Unfortunately, Vivi Cauldron is back to being the undisputed king of Standard. Like we were afraid of, the deck seems to have adjusted to Red, winning the MTGO Standard Showcase Challenge over the weekend, and qualifying many MTG Arena players for the Arena Championships.
Despite Vivi’s reaffirmation of power, the brief reprieve caused by Red brought a lot of brewers to Standard. Considering that Vivi appears to be on the chopping block in November, they might stick around. As a result, if you’re not looking to invest in Vivi, there are a lot of fun options out there.
One newer take on a niche Standard classic uses an overlooked Edge of Eternities common to push into four colors. That, combined with an overlooked rare from Duskmourn, allows Insidious Roots to maintain its death combo, despite Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler rotating out.
Four-Color Insidious Roots
This bizarre take on Insidious Roots placed within the top 16 of an MTG Standard Challenge, qualified for the MTG Arena Qualifier Weekend, and had a mediocre result on day one of the event, going 5-3. Four-color Roots has all the tools to give competitive mainstays a run for their money. This is a deck I’ve personally been tinkering with, as I’ve always preferred to play things that are off the beaten path.
The goal of any Insidious Roots build is to abuse the power of the namesake enchantment, creating an army of plants and taking over the game. Cards within the deck generally play a few different roles in order ot make that happen. Overlord of the Balemurk, Dredger’s Insight, and Cache Grab are the engine pieces, filling your graveyard with creature fodder while triggering Insidious Roots to create Plant tokens. Other cards either act as pieces that enable Insidious Roots or keep common Standard threats in check.
Scavenging Ooze does a ton of heavy lifting in the deck. This, combined with Enduring Courage, allows the deck to create massive board states out of nowhere if you have a stocked graveyard. Every time Scavenging Ooze exiles a creature from your graveyard, you’ll create a Plant with Insidious Roots. That token will gain Haste with Enduring Courage, allowing you to exile all of your cards in one fell swoop and create a massive attack. It’s incredibly easy to deal more than twenty damage in one turn with this combo set up.
Agatha’s Soul Cauldron plays double duty here, making sure you have access to all of your most important activated abilities, while keeping Vivi Cauldron in check. Adding to the Vivi hate, Insidious Fungus and Scrapshooter both act as tools to blow up the important artifacts and enchantments in the matchup. Finally, Tinybones, Bauble Burglar in the sideboard messes with Cauldron’s discard antics, preventing Delirum from coming online.
Adding white to Insidious Roots not only gives the deck a lot more play against rogue Standard decks, but also elevates the tools it has to combat the Vivi Cauldron menace.
Adding White
Up to this point, Insidious Roots decks have either been Jund or Golgari. Jund decks mainly existed to splash Terra, Magical Adept into the deck. The creature both functions as an engine piece, but most importantly, it finds Insidious Roots. Transforming Terra also comes up a surprising amount, and copying Overlord of the Balemurk with an Insidious Roots in play is an easy way to end the game. While this helps the deck out significantly, a new tool allows Insidious Roots to stretch its manabase even further.
This build utilizes Gene Pollinator to branch into four colors, replacing the traditional Llanowar Elves slot. Thanks to the high density of enchantments in the deck, it’s rather easy to get value out of Gene Pollinator. Adding white improves the removal suite that Roots has access to, grants some options that shore up its other weak points, and improves some of the card slots needed for the deck to function.
Nurturing Pixie does a lot of work in this deck. Insidious Roots has always been traditionally weak to fliers, and Pixie works as a perfect chump blocker there. The card also works incredibly well with Overlord of the Balemurk. You can chump block with your Pixie, use the Overlord to return it, and bounce the Overlord back to your hand with Pixie. This will trigger Insidious Roots and Dredger’s Insight, making things even better. This essentially allows your deck to go forever, crushing midrange decks with ease.
This combo also accelerates the rate at which you put Insidious Roots into your graveyard. Sadly, the options to return Roots to your hand are subpar. Coati Scavenger was the best option up to this point, but three mana for a conditional Eternal Witness effect is too slow in current Standard. Woodland Acolyte, another draft chaff card from Wilds of Eldraine, is a meaningful upgrade here. You can recur Insidious Roots to the top of your deck for just one mana, or return a creature to trigger Roots. The creature half isn’t important, but it does help in situations where you’ve run out of gas.
While the maindeck adjustments for Roots are important, adding white does a lot more for the sideboard.
Shoring Up Bad Matchups
Insidious Roots crushes Dimir and can keep up with Red and Vivi Cauldron, but it loses to many less popular Standard decks. Control decks and Kona, Rescue Beastie decks are a nightmare for Roots to keep up with, but adding white has equipped the sideboard with a lot of pieces.
Seam Rip is the biggest gain for Insidious Roots going into white. Earlier versions of the deck played Seam Rip in the main deck, but the enchantment not being a creature meant that there were too many sequences where Insidious Roots whiffed. Seam Rip can exile many of the important threats in the Vivi Cauldron matchup for just one mana, and can answer common sideboard hate for the deck like Rest in Peace.
Nowhere to Run might not be white, but it’s heavily enabled by the white additions to this deck. The card can tap for mana with Gene Pollinator, can be recurred with Nurturing Pixie, and Terra, Magical Adept can find it with her enters ability. Nowhere to Run also gets through Hexproof and Ward, which is really important against your bad tier two matchups. This card can kill Kona, Rescue Beastie through Lost in the Maze, kills green creatures through Snakeskin Veil, and deal with Sunset Saboteur without discarding a card.
While Roots had a very poor control matchup, Ketramose, the New Dawn and Severance Priest do a lot to make things more competitive. Azorius Control doesn’t actually have a good way to remove Ketramose outside of countering it. This means that, as long as you resolve the creature and can enable it, it will be very difficult to lose. Severance Priest can take key cards out of your opponent’s hand in combo matchups, and plays well with Overlord of the Balemurk and Nurturing Pixie.
Where to Play This?
If you’re trying your best to win a Standard event, this Insidious Roots deck is not the one to play. Anything except Vivi Cauldron is the wrong answer from that perspective, but Roots isn’t a bad choice in the right room. The deck has an incredible midrange matchup, including Dimir, and can fight against anything your opponents might bring.
Before rotation, Insidious Roots had an amazing Izzet Cori-Steel Cutter matchup, but the Vivi Cauldron matchup is a bit harder for a few reasons. Notably, this deck does not play into fliers well, and Vivi Cauldron is capable of making a bunch of big ones. Steamcore Scholar and Quantum Riddler, for instance, can fly over your chump blockers.
Izzet Cutter didn’t have an instant win combo, either. While you can generally keep Vivi from getting under the Cauldron, if you do slip up, the game usually ends as a result. Dragon Sniper isn’t as great of a universal answer anymore, either, because of Red’s Nova Hellkite. Cauldron decks sometimes run that creature, too.
The biggest issue with this deck, however, is that it sometimes loses to itself. You can draw a hand full of lands, mana dorks, and Insidious Roots and do nothing. Conversely, it’s possible, but unlikely, to mill over no creatures and just lose. The manabase is generally not a problem in this deck, however.
Going back to three colors could allow you to cut a few mana dorks for some more action, which could make the deck a bit more consistent. It’s clear that Insidious Roots has a lot of room for experimentation and, after bans hit, it could become a powerful player with the right tech choices.
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