HighlanderBlog

Today I want to present a combo deck designed by Tiggupiru which just won him the finnish Highlander nationals. In the center of this build is a well known friend of the format Protean Hulk. I like this deck very much and that’s why I decided to give it some space on the blog. You can also find Tiggupiru’s list and discussion on our forums http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=463.0. He was kind enough to explain the deck and show how it works.

Here is the list:

GWB Pattern-Rector

• lands
• creatures
• spells

How the combo works:

The combo itself might not be obvious just by looking at the list. It basically goes like this:

1)Get Hulk into play with an sacrifice outlet
2)Sacrifice it, and fetch karmic Guide (targeting Hulk) and one mana sacrifice outlet (just to be sure)
3)Sacrifice Hulk, fetch Saffi Eriksdottir, Tidehollow Sculler, and Mesmeric Fiend
4)Sacrifice the Sculler/Fiend duo while their abilities are on the stack so they remove the cards permanently (this step makes sure you don’t need to play around anything)
5)Sacrifice Saffi with her own ability, targetting the Karmic Guide and then sacrifice the Guide, which reanimates Hulk
6)Sacrifice Hulk, and get Reveillark
7)Sacrifice Guide and then Reveillark to reanimate Saffi and Guide (targetting Reveillark)
8)Sacrifice Saffi with her own ability, targetting the Karmic Guide and then sacrifice the Guide, which reanimates the creature whose ETB-ability you want to abuse

Rince and repeat.

With the current creatures in the deck, you are able to gain infinite life (Kitchen Finks, Obstinate Baloth), infinite power and toughness (Nantuko Husk, Carrion Feeder), infinite green mana (Wall of Roots), infinite card draw (Wall of Blossoms), infinite lockdown (Yosei), infinite hand disruption (Tidehollow Sculler), and infinite permanent destruction (Terastodon, Shriekmaw).

Even though you can’t usually win on the same turn, the game should be unloseable at this point.

How the deck compete with different decktypes:

The hand you looking for to mulligan to, is green one mana accelerant, sacrifice outlet, and either Natural Order/Pattern/Rector. Naturally, any tutor for those will do and against control, you want to see a discard spell or two, to make sure the coast is clear when you go off.

Against aggro, you pretty much want to go off as soon as possible. You do have the means to stabilize, though, but against evasion you have only limited answers, so safest bet is just go for the combo. The above mentioned “perfect” hand is the one you’ll be looking for.

Against control, you like to see the whole combo and some disruption. I am usually pretty happy to have some card advantage as well, like Yavimaya Elder, Night’s Whisper, Grim Discovery, Phyrexian Arena, and so on. You can outdraw blue decks, but that requires some luck. Although, when they need to tap for the card draw, you are free to combo off. This is a tricky matchup, and you have couple of ways to go here, as hitting them with your utility creatures is also a good idea.

If your field is full of aggro, consider switching Phyrexian Arena to Loxodon Hierarch. Obstinate Baloth, Tarmogoyf and Wall of Omens are mainly against aggro, so you might need consider taking these out for some card draw or disruption, if you find yourself playing against control all day long.

At the nationals, I expected more of midrange and control decks and thus this list is light on anti-aggro. I was really glad to see the meta filled with aggro as this is not very common thing in Finland, despite the fact my deck was not geared towards dealing with decks like Naya.

I had couple of good things going for me though: combo is traditionally good against field of aggro, and many game ones saw me combo off before opponent even realized they were in a short clock.

Landbase is far from perfect. Couple of the losses I experienced were caused by not being able to find green mana, or that at least decimated the rest of my chances to mount a comeback after an aggressive start from the opposition. I am unsure which direction to take the lands, or should I add nonland cards to combat the mana screw (e.g. Sylvan Ranger could be decent here). Needs more testing. There are good number of nonbasics as your mana dorks are able to get you out of the blood moon/back to basics range before it can be played, and sometimes you even have the luxury of fetching nothing but basics. You could probably squeeze one or two more of those though.

Last thoughts:

As you can see this list is very flexible. Many choices Tiggupiru made are not finally. Thats why the deck is so strong in my opinion. It provides a lot of answers to aggro, control or midrange and is also able to accomplish his own goal in a constant amount of time. As he mentioned you can try to add some other cards and adjust the deck just as you want on your local meta. I am very happy to see a viable combo deck again and hope this deck will get some attention. If you interested in the report from the tourney just click on the link and you can read how the deck fought his way to the 1st place.

so far~

I want to present a new deck. Some people tried already an enchantress deck in highlander format but werent satisfied. So we dont see much of this archetype.

Most builds run only G/W and have a token plan. I´ve tried to add U because of Copy Enchantment, Treachery, Attunement, Wargate, Propaganda and ofc the good stuff (Fact or Fiction , Gifts Ungiven, Intuition). So my idea was to stall the game and finish my opponent off with combo (Earthcraft+Squirrel Nest/Sacred Mesa/Fertile Ground etc.) or simply get a bunch of 4/4er flyers. Even Opalessence is a viable win condition.

So its more like a synergetic combo/control deck than a classic G/W token Enchantress deck. The goal of this deck is to generate a huge card advantage with enchantress effects and sabotage the opponent until the combo or own kill options are assembled. Even after a board sweeper like Akromas Vengeance this deck can easily recover with replenish or Open the Vaults. With Attunement its even possibile to get the whole deck in the graveyard and recur them with the same spells.

So I build this  deck as a multiplayer deck but since its performing so well (which means its like a combo deck at a certain point and its just playing with its own cards) I wanted to establish a solid 1v1 deck. So as a result this deck was created.

GWU Enchantress

• Lands
• Creatures
• Non-Enchantments
• Enchantments

Some remarks

Lands:

Not much to say except I run the filter lands because the deck need a lot of coloured mana. Also Dust Bowl have found his way in because of Crucible of worlds and Exploration shenanigans. Tolaria West finds me Serras Sanctum which is a key land for this deck (I am also thinking about Engineered Explosives but it could destroy also a lot of my stuff too because I run a lot of cheap  enchantments). Horizon Canopys is also a very nice land in combination with Crucibile of worlds.

Creatures:

Well pretty standard choices for an enchantress deck. I am missing Eternal Witness because I want to keep my enchantment count as high as possible. And since I´ve got a lot of mass resurection (Replenish, Open the Vaults) + Holistic Wisdom I dont think I need her.

Non-Enchantment Spells:

Most of the cards are self explaining. Jace and Garruk are just great of their own so I had included them. What I am missing here is graveyard removal. I thought about Ground Seal because its an enchantment and also a cantrip instead of the usual stuff (Tormods Crypt, Phyrexian Furnace).

Warportal finds me often the Serras Sanctum and if I have it allready a Future Sight or something similiar strong (Sigil of the empty Throne or combo parts)

Enchantments:

There are some sub groups.

Removal // Oblivion Ring, Seal of Cleansing, Journey of Nowhere

Kill // Sigil of the empty throne, Opalessence, Squirrel Nest + Earthcraft

Utility// Sterling Grove, Copy Enchantment, Attunement

Stalling// Propaganda, Humility, Solitary Confinement

Most of the cards are pretty obvious for an enchantress deck. Cards like Lignify are not. I like this card because its an cheap good creature removal since it “answers” every problematic creature (except with shroud which is a big issue for this deck). Mind harness and Confiscate are some weird cards too for a competetive deck but since Holistic Wisdom cycles 2/3 of my deck and makes nearly every card a regrowth I have no problems running them. Of course it depends on your meta. Here I ´ve got a very heavy aggro meta.

So I would suggest to add Counterbalance or City of Solitude if you have an heavy control meta. Also mystic remora, which I am running in the multiplayer version of this deck ,is very good. Spreading Seas is just awesome. I liked this sideboard tech from Type 2 and added it to my deck since it draws a card anyway or even two if you have an enchantress effect on the board. You can colour screw your opponent or answer problematic lands (most of the time man lands or in the past LoA).

Finaly there are the kill options.

Opalessence is pretty obvious a no brainer same is true for Sigil of the empty throne. The squirrel/earthcraft combo is also very neat. Easy to assemble and you dont need all the time your nest. A Fertile grounded land + Earthcraft + Sacred Mesa are also doing the job. Hoofprints of the Stag looks realy bad on paper but they are just insane once you get your draw engine online.

So far thats my list. I want to remind you the core of this deck was created for multiplayer and on a heavy aggro meta. But I played some tourneys and was very satisfied by the performance.

so far~