when your creature is being mutated into the insanity that is Ikoria. I'm on Mistform Ultimus.
And, on that bit of silliness, I’ll say thanks to Daij_Djan , and goodbye till next time.
Well, here it is, my much-hyped Ikoria Standard decks column. But first, some background. On a fairly recent episode of Magic Mics (not sure which), Evan, Reuben, and Erin first talked about the memey goodness that is Sharknado, and someone in chat nicknamed it Decree of Jawstice. In response, I declared that any deck that used it should be named Street Sharks. Leave me alone, I was only 10 or 11 at the time. I’m pretty sure you all watched some godawful crap when you were stung, yupid, and didn’t know any better.
Anyway, in that or another episode of Magic Mics, someone commented that Rielle, the Everwise and Song of Creation is a combo, and that got me salivating. So, as soon as Ikoria released on Arena, I did something I never thought I’d do: I brewed up a control deck. I know, but considering my lack of experience in doing such things, and my lack of success with the damn thing, it doesn’t seem so strange.
Street Sharks
- Standard legal
| 2 Essence Scatter | |
| 2 Negate | |
| 3 Ominous Seas | |
| 3 Thassa’s Intervention | Need a Shark bigger than 4/4? This has got you covered. |
| 2 Brazen Borrower | |
| 3 Rielle, the Everwise | |
| 2 Clear the Mind | With all the discarding and drawing we’re doing in this deck, I don’t want to run the risk of decking myself. Also, I just love to durdle, and two of these, or two Gaea’s Blessing & three Jadelight Ranger (with or without Helm of the Host) is my kind of durdling. |
| 4 Ionize | Control Deck needs unconditional counters, right? |
| 3 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer | Stalls the early game with a flood of chumpblockers. |
| 3 Chemister’s Insight | If you’re jumpstarting this, something’s gone absolutely wrong. |
| 2 Devious Cover-Up | Moar Clear the Mind-style durdling. I once played against a control deck whose only wincon was 4 of these. As you can imagine, I was extremely Bonneville by the end of it, when I lost. |
| 3 Song of Creation | |
| 3 Sharknado | |
| 2 Castle Vantress | |
| 4 Island | |
| 4 Mistake Sanctuary | NEVER ENOUGH DURDLING!!! THAT’S WHAT CONTROL DECKS DO, RIGHT? DURDLE WITH THEIR DIRNDL IN THE BIRNDL, MAKING SURE NOBODY HAS ANY FUN AT ALL UNTIL THEY ASSEMBLE THE LOCK THAT COMBINES TO TELL OPPONENTS “AS AN ADDITIONAL COST TO BREATHE IN, PUNCH YOURSELF AS HARD AS YOU CAN IN THE SOLAR PLEXUS!!!” No, I’m not bitter at all, why do you ask? |
| 3 Mountain | |
| 1 Forest | |
| 3 Steam Vents | |
| 3 Breeding Pool | |
| 4 Ketria Triome | |
| 1 Fabled Passage |
Sideboard
| 2 Essence Scatter | |
| 2 Negate | |
| 3 Quench | |
| 2 Brazen Borrower | |
| 3 Neutralize | |
| 1 Chemister’s Insight | |
| 2 Genesis Ultimatum | The plural of ultimatum is ultimata, GET IT RIGHT, PEOPLE!!! Also, the smaller crystal on the left totally looks like a circumcised cock. ONE MORE CARD FOR THE DICK DECK!! |
Mebbe it’s a better deck than I thought, it’s just the pilot that’s utter trash. I wouldn’t put it past him, he acts like a totally spoiled, petulant child whenever he’s paired against a control deck, conceding early and refusing to play against control. It’s completely wrecked his record.
As you can imagine, I was feeling rather bummed out by my failure with that deck, so I went into my free Sealed event (bought both preorder bundles, because apparently I like to collect the pets) with a little trepidation. Among my rares were King Caesar, Awoken Titan, Nethroi, Apex of Death, and (I think) Battra, Dark Destroyer & Ruinous Ultimatum. So, I guess I’m going 4 color? The rest of my pool had 1 or 2 Cloudpiercer, 3 or 4 Essence Symbiote, an Auspicious Starrix, 1-3 Fertilid, 2 or 3 Vulpikeet, 3 Farfinder, 1 Mothra's Great Cocoon, 2-3 Zagoth Mamba, 1-2 Humble Naturalist, maybe 1 or 2 Majestic Auricorn, and various other cards.
I didn’t lose a single match.
This was something special, so I knew I had to flesh it out into a Standard deck. After much tweaking, here’s what I got:
Os Mutantes
- Standard legal
| 3 Essence Symbiote | Sooo many uses for this card: removal sponge, sacrifice fodder, secondary mutator (when the next card isn’t around), makes things big and pads your life total, what’s not to love? |
| 4 Paradise Druid | This was a revelation while building this deck. As I mentioned earlier, in Sealed, this was Humble Naturalist, but I needed something a little more flexible, and the fact that this had hexproof meant that it also had the protection it needed. When I first started playing this deck, I saw these as acceleration first, occasional awesome mutate targets second. More and more, I’m reversing that opinion: these are the first, last, and only things to mutate onto, you’re never tapping them down until you’re absolutely certain they won’t have any way to interact with them, and you’ll only deign to mutate onto something else if there are no other options available. |
| 4 Migratory Greathorn | For the longest time, these were only a 3-of, but I realized that this deck NEEDS the ramp, so I bumped it up to the full 4. |
| 2 Fertilid | Migratory Greathorns #5 & 6. Yes, they’re slower and more mana-intensive, but sometimes this is your best option. In Sealed, the fun thing to do was mutate a Vulpikeet or two on top of a Fertilid, or mutate anything onto it with an Essence Symbiote out, and just go to town mutating, growing, and ramping. You can still do that here, but Migratory Greathorn is going to be your primary route there. That’s not to say there aren’t additional cool tricks with this--it’s basically a free extra creature for Nethroi |
| 3 Mythos of Nethroi | |
| 3 | Much flying, such p/t boosting, wow! |
| 3 Battra, Dark Destroyer | This is most assuredly a midrange deck (my favorite), but it’s definitely more toward the controlling end of that spectrum. |
| 2 Anguirus, Armored Killer | For the longest time, this was 2 Cloudpiercer, but I kept on: cutting them during sideboarding, more often than not opting not to rummage, realizing that I had enough flying and removal to deal with any threat from the air, and realizing that I was especially weak to artifacts and enchantments, and realizing that sometimes, I still needed trample (especially with Nethroi), so I finally bit the bullet and cut Cloudpiercer completely from the deck. |
| 4 King Caesar, Awoken Titan | For the longest time, this was only a 3-of, but then I realized that it was among the top tier of mutators in the deck, killing creatures and planeswalkers, and padding our life total. This is the card that can take us from dangerously low single digits back up to above 20 in a ridiculously small number of turns. |
| 4 Majestic Auricorn | For the longest time, this was only a 3-of, but then I realized that we always need more lifegain to stabilize, and without this, we’re NEVER attacking. You heard me right, Paradise Druid has hexproof as long as it’s untapped, so combine that with vigilance, and you’re never caught with your shields down. A perfect curve in this deck is turn 1: Triome; turn 2: untapped land, Druid; turn 3: untapped land, mutate Greathorn on top of Druid; turn 4: mutate Majestic Auricorn on top, attack; turn 5: mutate King Caesar, Awoken Titan on bottom, swing for a bunch. |
| 3 Nethroi, Apex of Death | |
| 1 Ruinous Ultimatum | |
| 3 Plains | For the longest time, this used to be a 4-of, but I found myself needing more  in the earliest turns of the game, so I cut one for |
| 1 Temple Garden | although, this was one of the last changes I made to the manabase. |
| 2 Castle Locthwain | This, otoh, was always a 2-of, as I knew from my experience with Ali Aintrazi’s Dinos with Helmets deck that I’d need some form of card draw. In fact, when I first started building this deck, I was having my usual overflow problems, so I decided to start from scratch: 3 King Caesar, 3 Nethroi, 2 of these, 4 each of the Savai & Indatha Triomes, fill out the rest of the deck with the essentials, tweak the numbers, then adjust the manabase rom there. I’d say it worked out pretty well. |
| 2 Swamp | For the longest time, this was a 3-of, to go with the singleton Witch’s Cottage, but I found myself needing more in the earliest turns of the game, so I cut one for |
| 1 Overgrown Tomb | |
| 1 Witch’s Cottage | Sometimes, you just need to get something back, and the Castles allow you to recast it that same turn with a minimum of painment. |
| 2 Mountain | For the longest time, these were only in the deck for the Cloudpiercers & Ultimata, and, very rarely (only if something went horribly wrong), Elvis, but ever since cutting the 5/4, I realized I only ever need exactly the basics to cast Ruinous Ultimatum, and leave the rest for the duals and trilands. |
| 3 Forest | For the longest time, this was actually a 5-of, but I found myself needing just a bit more investment in the other three colors, so I cut one for the Overgrown Tomb, and one for |
| 1 Stomping Ground | |
| 3 Savai Triome | For the shortest time, this used to be the full 4-of, but I realized that  was my least-needed color, and I wanted the greatest possible flexibility, so one of the first adjustments I made to the manabase was to cut one for |
| 1 Fabled Passage | aslo, I didn’t want too many forced-taplands. |
| 4 Indatha Triome | This, otoh, was always the full 4-of, because my most important colors were Abzan, primarily in the early game, and between the two Triomes, there’d be enough  &  to satisfy most of the rest of the deck. |
Sideboard
| 2 Zagoth Mamba | For the longest time, this was a 3-of in the maindeck (with a fourth in the sideboard), but I kept cutting them and the Cloudpiercers for more solid removal, so I finally just moved them all to the ‘board in favor of the 4-of essentials, and other additions to the sideboard. |
| 1 Mythos of Nethroi | |
| 4 Mythos of Snapdax | For the longest time, this used to be 3 in the main, 1 in the side, but unfortunately, far too often, the most troubling permanent you’d want to get rid of are the only ones of their type that the opponent controls, so into the side they all went, to be brought out against swarm decks that are too fast for the Ultimata. |
| 2 Anguirus, Armored Killer | Sometimes, you just need more artifact and enchantment hate. |
| 3 Ruinous Ultimatum | |
| 3 Field of Ruin | Sometimes, you just need more land, and a way to blow up their problem lands. |
I swear, this new set feels like that Old Spice commercial, and I'm all for it.
Surgeon
And, on that bit of silliness, I’ll say thanks to Daij_Djan , and goodbye till next time.