All right, time for me to finally write about Theros.
I’ve held my tongue so far, mostly because I’m waiting for the cards to come out on Magic Online so I can actually play with them. I’m a hands-on person. I do enjoy speculating, but I can never know for certain until I shuffle up and start playing.
I’ve been keeping my eye on all the early format decks people are writing about. Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed. I mean, the decks look good. They look strong. But they look like “red creature decks” and “white creature decks” and so forth. That’s just not exciting to me, even if it might mean some early format wins.
New set means new format means new cards means new opportunities for completely off-the-wall decks to enter the format. That’s where I come in.
I don’t have anything format-breaking yet—or maybe I do. I don’t know myself since all I have are some crazy ideas. So if you’re looking for something to win your next tournament with, maybe copy that “red creature deck,” because these decks are pure fantasy.
Theros comes online soon and history suggests I will toil over various bizarre decks with varying levels of success, before eventually fixating on a deck that doesn’t lose all the time, going to an SCG Open, doing okay, and trying to convince everyone that I broke the format.
Ah, the start of a new season!
Breaking the Bident
[draft]bident of thassa[/draft]At our 2HG Theros prerelease we had an absurd sequence thanks to [card]Bident of Thassa[/card]. My teammate Charles played it, attacked with all of his creatures, and drew a new hand. We forced a horrible attack from the opponents. Next turn we got in with everybody, Charles drew another new hand, and we killed them.
It was crazy enough that it got me thinking about Constructed. Bident is a really interesting card.
My impression is that it highly favors tiny, evasive creatures. I mean, if we’re swinging with big creatures the opponent is just dead right? But if we hit with three 1/1 fliers turn after turn, things can get a bit crazy.
[draft]Cloudfin RaptorGalerider Sliver
Judge’s Familiar[/draft]
I also think the Bident plays really well with [card]Fog[/card]. If we are playing tiny evasive creatures, we aren’t winning any creature races… but we will have a grip of cards in hand. [card]Fog[/card] can buy another turn for a single mana, giving us enough time to pick up a new grip of cards looking for a new [card]Fog[/card]. Honestly sounds like a recipe for success for me.
[draft]Fog[/draft]From here there are a lot of directions to go. [card]Master of Waves[/card] seems awesome. [card]Thassa, God of the Sea[/card] is interesting. [card]Predatory Sliver[/card] and [card]Manaweft Sliver[/card] play well with [card]Galerider Sliver[/card]. [card]Lyev Skyknight[/card] is superior to [card]Drakewing Krasis[/card] if we are willing to play [card]Riot Control[/card] over [card]Fog[/card].
There are lots of options, and I can’t wait to get started. The lists I’m working on today are completely untested. I am waiting for the cards to be released on Magic Online, and I am going to start by trying something like this:
Bident
[deck]4 Cloudfin Raptor4 Galerider Sliver
4 Judge’s Familiar
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Drakewing Krasis
4 Master of Waves
4 Bident of Thasa
4 Fog
4 Breeding Pool
4 Temple of Mystery
4 Forest
9 Island
3 Mutavault[/deck]
I don’t know if this deck will win very much. I do know that the wins will be very enjoyable.
Imagine how it all plays out. We play tiny dorks. They play big dorks. Things look bad. We play [card]Bident of Thassa[/card]. We draw cards. They are about to kill us. We [card]Fog[/card]. We continue to hit with tiny dudes and draw more cards. We throw out chump blockers. We hit with more tiny dudes. We draw more. We [card]Fog[/card] again. We attack again. The opponent is dead. Woo!
That sounds like the kind of Magic I want to play.
Again, that list is completely untested but I do intend to test it the moment Theros comes online. There are a lot of ideas I want to try out—[card]Manaweft Sliver[/card], [card]Defend the Hearth[/card], and [card]Thassa, God of the Sea[/card] primarily.
I’m also suspicious of the mana base with 7 lands that don’t produce blue. But I am really excited to try this deck out.
Breaking the Whip
Also at the prerelease, we had a game that was all but locked up as a victory for us—until our opponent drew and slammed an [card]Ashen Rider[/card]. Suddenly things actually looked bad.
[draft]Ashen Rider[/draft]Again I got to thinking about Constructed. I want to play this guy! That means we need a deck that can play him. Ideally, a deck that plays him every game.
There are a few ways to go. First, we could just try to ramp up to him. That seems boring when we can bring him back early with these.
Now, none of these are particularly good at actually bringing something back, but at least we have redundancy. Twelve ways to bring back a creature means we would draw an abundance of them.
We need ways to discard cards, and we need creatures for [card]Rescue from the Underworld[/card] too.
[draft]Izzet CharmAcademy Raider
Viashino Racketeer[/draft]
Again, the creatures here aren’t particularly good, but they do a job—they get our fatty into the graveyard so that they can go down and perform a rescue.
We need more giant monsters that have a huge impact when returned to the battlefield, if only for a turn.
[draft]Angel of Serenity[/draft]Also, it would be nice to actually cast these giant white monsters, as we are going to have trouble enough with our blue/red/black mana base.
[draft]Chromatic Lantern[/draft]Perfect!
Reanimator
[deck]4 Izzet Charm4 Breaking Entering
4 Academy Raider
4 Viashino Racketeer
3 Chromatic Lantern
4 Whip of Erebos
4 Rescue from the Underworld
4 Angel of Serenity
4 Ashen Rider
25 Lands[/deck]
This deck looks unplayable/like something I want to spend my time on. I mean, why [card]Rescue from the Underworld[/card] or Entering? Turn six 7-drop? Why not play one [card]Chromatic Lantern[/card] and skip all the trouble?
Because! BECAUSE!! BECAUSE I TELL YOU!
Really, I just want to try it. The Bident deck is more exciting to me, but I haven’t seen anyone else writing about Reanimator, and there’s maybe something here. Maybe.
Breaking the Chimera
[draft]Spellheart Chimera[/draft]A lot of people have been writing to me about [card]Spellheart Chimera[/card]. The card appears to be extremely powerful for its cost… maybe even too powerful.
Obviously our Izzet Blitz deck was viable last format, and the main damage burst cards remain in [card]Guttersnipe[/card] and [card]Nivix Cyclops[/card].
[draft]GuttersnipeNivix Cyclops
Spellheart Chimera[/draft]
With 12 3-drops that can produce a ton of burst damage when combined with instants and sorceries we could potentially build a dangerous and competitive deck.
The main concern I have right now is the lack of depth in blue and red instants and sorceries to power these. The rotation of [card]Faithless Looting[/card], [card]Thought Scour[/card], and [card]Artful Dodge[/card] are devastating to a strategy like this, but we should try anyway. The format is going to be a little less competitive so there is wiggle room.
Theros does offer some solid burn options in [card]Magma Jet[/card], [card]Lightning Strike[/card], and [card]Spark Jolt[/card].
[draft]Magma JetLightning Strike
Spark Jolt[/draft]
Since we have a lack of cheap draw spells, [card]Steam Augury[/card] is an option. Looking at 5 cards is an extremely powerful effect for a deck like this—especially one that doesn’t mind filling up the graveyard a bit.
[draft]Steam Augury[/draft]New Izzet Blitz
[deck]4 Quicken4 Shock
4 Izzet Charm
2 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Spellheart Chimera
4 Guttersnipe
3 Nivix Cyclops
4 Steam Augury
4 Steam Vents
4 Izzet Guildgate
8 Mountain
7 Island[/deck]
This is one of the directions we could go. It’s a bit slower than Izzet Blitz decks of the past that could kill out of the blue turn 4. This one will probably block for a bit and burn creatures before acquiring enough resources to go on the offensive.
I’m excited to test this deck because I want to figure out the best spell configuration. There isn’t much that is stellar, but that means there is a lot of room to try things out. It’s possible we want bounce or heavier burn like [card]Mizzium Mortars[/card]. I will hopefully have a better idea next week.
Theros Brewing
Three decks. All exciting. None of them tested yet. If one of them is competitive that’s a good rate.
My money is on the classic Sliver/Fog archetype. That archetype has been around for YEARS! Right? Yeah, I’m pretty sure.
Well, Theros comes online later this week, so next week will be exciting with reports of actual battling. I can’t wait!
<3 Travis facebook.com/Travisdwoo twitter.com/Travisdwoo twitchtv.com/Traviswoo Questions! Comments!! Think there's something I forgot??

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