Who says a competitive constructed deck needs sixty cards in it? This past weekend, Magic player CFTSOC won the 511-player Standard 75K hosted at MagicCon Chicago with a brand new brew featuring 68 cards in the maindeck. Going 12-1-1 throughout the tournament, CFTSOC showed that it is still possible to bring brews to large events and dominate.
When you first look at the decklist, it may look like just a pile of cards thrown together. At least, that’s what I thought until I put the deck together on Arena and tried it out. When I started out 4-0 in best-of-three, I knew this deck might be the real deal.
The deck is run by these two cards: Nissa, Resurgent Animist, and Aftermath Analyst. With Nissa on the battlefield, all of your Capenna “fetch-lands” generate two mana and also allow you to search your library for an elf, which is usually an Aftermath Analyst.
When Aftermath Analyst enters the battlefield, it mills three cards, which usually include a number of the “fetch-lands.” When you sacrifice Aftermath Analyst while Nissa is on the battlefield, this is where the real fun begins.
Aftermath Analyst returns all your lands from the graveyard to the battlefield, which triggers Nissa and generates a bunch of mana. Then all of the fetchlands trigger, sacrificing and searching your library for another land, which triggers Nissa again when it enters the battlefield.
This can happen as early as turn four, generating an enormous mana advantage over your opponent. While your Domain Ramp opponent is searching for two lands on turn four with their Invasion of Zendikar, you’re doubling the number of lands you control and generating enough mana to cast an Atraxa immediately.
While casting an Atraxa on turn four may seem like the most powerful action you could take with this deck, there is actually a hidden infinite combo you can do instead. It’s a little complicated, so it takes a good amount of practice to set up and execute.
The infinite combo
The combo occurs when you have a Nissa and an Aftermath Analyst, along with Slogurk, the Overslime, Takenuma, Abandoned Mire, and twelve fetch-lands in your graveyard. Now, I already know what you’re thinking: that’s a lot of cards you need to combo off; it must never happen.
I promise, if you get enough reps in with the deck, it actually happens pretty often. This combo generates infinite mana and gains you infinite life, and you can use that infinite mana to infinitely mill your opponent out.
Here’s how it works: get Nissa, Analyst, and Slogurk onto the battlefield. Sacrifice Analyst, putting the twelve fetch-lands onto the battlefield. This generates twelve mana from Nissa, and then when the fetch-lands sacrifice, you gain twelve life and put twelve +1/+1 counters on Slogurk.
From here, let’s say your Takenuma is in your graveyard (it’s even easier if it’s in your hand). You then bounce Slogurk to your hand, returning your Takenuma to your hand. You then recast Slogurk, so you still have nine mana in your mana pool. Then pay two mana for your Takenuma (with the two mana discount), mill three cards, and return Analyst, leaving you with seven mana.
Recast the Analyst, milling three more cards and leaving you with five mana. Sacrifice the Analyst to restart the cycle, and notice you still have a single mana left over from the combo. Every time you repeat this cycle, you will generate one mana, mill six cards, and gain twelve life.
Once you have a million mana, have twelve-million life, and your library is in your graveyard, you can now win the game. When you return Slogurk to your hand, you should now be able to return multiple Takenuma’s to your hand. With those Takenumas, you can return Jace, the Perfected Mind to your hand.
Simply cast Jace and immediately minus-five him, milling your opponent for fifteen cards. Jace will then go to your graveyard, and you can use another Takenuma to return him to your hand and mill your opponent again. It usually takes 2-3 Jaces to mill out your opponent, but you could keep going if necessary.
That’s the whole combo! However, one of the many strengths of this deck is that it does not require the combo to win the game. Sometimes, getting an Atraxa on the battlefield on turn four is good enough to beat most aggro decks in the format. Occasionally you can create an enormous Slogurk and trample over your opponent for lethal damage. I’ve only been testing for a few days, yet I have found many ways to win!
Aggro matchup
My favorite thing about the deck is its ability to survive. When I first looked at this deck, I was worried about the Boros Convoke and Mono-Red burn matchup, thinking this slow deck would just get run over.
However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this deck is surprisingly hard to kill. The life gain from the fetch lands makes it annoying for your opponent to kill you quickly, and the massive life swing you can get from putting a bunch of them into play at once is sometimes enough to put you out of bolt range indefinitely.
The main-deck board wipes and Atraxas also make it difficult for aggressive decks to win once you turn the corner. Of course, there will be games where your Convoke opponent curves out and swings for lethal on turn three, but that will win almost any game. At this point, I currently have a positive win percentage against both Convoke and Burn, so it’s not a horrible matchup.
Control matchup
I also thought this deck would have a tough time against UW Control, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Most of the cards in UW Control simply don’t do anything against Sultai Ramp, leaving many cards stranded in your opponent’s hands. Cards like Sunfall, Temporary Lockdown, Depopulate, Get Lost, and the Wandering Emperor have no real effects against this deck. Even No More Lies loses power once you have sixteen lands on the battlefield.
The way to win this matchup is simple: just sit there. Play pass go for as long as possible, putting as many lands into play as possible. Then, once your opponent is in milling range, use Jace to kill them. At this point, you should have plenty of lands, so No More Lies has no power. Even if your opponent successfully counters Jace, just use Takenuma to return him to hand and do it again.
Get Lost has no effect here, as your opponent doesn’t have a chance to target Jace before you use his ultimate. There isn’t anything in the Control deck to deal with this inevitability, and it is surprisingly easy to win the matchup once you understand what your goal is.
Final thoughts
When I first looked at the decklist, I thought there was no way that this deck went almost undefeated in a 511-player Standard 75K. However, now that I have a good amount of reps with it, I am honestly surprised that CFTSOC lost a single match. The combination of survivability and inevitability is a powerful combo, and this deck has both.
Another great thing that this deck has going for it is that nobody recognizes it. The deck is so complicated and underplayed that most opponents will have no idea what you are doing, and once they realize how much danger they are in, it’s usually too late.
If this deck continues to put up winning results in events, I can see sideboard graveyard hate start to put this deck in its place; however, that has not happened yet. Anybody sleeving this list up for RCQ events this weekend will likely dominate, as long as they have enough experience with the deck!
Even if you recognize the deck and are aware of the combo, it’s a different thing to play against it, as the deck has so many different lines that all lead to victory. If you play against an opponent this weekend who plays a turn-one fetch land, I would try to end the game as quickly as possible or suffer the consequences!
You can also find the decklist here.
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