If there’s one thing that I’ve learned about the new format, it’s that the mana is very good. Two-color decks have enough multicolor lands to function comfortably, and there is more than enough fixing to facilitate three- and even four-color decks as long as you’re in the market for green cards or cheap artifacts. Moreover, the Kaladesh fastlands help these multicolored decks maintain an aggressive posture while you fix issues with the deck with appropriate splashes.
This deck is one of the options for pushing the format’s mana to its limit. Attune with Aether and Servant of the Conduit are premium fixers for an energy-centric archetype, and having access to Evolving Wilds and Aether Hub as lands that can fix all of your colors makes the splashes much easier.
And what do we gain by playing all these colors? First, you get to play a creature that’s closer to Dark Confidant than any we’ve seen before. You should have enough energy with this deck to pay for Glint-Sleeve Siphoner’s trigger, even when it doesn’t attack. Dark Confidant has been slowly losing steam in Modern and has long since been passed by in Legacy, but let me assure you, it would be great in Standard.
Second, you get Tamiyo, Field Researcher. For an aggressive deck built around great attackers, Tamiyo is about as good as it gets. It continues the card advantage of Tireless Tracker and Glint-Sleeve Siphoner or gets your Woodland Wanderers through for huge chunks of damage. It’s an easy card to overlook because of the strict color requirements, so being able to play it so easily is very attractive.
But the biggest advantage you get from exploiting the good mana of the format is in the sideboard. You can play nearly any card you want. Cheap sweepers, cheap spot removal, big spot removal, discard, counterspells, more planeswalkers, artifact removal: it’s all there. Just figure out what you need to beat and find the cards that beat them. Easier said than done, but it’s great to know that the answers are going to be available.
This specific list is certainly light on answers to Felidar Guardian and Saheeli Rai, but that’s an easy issue to remedy, and this deck is certainly capable of applying enough pressure to win a race against most combo lists, since they won’t be completely dedicated to the combo.
This weekend is the release of Aether Revolt, and with that comes the end of this little experiment. I was thrilled to get your deck submissions so thank you to everyone who took the time to email in. I expect this will become the norm for Release Week moving forward, so look out in a couple of months when Amonkhet drops.
Creatures (26)
- 4 Woodland Wanderer
- 2 Tireless Tracker
- 2 Verdurous Gearhulk
- 4 Servant of the Conduit
- 4 Greenbelt Rampager
- 3 Winding Constrictor
- 3 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
- 4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (18)
Spells (13)
