Welcome Magic lovers!
With the largest Standard tournament since Grand Prix Nagoya all the way back in 2019 concluding this past weekend, players are abuzz with talk of the emerging shape of the metagame, the new decks on the block, Esper Pixie and Selesnya Cage, as well as the metamorphosis that Dimir midrange seems to be undergoing.
However, buried deep in the standings were plenty of other hidden gems, such as the return of the Temur Fireballs deck, as well as several flavors of reanimator, among other assorted rogue decks. While all eyes were on Atlanta and the Magic Spotlight tournament, one such rogue deck did have an interesting run, taking down a fifty-six player Regional Championship Qualifier in Spain. A 'reanimator' deck that's not bringing back any creatures, but that also kills the opponent on turn four? Let's talk about Azorius Omniscience combo.
The Plan
At first, it may seem like a deck with no win condition. However, this list simply keeps them hiding in the sideboard.
The combo is simple: get Omniscience into the graveyard as quickly as possible, in order to be brought back into play with Abuelo's Awakening.
This can be accomplished via any of the numerous filtering spells, such as Moment of Truth and Ephara's Dispersal, with the latter being an excellent tempo play in addition to fixing one's draws.
Fallaji Archaeologist and Picklock Prankster perform double duty here, as they can quickly mill Omniscience into the graveyard, while also finding and putting an Abuelo's Awakening into hand.
If one naturally draws the Omniscience, Chart a Course can discard it while also digging deeper into the deck to find whichever piece of the combo is missing, while Confounding Riddle can not only put an Awakening in hand while also milling an Omniscience, but is also a key way to protect the combo when one does go off.
Speaking of which, when the deck does cast Abuelo's Awakening targeting Omniscience in the graveyard, it puts it back into play as a 1/1 flying spirit creature, in addition to its other types. This sets up the final piece of the puzzle: the flexible and powerful Invasion of Arcavios, which can pull an instant or sorcery from the library, graveyard or sideboard and put it into the pilot's hand. Once the Omniscience is in play, every spell becomes free, so plowing through the deck to find and cast the Invasion is elementary.
Now, on to the kill. The first Invasion of Arcavios will be used to fetch the Season of Weaving from the sideboard. Casting the Season for free and choosing the second mode, targeting the 1/1 flying Omniscience spirit creature, and third mode, bouncing all non-land, non-token permanents, means that everything is returned to hand, including the Invasion of Arcavios that the pilot had previously cast this turn, while the Omniscience simply becomes a non-creature enchantment token that remains in play.
This allows one to cast the Invasion of Arcavios again, except this time picking up Unnerving Grasp from the sideboard. This allows the pilot to bounce the Invasion while making a 2/2 manifest creature. Then it is a simple matter of casting the Invasion a third time, now targeting the Season of Weaving in the graveyard. The pilot can then cast the Season of Weaving into Invasion of Arcavios infinitely, with each loop producing a token copy of the 2/2 manifest creature that was created by the Grasp.
Once a sufficient number of 2/2 manifest creature tokens have been produced, the last instance of Invasion of Arcavios can pull the Heroic Reinforcements out of the sideboard to give all of them haste and +1/+1 to end the game with lethal damage.
Against decks that gain a lot of life (or if one is lazy, like me), the pilot can wait until they have two Invasion of Arcavios going, then opt to fetch a Breach the Multiverse from the sideboard to deck the opponent in three or four casts.
This can all be accomplished as early as turn four, that is if one has milled or discarded an Omniscience and can cast Abuelo's Awakening with Invasion of Arcavios in hand. Often, one can also go off without the Invasion as long as one has a couple of draw spells, since everything costs zero, making it fairly easy to chain card draw and filtering spells until one finds the blue battle.
The deck is naturally quite all-in on the combo, and therefore plays very little interaction, with only Ephara's Dispersal and Confounding Riddle being the only spells that can tangle with the opponent's creatures or spells.
Speaking of counterspells, Confounding Riddle is arguably the next most important card after the three combo pieces, Omniscience, Abuelo's Awakening and Invasion of Arcavios. This is because there is a brief window where an astute opponent can actually interact to break up the combo in progress. This occurs after the Abuelo's Awakening has resolved and a 1/1 Omniscience token has been created. If the opponent has open mana, it's possible they can wait until the pilot puts Invasion of Arcavios, or a draw spell, on the stack, then use a removal spell to kill or bounce the Omniscience token to shut off any further free spells. It's often correct to play a second Omniscience from hand as one's first free spell, if possible, after putting a 1/1 Omniscience spirit creature into play via Abuelo's Awakening. This ensures that even if the opponent does kill the Omniscience spirit, the pilot can continue to go off using the other Omniscience that's now in play as an enchantment.
The other way to protect one's combo during this brief window, within which the opponent can save themselves from certain doom, is to wait until one finds a Confounding Riddle to protect it. Remember, the pilot can freely cast the Riddle without paying due to the Omniscience 1/1 spirit in play.
With all the card draw and filtering in the deck, it actually has relatively high velocity in the early game, and can often quickly find and mill/discard the Omniscience in order to go off on turn four or five. Not many top decks in Standard are playing any sort of interaction that can stop the combo, and if the pilot plays carefully in order to go off when they have a Confounding Riddle in hand, or the opponent is tapped out, game one of the match can often be a bye.
The Lands
The mana is fairly straightforward here, with surveil lands being valued at a premium due to their ability to help dig into the combo pieces. Even Conduit Pylons makes an appearance here as surveil land number five.
Blast Zone is the other land that does serious work in the deck, blowing up graveyard hate-cards like Rest in Peace and Ghost Vacuum out of the opponent's sideboard, as well as performing fairly well against decks with plenty of cheap creatures and enchantments, like Esper Pixie, Azorius Enchantments, Jeskai Convoke and Gruul aggro.
The Sideboard
Here is where it gets interesting, as the deck is playing a package of instants and sorceries to be fetched with Invasion of Arcavios. That means there isn't much room for anything else.
Temporary Lockdown is clearly an anti-aggro tool that comes in against any deck trying to kill quickly with small creatures, while Kitsa, Otterball Elite can be swapped for Chart a Course against those same aggressive strategies, allowing one to still discard an Omniscience from hand while also blocking and attacking.
Negate is often a card that's pulled into hand just before finishing them with Heroic Reinforcements, just to ensure that it will resolve and kill the opponent, while Grand Abolisher comes in against opponents that have sideboarded out most of their removal. It shuts off Ghost Vacuum as well as any instant-speed removal or counter-magic they may have to stop the deck from executing the combo.
The Exorcise and Get Lost come in against decks that are bringing in enchantments or artifacts to disrupt the combo, including the aforementioned Rest in Peace and Ghost Vacuum, as well as outliers like Stone Brain or Leyline of the Void.
This Town Ain't Big Enough is a great way to rebuy Invasion of Arcavios when the pilot has been forced to use one early to stabilize against an aggressive opponent, or to find an answer to a graveyard-hate card out of the sideboard.
Conclusion
A very powerful combo deck, capable of going off as early as turn four, which is almost impossible to interact with in game one, and has the tools to fight through combo hate-cards post-sideboard? Sounds good to me!
Take Azorius Omniscience combo for a spin and surprise the Dimir Midrange, Gruul aggro and Esper Pixie players at your next Standard event!