It wasn’t too long ago that Pioneer was a format dominated by Combo decks. Both Rakdos Vampires and Amalia were top-tier decks for the bulk of last year until their key cards were struck down during the August bans. Now the format is much more tempo-driven, with the likes of Rakdos Midrange and Selesnya Company ruling the roost. That said, there could still be room for Combo to shine. Just this week, a new MTG Combo list featuring Standard superstar Screaming Nemesis has come to light.
This deck is all about multiplying damage, through various means, for a quick, unceremonious kill. With the right setup, it can even deal 40 damage to your opponent using a single one-mana spell. If game concepts like ‘interacting with your opponent’ and ‘making smart trades in combat’ aren’t quite your style,’ then this could be the Pioneer deck for you.
Screaming Nemesis Combo In MTG Pioneer
This Screaming Nemesis Combo deck comes to us via the fine folks at MTG Goldfish. By now, you’ve almost certainly seen Screaming Nemesis around if you’ve played Magic at all lately. It’s proven itself a force in both Standard and Pioneer, and it even makes the occasional Modern appearance to boot. You’ve likely never seen the card used the way it is here, however.
The core idea behind this deck is fairly simple. Screaming Nemesis lets you redirect any damage deal to it to another target. To do so it takes the original instance of damage and creates a new one for you to target anew. This plays very nicely indeed with effects that double your damage, such as Solphim, Mayhem Dominus.
If you deal damage to your own Screaming Nemesis with Solphim out, the original damage dealt will be doubled, then doubled again when Nemesis reassigns it. For example, if you hit Nemesis with a Chandra’s Defeat, it will take 10 damage due to Solphim’s ability. It will then let you deal 10 damage to another target, which will itself be doubled to 20. This should usually be enough to end the game on the spot.
The core game plan here really is that simple. All you need is Nemesis and Solphim in play, Chandra’s Defeat in hand, and that’s GG. How early can you achieve this? If you can stick a Nemesis on turn three or four, you can drop Solphim plus Defeat on five for the win. Even if you’re not doing this, you’ll likely want to hold Solphim until five anyway so you can protect it with its ability.
Doubling Down
While this combo deck has a solid game plan, it is not particularly consistent with just the three cards above. Thankfully, there are alternatives available for every piece of the MTG Screaming Nemesis Combo, and they’re all available within the deck’s mono-red setup.
Boros Reckoner is, for our purposes, a second copy of Screaming Nemesis. The Insult half of Insult/Injury is another damage doubler, and Lightning Axe is another five damage burn spell. You can actually pull off the full combo using these three cards alone, or they can sub in for any of the cards mentioned above. This gives the deck a surprising amount of redundancy, which is fantastic for any combo list.
Boros Reckoner actually lets you push the combo beyond 20 damage, too. If you have a Reckoner and a Nemesis out, you can redirect your initial damage twice, resulting in two doublings. This is where the ’40 damage for one mana’ dream plays comes in. 20 won’t always close things out when you factor in lifegain, but 40 certainly will. Something similar can be achieved by casting Insult with Solphim already out, resulting in a 4x multiplier for the turn.
Beyond these core combo pieces, the deck largely consists of a ‘best of’ list of mono-red cards in Pioneer. Fear of Missing Out, Bonecrusher Giant, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker: all present and accounted for here. These cards can help out with the combo on occasion. Giant can act as an additional damage source, while Fable can create an extra Nemesis for more damage later. For the most part, however, they’re just solid value cards that keep the deck competitive when it isn’t popping off.
A Player In Pioneer?
So that’s Screaming Nemesis Combo: a surprisingly consistent MTG Combo deck, even for Pioneer. Is it a legitimate contender, however, or just a fun novelty you can bust out for a quick win at FNM?
Right now, the best deck in Pioneer according to all sources is Rakdos Midrange. This is a pretty gnarly matchup for Nemesis Combo. The deck plays a ton of interaction even pre-sideboard. It can strip your combo pieces from your hand with Duress or Thoughtseize, and remove your key creatures with Fatal Push. Without your combo, you’re really just a mediocre red Midrange deck. Once that’s the case, Rakdos will just outclass you on card quality for an easy win.
The other key Pioneer players are a bit less hostile to Screaming Nemesis Combo. Rakdos Aggro plays far less interaction than its Midrange cousin, which means games will come down to races more often than not. With the explosive potential of the combo, you should be able to turn the corner sooner a lot of the time.
Selesnya Company does have a lot of disruptive tools at its disposal, but most of those are temporary or timing-based. There’s a good chance you’ll be able to push your combo through against it, especially given how much redundancy you’re packing.
Overall, Screaming Nemesis Combo is a fun deck that plays with some under-explored MTG mechanics. It has reasonable matchups against some of the best decks in the format, but it also falls into the common pitfall of Combo decks: being a bit too linear and uninteractive in nature. Give it a try if you have the cards, but don’t go dropping $120 on a playset of Screaming Nemesis just for this.
