When Jumpstart: Historic Horizons released on Magic Arena, we talked about a potentially broken 2 card combo deck with
Vesperlark
Vesperlark
Flying
When this creature leaves the battlefield, return target creature card with power 1 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Evoke {1}{W} (You may cast this spell for its evoke cost. If you do, it's sacrificed when it enters.)
and Davriel’s Withering. The deck had a pretty big problem in that it really folded hard to Graveyard hate, and that it needed to play a lot of smaller combo creatures to win. Well, with the release of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, the deck is no longer a meme, dare I say, it might need a banning.
The Key
The key to the deck going from a meme to a true threat in the format is
The Meathook Massacre
The Meathook Massacre
When The Meathook Massacre enters, each creature gets -X/-X until end of turn.
Whenever a creature you control dies, each opponent loses 1 life.
Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, you gain 1 life.
. This brand new Legendary Enchantment enables the deck to turn into a control deck. This alleviates the problems the deck faced. It doesn’t just fold to
Rest in Peace
Rest in Peace
When this enchantment enters, exile all graveyards.
If a card or token would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead.
or
Grafdigger’s Cage
Grafdigger’s Cage
Creature cards in graveyards and libraries can't enter the battlefield.
Players can't cast spells from graveyards or libraries.
, and the only creature in the deck is Vesperlark.
The Deck
This deck comes to us from Caleb Durward. He played this to a 3rd place finish in Stream League 6 this past weekend, and the deck was nuts. The deck played as a Black White control deck, utilizing Thoughtsieze and
Inquisition of Kozilek
Inquisition of Kozilek
Target player reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it with mana value 3 or less. That player discards that card.
to disrupt our opponent’s hand. It has a great removal suite with
Portable Hole
Portable Hole
When this artifact enters, exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls with mana value 2 or less until this artifact leaves the battlefield.
,
Fatal Push
Fatal Push
Destroy target creature if it has mana value 2 or less.
Revolt — Destroy that creature if it has mana value 4 or less instead if a permanent left the battlefield under your control this turn.
,
Fateful Absence
Fateful Absence
Destroy target creature or planeswalker. Its controller investigates. (They create a Clue token. It's an artifact with "{2}, Sacrifice this token: Draw a card.")
, Davriel’s Withering, and
Vanishing Verse
Vanishing Verse
Exile target monocolored permanent.
.
The Meathook Massacre also can act as a board wipe in addition to a combo piece.
Mazemind Tome
Mazemind Tome
{T}, Put a page counter on this artifact: Scry 1. (Look at the top card of your library. You may put that card on the bottom.)
{2}, {T}, Put a page counter on this artifact: Draw a card.
When there are four or more page counters on this artifact, exile it. If you do, you gain 4 life.
and Wishclaw Talisman round the deck out as our card advantage engine. Wishclaw lets us dig up a missing combo piece if we’re ready to go off, or any other situational card needed.
READ MORE: Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Gave Standard A New BROKEN Combo
The Sideboard
The sideboard offers some more removal such as
Fracture
Fracture
Destroy target artifact, enchantment, or planeswalker.
to deal with Rest in Peace or Cage, Power-Word Kill deals with nearly all the popular creatures in the format, and Wrath of God is a blanket board wipe. Leyline of the Void is one sided graveyard hate, which is needed in this meta, and Phyrexian Arena gives us some consistent card draw.
READ MORE: This is the Best Deck to Climb Magic Arena Ladder In Standard
Does the deck need a banning? Well, that remains to be seen. I think that the deck is doing some incredibly powerful stuff, and it almost feels like a spiritual successor to
Splinter Twin
Splinter Twin
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature has "{T}: Create a token that's a copy of this creature, except it has haste. Exile that token at the beginning of the next end step."
. The deck isn’t unbeatable, but it’s very strong if piloted correctly. Is that a problem? Well it’s possible that if this deck takes off in popularity, it could wreak havoc on the format.
Normally I’d say to a strategy like this there is counter play, but the deck packs all the answers needed to win through hate, so it’s very hard to say. I will say this deck is masterfully crafted, and watching the deck being piloted on stream, and having playing against Caleb in the top 8 of Stream League 6, Caleb piloted the deck incredibly well.
What are your thoughts? Is this deck too powerful to have in the format? Definitely give this a try and let us know in the comments how it felt for you!