Since their debut in Innistrad, Curses have become a niche, but fan-favorite card type. Enchanting your opponents directly with detrimental effects is something rather unique in the game of MTG. Unfortunately, as cool as the mechanic is, dedicated Curse decks have never really been competitive.
This makes it all the more surprising that a deck featuring a Curse tutor package just 5-0d a Magic Online Legacy League. By incorporating a card from the Silverquill Influence precon, this deck’s game plan got a lot more consistent.
Curses for the Win
The main goal behind this archetype brewed by content creator ThrabenU is to cheat expensive Curses with brutal abilities into play and ride them to victory. This plan is made possible by Curse of Misfortunes, which serves as a repeatable Curse tutor. While this Curse is a bit on the expensive side, accelerants like Dark Ritual and Chrome Mox make it easy to cast the enchantment ahead of schedule.
Once in play, you get access to a neat toolbox of options to search for. Against creature decks, Overwhelming Splendor is likely your best go-to, minimizing damage output while simultaneously shutting off impactful abilities. When combined with Curse of Death’s Hold, none of your opponent’s creatures will stick around.
Alternatively, when playing against combo decks like Storm, grabbing Curse of Exhaustion can slow your opponent down immensely. Then, with the opponent’s plans subdued, Curse of Fool’s Wisdom and Cruel Reality will eventually end games in your favor.
As cool as this strategy is, though, it’s been missing redundancy. After all, in games where you don’t find Curse of Misfortunes or it gets countered, you risk getting run over. Luckily, the addition of Herald of Amity addresses this weakness in a big way.
Digging eight cards deep gives you a pretty good chance to find either Curse of Misfortunes or one of your other powerful Curse cards. As an evasive attacker that grows, this Griffin also helps you close games before your opponent can find an answer to your Curses.
Fighting the Good Fight
From a competitive standpoint, Legacy curses’ success is very matchup dependent. Decks like Death and Taxes or Elves that rely on creature combat and feature little in the way of counter magic are surely susceptible to your Curse suite. The fact that Overwhelming Splendor negates entry effects is a huge boon, too.
That said, there are other matchups that don’t care about your Curses at all. Tron, for example, can essentially ignore Overwhelming Splendor and Curse of Death’s Hold. Even if you can land Curse of Exhaustion alongside one of your life-draining Curses, Ugin, Eye of the Storms can singlehandedly undo all of your progress.
If that weren’t enough, there are also a variety of fast combo decks like Doomsday and Oops! All Spells that threaten to win before you get your engine rolling. With these weaknesses in mind, Curses still seems like more of a fun deck choice than a competitive one. Nonetheless, there’s no denying how sweet this deck is.
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