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Graham, also known as HamHocks42 on the internet, is a Twitch streamer who adores Magic: the Gathering in all its forms and tries to find the fun, even in the most competitive and sweaty environments.
Can Duskmourn Make Reanimation Competitive in Standard?
It makes sense that a themed after modern horror would have an emphasis on the graveyard. So much of horror, after all, centers around the fear of dying and what might happen afterwards. The way Duskmourn handles reanimation effects, though, is very crafty because it allows the theme to exist in both black and white with some crossover that feels in-line with Duskmourn’s creepy vibe while also aligning well with the history of the archetypes.
What Makes a Good Reanimator Deck?
Valley Floodcaller has a ton of potential by giving all noncreature cards flash and having a Jeskai Ascendency like ability that lets otters and other Bloomburrow folk untap and effectively prowess. This deck is an attempt to leverage the Floodcaller's innate power and flexibility alongside other spells and even an old classic, Monastery Mentor.
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The Primary Build Arounds
With so much of Magic: the Gathering's design seemingly focused on casual Commander play where giant effects and crazy interactions are critical to the game's success, lots of incredibly powerful interactions find their way into formats like Standard. Wizards has a keen eye for effects that are known problems, so safety valves are commonplace with cards often limiting eligible targets or only triggering once per turn. Today, we're working with two such examples and finding a way around them so they can work together to create a semi-infinite that's good enough to win the game.
The Combo’s Core
[{ "card": ">Whiskervale Forerunner<", "src": "https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/0/60a78d59-af31-4af9-95aa-2573fe553925.jpg?1721426007" }, { "card": ">Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds<", "src": "https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/4/e43e3d71-4fb8-4ab1-8c8f-b65ae3ad4cc4.jpg?1712356098" }]
This week's deck is a new take on a classic formula that takes me back to a simpler time when Standard's ban list was as long as my arm and everyone was complaining about Oko, Thief of Crowns. Another card got a ton of attention as well: Fires of Invention, and it was equally problematic. Well, Fires of Invention is perfectly legal in Explorer and, to my knowledge, isn't seeing a significant amount of play. I aim to change that with this beauty.
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The Primary Gameplan
They did it. Those crazy wizards did it. They reprinted Storm into Standard! Kind of…. Ral, Crackling Wit is a planeswalker that essentially has Prowess by getting loyalty every time a spell is cast, which enables his -10 ultimate that draws you extra cards and gives every instant or sorcery you cast for the rest of the game the keyword Storm.
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Why is Storm a Big Deal?
Rottenmouth Viper is a card that captures the imagination right away for folks who love powerful black effects that drain your opponent out. At first glance, it resembles a Torment of Hailfire on a body, and it has a cost-reduction ability that encourages players to run lots of sacrifice fodder like Hopeless Nightmare or Forsaken Miner. These decks are powerful, but they're also straightforward, so I decided to take a different approach with my build of this big calamity snake.
[{ "card": ">Rottenmouth Viper<", "src": "https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/3/735e79b1-a3a9-4ddf-8bbc-f756c8a0452b.jpg?1721143198" }]
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Ulamog, the Defiler is an absolute monster can decimate your opponents if it gets even a single chance to swing. Unfortunately, getting it online with a good annihilator number is awfully tricky and can be a bit too slow. Fortunately, Twitch viewer CozyPorcupine turned me onto a build that is designed to drop Ulamog into play with haste as fast as turn three if the draws line up well.
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The Setup
I have a new obsession… and it's a squirrel. Osteomancer Adept is not only a brilliant use of morphology (the word kind), but it also represents a combo engine the likes of which we haven't seen sinceworld Breach.
If you're not familiar, morphology is the study of mormes, the smallest form of language that meaning within a word. In the case osteomancer, osteo means bone, while mancer generally means wizard, an osteomancer would be a bone wizard. Oh, and the card is pretty great too.
The Bone Wizard