Plum's been prepping for the release of Foundations. In this article he highlights 3 odd but promising brews taking advantage of new cards being added to the Historic Format!
Hey everyone! With the release of the Foundations set just around the corner, it’s time to explore some fresh, offbeat brews that bring a spark of creativity to the game. I’m Plum, and today, I’m diving into three fun and janky decks taking advantage of some the new cards being added to the Historic Format.
Now, there’s a ton of new cards that I’m excited to brew with, but today is a just a quick peek at what I’ve been working on this past week! I’m looking forward to brewing with not just Foundations, but Jumpstart and the Special Guests as well and I think there’s going to be a lot of new decks bursting on to the scene in the near future.
Now of course I haven’t had a chance to test these lists out, so make sure to take them with a grain of salt. What looks good on paper doesn’t always work in practice. But you know we’re all about promoting creativity and ingenuity here on Fun & Jank, so I hope these decks help get the brewing gears turning in your brain!
This deck is a Vampire tribal brew packed with aggressive and synergistic elements, designed to keep pressure on opponents from start to finish. These days, vamp builds commonly build around Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. He’s a very powerful play on turn 3 that allows you to cheat out threats that take over on their own like Vein Ripper. I wanted to explore a different route though. I’ve actually been working on this shell for a little bit, but the idea was sparked when I came across Vampire Socialite a few months ago.
Vampire Socialite is this tribe’s version of Thalia's Lieutenant albeit with the condition that the opponent has to lose life in order to get the +1/+1 counters on our creatures. The cool part is that the it also affects anything that comes into play after it, giving us a bit more versatility in the timing of when we can play our creatures.
Since we’re already playing an aggressive creature-based deck, so the life loss trigger isn’t hard to achieve, but it’s even easier with a cheap pinger like Voldaren Epicure or an early threat like Knight of the Ebon Legion. Knight of the Ebon Legion and Bloodtithe Harvester have a proven track record in vampire shells and are some easy inclusions in our list to give us some extra utility.
However, the one thing I don’t see a lot people capitalize on is the fact that Vampires have a decent subtheme of +1/+1 counters. Let’s take a look at a couple cards that provide strong synergies along side Vampire Socialite.
The new addition from Foundations, Stromkirk Noble feels like it’ll slot perfectly in this deck as another strong 1-drop. It has evasion against a relevant creature type, and grows every time it connects with our opponent.
Dusk Legion Duelist has been solid in my testing of other versions of this deck. So I’ve kept it in this version of the list because it plays so well with Vampire Socialite and Cordial Vampire both of which can put counters on our entire board. Although the ability is only once per turn, we have enough incidental counter placement throughout the game that it easily keeps our hand filled so we can keep the pressure on our opponent.
There’s one more cute package I’d like to talk about before we move on to the next deck.
These two are a true power couple! Being able to steal a creature and swing with it, then sacrifice it to Yahenni after combat is very strong. It’s even stronger when we have a Cordial Vampire and Dusk Legion Duelist out to buff our board and draw additional cards. Yahenni allows for some very fun combat shenanigans with it’s instant speed sacrifice ability, and is a very strong threat against control and removal heavy decks. He may be an Aetherborn, but he’s still a vampire at heart.
This deck feels like it has a bunch of moving parts that can come together to form strong and cohesive game plan. Splashing a 4th color has been very easy with card like Voldaren Estate to support the mana base. It’s been fun to lean on an aspect of a tribe that isn’t often used, in this case +1/+1 counters, and show that there’s still a ton of strategies and angles to brew from!
Out of every shell I’ve been tinkering with for the last month, Fevered Visions has been the most challenging and the most fun to try and figure out. The Izzet build above is what I would consider to be more “stock” and it’s what I’ve based my other variations on.
In my eyes you can two routes with this deck:
1.) Combo Oriented Abusing wheel effects like Molten Psyche and Collective Defiance along side cards like Razorkin Needlehead to try and one-shot your opponent with forced card draw. This version puts Fevered Visions on the back burner as more of a secondary win condition.
2.) Stall Fevered Visions is at the forefront in these shells. We want to keep our opponent’s hand full, but make sure they can’t play anything at the same time. I’ve found that a Jeskai shell has been the best to do this.
White has access to some very strong Silence adjacent spells that can keep your opponent from pulling ahead of you as they take damage from Fevered Visions. Honorary mention for Revel in Silence which people always seem to forget about.
With either version, I’ve found that the hardest part is getting proper redundancy. We have plenty cards that make both you and the opponent draw extra (Howling Mine) and plenty of cards that punish extra draws (Orcish Bowmasters, but Fevered Visions is the only card that does both.
Now we have this little dude. Basically Fevered Visions on a body. AND he’s colorless which makes it easy to slot him into any shell. Obviously being a creature makes him much worse than Fevered Visions, but I think that having copies 5-8 will be a solid power boost to the deck in general. I have high hopes for him in the Izzet list posted above, but I think Jeskai will end up being the strongest contender.
The rest of the list is populated with cheap ways to bounce things back to our opponent’s hand. With Snapcaster Mage there to provide some extra value from our spells. The deck is relatively straight forward. It’s just been tough to find the right mix of spells to settle on a final list. I’m super excited to keep testing this one!
There’s actually already a lot of 3-drop lords in the feline realm. King of the Pride and Feline Sovereign have been on arena for quite some time and I’ll run into them every now and again on the ladder. But I think we hit a crucial abundance of “lords with utility” now that we have Arahbo, the First Fang. Between him and Pride Sovereign it seems like it’ll be very easy to keep pressure up against removal heavy decks.
We know Wild Nacatl, Ocelot Pride, and Ajani are all solid low-to-the-ground threats but now we have Claws Out to make them even more potent.
I’m excited that we have such strong combat effects for this tribe now. Leosaur is a cat that can snowball with itself as the game goes on, and along side the new card Claws Out for as little as 1 mana, I think this deck can have some real speed.
Tribal decks in general are pretty easy to build as most of the time their synergies are clearly defined. I’m not sure there’s many other solid cats in the format right now but this is definitely a tribe I’d like to keep an eye on with the release of Foundations.
Closing Thoughts
As I see it, while Foundations may not make waves as one of the most powerful sets in Magic’s history, it still holds an important place in the current landscape. With a selection of unique cards that bolster new archetypes and breathe fresh life into older strategies, it provides the support that many decks have been waiting for. Foundations offers players a chance to revisit familiar builds with new tools and inspires innovative brewing opportunities, adding fresh twists and synergies to the game. It’s a set that might fly under the radar, but for deck builders who thrive on creativity, it’s an exciting set to brew with!
Thanks for reading.
As always feel free to comment and leave any questions you have below! Make sure to come back next week for even more Fun & Jank!
Happy Brewing!
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Plum is the creator of the Jank Tank.
He started playing at the ripe old age of 12 and immediately fell in love with the infinite possibilities that deck building could lead to.
He truly understands that jank is a mindset, and spends most of his free time brewing and concocting new and exciting deck lists to help inspire and promote creativity within the MTG community.
