Table of Contents
Hey everyone! Today I’m going to be covering my Naya Ignus Lifegain Combo deck in Alchemy which I recently used to go 61-3 and hit rank #1 with on the Arena ladder. I think this is the best win rate I’ve ever had with a deck and it feels like by far the best deck in the format to me right now!
I’ve also put up a video on my YouTube channel with with 5 matches of game play if you’re interested in seeing the deck in action.
Creatures (32)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (24)
60 Cards
$322.12
Sideboard
15 Cards
$16.85
Main Deck:
The Combo:
The combo in this deck revolves around the namesake card Grinning Ignus. The activated ability on Grinning Ignus enables you to recast it for a single red mana, so the goal in this deck is to try and reduce the cost of Grinning Ignus by one red mana so that you can recast it an infinite amount of times, which provides infinite enter the battlefield triggers and infinite leaves the battlefield triggers.
The two main ways we have of doing this are with Racketeer Boss and Birgi, God of Storytelling.
If you cast Racketeer Boss with a Grinning Ignus in your hand, you can choose to give Grinning Ignus the perpetual ability to create a treasure token whenever it’s cast. You can then sacrifice this Treasure token for red mana to pay for the Grinning Ignus ability to return it to your hand, and since the ability from Racketeer Boss is perpetual, it will create a Treasure again when you re-cast it, enabling you to repeatedly bounce and re-cast the Grinning Ignus over and over again.
If you have a Birgi, God of Storytelling on the battlefield and you cast Grinning Ignus, Birgi, God of Storytelling will produce a red mana which you can then use to bounce Grinning Ignus back to your hand with its ability, allowing you to re-cast and bounce Grinning Ignus repeatedly.
You can also generate infinite mana if you have 2 of these effects together eg. Birgi, God of Storytelling on the battlefield and Grinning Ignus in hand with the perpetual ability from Racketeer Boss, or a Grinning Ignus in hand that has 2 instances of the Racketeer Boss perpetual ability (since they stack if you select the same card multiple times). Both of these scenarios will result in you netting an additional treasure each time you bounce and re-cast the Grinning Ignus which provides you with infinite mana.
How to Take Advantage of Infinite Grinning Ignus Loops:
This deck has a lifegain sub-theme and is the main way we capitalise on looping Grinning Ignus. Both Lunarch Veteran and Prosperous Innkeeper gain us a life when a creature enters the battlefield which technically allows us to gain infinite life if you have either of them on the battlefield alongside a Grinning Ignus you can loop infinitely. This also works with Luminous Phantom, the backside of Lunarch Veteran, since bouncing Grinning Ignus back to your hand will trigger the Luminous Phantom which is really nice.
If you were playing this deck in paper, you could demonstrate the loop and go to a high enough life total that any deck relying on dealing damage to win would be unable to beat you unless you decked out before them. Since we’re playing on Arena where you have to manually perform the loop and are constrained by the timer, this isn’t possible, but it can still be useful to put you at a high enough life total that the opponent is unable to kill you in the near future, which should hopefully buy you enough time to find another one of your combo pieces that allows you to finish the game.
Voice of the Blessed: If you have a lifegain enabler with Voice of the Blessed alongside a Grinning Ignus you can repeatedly loop, you can gain infinite life and also make a huge Voice of the Blessed with flying, vigilance and indestructible. This is really strong as it gives you an effective way to close the game out, and a threat that is really difficult to kill.
The only commonly played cards in the format that can deal with Voice of the Blessed once it gains indestructible are Vanishing Verse, Skyclave Apparition, and Farewell (The Wandering Emperor is unable to exile it since it has vigilance), and if the opponent is unable to produce a chump blocker with flying, they’ll need to have one of those three cards immediately or you’ll be able to attack for lethal with Voice of the Blessed the following turn.
Trelasarra, Moon Dancer: If you have a lifegain enabler with Trelasarra, Moon Dancer alongside a Grinning Ignus you can repeatedly loop, you can gain infinite life, make a huge Trelasarra, Moon Dancer, and scry through your whole deck. The card you’re typically looking for when you do this is Cabaretti Revels as that is the best way to win if you have a Grinning Ignus you can repeatedly loop (more on that in the next section).
While a huge Trelasarra, Moon Dancer is a lot more vulnerable to interaction than Voice of the Blessed, scrying through your whole deck will usually enable you to win the following turn so it’s not a huge issue if the opponent does end up killing Trelasarra, Moon Dancer.
Cabaretti Revels: If you have Cabaretti Revels alongside a Grinning Ignus you can repeatedly loop, it will put every 1 and 2 mana creature in your deck onto the battlefield since it will trigger the Cabaretti Revels each time you cast Grinning Ignus. This will put all of your lifegain enablers, Voice of the Blessed and Trelasarra, Moon Dancer onto the battlefield which will build up a huge board, but you’ll also be able to win the same turn due to the single copy of Dina, Soul Steeper.
You’ll eventually hit Dina, Soul Steeper off the Cabaretti Revels which will then drain the opponent out if you have at least one lifegain enabler in play by repeatedly re-casting Grinning Ignus. Even though the deck isn’t running any black sources in the mana base, you can still win if you draw Dina, Soul Steeper since you’ll hit a Prosperous Innkeeper off Cabaretti Revels which produces a treasure token, which will then allow you to manually cast Dina, Soul Steeper from your hand to win.
Being able to win the turn you combo off with Cabaretti Revels is very important especially against control and the mirror match, and dedicating a single slot in the deck to enable this has definitely felt worth it. If you weren’t running Dina, Soul Steeper against control, you could put all of your 1 and 2 mana creatures into play and then just immediately lose to Farewell the following turn. Similarly, in the mirror match, you could put all of your 1 and 2 mana creatures into play, and then lose to the opponent looping with their own Dina, Soul Steeper the following turn.
Goro-Goro, Disciple of Ryusei is a card that fills a similar role as Dina, Soul Steeper that I tested in previous versions of the deck, since once you’ve put all of your 1 and 2 mana creatures into play, you can bounce Grinning Ignus then pump the red mana into Goro-Goro, Disciple of Ryusei and give all of your creatures haste to attack for lethal that turn. This felt less reliable though, since the opponent could survive by chump blocking your Voice of the Blessed if they have flyers (against Angels for example), the opponent may have already killed most of your Voice of the Blessed throughout the course of the game which makes Goro-Goro, Disciple of Ryusei less likely to be able to provide lethal damage, and the opponent could have too high a life total if you’re playing the mirror match.
Dina, Soul Steeper on the other hand is a deterministically guaranteed kill so is much more reliable. There is a danger that you’ll time out before you hit your Dina, Soul Steeper though, so I felt it was important to go over some tips to help you not time out when comboing off in the next section.
Tips to Help you Not Time Out When Combo-ing Off:
Since publishing my list earlier this week, I’ve seen a lot of people playing it, and a lot of people timing out before they can win because they’re unaware of these tips so this next section felt very important to cover.
- The single most important thing you can do to save time when you’re comboing is to make sure you have ‘Auto order triggered abilities’ ticked under Options>Gameplay. If you don’t have this ticked, then every time multiple triggers go on the stack, an extra box will come up asking you to order the triggers which wastes a huge amount of time. In the past, this was sometimes necessary to have unticked if you were playing Inquisitor Captain alongside lifegain enablers (in the Historic Helioak deck for example) since it used to resolve the lifegain triggers before the Inquisitor Captain trigger, but Arena is now ordering these triggers in the correct order so there’s absolutely no downside to having this ticked while playing this deck as far as I’m aware.
- Using the spacebar also saves a huge amount of time when comboing off and is something I see a lot of people not doing. This is mainly useful in two scenarios:
- You’re looping Grinning Ignus using the Treasure from the Racketeer Boss ability. When you click on Grinning Ignus to bounce it back to your hand but you need to pay for this with a treasure token, Arena will ask you to ‘Autopay’ to confirm you want to sacrifice the Treasure. You can use the spacebar at this point to save you having to mouse over to the bottom right to manually click ‘Autopay’, then having to move your mouse back to your hand to re-cast Grinning Ignus. If you use the spacebar here, it will confirm the ‘Autopay’ almost immediately and you can move your mouse directly to your hand to be able to re-cast the Grinning Ignus almost immediately too which saves a lot of time.
- You have a Trelasarra, Moon Dancer on the battlefield when you’re comboing off with Cabaretti Revels – each time you get a lifegain trigger, you will get a Trelasarra, Moon Dancer trigger to scry 1. There will be certain situations where you might want to scry here, in which case you should have a card in mind you’re looking for and immediately scry to the bottom quickly if it’s not that card. In most cases however, you’re usually just trying to loop Grinning Ignus as fast as possible to dig for Dina, Soul Steeper and so you’ll just want to confirm a scry to the top as fast as possible. Using spacebar here also saves a huge amount of time, you can simply mash the spacebar as long as you’re expecting a Trelasarra, Moon Dancer trigger and it will top the scry almost immediately saving a bunch of time. You do need to be careful to stop mashing spacebar as soon as the final Trelasarra, Moon Dancer is confirmed as it will skip to the next phase if you’re not careful.
- For some reason, Arena will start asking you to manually click ‘resolve’ on every game action once you’ve performed the loop a certain number of times which wastes an insane amount of time. I don’t know why this occurs, but you can get around it fairly easily by going in and out of full control mode – this will then just go back to normal and allow you to combo much faster.
- If you’re comboing off during your main phase 1 and you start roping out, you can immediately go to your main phase 2 which will give you a decent amount of rope back to give you more time to combo.
- If you’re playing Bo3, be mindful of your overall clock time, especially when you’re just doing infinite life loops. It can take a lot of time to combo off to win the game, especially if you’re using Cabaretti Revels, so just be mindful of your overall game clock and don’t go overboard on infinite life if you don’t need to.
The Other Cards:
Birgi, God of Storytelling: I’ve already gone over the importance of Birgi, God of Storytelling as part of the combo, but it can be useful at allowing you to cast multiple spells in a turn fairly, and you can also cast it on the backside as Harnfel, Horn of Bounty. This is very useful against decks packing a lot of interaction as it allows you to turn any dead draw into two looks for something good, and is pretty difficult to interact with once it’s in play.
It’s also a really useful tool if you have access to infinite mana off Grinning Ignus, since you can use some of the mana to cast Harnfel, Horn of Bounty and then use Harnfel, Horn of Bounty to dig for Cabaretti Revels or Voice of the Blessed to close out the game that turn.
Cabaretti Revels: This is obviously a great way to win the game off the back of Grinning Ignus loops, but it’s also probably the best card in the deck when you’re not able to combo. Cabaretti Revels works incredibly well with the lifegain side of the deck, since casting Voice of the Blessed or Trelasarra, Moon Dancer will always hit a Lunarch Veteran off Cabaretti Revels, providing an immediate trigger for Voice of the Blessed or Trelasarra, Moon Dancer.
Then, the next creature you cast will cause two additional lifegain triggers (three if the card you hit off Cabaretti Revels is another lifegain enabler) so you can grow Voice of the Blessed and Trelasarra, Moon Dancer so quickly off the back of Cabaretti Revels.
It’s also great at helping you set up for the combo itself since it can dig for your combo pieces such as Racketeer Boss and Birgi, God of Storytelling or Grinning Ignus if you cast Inquisitor Captain.
Finally, it also works really well with Grinning Ignus even if you’re using it fairly. You can cast Grinning Ignus to trigger Cabaretti Revels, then spend a red mana to bounce it and do it over and over for as much red mana as you have access to through your lands which can flood the board and often win the game on its own.
Inquisitor Captain: This is great as a way to dig for any of your combo pieces as well as building up a board presence. Having Inquisitor Captain at the top end allows you to find that last piece to combo off, or put an additional lifegain payoff onto the battlefield if you already have enablers etc. and also works really well with Cabaretti Revels at flooding the board and applying pressure.
Why Lifegain?
There are a few reasons I’m really high on the lifegain package in this deck, but the main one is that it provides the deck with a really solid backup plan. The main issue I had with other builds of the Grinning Ignus combo I’d seen was that they were much more all-in on the combo which makes them very vulnerable to hate cards like Archon of Emeria, Curse of Silence, Silverquill Silencer etc. whereas this deck can win through those pretty handily off the back of lifegain enablers alongside Voice of the Blessed and Trelasarra, Moon Dancer.
It also helps that you don’t need to have Grinning Ignus in order to win, and in fact a pretty large number of games I’ve managed to win have been off the back of Cabaretti Revels and the lifegain package without ever drawing Grinning Ignus. There’s also great synergy between the combo and the lifegain package, since we’re relying on the lifegain package to win when we’re comboing off with Grinning Ignus, and the two parts of the deck are intertwined and work very effectively with each other.
Another reason I really like the lifegain package is because the enablers are much more efficiently costed and resilient. If you’re not running the lifegain package, the main ways you have of capitilising off the Grinning Ignus combo are Witty Roastmaster and Devilish Valet. The difference between 3 mana and 1 or 2 mana for Lunarch Veteran or Prosperous Innkeeper is huge and Witty Roastmaster and Devilish Valet aren’t great standalone cards when you’re not comboing either whereas Lunarch Veteran and Prosperous Innkeeper are integral parts of both sides of the deck.
Lunarch Veteran also still working as an enabler once its killed by recasting it as Luminous Phantom, and the fact that Prosperous Innkeeper produces a treasure which provides you value even if it’s killed is a big advantage in the face of removal.
Additionally, Witty Roastmaster and Devilish Valet being 3 mana means they can’t be put into play off Cabaretti Revels when you’re comboing with Grinning Ignus, it increases the curve of the deck which slows the overall speed of the deck, and potentially incentivizes you to run a higher land count, so I’m personally not high on either of them.
Finally, the lifegain package also makes you naturally strong against aggressive decks which was a potential way that you could lose with other builds, so it helps to naturally shore up one of the deck’s potential weaknesses.
Mana Base:
The mana base is probably the weakest part of the deck since needing WW for Voice of the Blessed and Skyclave Apparition, RG for Racketeer Boss, and WG for Trelasarra, Moon Dancer puts a lot of pressure on the mana base. The treasures from Prosperous Innkeeper and Racketeer Boss do help with this, but I felt like it was absolutely necessary to be running all dual lands to try and ensure we’re hitting the right colours on time consistently.
Having no basics does make the deck vulnerable to Field of Ruin, but that’s a card I don’t see very often, and even when I do, the opponents never prioritized activating it so it hasn’t been an issue for me. If the metagame shifts and people start using Field of Ruin more aggressively, then it’s probably correct to run a single basic, but that will hurt the consistency of the mana so it’s something I’m trying to avoid unless it’s really necessary.
In terms of the lands themselves I’m running Jetmir's Garden and a mix of pathways and slow lands. Getting the balance between pathways and slow lands has been difficult because the slow lands are important to not ‘cut yourself off’ certain colours in the early game, but you’ll end up with tapped lands for the first two turns if you run too many.
I elected to max out on the white slow lands in order to enable WW for Voice of the Blessed (if you have too many white pathways, there will be a lot of situations where you need to play the non-white side of the pathway which will often prevent you from having WW for Voice of the Blessed or Skyclave Apparition) but max out on the RG pathways which has felt decent overall.
I’ve seen quite a few people suggest running Forsaken Crossroads, but I’m not a huge fan of that because if you cut pathways for Forsaken Crossroads, you have so many tapped lands going first, which mitigates a lot of the benefits of winning the die roll, and if you cut slow lands for Forsaken Crossroads, that will increase the number of games where you get ‘cut off’ of a certain colour.
Sideboard:
4 Curse of Silence: This is here pretty much exclusively for the mirror – you can name Grinning Ignus with Curse of Silence which makes it cost 2 more, stopping the opponent from comboing (you almost never want to sacrifice the Curse of Silence – keeping it in play will ensure their Grinning Ignus constantly costs more to cast). Unlike most of the other Grinning Ignus hate cards, this one isn’t symmetrical so it will still allow you to combo off and has won me a ton of mirrors.
This might seem very narrow especially running 4 copies, but the main deck is so linear and efficient that you don’t want to sideboard too much or it’ll reduce the overall consistency of the deck, and there are a lot of matchups where you don’t want to sideboard at all, which gives you more space in the sideboard for more narrow cards targeted at difficult matchups (and the mirror can feel very much like a coin flip if you don’t have access to Curse of Silence). Big shouts to Omri for suggesting this one!
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben & 4 Elite Spellbinder: These are here predominantly for interaction-heavy decks like control. The lifegain package becomes less consistent if the opponent has a lot of ways to kill your Voice of the Blessed and Trelasarra, Moon Dancer so we replace some of that with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Elite Spellbinder in order to apply pressure and make it much more difficult for them to interact.
I much prefer running proactive creatures in this slot as opposed to reactive protection spells as protection spells massively slow down your ability to apply pressure and can also lead to some awkward draws.
4 Skyclave Apparition: This is here for two main reasons – in order to deal with hate cards like Archon of Emeria and also to slow down decks that can race with individually big creatures.
There are a number of hate cards that people can bring in to stop you comboing eg. Archon of Emeria, Curse of Silence, Silverquill Silencer, Curse of Shaken Faith etc. so having access to Skyclave Apparition as a way to deal with those is important.
Additionally, even though the lifegain package is good against aggressive decks, there are some decks like Naya Runes that are still capable of outracing you, especially going second, so having access to Skyclave Apparition as a way to slow down the opponent is very important in those matchups.
Best of 1:
I wouldn’t make any changes in best of 1 since the main deck is already very linear and efficient at what it’s doing – the fact that I often don’t sideboard if I don’t have to is testament to that so I think the main deck should do pretty well in Bo1 as it is.
Matchups and Sideboard Guide:
Since the main deck is already very streamlined and efficient at it’s game plan, you generally don’t want to sideboard much if you can afford to since it will make your proactive game plan less consistent. Because of this, how you sideboard will vary depending on exactly what the opponent is running so it’s very important to take notice of what they’re running in game 1, and how they change their deck going into game 2.
For example against Esper Midrange, I usually don’t bother sideboarding if they’re running a pretty even mix of creatures and interaction. However, if they’re much more focused on interaction, or they switch to run much more instant-speed removal game 2, I’ll switch to bringing in Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Elite Spellbinder to counteract that. If I see they bring in something like Archon of Emeria game 2 then I’ll switch to bring in Skyclave Apparition if it goes to a game 3 (you can get away without having to pre-emptively board in Skyclave Apparition because the lifegain package can still beat Archon of Emeria without needing to rely on the Grinning Ignus combo).
Additionally, the reason why I usually cut or trim Trelasarra, Moon Dancer, but keep Voice of the Blessed in in most situations, is because Voice of the Blessed is much more important as a win condition that’s very difficult to interact with once it reaches 10 counters, and gives you a good way to win off Cabaretti Revels even if the opponent has already killed Dina, Soul Steeper. Trelasarra, Moon Dancer is great at digging through your deck but is pretty bad as a win condition since it’s vulnerable to all types of interaction and chump blockers on the ground, so cutting Voice of the Blessed instead would leave you light on win conditions, and much more reliant on the Cabaretti Revels combo to win.
It’s also important to always leave at least one Prosperous Innkeeper in the deck so that you give yourself a way to win with Cabaretti Revels if you draw Dina, Soul Steeper – if you cut Prosperous Innkeeper entirely and you’re comboing off with Cabaretti Revels and Grinning Ignus with Dina, Soul Steeper in hand, you can no longer win that turn, whereas if you have one copy still in the deck, you can hit it off Cabaretti Revels, get a treasure token, and cast Dina, Soul Steeper off that.
Finally, if your playing against a creature deck that you think will be unable to deal with a flying, indestructible Voice of the Blessed (like if they’re relying on red and green removal for example), then you can afford to cut Dina, Soul Steeper for a single copy of Skyclave Apparition since you should be able to win the game by making 3 or 4 huge Voice of the Blessed plus infinite life if you’re going off with Grinning Ignus and Cabaretti Revels and so shouldn’t need the Dina, Soul Steeper in order to win.
Vs The Mirror:
| In | Out |
|---|---|
| +4 Curse of Silence | -3 Trelasarra, Moon Dancer |
| +3 Skyclave Apparition | -3 Prosperous Innkeeper |
| -1 Voice of the Blessed |
The mirror can be pretty swingy since most of the time, it’ll come down to whoever can combo off first. Curse of Silence really helps here since it stops the opponent comboing which usually buys you enough time to set up your own combo to win.
Don’t feel like you have to mulligan for the combo if the rest of your hand is good (or you have Curse of Silence) – I’ve won multiple times by getting Voice of the Blessed into a 6/6 flyer fast and closing the game out before the opponent can set up the combo.
Skyclave Apparition is mainly brought in for the 75-card mirror as a way to deal with Curse of Silence so if you’re against a straight RG version and you don’t think they’re running Curse of Shaken Faith, you can potentially just go +4 Curse of Silence -2 Trelasarra, Moon Dancer -2 Prosperous Innkeeper instead, and your linear game plan will be more consistent.
Vs Decks running hate cards that Skyclave Apparition can deal with:
The main hate cards people can run where you’ll want to sideboard like this are against: Archon of Emeria, Curse of Silence, Silverquill Silencer, Strict Proctor and Curse of Shaken Faith (there potentially could be more but these are the ones I’m currently aware of).
Typically, this is how you should sideboard going into game 3 if you see these cards in game 2, but you could per-emptively sideboard like this if you expect these cards to be played – I would only advise doing this if Skyclave Apparition is good against the rest of their deck though, as even if the opponent does bring in one of these hatepieces, they might not draw them in which case Skyclave Apparition will just be a dead card if it doesn’t have any other great targets.
Vs Decks running a high amount of interaction like control:
| In | Out |
|---|---|
| +3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben | -3 Trelasarra, Moon Dancer |
| +4 Elite Spellbinder | -3 Prosperous Innkeeper |
| -1 Voice of the Blessed |
In these matchups, your goal should be to be aggressive, but try and hold onto either the combo or a good way to refuel if the opponent is running sweepers. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Elite Spellbinder are both great at presenting a fast clock while slowing down the opponent’s ability to interact with you and should hopefully provide a window where the opponent is forced to tap out to deal with your board, which gives you an opportunity to combo.
Cabaretti Revels and Harnfel, Horn of Bounty are both really powerful cards in these sorts of matchups if you can resolve them so try and get them into play as fast as possible if you get the opportunity.
Even if you can’t set up the combo, the deck can still present a pretty decent beat down game plan off the back of the disruptive creatures you’re bringing in, and the ability of Inquisitor Captain to swarm the board. It’s also generally a good idea to attack first before casting spells since the opponent is usually incentivized to hold up interaction until your end step if you have open mana to stop you comboing off, so the fear of the combo can go a long way to help force damage through.
Even though this plan is mainly for against control, there will also be some midrange decks that pivot more into a controlling role with much more instant-speed removal post-sideboard, so this plan should be effective there too.
Vs Aggressive decks where they can outrace the lifegain package:
Typically, the lifegain package really helps to stabilize and tends to make you a favorite against aggro decks, so there are a lot of aggressive decks where I choose not to sideboard at all. There are some decks like Naya Runes where I am concerned that they’ll be able to outrace even through the lifegain package as they can have very explosive starts, so bringing in Skyclave Apparition goes a long way to help stabilize.
Additionally, I often sideboard like this if I’m going second against a fast aggro deck, but will then sideboard Skyclave Apparition back out if I’m going first game 3. This is because keeping the main deck as is with the lifegain package fully intact will make your deck more consistent and linear overall, so if you think the lifegain package is good enough to stabilize, it’s better to roll with that as your synergies/ opening hands/ ability to assemble the combo will be much better.
If the opponent’s deck doesn’t fall under any of these categories, then I usually advise just not sideboarding.
Tips & Tricks:
- Seeking cards with Cabaretti Revels doesn’t shuffle your deck which means it won’t affect any scrying you do with Trelasarra, Moon Dancer.
- Don’t forget about the activated ability on Dina, Soul Steeper – you can often force lethal damage through by sacrificing a big Voice of the Blessed or Trelasarra, Moon Dancer if Dina, Soul Steeper is left unblocked. Similarly, you can also deal additional damage by using Dina, Soul Steeper ‘s ability to sacrifice creatures with Luminous Phantom in play, since you’ll gain life off Luminous Phantom by sacrificing your creatures, which will then trigger Dina, Soul Steeper.
- If you’re looping Grinning Ignus alongside a lifegain enabler and Trelasarra, Moon Dancer with a Jetmir's Garden in hand, you can scry through you’re whole deck to put a card to the top, and then cycle the Jetmir's Garden to draw the card you’ve put to the top. This can often enable you to win a turn earlier.
- Sequencing your lands is very important so think carefully about what side and order you play them in. In general, it’s most important to get access to at least one mana of each of your colours as a first priority, then prioritise getting a second white for Voice of the Blessed, then it’s usually best to prioritise getting additional red mana so that you can repeatedly re-cast Grinning Ignus ‘fairly’ additional times in order to get more Cabaretti Revels triggers etc.
- Always think about all of the possibilities you could hit with Cabaretti Revels and Inquisitor Captain before playing anything out, as it could cause you to miss out on setting up the combo if you’re not careful. For example, I’ve seen a lot of people needlessly casting Racketeer Boss early, then drawing/ hitting a Grinning Ignus off Inquisitor Captain and not being able to combo off. Another example I’ve seen is casting Grinning Ignus instead of Birgi, God of Storytelling with Cabaretti Revels in play and hitting Racketeer Boss which can then no longer apply the perpetual ability to Grinning Ignus since it’s not in your hand.
Conclusion:
This deck has felt way ahead of the other decks in the format to me and can lead to some pretty insane board states. If I had to guess I imagine this will probably get hit in the next round of Alchemy rebalances whenever that is so enjoy it while it lasts! Thanks a lot for reading!
