WR Astral Rift

Astral Slide is the most fun you’re not having right now! WR Astral Slide was a deck that dominated Standard and Extended when it came out. The deck’s awesome use of its namesake as both an offensive and defensive tool, along with the re-usable direct damage of Lightning Rift, make this deck a force to be reckoned with. If you enjoy combat trickery and a different approach to playing MtG then you might want to check out this Cycling-based deck.

As mentioned above, Astral Rift has a lot going for it in that it offers a lot of interaction with creature-based strategies. The use of bounce and Enter the Battlefield effects can both be enabled by Slide several times in one turn, and only at the ‘cost’ of cycling for a new card. Lightning Rift on the other hand, acts as creature removal and a win condition. Another win condition in the deck is Exalted Angel, which can come into play Morphed before being bounced to its Angel form. I’ve also chosen to include a Blood Moon package into this build, as it’s a bi-colour deck with 4 Mox Diamond (and a lot of lands) to boot.

The deck certainly has a lot going for it, but it also has a few drawbacks. During its prominence, it was well known that the Slide decks just lost to combo. Being White/Red, two colours not known for much interaction with instants and sorceries, that remains a problem. In order to combat combo, I’ve added 4 Abeyance and 4 Orim’s Chant to the sideboard. When timed properly, these can be devastating to a player trying to combo off. How you choose to build the deck is up to you, but be prepared for some very fun games. Happy brewing!

WR Astral Rift

Land:

4 Plateau

3 Fetch Lands

4 Forgotten Cave

3 Secluded Steppe

4 Drifting Meadow

4 Smoldering Crater

1 Plains

4 Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors

Total: 27

Creatures:

4 Exalted Angel

1 Imperial Hellkite

4 Flametongue Kavu

Total: 9

Spells:

4 Mox Diamond

4 Astral Slide

4 Lightning Rift

4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Blood Moon

Total: 24

Sideboard:

2 Pyroblast

2 Red Elemental Blast

4 Orim’s Chant

4 Abeyance

2 Wrath of God