In MTG, some of the coolest cards are those that defy typical deckbuilding restrictions. Even though most cards that let you play any number of them in your deck are admittedly quite weak, they still offer unique build-around potential. The latest printing of the bunch, Sphinx’s Approach, is no exception, and one player even found success brewing a wild combo deck around the common instant.
20 Divinations for the Win
The main goal behind this deck designed by MTG content creator SmilingCat is to get four copies of Sphinx’s Approach into the graveyard as quickly as possible. While you can obviously cast four copies in a row, that’s very slow, so this deck uses cheap Mill effects like Rapid Rescue and Does Machines to help. With a whopping 20 copies of Approach in the deck, you’re quite likely to get extra copies into the graveyard this way.
From there, the next copy of Approach will cheat Conspiracy Unraveler right into play. Thanks to all of your previous Milling and high-value dig effects like Visionary’s Dance, Collecting Evidence 10 right away is surprisingly easy. This way, you can cast Omniscience for free, making all your future spells cost zero mana.
Because a third of your deck is simply Divination effects, it’s almost impossible not to churn through your whole deck. Eventually, you’ll find and cast North Wind Avatar, which starts your combo line by tutoring Marang River Regent from your sideboard.
Then, use Regent’s ability to bounce Avatar, recast the Dragon, and tutor another copy of Regent to your hand. This time, that creature can bounce Avatar as well as the other Regent copy. Once you recast Avatar for the final time, grab Terror of the Peaks from your sideboard and cast it. Now, every time you cast one Regent to rebuy the other, you’ll deal a wave of damage to the opponent!
Surprisingly Explosive and Powerful
As a whole, this combo deck gets a lot of mileage out of players not being prepared for the combo kill. Even the fastest decks in the format, like Prowess and red aggro, will often fail to win before you get Omniscience into play.
At the same time, because you can cast Omniscience right after tutoring for Unraveler, you don’t give the opponent a window to use hard removal to stop the combo. Even if the opponent tries to bounce or destroy Omniscience with your first spell on the stack, you can often respond by chaining a bunch of Approaches together and reassemble your combo.
That said, this deck is clearly aimed at best-of-one play, since it loses to tons of sideboard hate cards. Rest in Peace, for instance, completely prevents your combo from ever getting off the ground. High Noon then attacks from a different angle, making it impossible to chain spells together for one explosive turn. Even facing extra counterspells like Spell Pierce
Spell PierceCounter target noncreature spell unless its controller pays {2}. can be a nuisance.
Still, even though this deck isn’t well-suited for competitive tournament play, it’s still a fun deck that can win on Arena. Having a third of your deck be common rarity is also nice for those who don’t want to burn lots of rare and mythic Wildcards. So, if you’re looking for something unique your opponents won’t have on their radar, Approach Combo is worth considering.
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