Climbing into the pod with Vannifar in Gladiator/Historic!
with credit to ThomasHarryReid for forging new ground with their deck back in January 2020 and showing me the ropes.
If every preview season has you hotly anticipating cards with the magic word 'Untap' on them, this is the deck for you!
This is a combo deck revolving around sequentially sacrificing creatures with Vannifar, deploying creatures with various ETB effects, in order to work up the chain to some really big explosive finishes. It's designed for the Gladiator (or Historic Singleton) format, and as such, the challenge is working around the limitations of only having one copy of each card.
The key difference to playing this card when it was in standard is that it's now a full on deterministic combo. There are cards that enter and untap Vannifar at successive points on the CMC curve that allow you to combo-off all the way from CMC 1 to 8 in a single turn.
ThomasHarryReid demonstrated their newly crafted version of the deck to me in a close-fought match vs my Muldrotha deck about a year ago (ironically, to my shame, I ended up winning with my own Vannifar - albiet doing slightly less flashy things!). They had put in a lot of work honing the spine of the deck, in order to reach CMC 6 - where Moraug and a land drop untapped Vannifar for a win with Hornet Queen/Hoof in the next turns). The ideal culmination of my version remains Hornet Queen into Hoof.
Since then - with the closed quarters of lockdown, and a few more set releases reaching Arena - I have been fine tuning the sacrifice chain, generally adding half a dozen options at each CMC to (hopefully!) strengthen the combo depending on the board state, and adapting the deck closer to my preferred playstyle as a toolbox combo deck. For example, sometimes your opponent will have permanents that simply block your progress and need to be dealt with - in these situations, you can work your way upto finding the creature that deals with them (Meteor Golem says hi) - and hopefully proceed with the combo even after that.
Amonkhet and Kaladesh Remastered and Jumpstart all added important cards to smooth out the combo.
One of the things I am most happy with is adding the ability to go part way up the curve (say, to CMC 4 or 5) and then return a lower CMC creature to cycle through the entire combo again - on the same turn - in order to build out a board state from maybe a mana dork + Vannifar, to four or five permanents. It is usually necessary for example to recast/return Corridor Monitor (MVP) multiple times, so we have many ways of replaying or returning that card to the battlefield. This often lets you go from next to nothing to a good ol' Hoofing on the same turn.
I also found that another optimal way of making the combo stronger is to deploy either Tuktuk Rubblefort or Crashing Drawbridge on or before the turn you combo off. This enables you to not only play and tap Vannifar that turn (often vital), but also to make hasted copies of Vannifar herself which can tap to continue the combo (Spark Double being the best of these). It also importantly lets you play and tap mana dorks that turn (which may let you cast cards to untap Vannifar).
Brief play guide
As with a lot of combo decks, the play sequence changes depending on your board state and cards in hand/graveyard.
The most deterministic win is:
- you have a cmc 1 creature
- your creatures are hasted
- you have at least one excess white mana - or just plenty of mana in general - or a spell in hand to untap Vannifar
Okay, start throwing creatures at Vannifar. She knows what to do.
With this you can go all the way up the chain from 1 to Hoof - with Hornet Queen providing the extra attackers. Even if your opponent chump blocks, they will usually be dead one way or the other. I leave it upto you to discover the exact route!
Naturally, we're not always this lucky - especially because this is a singleton deck. You will most likely have to fetch Vannifar by other means as well as making some choice blocks in order to stay alive (hint: it's not always bad to have certain cards in the yard). Your spells in hand or graveyard are just as important.
Having hasted creatures and extra white mana is easy mode, but that's less fun! When you are down on either of those resources that's when the deck becomes more akin to classic combos like Doomsday. The number of lines available are pretty mindboggling. Some of them run right into brick walls! Don't be discouraged. This deck takes a lot of learning - and that's the fun part, along with discovering new things to try. Even after dozens of hours, I still brick out regularly (usually followed by spotting a better path, so it goes).
If opponent hasn't just tapped out
Though they rarely know what you're upto before you reveal Vannifar, deploying her into open mana is naturally pretty risky, depending on their deck. What then? If you're not in any danger of dying, you should hold Vannifar until you can protect her or play her with haste. Bait out as much removal or counters as you can, and wait for the window. There's always a window. In this deck there are counters, a spell to give her hexproof, and many cards that return her from the yard. Athreos will even protect her against exile effects.
If you suspect combat shenanigans, the Hoof plan is probably out of the window. If you don't expect them to wrath on their turn, you can loop through the combo a few times, probably halting at cmc 6 (which can also dismantle their board state), and presenting an 'I win?' team for them to answer. Niv or Carnage Tyrant usually get it done. If you feel lucky, you can go to the casino with Gyruda. Alternatively you can wait until you draw Pact and either swing in or pass the turn with that (naturally... you also should check you have UU3).
Some extra pointers:
- keep a log of the lines you figure out! You usually have to win with weird board states, but if you know you can do it, you can craft that board state again in future!
- it's often worth waiting an extra turn (to deploy a mana dork, to protect Vannifar, etc etc)
- the deck is also a ramp deck, turning things sideways is not always plan B.
- Settle the Wreckage is a card.
- Vannifar is an elf ooze wizard!
