Update

-2 Zhalfirin Void => +2 Arch of Orazca

-1 Circuitous Route => +1 Precognitive Perception

Sideboard

-2 Seal Away => +2 Knight of Autumn

-2 Radiant Destiny => +2 Recollect

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This deck is a revisit of a Dominaria combo deck.

The concept is extremely simple: ramp, them smash your opponent with your lands.

The combo

The kill is fairly simple, once you have 7 lands, or 6 but with multiple Rallying Roar, transform your lands into creatures with Sylvan Awakening then untap them. Attack for lethal damage! You just need to make sure the field is open during your surprise attack! With Ravnica 3.2, we have more redundancy thanks to Rally to Battle, making the combo more stable.

Setting up

These cards will help us dig for the combo if we don't have it in hand. Otherwise, they make sure we hit our land drops! Once transformed, Azcanta counts as a land for the surprise attack! All of our combo pieces are non creature non land, so its ability is extremely relevant. Shimmer of Possibility is insane in this deck, being able to look at one more card than Anticipate really makes the deck come together. It is basically a better Azcanta one use activation that get lands and the combo pieces!

These three cards are what make the deck viable in standard. They quicken our game plan incredibly. By turn 4, we can have 7 lands in play and go for the kill. Otherwise, they fill our graveyard nicely for Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin.

The matchups

• Grixis and esper Control

These two archetypes are our worst matchup, because they have access to the most effective hate our deck can face. Playing around counter magic is tough but not impossible. The main trouble comes with Thought Erasure, Unmoored Ego, Duress and Thief of Sanity. As such, we need ways to protect the combo.

+2 Negate to fight back the counter magic

+2 Seal Away more effecient against Thief of Sanity than our sweepers

+2 Gaea's Blessing to make sure we can still draw our combo through all the discard spells

+2 Sorcerous Spyglass to fight against annoying planeswalkers, especially Angrath

+1 Nezahal as an alternative win con

-2 Settle the Wreckage

-3 Cleansing Nova

-2 Rally to Battle

• Red deck wins, white aggro...

This matchup is basically an invisible race. We need to find the combo and represent lethal damages as quickly as possible.

+2 Seal Away is a great way to interact a bit more and remove their most annoying creatures

+2 Trostani Discordant is a fine creature to buy some time, the tokens provide some lifegain and block the small creatures. The anthem effect quickens the combo kill!

+2 Murmuring Mystic

-2 Unwind

-2 Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin

-2 Cleansing Nova

• Midrange decks, mythic piles...

We usually have a great matchup against midrange decks because they don't have many ways to interact with our game plan. We still have to play around Spell Pierce. It is often a good choice to bait their counter when playing a sweeper and go for the kill afterwards.

+2 Seal Away

-2 Anticipate

Other sideboard notes:

The sideboard used to include some of the best nonbos in standard. (mind the interactions between Trostani Discordant and Mass Manipulation, or Gaea's Blessing and Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin!) I am currently trying Murmuring Mystic which works very well with Trostani and all our filtering instants and sorceries.

I have two additional slots with Radiant Destiny, I may try Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca or Treasure Map // Treasure Cove instead.

Discussion

I saw this deck being played as a sort of control deck back in Dominaria Standard, using only 2 to 3 copies of Sylvan Awakening along 4 copies of Teferi. This combo was only used as a backup plan to kill the opponent. Now this type of control deck disappeared, because Nexus of Fate is a strictly better card to make people ragequit.

With this deck, we are 100% going for the combo, for the better or worse. The deck can kill as quickly as turn 4 from nowhere, has some of the best top decks I have ever had in a MTG deck, but if we fail to find or execute the combo in the first game, it is extremely difficult to get back in the game: we have no alternative win con during game one...

Knowing when to go for the kill is probably the most difficult aspect to consider when piloting this deck. Making sure we get exactly the right number of damages, even through a Seal Away, Vraska's Contempt, Revitalize, other surprise life gain or simply an army of blockers is tough, but extremely satisfying at the same time. The right choice is not always to unleash the full combo, but to attack several times with different Sylvan Awakening, or just use our lands to buy time to block for a turn.

The current metagame is extremely hateful to combo decks (thanks Nexus of Fate), but this combo is so explosive that it still has a chance. There are still some cards that make this deck very volatil:

These cards, especially Thought Erasure that is almost always played main deck will considerably increase the challenge of winning with our lands. Most of the time in game 1, the opponent does not know what to expect and may leave our Sylvan Awakening in our hand, and prefer taking Cleansing Nova, Negate or Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin. However, we will have to face all the combo hate in game 2. Gaea's Blessing makes sure we can still recure our pieces. Thief or sanity is the closest thing to our worst nightmare, stealing our combo pieces or even our own Negate...

Speaking of our worst nightmare, Unmoored Ego makes this deck a challenge to play. Thanks to Nexus of Fate, some Esper and Grixis control decks main deck it, and usually name Nexus of Fate or Teferi, Hero of Dominaria in the first game. We surely look like a weird bant turbo fog deck before we attack with our lands! However, Thought Erasure into Unmoored Ego naming Sylvan Awakening is game over in game 1. We still have a pair of Negate to try and counter these cards, but it is not always enough.

With the current build of this deck, these two cards are surprise "you lose the game" creatures. We don't have a way to deal with them main deck and in the sideboard. I'm considering swapping some Negate for Quench or Syncopate. Our best bet is to attack when we are sure the opponent can not play either of those.

This deck will make you learn how to play around these three types of cards. While not unbeatable, if you don't expect them, they basically become "you lose the game" cards. The easiest way is still to attack when the opponent is tapped out. Otherwise, having a Negate backup is mandatory, and still present lethal damages!