More than just Servos

Hello everyone,

I hope everyone is safe from the storms. Especially those who live near Marikina and low lying areas, stay safe, stay dry. Save all the important things like passports, documents, fetchlands and duals.

GP Brussels is happening as you read this and a lot of people have sleeved up proxy mountains. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, PT25A gave rise to the breakout deck in standard called Turbo Fog which utilizes Nexus of Fate to take all the turns and win with a Teferi ultimate.

It claims, and my team has proven it, that all the creature decks in the format fall victim to the endless supply of fog effects and turns that these decks just fall apart. Duress does nothing at disabling Nexus because it just shuffles itself back to the library. Apart from Hazoret’s ability and the occasional Lightning Strike, the red decks will get the Nexus deck down to single digit life but that’s that. For Green stompy decks, they need to curve really fast with back to back Steel Leaf Champion and Ghalta and hope the opponent does not stabilize behind Gifts of Paradise and Fogs to eventually steal the game.

I do run this deck and I feel dirty while playing solitaire so I came up with a deck that is still good against the current meta but is not helpless against Nexus decks and other non-interactive decks like Approach.

So what’s new?

Reassembling Skeleton comes in to replace Sacred Cat or Regal Caracal in the last updated tokens list. I like this because it’s a very resilient blocker and it gives us an unlimited supply of revolt triggers for Hidden Stockpile. I hate it when the opponent manages to wipe my board and I have no ways to get a permanent to leave the battlefield.

Desecrated Tomb functions like a fifth Hidden Stockpile with Reassembling Skeleton in play. Each time you bring the skeleton back to life, you gain an additional 1/1 flying bat. In case you embalm your Anointer Priest, you also get a 1/1 bat from it because it left your battlefield and went into exile.

To really push the token generation theme to the limit, I am playing 1 copy of Open the Graves which is my 6th Hidden Stockpile with Reassembling Skeleton. So essentially when you reanimate it, you get a 1/1 bat. If you sacrifice it to Hidden Stockpile, you get a 2/2 zombie and a 1/1 servo.

The way that the token deck wins the aggro war is by sheer life gain thanks to multiples copies of Anointer Priest and flooding the board with tokens. Now we have a secondary source of lifegain in Ajani’s Welcome. Take note that you gain a life even for nontoken creatures. So your 1/1 bat, 1/1 servo, 1/1 vampire from Legion’s Landing, 2/2 zombies, priests and skeletons all gain you a life. With Anointed Procession, expect to gain 50 life upwards especially if you have multiple copies of this or the Priest.

From the sideboard, we’re playing 3 copies of Karn to upgrade our tokens in match-ups where our 1/1s and 2/2s are not going to cut it. Remember that you also double the constructs with Procession out and thanks to the dozens of servos you make from Hidden Stockpile, your constructs will be 6/6s or 7/7s on the first tick down.

On the sideboard, Lost Legacy comes back to combat the recurring Nexuses that loam around your local gaming shop. This is also good at stripping your opponent’s wincon like Teferi and Approach.

Sorcerous Spyglass comes in for problematic cards like Azcanta, Planeswalkers, Heart of Kiran, Scrapheap Scrounger among other things.

Against big creatures, we have Profane Procession from the side to deal with Gods, Fatties and Dinosaurs that come down late game after we popped a Fumigate or Ixalan’s Binding.

Decklist:

Creatures: 8

4 Anointer Priest

4 Reassembling Skeleton

Artifact: 5

4 Renegade Map

1 Desecrated Tomb

Spells: 7

3 Fumigate

4 Fatal Push

Enchantments: 17

3 Ajani’s Welcome

3 Legion’s Landing

4 Hidden Stockpile

4 Anointed Procession

2 Ixalan’s Binding

1 Open the Graves

Lands: 23

4 Concealed Courtyard

4 Isolated Chapel

4 Evolving Wilds

1 Ifnir Deadlands

3 Shefet Dunes

3 Plains

4 Swamp

Sideboard: 15

3 Duress

3 Lost Legacy

1 Fumigate

2 Arguel’s Blood Fast

2 Sorcerous Spyglass

1 Ixalan’s Binding

3 Karn, Scion of Urza

What other archetypes of old still have some juice left before rotation? Let me know by commenting below!

Thanks,

Vanson