20 New Historic Brews with Kaladesh Remastered

Kaladesh Remastered is coming to Arena, and that means Historic will be getting some new cards to play with! I must admit I was a bit disappointed in how the set shaped up. For starters, Walking Ballista, Felidar Guardian, and Smuggler’s Copter are not in the set. This makes some sense, as they are all banned in Pioneer, but Ballista and Guardian have applications outside of the reason they were banned, while the other  combo pieces (Heliod and Saheeli Rai) have less applications. Some of the cards that I was excited to brew around, namely Inspiring Statuary and Madcap Experiment, are not included in the set. Meanwhile we get one card that wasn’t in the original block main set in Sculpting Steel??? It all feels a bit weird.

Nevertheless, I have 20 brews with Kaladesh Remastered in Historic for you all to try! Below are the decks we will be showcasing today featuring the new cards with a brief discussion for each deck. You can click on the headings to go to the decklist that you want to have a look at, or click here to go straight to the list of all the decks in this article!

Abzan Counters

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Counters Company received 2 upgrades: Winding Constrictor and Blooming Marsh. Marsh helps facilitate splashing Winding Constrictor and Constrictor presents us with redundant copies of Conclave Mentor (albeit slightly better on the stat line). It is possible that either BG counters is the way to go or that this deck should focus more on the BG aspect with cards like Grakmaw.

Metalwork Combo

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Kaladesh does introduce a ton of new artifacts into the format, which gives us interesting space to explore. I’d like to examine Metalwork Colossus. It has the potential to be a free 10/10 if you control 11 or more converted mana cost of non-creature artifacts. Old standard decks utilized Colossus as a recursive threat that also triggered Sanctum of Ugin, which we don’t currently have on Arena.

I’d like to discuss its applications in a combo strategy. Together with Witch’s Oven and Colossus, we can return the construct to our hand. Here is where it gets interesting. Paradox Engine lets us untap Witch’s Oven whenever we cast a spell. This means we can keep casting Colossus and sacrificing it to oven for continuous untapping of our whole board. Combine that with Bontu’s Monument and you have an infinite life drain combo. All we need is to assemble everything. Mystic Forge and Karn, the Great Creator help facilitate this. Forge + Paradox Engine is also a very potent card advantage engine with a bit of artifact mana production. The deck still has some weaker cards like Spare Supplies, but with a few more artifacts, this deck will be able to consistently enact its game plan every match. 

Mono Blue Artifact Legends

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Metallic Rebuke is another card I expect to see play in Historic due to its ability to be cast for {U} pretty easily. This deck might be a bit light on artifacts, but it attempts to utilize Whir of Invention and the Blue legendary creatures in tandem with Mox Amber to control the game.

Unfortunately, we currently lack a tutor target that can shut down creatures from attacking like Ensnaring Bridge, so games with this deck will always be close. What’s nice about Whir of Invention is that it grants easy access to cards like Grafdigger’s Cage. Once you establish control, you can lock your opponent out with Crucible of Worlds and Ghost Quarter or Ipnu Rivulet.

Sultai Whir

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This version of Whir is more reminiscent of modern decks, but the lack of Mox Opal is very apparent. Using Gilded Goose as a way to maintain artifact count is a powerful tool.

Mono Blue Outcome

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This is a more all-in combo version of Mono U artifacts, focusing on having a large number of cheap artifacts to return with Paradoxical Outcome to keep the combo going. It should be noted that Emry, Lurker of the Loch + Paradox Engine + Tormod’s Crypt is infinite spells. The deck kills by utilizing fan favorite Aetherflux Reservoir to dome the opponent for 50!

Simic Marvel

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Aetherworks Marvel wreaked havoc on Standard’s past (before its eventual ban), and it is coming to Historic. Previous iterations of Marvel were more midrange, but I think the way to make energy work in Historic is to try and maximize Marvel every game. Uro and Fabled Passage have nice synergy with Marvel.

Zendikar Rising introduced MDFCs, which are also great for Marvel. Not only do they ensure the deck hits 4 mana for Marvel, but they also are reasonable hits when spinning it. Obviously the best hit off Marvel is Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, but it is possible that the deck will want Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in the future. It remains to be seen whether Energy will be fast and powerful enough to compete in Historic.

Mono White Artifact Aggro

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Aggressive artifact strategies got a huge boost from Kaladesh. Bomat Courier, Hope of Ghirapur, Toolcraft Exemplar, and Scrapheap Scrounger are all very powerful additions to the previous group of cheap artifacts that were legal in Historic. Hope allows for the deck to shut off sorcery speed removal/wrath effects and when combined with Lurrus, you can lock a control opponent out of the game. We now have enough artifact creatures to make Steel Overseer worth playing! The fastlands and Pathways along with Spire of Industry can enable a splash for whatever we would like to play (also Aether Hub if we need it). This version just uses red for Bomat Courier and black for Scrapheap Scrounger, but there are certainly many directions the deck can go.

Mono White Tempered Steel

Tempered Steel was introduced to Historic via anthology, but it hasn’t seen play due to the lack of good, cheap artifact creatures. It is possible that Chief of the Foundry deserves a spot in this deck as another artifact lord, but I think for now the deck should focus on maximizing turn 3 Tempered Steel damage.

Golgari Lurrus

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A less eye-catching card that was introduced in Kaladesh is Unbridled Growth. While it might not look like much, Unbridled Growth is a recursive card draw engine when combined with Lurrus. Kaladesh also gives us access to Glint-Sleeve Siphoner, which can act as a beatdown creature and serve as a card advantage engine.

Selesnya Legends

Oviya Pashiri gives Mox Amber 12 cards on turn 1 that turn it on in GW. This makes it more plausible as a free mana accelerant. We are slowly getting enough legends and good mana for this deck to feel powerful.

Mono Black Rogues

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Metallic Mimic is another lord for any archetype. It also synergizes very well with Oona’s Blackguard. Glint-Sleeve Siphoner and Night Market Lookout are new rogues from Kaladesh that help fill out the deck nicely. Fatal Push is a nice upgrade for mono black aggro strategies. If you like aggressive tribal strategies, this is a deck for you.

Naya Renegade Landfall

Renegade Rallier has some nice synergy with cards like Fabled Passage and Evolving Wilds, which can produce 3 Landfall triggers in one turn. This synergy slots nicely into a Naya Landfall aggro shell with Knight of the Reliquary.

Mono White Tokens

Servo Exhibition and Sram’s Expertise are welcomed additions to token producing strategies. Both allow the deck to flood the board pretty easily and finish with a global pump effect.

Gruul Pummeler

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Pummeler was a deck that found some success in Standard. Unfortunately, the cards in Historic are much better than Standard. The deck attempts to make a huge Electrostatic Pummeler and trample through the opponent’s defenses. I think regular Gruul aggro decks are likely just better at killing the opponent.

Mono White Monument

Finally Aviary Mechanic is legal in Historic! Now all the pieces are in place for Oketra’s Monument to do fun things! I suspect it might not be ready to compete yet, mostly due to the abundance of 3 drops in the deck, but it is a fun option.

Jeskai Saheeli Yorion

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Saheeli allows for another way to trigger the Yorion loop. This deck focuses on maximizing Saheeli’s -2, which copies creatures. With Yorion, you can make a copy of Yorion and keep the original with the legend rule, allowing for 2 Yorion triggers, one for the token’s trigger and one for Yorion returning in the end step. This adds more redundancy to your card advantage engine.

Vannifar Combo

There were some standard loops with Woe Strider and some other convoluted cards to allow for a kill with Prime Speaker Vannifar, but with the introduction of Renegade Rallier into Historic, we now have a way to combo kill with Vannifar pretty reliably. Here is how the combo works:

• Start with Vannifar and a 1 drop in play.
• Sacrifice the 1 drop to get Corridor Monitor.
• From there, Monitor untaps Vannifar, allowing us to use it again.
• Sacrifice Monitor to get Renegade Rallier.
• Revolt triggers, returning the Monitor.
• We can repeat this for every Renegade Rallier.

Glasspool Mimic and Mirror Image serve as extra copies of Renegade Rallier. Once you have fetched all the Ralliers from the deck, sacrifice the last Corridor Monitor to find Tuktuk Rubblefort, which lets you attack with all the Ralliers. This deck has a similar kill condition to Neoform, but it has the potential to play a toolbox and midrange game effectively. I am excited to try this deck out!

Mono White Sram Auras

Not much to say here. Sram is a worse, but redundant copy of Kor Spiritdancer. We are still missing Gryff’s Boon and Ethereal Armor for the Mono White version to truly take off, but we can branch out to Azorius, Orzhov, or even Selesnya.

Kethis Combo

Kethis gained a very powerful tool in Hope of Ghirapur. Not only does it serve as a free spell to cast when comboing off, but it also provides a way to prevent the opponent from interacting with the combo in a similar fashion to Teferi, Time Raveler. The manabase of the deck got less painful with the addition of the fastlands. This might be enough to bring it back to a competitive state in Historic.

Sultai Gyruda

We currently have 12 ways to copy Gyruda with even CMC (Spark Double, Vizier of Many Faces). With a way to give haste using Gyruda’s trigger, we could have a Historic Gyruda combo deck. Felidar Guardian would’ve been a huge boon for this deck. More even converted mana cost clone/blink effects will help this deck be viable. As it stands, this deck is light on ways to continue the Gyruda loop, so it will be inconsistent. The goal of the deck without a haster is to simply mill the opponent out with many Gyruda Triggers.

Decklists

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Remember, you can see all the information regarding this set in our main Kaladesh Remastered hub, where you will be able to see the complete card list, news, decks and more!