All eyes in the Magic: The Gathering community are on Aetherdrift previews right now, which means the sun is setting for our ol’ pal Foundations. Despite its underwhelming initial performance, players are still finding novel ways to use cards from this set in their decks. Just last week we saw a Standard list capable of cheating out Progenitus on turn two. This week, Spinner of Souls is powering a new take on Cheerios in Pioneer.
For the uninitiated, this is a combo deck in the same vein as Storm. You play a ton of cards in one turn and hope to win on the spot. It’s not a new strategy by any means, but this version does pack a lot of interesting new tech. It also further showcases the power of Spinner of Souls, which is somehow still undervalued despite its huge combo potential.
Spinner Of Souls As A Pioneer Cheerios Enabler?!
This spicy new brew comes to us courtesy of SmilingCatBok13. The core idea here is identical to Cheerios decks of the past. You drop Aetherflux Reservoir, then cast enough spells in one turn to gain 50 life and use its ‘deal 50 damage’ ability. Assuming you’re on 20 life when you start comboing off, this means you need to cast at least eight spells to pull it off.
How does this deck achieve that? Through a combination of Spinner of Souls and X creatures which you can cast for zero mana. As with other Spinner decks we’ve looked at, this one only runs a single copy of the Spider itself to avoid bricking later. The rest of the creature suite consists of four Hangarback Walker, four Stonecoil Serpent, and two Chamber Sentry.
With Spinner in play, you can cast any of these creatures for zero mana and have them die immediately. This will trigger Aetherflux Reservoir, gaining you some life, and Spinner, drawing you a creature. Since all of your creatures can be cast like this, you can repeat the process until you’ve cast every creature in your deck. Casting all 10 will net you 55 life from Reservoir, which is enough to blast your opponent for 50 no matter how much damage you’ve taken.
Decks like these typically focus on zero-mana artifacts rather than creatures, so SmilingCatBok13’s approach here is novel. It’s also very consistent; all you need is Spinner and Reservoir in play and a creature in hand and you’re good to go. This deck overall is a fantastic showcase for Spinner of Souls, particularly in the Pioneer format.
Feelin’ Delirious
Now all of that sounds great, but how are you consistently finding your singleton copy of Spinner of Souls? That’s where the deck’s mini Delirium package comes in. Both Traverse the Ulvenwald and Demonic Counsel appear as full playsets here, specifically to tutor for our eight-legged friend.
Of course, both of these cards only grab Spinner once you have Delirium online. For that reason, a sizable portion of the deck is dedicated to getting it going as soon as possible. A playset of Fabled Passage puts a land in the ‘yard, as do the one-of Channel lands, Boseiju and Takenuma. Your zero mana creatures are all artifacts, so you can throw one in the graveyard early to put both a creature and an artifact in the pile.
As for the other card types, instant and sorcery are well-covered by interaction like Cut Down and Thoughtseize. The deck even runs a playset of Mire’s Grasp, an unusual removal spell that happens to be an enchantment. Between all of these, and Collective Brutality to discard whatever you need, it’s very possible to get Delirium online as early as turn two.
In a Christmas Land scenario, you can tutor for Spinner on two, drop it on three, then follow up with Reservoir on four and end the game. That’s a pretty speedy kill, even for Pioneer. In most games, you can expect to wait a turn or two more than that, however, which could well be an issue. Pioneer is, after all, an incredibly aggressive format at the moment.
Meme Or Dream?
While Pioneer doesn’t really have any dominant Combo decks like Amalia or Vampires anymore, it has plenty of decks that can finish you off by turn four or earlier. Most of these fall under the Rakdos umbrella. If this Spinner of Souls Cheerios brew is going to succeed in Pioneer, it really needs to be able to deal with decks like these.
Thankfully, it actually has a solid chance. While it doesn’t play for the board early, the deck runs a lot of cheap removal. This gives you the option of picking off aggressive creatures early, fueling your Delirium in the process. In addition, Aggro decks rely mainly on Fatal Push for removal, which can’t hit Spinner of Souls without Revolt.
Rakdos Midrange is a different story. With Torch the Tower, Go for the Throat, and even Bloodtithe Harvester in some cases, the deck has plenty of ways to answer your Spinner. This is a big deal because, outside of your one copy of Takenuma, the deck has no way to recur Spinner once it dies. It also has no way to win the game without it.
Looking past the Rakdos decks at the top of the format, this deck’s matchups remain a mixed bag. Niv to Light is fairly slow, but it packs a ton of relevant interaction that can deal with Spinner and stop the combo. Selesnya Company may have trouble in game one, but it can focus its hate cards in game two to really take your strategy apart.
Ultimately, as is the case with most linear Combo decks, Spinner of Souls Cheerios is likely too fragile for serious Pioneer success. It is a very fun, and potentially explosive, deck for the FNM level, however.
