Welcome Magic lovers!
As we enter the last round of major Standard-format tournaments, the Regional Championships, its clear that the meta game is anything but stable.
With the release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm, the final piece of the Standard format puzzle leading up to the culmination of the most recent Regional Championship Qualifier season, there have been a bevy of new takes on existing decks, as well as a couple of newly-minted archetypes having success on Magic Online and Arena.
From the Jeskai Control deck that we wrote about last time, built around Shiko, Paragon of the Way, to the Izzet Cori-steel Cutter decks that are slicing up the competition, there are plenty of new ways to attack the meta game now that Tarkir: Dragonstorm has dropped.
However, many powerful, pre-existing decks also got significant upgrades from the latest Standard-legal set. Aggressive creatures like Tersa Lightshatter are seeing play in almost every deck packing basic Mountain, while Glacial Dragonhunt and even Winternight Stories are quickly pushing the Jeskai Oculus decks to new heights.
Today, let's focus on one of the most controversial, and potent, decks in the format, Omniscience Combo, and how the latest set release has both transformed and elevated it to new heights.
To briefly recap how the deck functions, it's quite simple: use the card filtering and self-mill to dig through the deck until one can put an Omniscience into the graveyard, then cast Abuelo's Awakening to get the Omniscience into play as early as turn four. From there, winning the game can be achieved through many different means.
The first big change that the deck underwent with the release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm was picking up the incredibly powerful haymaker, Jeskai Revelation, as a new win condition. Once Omniscience is on the battlefield, all the card draw/filtering spells in the deck are free, so it's a typically a trivial matter to simply dig until one finds a copy of Invasion of Arcavios, which can then go and fetch the single copy of Jeskai Revelation from the sideboard. The seven-mana instant is free to cast, and it not only deals four damage to the opponent, but also bounces the Invasion of Arcavios to hand, which can then be recast to pull the Revelation from the graveyard in order to cast it again, creating a two-card infinite loop which will kill the opponent after four or five iterations.
This was a significant upgrade for several reasons. First, it allowed one to free up two additional, and very precious, sideboard slots, as one no longer needed to run Johann's Stopgap to find the second Invasion of Arcavios, or This Town Ain't Big Enough in order to create the loop with which to bounce Invasions and kill the opponent. The kill condition of Haunt the Network simply got swapped out for Jeskai Revelation.
In addition, with Revelation as the win condition, the loop no longer required having two copies of Invasion of Arcavios on the battlefield in order to loop and kill the opponent, meaning that the deck could easily shave an additional copy of the five-mana battle in order to play another card draw spell or interactive piece like Temporary Lockdown to slow down the opponent.
The second big change was upgrading discard outlet, Chart a Course, to the new enchantment, Roiling Dragonstorm. Players quickly realized that Dragonstorm was the superior discard outlet as it could be returned from the graveyard to the battlefield in a pinch using an extra Abuelo's Awakening when trying to dig for the Invasion of Arcavios to win the game. It could also be bounced by casting the new, blue dragon, Marang River Regent, which also started popping up in Omniscience Combo lists as an additional card draw spell with some minor upside.
While this version of the deck was obviously seen as a massive upgrade from the previous lists due to the additional sideboard and main deck slots it freed up, there has been yet another huge innovation to the deck as more and more players continue to tune it using the new cards from Tarkir: Dragonstorm.
The latest iteration of the list looks something like this:
The Plan
This represents a major shift in how the deck functions, and has turned it into an even more sleek and powerful list than before. Let’s break it down.
Players quickly realized that Marang River Regent was not only a draw spell which also conveniently placed Omniscience in the graveyard in order to be cheated onto the battlefield, but it could also bounce the Invasion of Arcavios plus itself in order to infinitely loop without resorting to grabbing a new spell, like Jeskai Revelation, out of the sideboard. This meant that we really didn't need a card from the sideboard to win with, making the Invasion of Arcavios obsolete.
The new win condition came in the form of an innocuous, little, uncommon enchantment named Founding the Third Path.
With Omniscience in play, and two Marang River Regents plus a Founding the Third Path, the deck's pilot could simply cast the Founding on chapter two, milling the opponent for four cards, then bounce the enchantment to hand with a Regent. Cast the Founding again to keep milling the opponent, and then cast second Regent to bounce the first Regent and the Founding. Rinse and repeat until the opponent's library is empty of cards, winning the game.
This new loop presents some very obvious advantages over the old version. With Invasion of Arcavios being no longer necessary, the deck can dedicate its entire sideboard to tackling the various other archetypes floating around Standard, instead of wasting slots on its own combo finish.
The reliance on Marang River Regent also gives the deck another avenue to victory if the combo fails to come together, or more importantly, if the opponent uses a card like Stone Brain, Deadly-Cover Up or Ancient Vendetta to strip the Omniscience pilot of their key enchantment: simply beat them to death with a giant, flying dragon.
Unlike the clunky, five-mana Invasion of Arcavios, Founding the Third Path is also a rather useful card in the early game, as it lets one double-spell on turn two with a card like Moment of Truth, helps put Omniscience in the graveyard with its chapter two mill effect, and can also be used to flash back an Abuelo's Awakening or other utility spell with its final chapter.
Have you milled your Founding the Third Path too early, or used it to set up the combo in the first few turns of the game? Not a problem, as it can be returned to the battlefield with an extra copy of Abuelo's Awakening later, due to it being an enchantment. This is a big difference when compared to Invasion of Arcavios, which could never be returned from the graveyard to play, creating awkward situations if both copies ever got milled or discarded before executing the combo.
With the additional card draw in the form of a playset of Marang River Regent, the powerful card draw spell, Stock Up, is also less necessary, so the number of copies played can also be reduced.
Sideboard
Not having to run a package of cards or win conditions in the sideboard is an incredible upgrade here, as it frees up enough slots to play alternate finishers, like Overlord of the Mistmoors.
Additional protection for the combo can be utilized, in the form of Soul Partition and Spell Pierce.
While I personally prefer Grand Abolisher as it shuts off artifact activations like Ghost Vacuum and Agatha's Soul Cauldron, one can also choose to run the new option to shut the opponent's interaction off, Voice of Victory.
Ghost Vacuum and Stone Brain are here to crush the mirror match, while a card like Stock Up can shore up the matches against Jeskai and Azorius Control.
The fourth copy of Ephara's Dispersal and Fallaji Archaeologist come in to combat the aggressive decks in the format like Mono-red, Gruul and Izzet.
Conclusion
The already very powerful Omniscience Combo deck keeps getting big upgrades and major overhauls, and this most recent iteration of the deck seems better than ever.
One thing that does require mentioning is that, in paper play, it's just as easy to combo off with Marang River Regent and Founding the Third Path loops as it was with Invasion of Arcavios plus Jeskai Revelation. However, on Magic Arena and Magic Online, this version may take significantly longer to win with, as the loop must be performed many more times in order to mill the opponent out. Therefore, be aware of your clock, and play accordingly.
If you're looking for something powerful and resilient to attack the Standard meta game from a totally different angle than everyone else, this is definitely the deck for you!
