Hedron Alignment
is back, baby!
This deck is a modified version of Mad Orrery (Budget) for Aether Revolt Standard. The primary goal of the deck is still to discard cards, but the endgame is quite different. Instead of trying to out-value our opponent with Ghirapur Orrery, we'll instead win with Hedron Alignment
+
Secret Salvage
.
The Deck
The way the combo works is as follows:
- Discard a
Hedron Alignment
to any of several discard outlets. If necessary, Ghirapur Orrery will help you find one.
- Cast
Secret Salvage
, exiling
Hedron Alignment
. Again, Ghirapur Orrery can help you find one.
- During this process, destroy opponent's creatures with removal spells, several of which have madness and others of which help discard cards.
-
Secret Salvage
will exile
Hedron Alignment
and put three in your hand. Two of the conditions have now been fulfilled (exile and hand).
- Cast
Hedron Alignment
. If it resolves, proceed to the next step. Otherwise, it will be countered and sent to the graveyard to fulfill the third condition. If this is the case, cast another Alignment. If it is countered, you cannot win with this combo, so try to get both on the same turn so your opponent can't deal with both.
- Before your next upkeep, discard a
Hedron Alignment
as needed. The Alignment in play will then win you the game.
We have several discard outlets to discard
Hedron Alignment
and turn on Ghirapur Orrery:
So, we're discarding all of our cards. We don't want to just waste everything, so we'll use madness to prevent some card disadvantage.
So, that's basically the core of the deck. One other thing to note: The removal is split between Unlicensed Disintegration and Grasp of Darkness because we can run a bit slower, so sometimes the mana saved is preferable to not die to aggro, but usually we just value the unconditional kill. I've given thought to Harnessed Lightning, but I have no other energy sources so I decided it's not worthwhile.
The Sideboard
In the sideboard, we have four copies of Metallic Rebuke. Because we are running several artifacts, we can catch many opponents off-guard with this trick. Metallic Rebuke and Lost Legacy can protect the combo against control decks, or stop the opponent from playing valuable combo pieces like Marvel, Ulamog, Saheeli Rai, Felidar Guardian, and Paradox Engine. Additional copies of Bomat Courier and the full four copies of Lupine Prototype can bring the deck up to speed versus more aggressive decks. Finally, two copies of
Cryptbreaker
allow you to draw extra cards in a slower matchup due to the seven zombies in the main deck which consistently reanimate themselves. The additional slot is currently empty because the deck is pretty well streamlined, but if you see something that you would add, let me know!
