Taking a Break: Enjoy Fun and Casual Play in Historic MTG

Taking a Break from Competitive Paper Formats to Have Some Fun in Historic!

Step away from competitive paper formats and dive into the fun of Historic MTG. Discover casual decks and strategies for an exciting gameplay experience.

Many who are familiar with my channel remember the good old times when Alchemy first came out and one of the coolest cards ever printed allowed us to play a really cool mono black deck for a long time. We took it into the top numbers in mythic, and played plenty of qualifier weekends with the list. It was an easy mythic every season when you were allowed to play cards like Sanguinestroke and Invoke Despair in the same deck. Another card that worked out really well when Alchemy first came out was Citystalker Connoisseur. We just amassed so much value, and drew so many cards that it was almost impossible for the opponent gain an advantage. Hell, they even nerfed the Alchemy cards we were using, and it didn't matter much. Well, those days are over now of after multiple rotations, and with the news coming out that Sanguine Brushstroke was going to be printed into the new Mystery Booster packs, I wanted to try my hand at playing that card again in a deck. I figured it might not be quite powerful enough for Timeless, so I figured we would try it in Historic. One of the benefits there is that we would still have access to the MH3 cards, and there are some pretty strong spells from that set that can be used in the deck. I don't view Historic as a terribly competitive format - more so just a place where you can do fun things and maybe pull off some ridiculous combos. Also, you know this deck wouldn't be complete without running a playset of our favorite finisher, Invoke Despair. Let's check out how the Historic version of our beloved Alchemy deck from two years ago!

Total Cards:

This deck will have a lot of familiarity to people who were watching my stream about two years ago. This deck put all kinds of work for us on the ladder, and really helped us get things going on the competitive front.

Relevant Alchemy Cards

Magic the Gathering Card - Sanguine Brushstroke - MTG Circle

I remember the first time I saw this card, and I was ecstatic. You mean to tell me that I get a three for one upon, my blood tokens are gain and drain, and I get a Blood Artist for three mana? Give me as many of those as you can. This card is an instant value engine that provides as much residual value for as much blood as you can give it. The Blood Artist is also really good right now because some of the best in the format run a lot of creatures. If you get a couple of these on the board at a time, and have some blood tokens, it becomes pretty difficult for the opponent recover.

Magic the Gathering Card - Citystalker Connoisseur - MTG Circle

This is another one that is simply ridiculous amounts of value. It is another three for one that gives you a good body, a blood token and forces the opponent to discard their biggest spell. It ends up being a bomb, and is a great card to play on curve, where we might not want to play Sheoldred, our other four mana spell, on curve due to the fact that she simply is better when the opponent has little to no cards in hand. The fact that this creature has deathtouch basically means it is also effectively a removal spell.

The deck doesn't really run any other Alchemy Cards, but it does run some new spells from MH3. Let's take a look at those next.

Modern Horizons 3 Cards

Magic the Gathering Card - Sorin of House Markov - MTG Circle

Sorin is just a nice early value creature that is a good body and also demands removal. We will gain enough life to flip him in the deck, and he basically acts as a second Vito, Thorn of Dusk Rose in our list. This starts to stack up the drain to make it insurmountable. We don't mind if they remove a Sorin, because we have plenty of other creatures that are also win conditions.

Magic the Gathering Card - Toxic Deluge - MTG Circle

This is something that I am trying out in the early stages of this list and I think it is working out pretty well. We gain a bunch of life with this deck, so we don't mind too much if we have pay even up to ten life to remove all creatures from the board. If a Blood Artist was on the board when this spell resolves, we will gain back most of that life anyhow. It is incredibly effective once again due to the heavy creatures meta that we currently see.

Old Friends that We Can't Forget

Magic the Gathering Card - Lolth, Spider Queen - MTG Circle

Lolth is awesome, and she was a great addition to the original Alchemy list. I didn't want to clog up the deck with too many five drops because Historic is a bit of a quicker format- especially in best of one, so there is only one of her in the list, but she still packs a punch every time.

Magic the Gathering Card - Invoke Despair - MTG Circle

We all know the deal here. We run plenty of removal and board wipes to keep the board clear so that this card effectively turns into a lose six life, draw three cards spell. It synergizes well with the rest of the deck, and I simply can't leave out my favorite card.

Magic the Gathering Card - Deadly Dispute - MTG Circle

This is one that many don't realize how good the value. We have a ton of artifacts being made in the deck, and we are also keen to sacrifice creatures when needed. We have enough death triggers that make up for losing permanents on the board. Drawing two cards with this is great, and the fact that it replaces what was sacrificed with another permanent basically means that it is a one mana draw two cards spell, which is pretty insane value.

Final Thoughts

I think this deck actually pairs up well against the Boros Energy decks, and it does not allow the cats to get too out of control. If we were to make a sideboard, we would probably have a few more board wipes, and maybe even add Meathook Massacre. Aside from that, we have enough spot removal to deal with almost any threat, while our deck is also still working towards winning in its own regard. I think there is also an argument to be made that we should play Consuming Corruption from MH3, and I believe that will be a card that I try out, especially if I ever move this deck to best of three.

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I am a Magic The Gathering competitive player, and streamer. I specialize in homebrew decks. My favorite formats are: Standard, Pioneer (Explorer on Arena), and EDH. I first started playing MTG in 2001, and have played on and off since then.

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Explore the new Aetherdrift mechanics in Magic: The Gathering, rated for Limited and Constructed play. Discover which mechanics excel in Standard format.

Examining the Aetherdrift Mechanics, and Rating them for Limited or Constructed

Every time a new set comes out, there always seems to be a mechanic we are excited for, but maybe it doesn't pan out to be as powerful as we thought. Sometimes we think it will be good in constructed, and it ends up only being good in draft. There are other times when it is a sleeper, and we may have overlooked it when we were predicting what might be good. When we examine set design, sometimes we can also see the clear intent for the mechanics to be good in both the limited and constructed environments, and there are cards with power levels for each different environment. One might be watered down a bit to be more limited-friendly, and another might be that overpowered card that you need to be a bomb in constructed. There are a few ways to go about it, and we do what we can to identify which mechanics we should be mindful of in constructed, particularly in Standard, where the new cards affect the format more than other constructed formats. What we will do today is look at the mechanics that are prevalent with the new cards. There are some that are familiar mechanics, and I will still go over those. There are a couple of new ones that I think are quite interesting, and I have opinions on. Let's check out these mechanics, and give them some ratings! Exhaust You guys can tell that I am pretty excited about this one. The deck that I made for exhaust seems like it will run pretty smoothly. I believe that Exhaust is a mechanic that has cards that are intended for limited, and cards that are intended for constructed, and that the mechanic will be useful in both environments. One of the reasons that I believe it can be so good in draft is that you can almost consider the ability to act as another card later on in the game. You could have no cards in hand, but if you have two exhaust creatures, it is almost like you have two cards in hand that can make something happen. I'm excited for the mechanic, and I'm excited to draft the set and see if I can get a good bit of Exhaust cards going. I think it will be relevant in constructed because of the crazy value that you can get from some of the rares, and because there is one that allows for graveyard recursion.

Zombies are Coming back from the Dead with Aetherdrift

Whenever I see the word "Zombie" in a new set, I always like to revisit the archetype a bit in order to see if anything could be good. I decided to raise these zombies from the dead due to some cards that I saw from Aetherdrift, and I thought that we could at least make a deck that is fun, and who knows, it may be competitive too. We have received decent support lately with cards like Gisa, The Hellraiser. Although she isn't a zombie herself, she creates them every turn, and acts as a lord for them. Not to mention, the ward cost on her makes it so that she adequately fills out the top end of our list. She will help us immensely with swarming the board with skeletons, and efficiently rebuilding after board wipes. There are also going to be some ways to play our zombies from the graveyard, whether it be re-casting or embalming. Since we have the opportunity to raise our dead, we have to give it a shot. There is too much flavor that entices me. This will be my mono black list for the new set, as I think this is the best mono black deck to showcase as many new cards as possible. Any other mono black deck would likely just be adding one or two cards into an already good mono black deck, so I wanted to give you as much as I can with the new cards showcase. Without further ado, let's check out the deck! As you can see, we have plenty of lords in the deck. We are going to make these vanilla zombies huge, both to use as infinite blockers, and to have a threatening attack. We also brought back Unstoppable Slasher for some extra fun, and to guarantee that we have alternate win conditions when needed. In typical zombie fashion, we also don't mind getting rid of some of our creatures if it produces extra value for us. We can get rid of one of our zombies to deal with any problematic creature with Final Vengeance. I chose this over Eaten Alive because it allows us to sacrifice enchantments too, and there are some useful enchantments that support our zombies, so that could prove useful too. There are new cards in the deck, so let's take a look at those. Aetherdrift Zombie Support Cards

This Deck is Sure to be EXHAUSTING to Play Against

Gruul is an archetype that is usually reserved for the aggro decks in Standard. I'm sure that you guys have had enough of that, so I will spare you another Gruul Aggro list that you only play because the deck is good. We are trying something new with this one, and we are taking advantage of the Exhaust mechanic from the new set. It is something that remains to be seen if it is a constructed-playable mechanic, or something that is better suited for limited. I believe that I am pushing the limits of its capabilities here, and that we can do some pretty cool stuff with the deck. One thing that I am excited about is that the deck features a TON of new cards. It will be really difficult for anyone in Early Access to say that this deck didn't showcase any new cards - the creatures and vehicles are almost all exclusively new! We are looking to reduce the activated costs of abilities within the deck, and then get crazy value from it that overwhelms the board. If we play our cards right, we can do some activated abilities for next to nothing, and gain a strong advantage from it. We can possibly also have a Fireball finish if we play our cards right. This deck does a little bit of everything, and I am excited to try it out. Allow me to present to you: Gruul Exhaust! There are some staple cards that we include when we have activated abilities of creatures. One card that forces its way into the deck is Agatha's Soul Cauldron. It is too powerful not to include. We have a couple of ways to mill our cards, and the meta is pretty removal-heavy. We should have enough ways to get things into our graveyard, and if we don't we simply add one or two more Hedge Shredders to mill more cards. With the Exhaust ability, you sadly can only activate it once, BUT we are going to put multiple instances of said abilities on one creature, thus making it much more palatable. We also will reduce the cost of all exhaust abilities with one of the new cards to be shown later, and with Agatha of the Vile Cauldron. I was surprised to see this card - I did not know that it came out with the Soul Cauldron itself. We have seen the Cauldron so much, but we haven't seen a ton of the actual Agatha Creature. The deck has a few removal spells, but some of our vehicles also have a way to do direct damage, so we don't need to include as many as we normally would. We kept it pretty simple on the lands due to the demanding mana values in some of our cards, and because the deck is a little faster. There are multiple cards that have two pips of each of the colors represented, so we do not want to stall when it comes to having the right mana. Although I have a bunch of new cards from the set in this deck, I will showcase to you five of the ones I think are the most impactful. Relevant New Cards

These Aetherdrift Aristocrats are Racing to Victory!

We are coming to the end of spoiler season, and we are ramping up for early access for Aetherdrift. Almost all of the cards have been revealed, so Magic players are dashing to find the new deck that will work for them. This is an exciting time for creators as well, because it is our chance to make predictions on what the most impactful cards will be. We can straight up make a prediction, we can come out with a top 5 or 10, or we can theory craft new decks. I'm going to be dropping a few decks over the next couple of days that I think will be really fun to play in Standard, and that I will be playing in early access for Aetherdrift! Here is a look at the first deck I made that is an Orzhov Sacrifice Combo Deck! This new Orzhov Creation looks to take advantage of a lot of low-mana high-value creatures. We have multiple different sacrifice outlets, and a couple of different ways to interact with our graveyard. Most of the creatures are two mana value or lower, so we can even use a card from Foundations to bring them all back at once! We will draw a ton of cards, drain our opponent's life total, and have tons of blockers for the various aggro decks that we may come across. We can even punish the opponent for killing our creatures. The deck also features 23 lands due to the fact that our curve is pretty low, and we can operate pretty well with two or three mana. You might be wondering: "OK, so what is actually new about the deck?" We are looking to take advantage of the Start Your Engines mechanic that has been brought to us in this set. If you are unfamiliar with how that works, you can read my most recent article for a deep dive! For now, let's take a look at some relevant new cards from the set! Relevant New Cards

This New Mechanic in Aetherdrift WILL Have BIG Implications!

Aetherdrift is upon us, and everyone is ready for a refresh to the current Standard format. It's not particularly bad, but it could use a bit of a shake up. Foundations beefed up some of the archetypes that were already good, and it did so to the point that it is impossible to play a few matches in the format without seeing some type of Dimir. There are so many good different artchetypes of it currently that it is difficult to decide against playing it. Aetherdrift is bringing us a ton of vehicles, and it appears that this card type will force it's way into relevancy in the format. These new vehicles are announcing themselves with a little bit of flavor, however. There is a new mechanic that is coming to MTG that is called Start Your Engines. Initially, this mechanic didn't stand out to me too much. I had to take a bit of a deep dive into how it worked, and how to get to what is called "Max Speed" before I realized that we can do some broken stuff with this. Before I did my research, I went from thinking that it would be a draft-only mechanic, to thinking this might be the most powerful mechanic in the entire set. Let's take a look at how exactly Start Your Engines works, and then we will look over some examples of cards in Standard that should allow it to be ridiculous in all of the best ways. How Does Start Your Engines Work? This is an interesting one, and it fits in perfectly with the flavor of the set. We will have the Start Your Engines mechanic on a few of the cards, and it's ability instantly starts when the permanent enters the battlefield. If it is the FIRST Start Your Engines card played, it will instantly give you a Speed of 1. This is something that automatically happens as the permanent enters, and it is not a trigger that can be stifled, or fizzled by removing the permanent giving the Speed. Now, what I initially thought for this mechanic was that you got more speed by playing cards that had the Start Your Engines ability, but that isn't how it works, and I'm glad it's not that way. So how do we gain speed? In order to increase our speed past 1, we will have a trigger of an increase in speed once per our turn when an opponent loses life. What is pretty fun about this is that we do not need the permanent to stay on the board in order for the speed to increase. This means that the mechanic is comparable to The Ring Temps You from LOTR.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Recapping MTG in 2024

2024 was a huge year for MTG. It was a lot of things. Controversial, exciting, frustrating, promising, and refreshed. We saw some formats get ruined, then fixed, then ruined again. We saw some great changes to Standard that not everyone was fans of at first, but they seemed to quickly warm up to them. We saw Wizards effectively abandon a format in favor of propelling Standard into a more prominent position. We saw some great cards printed for Standard, and some promising things to come in the next year that were announced. Along with that, a fair amount of people were still bothered by the new trajectory of the format. Some are calling into question the longevity of MTG now with the heavy lean into Universes Beyond. A little bit of everything happened this year in the MTG world, and it was interesting if nothing else. On a personal level, it was also a hell of a year for me, as I took down two different events and grew a lot as a player. We are going to look at The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from this year! The Good I have to admit, I'm pretty excited that we have an infinite gain and drain combo in Standard right now. With Enduring Tenacity and Bloodthirsty Conqueror having made a lot of my dreams come true in my favorite format. Although the deck isn't the most viable in the format, it is incredibly fun to play, and I'm just happy that we had such exciting cards printed in the format. It leads to good card design going forward, and gives us promise for what's to come in the next year.

Examining the Aetherdrift Mechanics, and Rating them for Limited or Constructed