Welcome Magic lovers!
Wow, what a weekend for competitive Magic: the Gathering! Not only did we get treated to premium Pioneer play as the top players in the world battled to see who would claim the title of Pro Tour Champion, but we also got to pore over the results of the Standard $75k, one of the format's largest tournaments, attracting the most competitive players from across the world.While the usual suspects showed up in force, including Esper Raffine and Domain Ramp decks, there were a bevy of brews that did well, including the deck we'll be focusing on today, Sultai Ramp, concocted by none other than the infamous cftsoc from Magic Online. Known for pioneering and piloting unorthodox decks to high place finishes, ctfsoc really outdid themselves with this 68-card monstrosity by going 12-1-1 in the Swiss, then crusing through the top 8 to take the whole tournament down:
What the Deck Does
The last version of this deck was a four-color legends build that still used Slogurk, the Overslime to recur the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty channel lands for value while generating mana with Rona, Herald of Invasion and Relic of Legends. This version, while still a thirty-six-land Slogurk deck, has a different plan. Now the deck is trying to fill the graveyard with lands via a few different methods.
First, resolving a Nissa, Resurgent Animist which can easily trigger its Landfall ability twice due to playing the full twelve sacrifice-lands from Streets of New Capenna. Nissa's double-triggered ability allows you to search the deck for the only Elf/Elemental in it: Aftermath Analyst, which also mills more lands. Between the Analyst, the sacrifice lands and Nissa fetching the Elf, one can fill the graveyard with lands very quickly. By combining either the Analyst's ability to bring all the lands in your graveyard back onto the battlefield, or by casting a Splendid Reclamation, one can generate a massive amount of mana with Nissa and create an arbitrarily large Slogurk to trample over and kill the opponent with, or dig through the deck to find Jace, the Perfected Mind plus recurring him with Takenuma, Abandoned Mire to mill the opponent out with.
The Supporting Cast
The rest of the deck plays almost like a control/ramp deck, with sweepers like Terror Tide and Path of Peril to keep aggressive decks in deck, backed up by spot removal spells like Cut Down and Go for the Throat. Memory Deluge provides a reliable source of card advantage while also being an excellent card to mill early in order to cast later in the game. Jace, the Perfected Mind makes an appearance here as a way to enable the graveyard strategy by self-milling, or being a potential alternate win condition against the slower decks like Domain Ramp and Azorius Control. With one Plains in the mana base, it's easy to splash for Atraxa, Grand Unifier as a way to find the pieces the deck needs to power up its Slogurk plan, while also threatening a kill itself. Since the deck is ramping very quickly on turn four with Aftermath Analyst's ability or Splendid Reclamation, it can power out a turn five Atraxa with ease.
Slogurk, not Slow-gurk
However, its Slogurk who really shines here. The legendary ooze is a very potent win condition in the deck because, with thirty-six lands, getting to three +1/+1 counters is trivially easy, after which it's almost impossible to kill as it can protect itself with its second activated ability. Its ability to trample makes it very hard to block profitably and it grows very large very quickly in a deck like this. The deck is capable of having almost combo-like turns, where a seemingly innocuous 3/3 Slogurk can become 12/12 or bigger out of nowhere by casting a Splendid Reclamation, or at instant speed by activating the ability on Aftermath Analyst. Recurring the Slogurk, or any of the other threats, is simply a matter of cycling Takenuma, Abandoned Mire, which also helps fill the graveyard for the next Reclamation/Analyst. The only other cycling land making an appearance in the deck is Otawara, Soaring City as a way to interact with the opponent or save an Atraxa or Slogurk from removal. Buying these spelllands back from the graveyard while simultaneously saving Slogurk from removal can be an incredible swing.
Sideboarding
The sideboard looks like its clearly designed to shore up the matches against both control and aggressive decks, as we see a whopping six discard spells in the form of Duress and Dreams of Steel and Oil to deal with the former, and some additional Cut Down, Path of Peril and Terror Tide to manage the latter. The last two slots are flex cards comprised of a third Jace, the Perfected Mind and second Ertai Resurrected to bring in mostly versus Domain.
While this deck may seem like a bit of a mess on paper, its clearly capable of doing some very powerful things, as evidenced by its results on the weekend. Here, ramping with Splendid Reclamation or Aftermath Analyst on turn four can accelerate you much faster than even casting Invasion of Zendikar, which lets this deck go over the top of even the Domain Ramp decks that still make up a sizeable portion of the meta game. Path of Peril and Terror Tide do a fine impersonation of the white sweepers Temporary Lockdown and Depopulate/Sunfall in the other ramp and control decks, letting the Slogurk deck still hold the line against Boros Convoke and the other aggressive strategies. The remaining spot removal like Cut Down and Go for the Throat also give this deck an edge against the Esper Raffine lists that have populated every Standard top 8 list for the last year or more.
Practice!
Like all the wacky, convoluted cftsoc decks that have come before it, picking this up and playing it well requires a lot of practice. There are a ton of unorthodox lines of play to make in a deck like this, with many activated abilities to keep track of as well as multiple loops that are possible. If you're looking for something truly out there for your next local tournament of FNM, this list may be perfect for you, but make sure to get plenty of reps with it first as it's a notoriously difficult deck to play well!
