What is Shigeki Soul?

Shigeki, Jukai Visionary + Soul Transfer

This combination has been flying under the radar for some time, and it is without a doubt one of the nastiest combos to loop Shigeki with.

But what about Colossal Skyturtle?

Skyturtle is a tempo card, plain and simple. If we were playing Simic big-creature tempo, that would be one thing. But we're playing Abzan Control. We aren't stalling our opponent to drop a big game-ending bomb. We're driving them into topdeck mode and snuffing them out with magecraft triggers and nonstop Invoke Despairs.

But couldn't we just use the green side of Skyturtle and ignore the blue costs?

Sure, but let me tell you that having more cards that are dead early-game will not outweigh the benefit of the loop being instant and uninteractible. Soul Transfer can be played starting on turn three to remove a creature or planeswalker threat for good. Especially important given the number of these types of cards that like to come back from the graveyard (e.g. Blitz creatures). More importantly, you can do it without regard to the other half of the combo. You will eventually draw Shigeki, and as soon as you do, you will bring back Soul Transfer. Even better is the fact that often by that time you'll have casually assembled the artifact + enchantment synergy. So when you do begin looping Shigeki, you're now also exiling a creature or planeswalker for free. And that immediately puts Soul Transfer ahead of Skyturtle, which is only getting Shigeki back. You cannot get both modes out of a single Skyturtle with the loop no matter how hard you try. Soul Transfer also places tremendous pressure on your opponent to expend resources removing your artifacts and enchantments.

Value is king, here. In true Abzan fashion.

The endless value loop:

• Have The Meathook Massacre or Shigeki, Jukai Visionary in play.
• Have The Celestus or Reckoner Bankbuster in play.
• Channel Shigeki, bringing back Soul Transfer and any other number of control spells.
• Cast Soul Transfer, exiling a creature or planeswalker and bringing Shigeki back to your hand.
• Repeat until you are looping Invoke Despairs for lethal.

With 7 mana, you can channel Shigeki for 2GG and exile a creature or planeswalker every turn.

The Celestus is destroyed far more often than The Meathook Massacre. Reckoner Bankbuster is there to provide card advantage and artifact recursion. Shigeki can recur with Soul Transfer in the event that all of your Meathook Massacres are removed. Dig Up can be recurred in order to pull more legendary artifacts and enchantments from your deck otherwise.

Professor Onyx enables endgames where you can strategically remove your own permanents to incur lethal drain. Targetting her with March of Wretched Sorrow for zero is a great way to squeeze in another 2 drain for B.

Remember The Celestus' life gain happens when it does at the beginning of each turn. You can use this to hold up Mortality Spear for BG on your opponent's turn. Be mindful of the other lifegain triggers available. There are many of them in this deck.

Full-Power Soul Transfer is a monster value-builder, but don't be afraid to use it early or when you don't have the permanents assembled. Along with Shigeki, you still accrue loads of value. Don't be afraid to only recover one card when it makes sense, but you do want to make sure you're bringing back at least one Soul Transfer whenever possible.

Always try to hold up Shigeki when your opponent has Hive of the Eye Tyrant. You can swipe the card they're targetting.

You can activate Hive of the Eye Tyrant two or more times before attacking to exile more than one card.

Campuses? Are you insane?

I know what you're thinking. Don't cut the campuses. Seriously. When you're not drawing your Invoke Despairs, Celestuses, Bankbusters, or Professor Onyxes, and you're able to scry away lands at a critical time, you'll thank me. The deck runs more than enough low-cost cards to skirt around the possibility of being screwed by campuses. What you may also be overlooking is that we really want to squeeze in a few more dual lands. Pathways get stuck on whichever color you set them to. This is very, very bad if you're hoping to start unloading Invoke Despairs on turn five. This is compounded by the clunkiness of our Field Trips. You really want the green mana you're spending on it to be from a BG land so you can ramp into 1BBBB. When your source is a mono-green land, you end up with BBGG. Which pushes your firsdt Invoke Despair to turn six. If you make any changes to the manabase, keep those requirements in mind.