Magical Christmas Land

Standard* Aggro Artifact Burn Combo Competitive RUG (Temur)

Zaueski

Creature (30)

• 3x Bomat Courier
• 1x Greenbelt Rampager
• 1x Hope of Ghirapur
• 4x Insolent Neonate
• 3x Mausoleum Wanderer
• 1x Merchant's Dockhand
• 4x Ornithopter
• 4x Quicksmith Spy
• 4x Reckless Bushwhacker
• 2x Rishkar, Peema Renegade
• 3x Walking Ballista

Land (19)

• 4x Aether Hub
• 4x Botanical Sanctum
• 4x Forest
• 1x Mountain
• 4x Spire of Industry
• 2x Spirebluff Canal

Artifact (7)

• 4x Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 3x Paradox Engine

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Cryptolith Rite

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Sideboard

Instant (15)

• 4x Heroic Intervention
• 3x Metallic Rebuke
• 4x Paradoxical Outcome
• 4x Turn Aside

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Welcome to Aether Revolt Standard! Turn 3 Combo wins are now possible! The sky is falling and this deck is so stupidly non-interactive. It's also very complicated so let me break it down for you.

The Engine

This deck relies on Cryptolith Rite, Paradox Engine, and one of our many repeatable draw effects. Utilizing these pieces we can get absurd amounts of mana and win off of a Strengthening Ballista shooting them in the face with +1/+1 counters.

The Draw

This decks biggest problem is keeping our hand full in the early game, we solve this through a number of methods.

1. Insolent Neonate is about as baseline and simple as we get, sacrifice him to draw a card at the cost of an extra land we don't care about.

2. Merchant's Porter is a little bit clunky, but it's has great draw potential by digging sometimes 8 cards deep looking for that final hit on a creature to continue out the combo, it also helps cycle those unwanted lands to the bottom.

3. Bomat Courier is the best one drop on the play. Guaranteed card off of him on turn 1 and you can usually get 2 or 3 cards when you sacrifice him. Discarding our hand of lands and redundant pieces is extremely helpful when you need to dig. So many times this will feel like Pay , Sacrifice and Ancestral Recall . The downsides when properly utilized are so minimal.

4. Quicksmith Spy is amazing. This when combined with Paradox Engine turns every spell into a cantrip and is one of the 2 primary draw methods of the deck.

5. Lifecrafter's Bestiary is the final draw engine we have and arguably the best. Scry 1 on upkeep is super relevant, Paying on cast is a joke because Paradox Engine will just untap it as long as you sequence your triggers correctly. This provides so much consistency to the deck it is just a phenomenal piece. (It is currently represented by Soul of the Harvest).

The Creatures

All of the other creatures not previously listed have great utility and can prevent disruption and allows us to continue going off unimpeded.

Reckless Bushwhacker is really the main reson we're playing red, buffing the entire team in addition to turning all our cheap creatures into mana dorks the turn we play them with Cryptolith Rite is nothing short of amazing. Needless to say, when you're going off always play this guy last to get the most value.

Hope of Ghirapur is our silver bullet against control. Dodging all of their sorcery speed board wipes gives insane value and often that one extra turn is all we'll need. Since it's legendary I've decided that one copy is appropriate due to its potential hazard of being the only creature in the first 3 turns. (It is currently represented by 1 Mausoleum Wanderer)

Mausoleum Wanderer is a very important piece to stop disruption, it gives us a tax that the opponent can often forget about, and it stops most on curve spells that could disrupt us, when we're going off there are numerous ways to buff it and just shut down any interaction that they can provide and keep the combo safe.

Rishkar, Peema Renegade acts as bad copies of Cryptolith Rite. Redundancy is a necessary evil, although the +1/+1 counters synergize with a lot of pieces including Strengthening Ballista and Mausoleum Wanderer.

Greenbelt Rampager is an amazing card to draw into in the middle of the combo as it reads as cast a creature 3 or more times with one card... with all of our digging happening on cast triggers this is amazing. There's only the one copy though because I never want to see it early game.

Ornithopter is just in here for pure value. A creature in this deck enables so many broken interactions and is the reason a turn 3 kill is possible.

Turn 3 Kill (Magical Christmas Land)

This requires nearly perfect draws and sequencing but is possible. It goes like this.

Openning Hand: Ornithopter x2, Cryptolith Rite, Lands x2 (Needs to be able to produce green), Paradox Engine, and Bomat Courier .

Turn 1: Play a land, Play both Ornithopters and the Bomat Courier , swing in and exile one card off of its trigger.

Turn 2: Draw another or drop creature, tap both lands and play Cryptolith Rite, swing in and get a 2nd card off of Bomat Courier , Play the creature you drew and pass turn.

Turn 3: Draw a creature again, play Paradox Engine. Play the new creature to untap everything. Here you should be out of cards in hand, so swing in one final time with Bomat Courier and then sacrifice it to get 4 cards. The cards need to include either Quicksmith Spy or Lifecrafter's Bestiary. Cast that with your mana dorks and then untap, do it again if your really lucky, play a creature or two drawing off of your new draw engines and keep going till you kill them or run out of hits.

As I said, its Chirstmas Land, but still possible and I can't wait to see someone's face when I kill them on turn 3!

The Weakness

The Sideboard is all about fighting board wipes and enchantment removal. The deck HAS to have its Cryptolith Rite or it just won't function. So in the sideboard we have several anti-interactive cards such as Metallic Rebuke (represented by Negate), Heroic Intervention (represented by Blossoming Defense and Selfless Spirit), Paradoxical Outcome, and Turn Aside. Aided by the maindeck Mausoleum Wanderers and Hope of Ghirapur these cards make the deck highly resistant to interaction. Depending on the speed of the opponent, if they succesfully land a Lost Legacy targeting Rites then I may try to out aggro them, if not then its usually onto game 3.

Top Ranked	Achieved #2 position overall 7 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	7 years
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 36 - 8 Rares 8 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 7 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.00
Tokens	Energy Reserve
Folders	Standard Ideas, Std - brews, interesting, gwendy, Cool decks, Standard AF, Standard, Standard ideas not mine, aaron, Combo decks