This deck is meant to be a cheeky creature-based toolbox deck that is able to pull of some serious bullshit while also ideally being viable in the meta. The two main engines are Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer and Transmogrant Altar, with the altar's mana ability we're able to sac a creature on board to soup up our play with Rocco, and threaten our opponent by eventually overwhelm them with Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia
. This is also a meld deck, and involves the very powerful Phyrexian Dragon Engine
and the slightly less powerful Mishra, Claimed by Gix
; the meld part is made more viable with Rocco, as you're able to chord for any piece of the puzzle you're looking for. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is also here to help us stabilize in the early game and bog down the opponent's shenanigans.
This deck is also four colors with a very damaging and greedy manabase, so beware.
Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist is a great start to a deck like this. 1/1 deathtoucher that combos with Clay Revenant to make powerstones and create 3/3 zombies in the mid game is where we want to be, and all for one black mana. This card is not to be slept on.
Clay Revenant is the other part of the Ashnod combo. Sac the revenant to Ashnod to gain a powerstone and put the revenant in the graveyard, which you're able to recur later (Slightly cheaper because of the powerstone) and repeat this process. Eventually you'll have 3+ powerstones and be able to recur the revenant for one black mana every turn to further power your Transmogrant Altar. It's a combo!
Meticulous Excavation: I'm pretty excited to try this in an unearth deck. One mana enchant that's able to save ANY permanent you can control, synergizes with powerstones, and lets you recur your unearth cards. This seems good mainly in the mid to late game, so that's why we only have two currently.
Kessig Wolfrider is a Grim Lavamancer that creates wolves instead of shocking, with better stats. A great option to tutor out from Rocco, as it can build up your board very fast in the late game, and faster still with powerstones.
Mishra's Research Desk is our new Experimental Synthesizer that we get to abuse with Meticulous Excavation. This variant of this kind of card actually ends up shredding our own deck slightly by exiling one of the cards forever, but you're able to play the other and choose between playing one of two cards until the end of your next turn versus playing the top card of your library only THIS turn. But the standard rate applies: this is a five mana Divination in red that can be played out over the course of a few turns.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben: I'm pretty stoked to finally use this card. She should fit in nicely with all the creatures we plan on casting versus noncreatures, and she helps lock down the early game by being a superb blocker and taxing removal. She does slow us down too in terms of playing out noncreature based value, but luckily our noncreatures are fairly cheap.
Misery's Shadow is a really cool addition to this standard, and has many interesting uses with how cheap this new shade is. In our deck we can tutor this card to shut down dying/graveyard synergies, as well as defending and attacking early with its active ability. a great way to guarantee we end up using all of our mana each turn.
Ogre-Head Helm is a nice option against control. 2/2 red bear for 2 that lets you sacrifice it like Bomat Courier to get a redraw in the late game. But by far the best application of this creature is equipping it to fodder and sacrificing it again and again to get all the Ancestral Recalls you need to win.
Rite of Oblivion is a great choice for any sacrifice deck, and is part of this deck's removal package. The rate is good; sac a nonland to exile a nonland permanent. And you can do it twice. I may change what removal this deck uses later.
Fateful Absence is the other removal we play. I like the design of this card, it forces fast decks to slow down or pay the consequences if they don't sac the clue.
Phyrexian Dragon Engine
is the other half of Mishra. 2/2 double striker for 3 is a great rate for 3 colorless, and the unearth to draw three is icing on the cake. But of course, the most exciting thing about this card is what it can transform into in this deck;
Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia
is pretty freaking cool. Six different modes that you choose from three of on each attack, and each mode is a house in its own right.
- Mind Rot. Always a good option to have against control, especially good with Loran.
- Lightning Bolt. Always useful, period.
- Sword of Sinew and Steel / 2/3rds of Bedevil : Hey, this looks familiar! Classic Rakdos - colored removal, and always useful to have on the card as a fringe case.
- All Creatures gain Menace and Trample: A great mode to try and close out the game with. Also makes Mishra harder to block, which can in turn set up combat trick blowouts.
- Give all creatures your opponents control -1/-1: Another insane mode. Turns your Lightning Bolt into a 4 damage spell if it targets a creature, and annihilates tokens if they aren't buffed. Useful on most creature-focused board states.
- Two Powerstones. Our deck wants these! If we have a free mode, this one is a great default.
Loran of the Third Path is our white Reclamation Sage that we can tutor out with Rocco when the time comes. This creature can also tap to have everyone in the game draw in a 1v1. The draw ability can be useful, but only when drawing a card is most useful for you and least useful for the opponent, and should likely be activated on the opponent's end step. Melded Mishra can also force a discard on one of his modes, so the card draw can turn into card advantage that way.
Transmogrant Altar is where the magic happens. The first mode is the most relevant to our deck as it can help pave the way for more game-impacting Roccos. Otherwise it's useful for upgrading any creatures it makes sense to into 3/3 Zombie tokens for the beatdown plan.
Mishra, Claimed by Gix
as a card on its own is unfortunately just okay in this deck. However, the lifegain from his passive means that he becomes a skeleton key against aggro. Melds with the engine of course, and has decent stats on his own.
Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer brings the food and the fury in this brew, and is the reason to play this deck. On their own; a 3-mana 3/1. Any more mana, and we have our own Chord of Calling in Standard, with many fantastic options to tutor for. Transmogrant Altar helps us even more by saccing the creatures we don't care about to tack on 3 mana to our Rocco cast, upping the stakes considerably. But on its own, we simply cast them to grab the creature we want most with the mana we have, and go to town.
Platoon Dispenser is our top-end threat that we're able to tutor out with Rocco and works pretty well in this kind of deck. If the opponent kills it we can choose to unearth it later for tokens and card draw, as well as recurring it with Meticulous Excavation. I may add another copy of this to the deck later on.
