Welcome Magic lovers!
With Outlaws of Thunder Junction now available both in paper and digital, players the world over are feverishly building and tuning new decks in the never-ending quest to find the most powerful list in a given format, and this has led to some very spicy ideas emerging. With that in mind, today we'll be covering a couple of the more powerful combo decks that can be built in the Standard format, enabled by new cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
Bant Bramblecage
Our first list is built around an interaction that may give some Standard players flashbacks to 2023, when a new combo deck flared up that was built around abusing the recently released Bramble Familiar in conjunction with Invasion of Alara. While that deck crashed and burned in a week or two and never saw much play again, Outlaws of Thunder Junction has breathed new life into the little elemental raccoon, leading to the creation of Bant Bramblecage:
The main combo piece which arrived with the new set this week to pair with Bramble Familiar is of course, Kellan Joins Up. Simply playing the legendary enchantment on turn three and plotting a Bramble Familiar means one can cast the adventure half of the familiar, Fetch Quest, for free on turn four, putting something arbitrarily large and intimidating, like the new Bonny Pall, Clearcutter or the queen of reanimation targets in every format, Atraxa, Grand Unifier, into play very quickly in order to generate a ton of card advantage/board presence and take over the game.
While plan A is definitely very strong, the deck has a backup plan to cheat something large into play with the new Big Score card, Collector's Cage. With a decent selection of cheap creatures with different powers, like Llanowar Loamspeaker (whose ability enables it to count as both 1 and 3), Dennick, Pious Apprentice, Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel and Rona, Herald of Invasion, combined with the +1/+1 counters being distributed by Kellan Joins Up and Collector's Cage, allows the Cage to easily trigger and cast the Hideaway card for free. Casting an Atraxa, Fetch Quest or Bonny Pall in this manner is usually enough to swing the game completely in this deck's favor. Throw in an Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines to double all the triggers coming from the various creatures in addition to Kellan Joins Up, and things can really get out of hand very quickly.
One very nice aspect to this deck is that it also has a great value-oriented midrange gameplan for those times when one's opponent is able to break up the Fetch Quest/Kellan Joins Up combo. The +1/+1 counters from Kellan Joins Up and Collector's Cage can accumulate so rapidly that even a relatively measly two-mana creature like Dennick, Pious Apprentice or a Rona, Herald of Invasion can transform into a game-ending threat out of nowhere.
The Rona is actually quite important in the deck, going a long way toward smoothing one's draws, finding the various combo pieces, as well as being a game-ending threat in its own right if transformed. Combined with Relic of Legends, it is capable of generating a ton of mana in order to either ramp into the combo or simply cast the larger threats lurking in the deck a few turns early. Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel also helps with consistency here, and provides a nice evasive creature which carries +1/+1 counters very well.
The last few slots in the deck are currently up in the air, as the cards the deck may require to fill it out will depend on which matchups need shoring up. Playing a few spot removal spells like Get Lost in order to interact with any problematic threats from one's opponent seems like a solid start, though this should obviously be experimented with.
If you're itching to try something new and powerful in Standard, you could certainly do worse than taking Bant Bramblecage for a spin!
Hulking Rakdos
Our next list is also trying to cheat massive threats into play far earlier than should be possible, but this time, we're bringing them back from the graveyard with a game-ending loop to boot! Say hello to Hulking Rakdos:
The gameplan here is a simple one, although the rules regarding how the cards interact may confuse some players at first. Ideally, one is trying to get the two combo cards, Rakdos Joins Up and Hulking Metamorph, into the graveyard as quickly as possible using Picklock Prankster, Founding the Third Path, Faithful Mending, Chart a Course or Otherwordly Gaze in the first couple of turns. Then cast Abuelo's Awakening to bring back the Rakdos Joins Up, which is now a legendary creature because of the effect on Awakening. When Rakdos Joins Up enters the battlefield, it returns the Hulking Metamorph to play as a 7/7, with two +1/+1 counters on it, which can now target and copy the Rakdos Joins Up itself, since the legendary enchantment is now a spirit creature. This suddenly leaves the pilot with two copies of the legendary enchantment, one being a 1/1 flying spirit and the other a 9/9. This causes state-based actions to occur first, allowing one to sacrifice the original Rakdos Joins Up before the newly arrived Hulking Metamorph copy of the legendary enchantment can put it's enter-the-battlefield ability on the stack. This allows the pilot to sacrifice the original Rakdos Joins Up, then immediately bring it back from the graveyard with the Hulking Metamorph trigger, causing the state-based action of sacrificing one of them to the legend rule to occur again, which now puts the Metamorph in the graveyard in order to be brought back, creating a neat, little self-contained loop. Oh, and because of the additional text on Rakdos Joins Up, this loop does nine damage to the opponent each time the Hulking Metamorph copy of Rakdos Joins Up gets sacrificed. An infinite damage loop with very little clicking on Magic Arena? Sign me up!
Due to this being very much an all-in combo deck, it will be susceptible to hate cards out of the opponent's sideboard, of which there are many in Standard. This is why I've posted a best-of-one deck list to start with, as I imagine this strategy may not be feasible when opponents are bringing in Unlicensed Hearse and Kutzil's Flanker out of the sideboard against you.
That said, this core combo loop can be slotted into other shells for additional consistency and durability in exchange for explosive power. Here is a list tuned a bit more for best-of-three, utilizing Zur, Eternal Schemer to protect the combo and Atraxa, Grand Unifier as a plan B reanimation threat:
Other interesting cards to consider for this kind of combo shell may be Annie Joins Up, as reanimating it with Abuelo's Awakening causes it to trigger twice, doing five damage to two targets when it enters the battlefield.
The sky is the limit right now in Standard! Hopefully these two combo lists will give all the players out there some inspiration to brew up something spicy for your next Magic: the Gathering tournament or even just ladder play!
