Table of Contents
The Pro Tour March of the Machine’s metagame was surprising and RBx is the king. However, players did not disappoint when it comes to bringing hot and innovative strategies. Let’s take a look at seven spicy lists from the Pro Tour. For the top 32 decks and the final standings of the tournament, check out the results here:
Azorius Atraxa
UW Atraxa
by Skura
Standard
best of 3
11 mythic
30 rare
6 uncommon
13 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Artifacts (3)
Enchantments (6)
Lands (25)
60 Cards
$575.56
Sideboard
15 Cards
$26.81
Pure control decks have not been very popular in the format recently and if they were, they’d usually be Jeskai. However, Azorius control seems to have come back at the biggest stage. The deck is largely what you’d expect from a control deck with The Wandering Emperor as the win condition, a counterspell suite in Make Disappear and
This limited common all-star is not what I expected to see in a Pro Tour deck but here we are. It’s a two-mana ‘draw a Plains’ which smooths out the draws and is a chonky Fiend Hunter later in the game. It’s an exciting addition that nobody could have foreseen.
As top end, this deck plays Atraxa, Grand Unifier. There are no cheeky ways of cheating it into play – it’s an actual seven-mana finisher that draws cards. I like the boldness of this card choice.
A new mass removal from March of the Machine is arguably the best limited card in the set. When it comes to constructed, it hasn’t found home up until this point. It gets rid of everything on the battlefield and leaves you with a huge Incubator token, ready to be flipped and dominate the battlefield.
This two-colour control deck has a manabase built very carefully to support Leyline Binding. It is possible to play Binding for just one mana on turn two if you sequence your triomes in the following order: Jetmir's Garden into Xander's Lounge.
Five Color Ramp
Five Color Ramp
by Skura
Standard
best of 3
7 mythic
37 rare
8 uncommon
8 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Sorceries (4)
Artifacts (3)
Enchantments (8)
Lands (27)
60 Cards
$488.16
Sideboard
15 Cards
$37.73
If you want to beat up on midrange decks, the best strategy historically has been to go bigger than they do – and this shell does exactly that. It’s a five-color shell that gets to play the best cards from each colour.
The best white removal printed in recent years. It’s been much more popular in Modern and Pioneer thanks to the ease with which you can meet its condition. However, this deck does a pretty good job at enabling it. In tandem with Lay Down Arms it makes up a strong removal suite.
The best red card in the format. If you can play it, you do. This deck can and it does. Goblin Shaman both ramps and fixes the mana thanks to the Treasure and card filtration smoothes out the draw, especially when you draw too many removal spells against a deck with few threats.
A new addition from March of the Machine. It’s an interesting card that acts as a better Bloodbraid Elf of sorts. You’re flipping cards off the top and you get to draw one and cast one for free. It’s a pure card advantage card but it does affect the battlefield thanks to the ‘cast for free’ part.
It’s another deck with Atraxa, Grand Unifier. Clearly, players have identified that this is the way to go over the Rakdos strategies. Here it’s not cheating into play but rather manually cast.
Grixis Reanimator
Grixis Reanimator
by Skura
Standard
best of 3
2 mythic
38 rare
16 uncommon
4 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (10)
Artifacts (2)
Enchantments (8)
Lands (26)
60 Cards
$383.88
Sideboard
15 Cards
$28.03
Reanimator strategies stopped being ‘hot’ in recent weeks as they’ve risen to prominence and are currently pretty popular. However, we hadn’t seen a Grixis shell taking advantage of Invasion of Amonkhet yet.
It’s a great set-up battle. Upon entry you draw a card and the opponent discards a card so already value has been generated. On top of that, you mill 3 cards off the top of your deck and 3 of the opponent’s. If you mill over your payoff, you’re ready to draw The Cruelty of Gix and go a-reanimating.
There is neat combo here though. When Invasion is played, it enters with 4 counters which is enough to be removed with a single Nahiri's Warcrafting. Then you get to flip Invasion on turn four, getting to copy any creature from any graveyard. Getting to draw multiple cards off such a copied Atraxa is usually game over.
Dimir Toxic
Dimir Toxic
by Skura
Standard
best of 3
7 mythic
22 rare
11 uncommon
20 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (14)
Sorceries (3)
Lands (24)
60 Cards
$226.12
Sideboard
15 Cards
$10.57
At the beginning of the Phyrexia: All Will Be One format, I wrote a guide on Dimir Toxic which players enjoyed quite a bit. Ben Stark, a known Magic Pro and Hall of Famer, brought this oldie but a goodie with a list similar but pretty different from the one I’d conceived. The idea is the same though. Play a control deck whose main way of winning is through poison counters, added on bit by bit, resulting in victory 10 turns down the line.
Liliana of the Veil is a card I hadn’t considered. It’s an interaction tool that wears down resources of both players. In this deck though, it’s just an edict machine, minus-two-ing as much as possible.
This toxic deathtoucher is a way to get that early poison on but also to block any early aggression. This deck does not want to be gone under by strategies like Soldiers so having a deathtouch blocker makes perfect sense.
Blue Monastery Mentor. It’s a flyer that’s tough to remove since it dodges Cut Down and Abrade and provides a completely alternative win condition in the form of an army of incubated Phyrexians.
Mono Red Aggro
Mono Red Aggro
by Skura
Standard
best of 3
12 mythic
14 rare
15 uncommon
19 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (22)
Sorceries (2)
60 Cards
$108.08
Sideboard
15 Cards
$20.75
While Mono Red might not be considered very spicy there are two reasons I really wanted to include it here. First, it has not been very popular recently so I am very happy to see it back on the menu. On top of that, this version takes advantage of Invasion of Tarkir as one of its burn spells.
It’s a shock at its worst but in this deck it will be a Lightning Strike or maybe even Boros Charm. While you normally don’t want to devote 5 points of combat damage to flip an invasion (you’d rather go face), again Nahiri's Warcrafting comes in for a save. It flips Tarkir literally on turn three and so you get a big powerful Dragon, threatening to close the game fast.
The best Dragon you could play in such a shell is Shivan Devastator. It’s evasive, scales with mana, and has a relevant type. It catches the opponents off guard when they think they’ve stabilised – and then get hit by a 5/5 haster with flying.
Grixis Incubate
Grixis Incubate
by Skura
Standard
best of 3
7 mythic
35 rare
12 uncommon
6 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Planeswalkers (4)
Creatures (11)
Artifacts (4)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (26)
60 Cards
$494.72
Sideboard
15 Cards
$26.95
Grixis decks were all the rage at the Pro Tour since you get access to the best midrange cards. This deck is no different in that it plays Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Reckoner Bankbuster, Cut Down, Make Disappear, and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. However, this deck has a *very* unique angle that is very intriguing.
Chrome Host Seedshark is a threat that generates incubate tokens with each noncreature spell. It’s a powerful go-wide strategy win against other Rakdos (Grixis) decks that operate on point removal.
Incubate tokens are artifacts which works excellent with Tezzeret, Betrayer of Flesh. Tezz can make any incubate token into a 4/4 in a pinch. It’s particularly good when it comes to 1/1 or 2/2 tokens.
On top of that, Tezzeret has a passive that makes artifact abilities 2 cheaper. Coincidentally, turning Incubate into Phyrexian costs 2. The end result is that you can flip any Incubate token for free as long as Tezz is on the field.
All in all, it’s an Incubate Tezz deck in an otherwise stock Grixis shell.
Selesnya Counters
Selesnya Counters
by Skura
Standard
best of 3
2 mythic
38 rare
4 uncommon
16 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (27)
Lands (24)
60 Cards
$241.8
Sideboard
15 Cards
$39.07
Brian Kibler is a world-renowned Magic player who has made his name mostly by getting into the red zone and attacking the opponent until they’re dead. For the Pro Tour, he brought a deck that nobody could have expected – Selesnya Counters.
March of the Machine counters-matter card that was printed breathed new life into this archetype, namely Ozolith, the Shattered Spire. Thanks to it, all the creatures get a bonus counter which can turn those weak creatures into solid threats, and already good cards into very powerful ones.
One of the best cards in the deck is Quirion Beastcaller. It grows with each creature cast (and there are 27 in the deck) and upon death it redistributes its counters among other creatures. With Ozolith, it gets 2 counters per creature cast and each threat that would get counters after the Dryad’s death gets one more than they normally would. It scales very profitably and those 2 cards alone make the deck tick.
Botanical Brawler also has a counter-multiplying passive ability. With such a redundancy between Brawler and Ozolith, your consistency in getting this effect is greatly increased.
It’s a very interesting take on an aggressive strategy which proves that there is so much that can be innovated on below the Rakdos surface.
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Skura
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