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Daily Digest: Same Shell, Different Colors

Yesterday’s Daily Digest looked at the winner of Grand Prix San Diego – but the runner-up made just as strong a run with another unexpected archetype, and today GerryT showcases that different build of Abzan Constellation for its power and consistency.

Constellation is one of the few decks I’ve done well with in the post-Pro Tour Magic Origins metagame. There are several viable decks out there, and it can be tough to have a good chance against all of them. I think the plan of brute forcing through the format is a good one, and while I tried to do that with G/R Devotion at Grand Prix San Diego, Artur Villela did it with Constellation.

Artur’s deck is much different than the build championed by Kyle Boggemes at the Pro Tour. He’s full-on Abzan for cards like Brain Maggot, Thoughtseize, and Doomwake Giant. The Doomwakes were particularly brutal against me when we played for Top Eight. Whereas the G/W deck has to deal with your things on a one-for-one basis, the Abzan Constellation deck can have a big turn (thanks to Herald of the Pantheon) and decimate their opponent’s entire board.

The other big difference in Artur’s list is the heavy usage of Starfield of Nyx. With the G/W Constellation deck, Sigil of the Empty Throne is the win condition, but that’s a little too tough on the mana. There is certainly some risk involved with Starfield of Nyx, but it’s great for fighting spot removal and it closes the game quickly.

If you’re looking for something a little different that’s still on the edge of Tier One, you could do much worse than Artur’s build of Constellation. If not for the horrendous matchup in the finals, we could have easily seen this deck take down Grand Prix San Diego.