Every now and again, MTG players will discover some powerful upgrades to a forgotten archetype that pushes a deck to new heights. This is exactly what happened to Pioneer Vampires at Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor, which even elevated the deck to banworthy status.
Now, it appears that one player may have found a major breakthrough for a Standard combo deck. With the help of an unsuspecting Duskmourn Clown, this four-color lethal combo shell made the top eight of a 176-Player Tournament and could be poised for a breakout.
Infinite Token Generation
At its core, what makes this deck tick is the presence of Bloom Tender. Getting this card to tap for multiple mana isn’t hard at all thanks to efficient enchantments like Stormchaser’s Talent and Seam Rip that sit in play. With the help of Sewer-Veillance Cam as an untap mechanism and Boomerang Basics as a way to reset Cam, you’ll have no problem generating lots of mana.
While this excess mana can be used to enable cute bounce Storm synergies, this deck is primarily looking to win via combos. Untapping with a creature that taps for two mana, including Bloom Tender as well as Badgermole Cub, is all you need to win. Eventually, by using Jolly Balloon Man, you can create infinite fliers by taking advantage of Sewer-Veillance Cam and Nurturing Pixie.
With all the pieces on board, activate Jolly Balloon Man, copying your Nurturing Pixie. Pixie can bounce Sewer-Veillance Cam, which you can use to untap your mana creature. Use the mana to re-cast your Cam, untapping your Balloon Man. With the extra mana from your mana creature, you should be able to activate Balloon Man again, repeating the loop.
Consistency in Rhythm
Generally, four-card combos are too difficult to pull off in Standard for them to be competitive, but this one has a catch. Thanks to some particularly powerful tutor cards, Nature’s Rhythm is primed to find a lot of your core cards on its own. With two Badgermole Cubs, seven mana, and an Earthbent Azorius land, for example, you can win the game even if you don’t have your other combo pieces in hand.
To start, you’ll want to use six of the mana to cast Nature’s Rhythm for X=4, leaving a blue floating. This lets you search for Brightglass Gearhulk, which in turn can tutor up Cam and Pixie. Then, with the blue floating mana, you can cast Cam to untap your Earthbent land and float two green and a white mana. This can be used to cast your Pixie, bouncing your Cam and untapping your land once more.
Once you recast your Cam for a second time to untap your land again, you should have six green mana floating and an untapped Earthbent Land. By tapping your Brightglass Gearhulk, you can now cast your Nature’s Rhythm for its Harmonize cost for X=4. From here, you can find Jolly Balloon Man and win the game.
Notably, while having access to multiple copies of Cub makes the combo easier to execute, it isn’t actually necessary. Even with only one two-mana tapper in play, similar Rhythm lines are available at nine mana instead of seven. Plus, with access to four Gearhulks in the deck, you can search your one-mana combo pieces to save on mana later.
A Powerful Development
As a whole, this deck checks all the boxes of being a possible breakout archetype. Its explosive nature makes it difficult to race, and untapping with Bloom Tender is often a death sentence for your opponent. Thanks to this, beating clunky, low-interaction decks like Mono-Green Landfall is a breeze.
At the same time, though, the deck still has what it takes to steal games from decks packing tons of removal. Both Gearhulk and the Stormchaser’s Talent+Boomerang Basics package generate a lot of value over time, giving you a chance to win fair fights. The deck’s sideboard counterspell suite also helps give you a fighting chance, but this is still generally an uphill battle.
Where this deck can run into issues is against dedicated hate cards. Clarion Conqueror, for instance, completely shuts this deck down and dodges Seam Rip. Similarly, a well-timed Doorkeeper Thrull to mess with Gearhulk and Cam completely shuts your combos down. Still, there’s plenty of room for further innovation should these tools become more popular.
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