Zoo

“Zoos are such fun!” they told me. “It’s a blast!” they yelled. I just wish I’d heard them whisper “oderm” at the end. Getting its name from the numerous animals at its command, the Zoo archetype has been around for a very long time. At some point, WotC had printed enough cheap beaters/pump spells that weren’t just in White, and the RGx aggro deck was born! In fact, I remember having the best deck at my school (a UW control deck), and getting smashed by my friend’s RG weenie deck he’d read about. Nature is to be respected my friends!

The main focus of the deck is speed. You want to get out as many cheap and efficient threats as you can to beat your opponent down. In that sense, Zoo’s best T1-drops are Kird Ape and Skyshroud Elite - creatures that say 1/1 but are actually 2/3. Combine either with a Rancor, and you have a 4/4 trampler hitting the opponent by turn two! The deck also contains Werebear and Nimble Mongoose, both of which are cheap creatures that get bigger as you accumulate more cards in your graveyard.

Another thing Zoo likes to do is Armageddon the opponent out of the game. Once they establish a large number of efficient threats, a Zoo player can then clear the board of land. This leaves the Zookeeper with a fast clock and protection from most mass removal. Armageddon can also help the player reach Threshold, thus growing their bears and geese to finish the opponent off.

If you scrolled down to the deck first, then you may have noticed the lack of Swords to Plowshares in either of the boards. I didn’t add them to the deck because Zoo does NOT want the opponent gaining life. The long game is not your friend, and that’s exactly what Swords can create. The deck does contain a lot of burn-type removal however, which can help clear the way for attackers or finish the opponent off. Zoo is a super fun deck that has a lot of different weapons in its arsenal - how you want to build it is up to you. Happy brewing!

 

Zoo

Land:

4 Plateau

4 Taiga

4 Savannah

4 Wooded Foothills

4 Windswept Heath

Total: 20

Creatures:

4 Kird Ape

1 Blastoderm

4 Nimble Mongoose

4 Savannah Lions

4 Werebear

4 Skyshroud Elite

Total: 21

Spells:

4 Lightning Bolt

3 Armageddon

4 Chain Lightning

4 Rancor

4 Shock

Total: 19

Sideboard:

2 Disenchant

4 Red Elemental Blast

4 Giant Growth

1 Pyroclasm

4 Tormod’s Crypt

WG Enchantress

“Please don’t play that Tranquility in your hand!” Now that’s something you don’t hear every day - unless someone’s playing Enchantress of course. The good news is that no one plays Tranquility anyway, so you probably won’t be hearing it any time soon. Wait, no one plays enchantment hate cards these days? That also sounds like a great reason for you to be playing Enchantress!

What is Enchantress? It’s a prison-style deck that aims to lock out the opponent via enchantments, before casting a win condition and beating them down to 0. It accomplishes this by generating massive card advantage vis its namesake Enchantresses: Argothian Enchantress, Verduran Enchantress and Enchantress’ Presence. These three cards allow the player to go through their deck pretty quickly and assemble the lock before winning the game.

What is the lock? It can actually be a couple of cards: Elephant Grass and/or Solitary Confinement. If your opponent’s playing creatures, these two cards are your new best friends. Why? Because they make it very difficult, if not impossible, to deal damage to you. Elephant Grass costs G to cast, and has a Cumulative Upkeep of 1. It stops black creatures from attacking you, and forces the opponent to pay 2 for every other creature they want to send your way. Solitary Confinement goes even further, making it so you receive no damage while it is out in play. Oh right, and you can also play Moat if you want to.

The win condition. As with most prison-style decks, the majority of the cards are meant to lock out an opponent. The win condition is almost an afterthought, put in to take the game once your opponent can’t. In GW Enchantress, that win condition is Sacred Mesa. Once the board has been filled with enchantments, it becomes quite easy to pump out a lot of Pegasus tokens via Serra’s Sanctum. This allows the Enchantress player to either fly over the opponent’s defenses, or swarm past their flyers in large numbers. If you want more win conditions, Yavimaya Enchantress is another option, albeit much slower and vulnerable to removal.

Other versions of the deck have included Red for War of Words, or even gone Blue/Green and not even played White. As always, customizing the deck is up to you. Happy brewing!

WG Enchantress

Land:

4 Serra’s Sanctum

4 Windswept Heath

4 Savannah

4 Forest

4 Plains

Total: 20

Creatures:

4 Argothian Enchantress

4 Verduran Enchantress

Total: 8

Spells:

4 Sacred Mesa

4 Enlightened Tutor

4 Sterling Grove

4 Enchantress’ Presence

4 Elephant Grass

4 Solitary Confinement

4 Wild Growth

2 Mirri’s Guile

1 Replenish

1 Moat

Total: 28

Sideboard:

4 Tormod’s Crypt

1 Ground Seal

4 Swords to Plowshares

2 Null Rod

2 Carpet of Flowers

2 Karmic Justice

Burn

“Some men just want to watch the world burn”. Variants of burn have been around for a long time – a LONG time. What’s not to love? The deck hits hard, fast and consistently. Burn is a very aggressive deck with 1 goal: get your opponent’s life total to zero ASAP. While technically the deck does have interactions via creature removal, that’s usually not the path you want to take. Only remove creatures when necessary – the rest of the time? Go for the opponent directly.

The list I’ve provided is by no means fine-tuned. I put it together to show the main cards in the deck, as well as a few less played options to show how customizable it can be. “Burn” spells have always been popular and as such, are considered to be the defining aspect of Red. The versatility of either removing a creature or damaging your opponent is just so good that a lot of decks have made them the focus of their strategy.

I’ve decided to talk about a few cards that seem to have significant drawbacks, but are actually quite strong. Ball Lightning has been around since the early days of Magic, and remains a decent card to this day. Yes, you have to sacrifice it at the end of turn. But before that? Your opponent can either block it and lose some creature(s) (and still possibly take some damage), or just take the hit and lose almost a third of their life total. For RRR! Jackal Pup and Cursed Scroll are cards from the Tempest set, and really made an impact when they came out. As an aggressive 1-drop red creature, Jackal Pup was something the deck/colour had wanted for a long time; it gave red decks a turn 1 creature that could attack for 2. Sure, if it got hit you would take some damage, but when you’re playing a deck that deals damage faster than most decks, that’s ok. Cursed Scroll also saw a lot of play despite its drawback seeming to make it inconsistent. Burn often only has 1-2 cards in its hand anyway however, so the card was very consistent once you’d cast all of your spells. Scroll also gives the deck some virtual card advantage – something the deck often lacks. I included Browbeat for the same reason, as it either deals 5 damage (awesome) or puts cards in your hand (also awesome).  

As you can see, there are a lot of options for building a Burn deck. I don’t recommend cutting Bolts, but there are tons of cards from the game’s first sets to choose from. Whether you prefer a more creature-heavy deck, want to focus on spells, or even splash another colour, the choice is yours. Happy brewing!

Burn

Lands:

10 Mountain

8 Fetchlands

2 Barbarian Ring

Total: 20

Creatures:

4 Grim Lavamancer

4 Jackal Pup

4 Ball Lightning

Total: 12

Spells:

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Chain Lightning

4 Fireblast

1 Cursed Scroll

1 Shock

4 Flame Rift

4 Price of Progress

2 Browbeat

Total: 28

Sideboard:

1 Pyroclasm

2 Red Elemental Blast

2 Pyroblast

2 Ensnaring Bridge

4 Pyrostatic Pillar

4 Tormod’s Crypt

Elves

Do you enjoy playing lots of creatures, ramping mana and pointy ears? Then have I got a deck for you! Elves have always been synonymous with fantasy, so it should come as no surprise that they’ve always been a part of Magic. What IS surprising however, is that they originally did not get a Lord like Goblins, Merfolk or Zombies did. They’ve gotten them since however, along with lots of other awesome cards that have made them into the powerhouse tribal deck they are today.

Why play Elves? Well for starters, the deck has a lot of fun synergies. For example, the amount of mana you can generate on turns 2-4 can be pretty ridiculous(ly awesome). The most obvious creature for this is Priest of Titania, which pairs well with Quirion Ranger and Wirewood Symbiote to untap and produce more and more mana. Birchlore Rangers are also good at generating a lot of mana by allowing creatures you just cast to be tapped as well. An example of this would be to cast Birchlore Ranger, a bunch of 1-drop Elves, tap those for more 1-drop elves, then tap Priest of Titania for even more mana to cast more 1-drop elves and continue the cycle. Did you follow me there? The deck isn’t as simple as you might think.

Another strength of this deck is its ability to generate a lot of card advantage. The two ways of doing this are via Multani’s Acolyte and Sylvan Messenger, both of which allow you to draw more cards to add to your arsenal. Combine this with the aforementioned mana ramp, and you can constantly draw and cast more recruits for your forest army. Yes, you read that correctly – you can do this constantly. Remember when I mentioned Wirewood Symbiote untapping your mana creatures? These two are the ones you want to be bouncing back to your hand. That means you can re-cast them again and again to draw more cards. Playing this deck often means having 4-5+ creatures on the board and 7 cards in your hand at the end of turn 2.

Options. I put the Weird Harvest there as a pseudo 5^th copy of Sylvan Messenger or Multani’s Acolyte, but unless you cast it for one of these two creatures it’s just card disadvantage. Living Wish was added as a toolbox/game 1 answer against artifacts/enchantments et cetera but I admit I haven’t put much thought into the sideboard as the card is just a 1-of. Both of these sorceries are big maybes and the deck definitely has other options.

One of the great things about Elves is its resiliency. Yes, board sweepers exist, but this deck is so fast at generating mana and drawing more cards that it can recover from Wrath-effects. Elves' have been around since the beginning of the game, and their popularity has ensured a lot of new printings; this means there are a LOT of Elf cards you can use to customize the deck the way you want. Happy brewing!

 

Elves

Land:

5 Forest

2 Bayou

4 Windswepth Heath

4 Gaea’s Cradle

2 Wirewood Lodge

Total: 17

Creatures:

4 Llanowar Elves

4 Fyndhorn Elves

4 Priest of Titania

4 Quirion Ranger

4 Wirewood Symbiote

4 Birchlore Ranger

4 Multani’s Acolyte

4 Elvish Champion

4 Sylvan Messenger
2 Wirewood Hivemaster

1 Elves of Deep Shadow

Total: 39

Spells:

2 Overrun

1 Living Wish

1 Weird Harvest

Total: 4

Sideboard:

4 Tormod’s Crypt

1 Wellwisher

2 Naturalize

2 Caller of the Claw

4 Duress

1 Elvish Scrapper

1 Elvish Lyrist

Burning Storm

“There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne.“ Ah Storm, described by Wizards of the Coast’s Mark Rosewater as their most broken mechanic. Of course, this depends on who you ask, as the mechanic/deck archetype has friends AND foes around the world. There are a few choice win conditions in Storm decks, but the most popular has always been Tendrils of Agony. For 2BB you can drain 2 life from the opponent and gain 2 life for yourself. Not very impressive you say? Oh right, you make additional copies of it for each spell that was played during the turn. Were you at 20 life points? Not anymore. Welcome to Burning Storm!

When Burning Wish first came out, it was part of a cycle of cards that allowed a player to grab any card of the specified type that they owned from outside the game. This was quickly changed for tournament settings, limiting a player to cards from their sideboard instead. Many people saw this as a chance to build a “toolbox” sideboard, with Wishes allowing them to tutor for whatever card they needed at the time. Burning Storm follows this philosophy, putting both utility cards and win conditions in the sideboard to be searched for as required.

In order to bring the opponent’s life total down to 0, the deck has to be able to play enough spells in a turn to get the proper Storm count. Some decks choose to focus on graveyard recursion (such as IGGy Pop decks), but Burning Storm focuses on card drawing to get the win. It does so via cards such as Infernal Contract, Cruel Bargain, Diminishing Returns and even Brainstorm to an extent.

Diminishing Returns was one of the last cards I added to this deck, but after testing it out, it should have been one of the first. The card is amazing at re-stocking your hand and even helps give you mana to keep adding spells to your Storm count. How? If you crack your Lotus Petals and Lion’s Eye Diamonds in response to casting Returns, they get shuffled back into your library and thus can be re-drawn. The Mox Diamonds are also there to help the deck re-establish a mana base once you’ve cast Diminishing Returns and keep drawing ‘useless’ lands after you’ve played your land drop.

The sideboard contains a few cards that don’t seem very strong, or are even out of place. As I mentioned earlier however, the sideboard acts as a toolbox. The bolts are there as removal in case your opponent sides in Meddling Mage. The bounce spells are there to deal with cards such as Ivory Mask or Circle of Protection: Black. If you think there are better options though, you can add them! The sideboard, and even the mainboard, are very customizable and should be made to suit your play style and meta. Happy brewing!

Burning Storm

Land:

1 Badlands

3 Underground Sea

2 Volcanic Island

4 Polluted Delta

3 Bloodstained Mire

1 Island

1 Swamp

Total: 15

Spells:

4 Dark Ritual

4 Burning Wish

4 Infernal Contract

1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Cabal Ritual

4 Duress

3 Cabal Therapy

4 Brainstorm

4 Sleight of Hand

4 Lion’s Eye Diamond

4 Lotus Petal

3 Mox Diamond

2 Diminishing Returns

Total: 45

Sideboard:

1 Diminishing Returns

1 Cruel Bargain

1 Tendrils of Agony

1 Cabal Therapy

1 Temporal Fissure

1 Dematerialize

2 Chain of Vapor

4 Peek

2 Lightning Bolt

1 Chain Lightning

UR Landstill

Question: when do you want your opponent to play their spells? Answer: when you’ve got a Standstill in play! Landstill decks have been around for a long time; making use of the awesome power of manlands such as Mishra’s Factory and Faerie Conclave, the deck aims to put pressure on your opponent without having to cast any spells yourself. This means that the person across from you has 2 choices: die slowly to your Factory Workers and Faeries or cast a spell and let you draw a bunch of cards. Good deal!

UR Landstill is a control deck that tries to grind out wins while stopping the opponent from developing a board presence. The deck contains a lot of burn and counterpells to accomplish this task, as well as numerous sources of card advantage to replenish its hand. What the deck doesn’t contain however, are ‘bombs’. UR Landstill is designed to stop the opponent from posing a threat as it whittles away their life total, which means that you want to focus on control instead of trying to jam in more win conditions.

Despite its focus on control however, the deck contains a surprising amount of ways to win. We are talking about a bi-colour red deck after all, which means that a lot of its removal can target the opponent as well. The deck also contains Grim Lavamancer, which can be a great source of offense as it “re-uses” cards from the graveyard to remove their creatures and/or attack their life total.

Counterspells and removal are not the only way this deck can control the opponent’s board – land destruction/denial are another. The deck contains a playset of Wastelands in order to help keep the opponent from casting their spells. It also has 4 Stifle, which are very effective against decks that contain a lot of fetchlands to smooth our their mana base. Heck, even Ice can be used to tap an opponent’s land for a turn, as could the addition of some Rishadan Ports to further hinder them. Adding more colourless mana to the deck could pose its own problems, but finding a solution is part of the fun. Happy brewing!

UR Landstill

Land:

4 Volcanic Island

5 Fetchlands

4 Mishra’s Factory

4 Faerie Conclave

4 Wasteland

2 Island

1 Mountain

Total: 25

Creatures:

3 Grim Lavamancer

Total: 3

Spells:

4 Landstill

4 Brainstorm

4 Force of Will

4 Stifle

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Chain Lightning

4 Counterspell

2 Fire // Ice

2 Fact or Fiction

Total: 32

Sideboard:

2 Pyroblast

2 Hydroblast

2 Fire // Ice

2 Pyroclasm

4 Tormod’s Crypt

2 Chain of Vapors

1 Boomerang

Erhnamgeddon

Ernhamgeddon! Here’s a deck that gained popularity back in the early days of Magic and managed to stay relevant for a LONG time. In fact, even after several staples of the deck got restricted, it managed to remain dominant because it never lost the key part of its namesake: Armageddon. For 3W, you get to Destroy all lands. Yes, that means your lands too. Why would you want to do that? I’m glad you asked, Timmy.

One of Green’s most defining features has always been its ability to ramp mana. Green does this in several ways, but two of the most prominent are via 1) searching for extra lands and 2) casting creatures that tap for mana. Good thing for us, this deck has creatures that do both! Birds of Paradise and Weathered Wayfarer are 1-drops that allow you to pump out mana or supply your hand with more lands. Wayfarer has another function in that it can also be used as a sort of land tutor for colour fixing or Karakas. Werebear is also a creature that taps for mana, which doubles as a cheap win condition for the deck. These sources of mana, along with the 4 Mox Diamond, can really help you recover from an Armageddon fast. Unless you’re playing a mirror match, there’s a good chance your opponent won’t be able to do the same, which gives you more than enough time to win the game.

The deck contains another 1-drop creature that neither ramps mana nor searches for lands: Mother of Runes. Despite not doing either of these things, Mother of Runes serves some pretty important roles; she can be used both defensively (to protect your creatures) and offensively (to get your creature attacks to go through unblocked). The deck’s main win condition is no longer Erhnam Djinn, although I did put one in the sideboard for old times sake. Instead, the deck has several big creatures that can finish the game fast: Mystic Enforcer, Werebear, and Terravore. Terravore is amazing with fetch lands, Mox Diamonds and Armageddons. Not only can you ramp it out quickly onto the battlefield, but you can also get it very large with a well-timed land sweep.

The last thing I want to mention about the deck I put together is that it has 2 relevant weaknesses: graveyard hate and combo. I put Orim’s Chant in the sideboard to fight combo, and the 4 Disenchants are in there to remove cards such as Planar Void. How you want to address these weaknesses is entirely up to you though. Happy brewing!

Erhnamgeddon

Land:

4 Savannah

4 Windswept Heath

2 Secluded Steppe

4 Tranquil Thicket

4 Karakas

1 Forest

1 Plains

4 Wasteland

Total: 24

Creatures:

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Weathered Wayfarer

4 Mother of Runes

4 Werebear

4 Terravore

1 Mystic Enforcer

Total: 21

Spells:

4 Mox Diamond

4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Armageddon

2 Sylvan Library

1 Rancor

Total: 15

Sideboard:

1 Erhnam Djinn

4 Disenchant

4 Tormod’s Crypt

4 Orim's Chant

1 Land Tax

1 Zuran Orb

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

Reanimator

The ability to reanimate a creature has been around since the release of Alpha, MtG’s first set. Animate Dead is an enchant creature that allows a player to target a creature in either graveyard and put it into play under their control with a -1/-0 counter on it. Since then, Wizards of the Coast have printed many different cards that allow players to ‘cheat’ big creatures into play without paying their actual mana cost; which resulted in the spawning the archetype Reanimator.

With the release of Mirage came Buried Alive; a card that allows a player to put a number of creatures from their library into their graveyard during their first or second turn (thanks to Dark Ritual). The combination of Buried Alive and reanimation effects allowed players a fast and reliable way to access reanimation targets from the graveyard. Later on, WotC printed Entomb, which does not rely on a Dark Ritual to be cast on the first turn. Animate Dead, Reanimation and Exhume can then be used to put a creature into play and attack for the win.

The Ancient Reanimator shell is very similar to those currently played in Legacy, with the main exception being its access to creatures.  Akroma, Angel of Wrath is one of the strongest creatures, in terms of power, in the format. Akroma’s main weakness is that it lacks protection from white (and thus the best removal card in the game). It also has protection from black, which means Animate Dead can’t be used on it. I chose to add Multani, Maro-Sorcerer because it can be a fast clock if cast early on and has Shroud to help protect it. The sideboard contains 4 Show and Tell and 4 Chain of Vapors to deal with graveyard hate such as Planar Void, which stays in play instead of being a one-shot deal ala Tormod’s Crypt. I also included 4 Wasteland in the mainboard to deal with Maze of Ith and Karakas. Despite the deck having several key cards, there remains a lot of room for change. Happy brewing!

Reanimator

Land:

4 Underground Sea

1 Island

1 Swamp

4 Wasteland

7 Fetchlands

Total: 17

Creatures:

Multani, Maro-Sorcerer

Verdant Force

Thorn Elemental

Spirit of the Night

Akroma, Angel of Wrath

Total: 5

Spells:

4 Animate Dead

4 Brainstorm

1 Buried Alive

4 Careful Study

4 Dark Ritual

4 Daze

4 Entomb

4 Exhume

4 Force of Will

4 Reanimate

1 Recurring Nightmare

Total: 38

Sideboard:

4 Show and Tell

4 Tormod’s Crypt

4 Chain of Vapors

1 Stifle

1 Hydroblast

1 Boomerang

MUD

Artifacts have always been a staple of MtG. In fact, ever since the release of Antiquities, the game has even promoted the concept of decks built entirely around the card type. The most obvious benefit to playing MUD is that it only requires colourless mana, and therefore can never get colour-screwed. Because of this, and the fact that any deck has access to them, a lot of artifacts are “over-costed”. Wizards of the Coast recognized both sides of the coin however, and decided to help negate this drawback for artificers by creating cards that helped them generate a lot of colourless mana. Cards such as Grim Monolith and Metalworker were later versions of these, as the early ones were deemed too strong (Mishra’s Workshop and Sol Ring are amazing cards..).

MUD’s main drawback however, is not its average mana cost, but rather that it relies on permanents to win the game. That’s right, MUD decks have zero instants or sorceries. This means that you need to use permanents to interact with the opponents’ spells.

As always, I’m going to focus on some of the more obscure card choices from my deck list. For example, an often over-looked card in MUD’s repertoire is Tawnos’s Coffin, which acts as both pseudo-creature removal as well as protection. It can also act as a “bounce” effect to re-stock your Triskelions. Because Ancient does not have access to more “Sphere effects” (aka Sphere of Resistance) ala Vintage, the deck must rely on other forms of prison-style magic to lock out an opponent. Cards such as Smokestack, Winter Orb, and Icy Manipulator have all been strong choices in the past, but I’ve chosen to focus on the interaction between Rishadan Port and Mana Web. With dual lands being so prevalent, using Port/Web during an opponent’s upkeep can really help lock them out of a game.

There are many different forms of MUD decks to choose from. Aggro and prison are among the most popular, but splashes of colour can really change how the deck functions as well. Happy brewing!

MUD

Land:

4 Ancient Tomb

4 City of Traitors

4 Mishra’s Factory

4 Wasteland

4 Rishadan Port

Total: 20

Creatures:

4 Metalworker

4 Juggernaut

4 Su-Chi

2 Triskelion

1 Masticore

Total: 15

4 Tanglewire

4 Grim Monolith

4 Sphere of Resistance

4 Mana Web

2 Tawnos’ Coffin

2 Voltaic Key

2 Chimeric Staff

2 Phyrexian Processor

1 Defense Grid

Total: 25

Sideboard:

2 Powder Keg

4 Smokestack

1 Defense Grid

4 Tormod’s Crypt

2 Tetravus

Deadguy Ale

Deadguy Ale was a pretty original deck when Chris Pikula debuted it back in 2005. Legacy was in its infancy, and Pikula had decided to bring his brew to one of the early Legacy Grand Prix events. At the time, Goblins was considered THE deck to beat (it won the tournament actually). People were intrigued by Chris’ deck though, and it had them talking!

The concept is based off using land destruction and discard spells to control your opponent’s board. How? by not allowing them one! It does so via cards such as Hymn to Tourach and Gerard’s Verdict, which can really help gain card advantage. Hymn in particular is great as it has the added bonus of possibly mana screwing an opponent. Vindicate is another strong catchall sort of spell because it can destroy any type of permanent. The deck wins by denying your opponent a board state and then crashing in with its main win conditions: Hypnotic Specter and Nantuko Shade, or by shocking them with Cursed Scroll.

The main difference between an Ancient Deadguy Ale deck and Pikula’s original is that he was able to use 4 Dark Confidant. Other than that, every single card in his main board was Ancient legal. I decided to add 4 Mother of Runes to help protect creatures from top-deck removal, and/or to just bash through their defenses – especially with Hypnotic Specter.  Another option is to remove the 4 MoRs for Mishra’s Factory. The deck has a lot of room for customization, depending on what you choose to focus on. Happy brewing!

Deadguy Ale

Land:

4 Scrubland

4 Wasteland

5 Fetchlands

4 Swamp
4 Plains

Total: 21

Creatures:

4 Mother of Runes

4 Hypnotic Specter

4 Nantuko Shade

Total: 12

Spells:

4 Sinkhole

2 Cursed Scroll

4 Dark Ritual

4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Duress

4 Hymn to Tourach

1 Gerard’s Verdict

4 Vindicate

Total: 27

Siderboard:

4 Engineered Plague

4 Tormod’s Crypt

4 Diabolic Edict

2 Phyrexian Negator

1 Ostracize

U/G Madness

It’s Madness, U/G Madness I say! Here’s a deck that was popular in Standard, Extended, and even Legacy (before losing a key card to the banhammer). Suffice to say, U/G Madness used to be a pretty popular choice. One of the most fun things about Madness is that it offers players a unique mechanic that they can use in tandem with their spells for various effects. Another interesting thing about the deck is that many of the creatures on their own are nothing special, but the way they interact with the other cards just makes it work.

The list I’ve provided is a sort of combination of Legacy decks used by Roland Chang and Caleb Durward. Chang’s deck was very similar to the Standard decks before it, but Durward’s use of Survival of the Fittest made for some really interesting lines of play. In fact, at the time of writing this, Survival of the Fittest is the only card on the present Legacy Banned List that was removed for Ancient’s. The reason for this is that the old philosophy for creatures was quite different back then and allowed the card to be good without being broken.

One card I omitted from this list that I really wanted to fit in was Rancor. I think that its cheap efficiency, combined with its natural recursion, make Rancor a strong choice for the deck. Of course, there are a lot of good cards that can be added and it’s up to you to decide how you want to build your own U/G Madness. Happy brewing!

UG Madness

Land:

4 Tropical Island

4 Wasteland

4 Island

4 Forest

5 Fetchlands

Total: 21

Creatures:

4 Arrogant Wurm

4 Aquamoeba

4 Basking Rootwalla

4 Wild Mongrel

1 Wonder

Total: 17

Spells:

4 Survival of the Fittest

4 Brainstorm

4 Force of Will

4 Daze

4 Stifle

2 Obsessive Search

Total: 22

Sideboard:

4 Tormod’s Crypt

2 Obsessive Research

4 Naturalize

2 Waterfront Bouncer

2 Hydroblast

1 Counterpell

Goblins

Goblins! Here’s another great example of a deck whose roots go far back in Magic history. Goblins has been a popular archetype since the beginning of the game, and the early sets contain lots of great cards for fans of the red tribal deck.

Goblins’ main emphasis is on getting cards into play cheaply via Goblin Lackey and Goblin Warchief, and generating lots of card advantage. It does so via Goblin Matron, Gempalm Incinerator, Siege-Gang Commander, and the deck’s all-star: Goblin Ringleader. Because most of the cards in the deck are Goblins, Ringleader can often net 2-4 cards in your hand when it comes into play. With Warchief, this can be done without paying the 4-mana casting cost of the card (it can even cost 0 mana thanks to Lackey).

Here’s an example of a somewhat stock list that I put together, but a simple search on the Gatherer website can provide you with a plethora of cards you can use.  Happy brewing!

Goblins

Land:

4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
5 Mountain

Total: 21

Creatures:

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Piledriver
1 Siege-Gang Commander

Total: 29

Spells:

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Goblin Grenade

2 Incinerate

Total: 10

Sideboard:

1 Goblin Sharpshooter

2 Incinerate

2 Red Elemental Blast

2 Pyroblast

4 Tormod’s Crypt

4 Defense Grid

RUG Threshold

RUG Threshold is actually quite similar to the RUG Delver (Canadian Threshold) decks of today, with a few tweaks - the main difference being that you lose its namesake 1-drop. Ancient doesn’t allow new frame-only cards, but Delver CAN be replaced by a different 1-drop that sees some play in the current UR Delver deck: Grim Lavamancer. RUG Threshold also uses 4 Werebear (or Quirion Dryad) instead of Tarmogoyf, which was actually a staple of the Threshold decks prior to the printing of Goyf. The last main omission in RUG Threshold is Ponder, which can be replaced by the original: Portent. There are 2 major differences between Ponder and Portent: the main being that Ponder lets you net a card right away whereas with Portent you have to wait for your opponent's upkeep to draw the card. Ponder is not strictly better however, as Portent allows you the option of re-arranging your opponent’s top cards instead! Deciding what your opponent is going to draw can help add tempo to your play and negate the wait time of the delayed draw (just make sure they don’t have an un-cracked fetch land out in play). And there you have it: with a few tweaks you essentially have an Ancient version of RUG Delver.

Because of the dis-synergy between Lavamancer and the 8 Threshold creatures, I chose to add 4 Mental Note to the deck but these are flex slots (as are Lavamancer of course). How you want to build Ancient Threshold is entirely up to you. Happy brewing!

RUG Threshold

Land:

4 Volcanic Island

4 Tropical Island

4 Wasteland

8 Fetch lands

Total: 20

Creatures:

4 Grim Lavamancer

4 Nimble Mongoose

4 Werebear

Total: 12

Spells:

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Force of Will

4 Daze

4 Stifle

4 Brainstorm

4 Fire // Ice

4 Mental Note

Total: 28

Sideboard:

4 Tormod’s Crypt

4 Chain Lightning

2 Misdirection

2 Pyroblast

1 Red Elemental Blast

2 Chain of Vapors