This time we have a guest post by long-time Fluctuator enjoyer and recent Universal Champ Danny de Rooij. The Featured image is Future Sight by Matt Cavotta. Enjoy! / Martin
Hiya nerds!
Today I’ll show a brew which I played all the way to the top 4 of the June edition of the Premodern Online monthly tournament. Along the way I beat Sligh, Goblins, GB Rec-Sur, GW Enchantress, 4-Colour Aggro, Hunting Pack Storm and White Weenie. In the semi-finals I eventually lost to Terrageddon and you can watch that match on Andrew Walker’s Twitch channel here.
The deck
The deck is an elaboration on the Oath Parfait archetype, but built specifically around one of my favourite Premodern cards: Future Sight. The card has been played in different decks, mostly Doomsday combo, and it’s a fantastic value engine that can win the game out of nowhere.
One of the reasons to try this deck is that all games are exciting to play and with a lot of gameplay actions. You have to do a lot of work for little incremental value, which is rewarding (don’t forget your Urza’s Bauble triggers!). Since Gaea’s Blessing is one of the workhorse cards in the deck, behold Bless the Future:
SIDEBOARD
The basic strategy is: try not to die immediately, then try not to die in the early game, then try not to die in the midgame. When you’ve successfully found a way to not die, we are slowly getting control, whereafter we either win by attacking with a Ravenous Baloth (surprisingly strong in this metagame) or by decking the opponent. Gaea’s Blessing brings back our good stuff and creates a lock of sorts together with Zur’s Weirding. The deck is full of cards that are okay before, and insane after we have Future Sight in play, e.g. Sylvan Library, Exploration, Scroll Rack. Put differently, most cards in the deck are contraptions for a clunky but super fun machine. Let’s dive into some card choices.
Card choices
- Ravenous Baloth: our prime Oath target. It’s good to finally have an Oath target that is castable. It blocks most creatures favourably and makes sure we get enough life to get more cards with Sylvan Library or to stay alive longer.
- Phantom Nishoba: note that it’s a beast that can be sacrificed to Ravenous Baloth, e.g. when the opponent casts Swords to Plowshares on it. In future versions I’d consider a different third target, depending on the metagame.
- Chromatic Sphere: the bread and butter of the deck. It makes sure we can play a 2UUU card in a GW control deck. It’s also insane to chain with Future Sight in play. Furthermore, it makes for a stable manabase consisting mostly of basic lands. I’ve faced Price of Progress for 2 damage, multiple idle Wastelands and Dust Bowls while easily casting a Future Sight using Chromatic Spheres and basics. Note also that, besides Future Sight and Ravenous Baloth, there are no spells requiring two or more of the same coloured mana.
- Urza’s Bauble: a super fun card—especially on top of your deck when you have a Future Sight in play. 🙂 It also makes our deck essentially 56 cards, so we get to draw our prison style cards faster. Seeing a card while holding a Meddling Mage in hand is chef’s kiss. Watch out for keeping opening hands with three Bauble’s though. It can backfire into three lands or three non-lands.
- Gaea’s Blessing: makes sure that every one-of in the deck has a major impact. We draw it when we need it, and we are eventually drawing it more and more due to shuffling only the cards back that we need in the matchup. A singleton Seal of Cleansing can e.g. be cast 2-3 times in the same game.
- Enlightened Tutor: searches for all our key pieces. It’s almost like a Demonic Tutor with a Future Sight in play, but we only play one because it’s a bit clunky when that’s not the case.
- Zur’s Weirding: this is a card that raises eyebrows. Did you know that this card is often already a lock with a Future Sight in play in an open board with enough life? We can make sure our opponents never get to draw a good card again, while we just foresee the future.
- Constant Mists: yes you can buyback when this is on top, it’s also very frustrating for an aggro player to play against. Exactly how we want it.
- Call of the Herd: every match I’ve sideboarded all four Call of the Herd and the third Ravenous Baloth, because normally our opponents board out their creature removal. An effective way to buy time until we can get up to five mana.
Wrap-up
If you want a weird prison style control deck with multiple angles, this is the deck for you. You will have very fun games and you will have a lot of game actions 😊. The list is heavily customizable for your local environment. If your metagame is full of red decks, feel free to add a Hydroblast or a Sphere of Law to the main deck. Likewise, if you expect a lot of control decks, you could add the Brain Freeze to the main to storm those pesky Landstill players to oblivion!
That’s it for today—but stay tuned, because a fun gameplay video is coming your way soon!
– Danny