With the next MTG ban announcement looming, many players have set out hope for a multitude of cards to get the axe. In Legacy especially, players have grown frustrated by the presence of Grief and Psychic Frog. Dimir Reanimator and tempo variants have warped the format considerably, making it difficult for players to innovate.
However, this past weekend, we saw a unique strategy emerge out of nowhere. An awesome Orzhov Zombie combo deck managed to make top four of a Magic Online Legacy Challenge, showcasing that even in a hostile environment, some players will go out of their way to think outside the box. This deck has a lot going on. To start, we need to explain how the combo itself works.
Zombie Combo
- Mana Value: 2B
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 3/3
- Text: Pay 1 life, Sacrifice another creature: Create a Treasure token. (It’s an artifact with “Tap, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color.”)
The combo this deck utilizes revolves around two cards: Warren Soultrader and Gravecrawler. Gravecrawler is a powerful card that you can replay from the graveyard at will, so long as you have a Zombie in play. Well, Warren Soultrader is a Zombie itself, and Gravecrawler serves as the perfect creature to sacrifice to it.
Warren Soultrader lets you pay a life and sacrifice Gravecrawler to make a Treasure token, which you can then use to bring back Gravecrawler from your graveyard to play. By itself, this synergy doesn’t accomplish anything, since you’re just losing life in the process. With Guide of Souls or Marionette Apprentice in the mix, though, things start to get interesting.
If you have access to Marionette Apprentice alongside Warren Soultrader and Gravecrawler, you can force the opponent to lose life each time you sacrifice Gravecrawler. This isn’t an infinite combo since you are losing life in the process too. Nonetheless, if you have enough life compared to your opponent, this combo will get the job done.
With Guide of Souls at the ready but no Marionette Apprentice, you can generate infinite Energy by looping Gravecrawler between the graveyard and the battlefield. This excess Energy can be used to pay for Guide of Souls’ final ability as well as to help keep Static Prison in play. With two copies of Guide of Souls in play, you’ll also gain infinite life. Of course, if you have both Guide of Souls and Marionette Apprentice in play when you begin your combo, you can win the game on the spot.
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Supporting Cast
- Mana Value: 1B
- Rarity: Rare
- Text: When Chthonian Nightmare enters the battlefield, you get three energy counters. Pay X energy, Sacrifice a creature, Return Chthonian Nightmare to its owner’s hand: Return target creature card with mana value X from your graveyard to the battlefield. Activate only as a sorcery.
What’s nice about the combos described above is that, even in games where you don’t assemble all the pieces, each card individually pulls its weight. Guide of Souls, for instance, has proven itself as a force to be reckoned with across multiple formats. The combination of Guide of Souls and Ocelot Pride can present a great deal of pressure very early on.
Warren Soultrader and Marionette Apprentice, while not quite the same power level, act as great supporting elements for Chthonian Nightmare. Chthonian Nightmare gives this deck elite staying power. The tokens created by Marionette Apprentice and Orcish Bowmasters provide you with sacrifice fodder to let you recur your potent threats. This makes it surprisingly difficult for the opponent to keep you off your combo long-term, since you can often resurrect your combo pieces from the dead.
Notably, this deck’s token subtheme enables you to maximize Knight-Errant of Eos, too. Knight-Errant of Eos does everything you want. It adds extra power to the board. It finds you extra creatures to deploy in grindy games. Most importantly, it helps you dig for your missing combo pieces. Your “plan b” of simply attacking over time will work in some matchups, but being able to win the game outside of combat is a huge luxury.
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Fighting in a Narrow Metagame
- Mana Value: 2BB
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Stats: 3/2
- Text: Menace. When Grief enters the battlefield, target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card. Evoke- Exile a black card from your hand.
As this deck’s sudden success indicates, the gameplan it presents is decently positioned against the top decks. Obviously, having the tools to beat Reanimator is a must in Legacy right now. Luckily, this deck is capable of minimizing the effect of some of Reanimator’s most prominent cards. For example, playsets of both Static Prison and Swords to Plowshares give you plentiful clean answers to an early Psychic Frog.
Against Eldrazi, your combo cards really shine. You aren’t overly susceptible to Wasteland, and Eldrazi decks don’t have a ton in the way of removal. Versus control variants, your token production is bound to be a pain for the opponent to handle.
Where this deck can run into problems game one is against a fast combo start. Deafening Silence out of the sideboard can at least provide a bit of protection against Storm, but that doesn’t make things easy. That being said, with so much of the metagame centered around Dimir decks, things aren’t so bad. With the August 26 ban announcement lurking, it’ll be interesting to see if this archetype can continue to flourish. Only time will tell.
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