Arena Standard - The ol' Razzle Dazzle

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11 37 6 28
Control Combo

This is a combo deck abusing the interactions between In Search of Greatnessimage, sagas, and planeswalkers to control the field before pulling out big threats, namely Vorinclex, Monstrous Raiderimage, and swinging for the win. This deck took me to Mythic last season, despite the sea of uninteractive and braindead decks currently floating around ladder. The winrate will not be the highest, it will not always go off, and has an especial weakness to decks that don't build much of a board to win. However, with smart play and the element of surprise, you can answer most threats put on the field and have a blast doing it. It's not so much about winning. It's about confusing the heck out of people while gleefuly being the advanced Timmy I aspire to.

The key to playing this properly is understanding how sagas interact with In Search of Greatnessimage and Vorinclex, Monstrous Raiderimage. Most importantly, Search triggers at the beginning of your upkeep, before lore counters are placed on sagas. So, when they are played with Search, sagas with receive one lore counter as they enter the battlefield, and another as you begin your pre-combat main step. This enhances sagas' already phenomenal card value greatly. Elspeth's Nightmareimage, the bane of Kroxa discard decks' existence, now destroys a creature with power two or less and lets you pick a noncreature, nonland card from your opponent's hand to discard the turn it's played. Binding the Old Godsimage destroys any nonland permanent and lets you ramp, often being key to bringing enough lands to the table to enable The World Treeimage 's ability to work, or letting you fetch Indatha Triomeimage to fix your mana. Elspeth Conquers Deathimage gets its first two effects, and the second turn it's on field brings back any creature or planeswalkers from your graveyard, usually Vorinclex, Monstrous Raiderimage to abuse the extra +1/+1 counter you get from the saga.

Vorinclex, Monstrous Raiderimage is the second key element to this deck. It is easily one of, if not the best, cards to come out of Kaldheim's release. Important to this deck in particular is its ability that doubles any type of counters placed on permanents you control, and halves those of your opponents rounding down. This will have effects on your sagas similar to playing them with Search, placing two lore counters on the enchantment the turn it is played for the first two effects. It also doubles the loyalty counters placed on planeswalkers, making the use of their final ability not a greedy pipe dream, but something that can and will happen multiple times a game. For your opponents, sagas will not function until they remove Vorinclex from the field, play one of their own, or disable it through some other means such as Mystic Subdualimage. Planeswalkers will come in with half as many counters, turning everyone's favorite I Win card, Ugin, the Spirit Dragonimage , into a minor threat. This will also often prevent the use of second abilites of other popular planeswalkers such as Kaya the Inexorableimage Garruk, Cursed Huntsmanimage Tibalt, Cosmic Impostorimage , etc. or make the use of their second ability mean sacrificing the planeswalker such as Niko Arisimage .

Prismatic Bridge is the third and final key card in the deck. This card is pretty self explanatory, i.e. it grabs Vorinclex and planeswalkers from your deck, but has one minor note that is important to know. It will only bring the face-up side of two faced cards to the battlefield. So no, you can't bring in Tibalt with this, and it will sometimes play your single Valki at inopportune times. The ideal play is to bring Bridge in with In Search of Greatnessimage off the back of a 4 cost permanent such as Binding the Old Godsimage or Valkmira, Protector's Shieldimage, but the deck has other options for its play since you can't rely on your opponent leaving your board alone. The World Treeimage with 6 lands lets you play the Bridge outright, though this will often prevent you from playing anything else that turn, and Path to the World Treeimage will let you grab the single red and blue lands in the deck if you're really desperate.

Speaking of Path to the World Treeimage, it and Reidane, God of the Worthyimage also perform important functions in this deck. Path helps you grab lands from deck to fix your mana, always important in a three color deck. It is also fantastic for unexpected instant speed removal of up to 4/4 creatures, in particular Faceless Havenimage which is normally difficult to remove without instant speed destruction spells such as Heartless Actimage. When they swing in, simply use Path's 2 damage to hit the creature, then block with your newly minted 2/2 bear chump.

Reidane would be sleeper OP if it weren't so easily taken off the field. In her creature form, she is an effective early deterrent against Emergent Ultimatumimage decks by making it and any other 4+ cost noncreature spell take two more mana to cast. Her ability to make snow lands come in tapped is more niche, but still situationally useful. In artifact form, she prevents 1 damage from any source that would deal damage to you or any permanent you control, and any spell or effect that targets you or a permanent you control requires the opponent to pay 1 mana or have it countered. Emphasis above is important because she does not trigger the counterpsell on effects that say "when X happens all/each opponents do Y" effects on cards such as Ruin Crabimage or [Thieves' Guild Enforcer or sources without targets such as Doomskarimage.

Lastly, Yorion is there to be brought in with In Search of Greatnessimage, bounce sagas, and throw people off the scent of what you're playing. That's it. When played with Search, he is brought in before sagas receive a counter, allowing you to grab and bounce sagas such as Binding the Old Godsimage the turn they would normally be sacrificed, giving you more unexpected plays to bamboozle people. Bouncing your Paths will also give you more lands to play with, and thin your deck out so you're more likely to draw into what you need.

And that's about it. Everything else should be pretty self evident. If you have suggestions for improvements by all means leave a comment below, and let me know how your adventures with this deck turn out!

GLHF all

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1 comments

CasuallySwiss
This deck sounds like a lot of fun, and it is! However, with the meta being what it is right now, I'm getting completely dumpstered by either mono W/R aggro and Sultai Ultimatum. What are your thoughts about this deck in the current meta?
missaciddrops
Last Updated: 01 Apr 2021
Created: 28 Mar 2021
616 408 1

Mainboard - 82 cards (32 distinct)

Creature (11)
$0.750.56
$24.41
$60.30€41.780.33
$11.31
Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (37)
$0.25€0.260.03
$0.99€1.170.65
$0.23€0.090.03
$0.25€0.170.03
$0.25€0.180.03
$0.39€0.380.12
$0.20€0.100.03
$0.20€0.070.03
$0.50€0.540.02
$0.15€0.060.03
$0.85€0.580.02
$0.44€0.410.03
$1.40€1.280.02
$5.38€5.810.02
Land (28)
$0.200.03
$0.170.03
$5.730.40
$3.940.26
$2.99
$18.30€15.2212.55
$4.55€3.300.02
$0.200.03
$0.190.03
$0.200.03
Planeswalker (6)
$1.00€1.040.02
$3.27
$2.47€2.060.03
$1.47€1.570.02

Sideboard - 1 cards (1 distinct)

$0.60€0.690.03

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