Welcome Magic lovers!
With Aetherdrift in the rearview mirror, the Standard Regional Championship Qualifier season races on toward Tarkir: Dragonstorm in a few short weeks. However, the Standard metagame continues to evolve even without a whole new plane of creatures, spells, and trinkets to play with.
One deck that has undergone some recent changes that have increased its win rate substantially is the dreaded Omniscience Combo deck, which first broke into the Standard format shortly after the release of Magic: The Gathering Foundations, and the reprinting of the powerhouse enchantment, Omniscience. With a couple of crucial new additions, the deck has now been tuned to the point where it is regularly putting up top 8 finishes on Magic Online, and has one of the highest win rates at the last Pro Tour in Chicago. Let's break down the new changes to the deck and why it is absolutely an archetype that players must both respect and be ready to face at their next Standard tournament.
The Plan
The deck is a two-card combo deck, attempting to resolve an Abuelo's Awakening with an Omniscience in the graveyard in order to start casting free spells. Then it's simply a matter of chaining various card draw and filtering spells until one finds Invasion of Arcavios, which can go to the sideboard and pick up any number of different win conditions in order to end the game.
The current, best lists run one copy of both Season of Weaving and the new Aetherdrift finisher, Haunt the Network, in the sideboard in order to end the game, which can infinitely loop when combined with two copies of Invasion of Arcavios. The way the combo turn typically plays out is as follows:
- Cast Abuelo's Awakening targeting the Omniscience in the graveyard, which resolves, putting the ten-mana enchantment into play. All spells cast from this point on are free.
2a. If the pilot already has it in hand, cast Invasion of Arcavios and get Johann's Stopgap from the sideboard.
2b. If the pilot doesn't have the Invasion of Arcavios in hand, cast any combination of Moment of Truth, Stock Up, Chart a Course, Confounding Riddle, or Fallaji Archeologist to plough through the deck until one either finds the Invasion or another card filtering spell to keep digging. Then, once the Invasion has been put into hand, go back and perform step 2a.
- Casting Johann's Stopgap on Invasion of Arcavios allows the pilot to not only replay the Invasion, but also draw a card. This creates a two-card loop that draws the entire deck, by simply bouncing Invasion with Stopgap, then casting Invasion to get Stopgap back from the graveyard. Repeat this loop until one finds a second copy of Invasion of Arcavios.
- Cast the second copy of Invasion of Arcavios, except this time go back to the sideboard and get the Season of Weaving. Cast Season of Weaving, which will bounce both copies of Invasion of Arcavios and create a copy of the Omniscience that's in play (which is currently a 1/1 enchantment creature), to allow one to continue casting free spells.
- Now with two copies of Invasion of Arcavios, the first can go to the sideboard to get Haunt the Network, while the second copy will bring Season of Weaving back from the graveyard in order to keep bouncing and recasting both Invasions.
- This creates an infinite loop, as one Invasion of Arcavios will bring Season of Weaving back from the graveyard over and over, while the other Invasion will bring back Haunt the Network to keep draining the opponent until they're dead.
Haunt the Network is a great finisher here as it doesn't require an attack with an arbitrarily large number of creatures, allowing the pilot to save precious time on digital Magic: the Gathering platforms like Magic Arena and Magic Online. This is crucial when the clock in one's match is running low. It also requires only two sideboard slots to pull off: one for Haunt the Network and one for Season of Weaving. With one additional slot dedicated to Johann's Stopgap in order to dig through the deck, it's a pretty lean package.
However, it does require two copies of Invasion of Arcavios in order to go off, and that can be a problem if one has milled or discarded two of the three copies that are in the deck. This issue has been solved with a new addition to the archetype, Oracle of Tragedy.
The Oracle is a perfect fit in the list, as it functions as both an additional discard outlet, alongside Chart a Course, and also a way to put any copies of Invasion of Arcavios, which may have found their way into the graveyard, back into the deck when going off. This means even with just one Invasion of Arcavios and one Oracle of Tragedy left in the deck, the pilot can still combo off, since the Invasion can loop with Johann's Stopgap to draw the deck and find the Oracle, which puts the additional copies of Invasion back into the deck from the graveyard. Then simply keep drawing with Stopgap until a second copy of Invasion is found.
The final new Aetherdrift addition to the list has been the ubiquitous card draw spell, Stock Up. This incredible sorcery digs so deep that it has increased the consistency of the Omniscience Combo deck by a huge margin. Casting a Stock Up on turn three in order to find the Abuelo's Awakening for the following turn is perfectly in line with the deck's main plan, while using it to dig and find an Invasion of Arcavios when executing the combo turn makes going off trivially easy. Stock Up is probably the single biggest reason the deck has suddenly been putting up far better results than it had been pre-Aetherdrift, and the boost to consistency that it has provided has cemented the archetype as a very serious threat in Standard.
In fact, the additional consistency has allowed the deck to trim some of its fat, going from the full playset of Invasion of Arcavios and Confounding Riddle, to just three copies of each.
The addition of Oracle of Tragedy has also meant that the deck can shave a copy of Chart a Course, as it now has additional ways to discard.
This opens up some slots for much-needed interaction, with the vast majority of lists now running a trio of Temporary Lockdown, which is crucial against the only decks in the format fast enough to race the combo: red-based aggressive decks, Jeskai Convoke, and Esper Pixies. The three-mana sweeper, alongside three copies of Ephara's Dispersal, give the deck some much-needed ways to react to the opponent's board in order to buy one or two more turns to find the combo and win.
The Mana
The mana base still sits at twenty-four lands, which is the optimal number for the deck. The pair of Blast Zone is crucial as it allows one to easily deal with aggressive starts from a Gruul or Esper opponent, while also being excellent at cleaning up any graveyard-hate pieces they may bring in against the deck post-sideboard, like Ghost Vacuum or Rest in Peace.
The one new addition to the mana base has been a pair of Cavern of Souls, which may seem odd at first glance, but which are absolutely crucial at forcing through a Grand Abolisher in the post-sideboard games. The Abolisher is a fantastic way to lock up the game if it resolves, stopping the opponent from countering one's spells or interacting with the vulnerable 1/1 Omniscience token after an Abuelo's Awakening has put it on the battlefield. With the sudden rise of decks like Azorius Control, having a way to cast an uncounterable Grand Abolisher is very desirable, as it usually means the game is over for the opponent, which makes Cavern of Souls a perfect addition here.
The Sideboard
The splashy new addition to the sideboard of many of the Omniscience Combo decks is a trio of Riptide Gearhulk, which is the perfect juke against cards like Stone Brain, Ancient Vendetta, or Deadly Cover-Up, all of which can completely strip the Omniscience from the deck, making the game effectively unwinnable. The Gearhulk plan means one can easily still beat them down if the opponent manages to pull off one of the deadly spells that can strip the deck's main win condition.
After that, we see some ways to deal with graveyard hate, like Disenchant and Get Lost, which can clear out any Ghost Vacuum or Rest in Peace the opponent may have sideboarded in.
Day of Judgment is also worth running one copy of, just to have a reset button that one can fetch up with Invasion of Arcavios.
A pair of Negates round things out as a way to combat slower, reactive decks like Azorius Control and Domain.
Conclusion
The Omniscience Combo deck initially started off as a sort of meme: it was a glass cannon combo deck that lost to itself as often as it lost to the opponent's cards. However, with the bump in consistency and redundancy, as well as a solid plan B out of the sideboard, the deck has suddenly become a force to be reckoned with. It's by no means the 'slot machine' deck that many players make it out to be, so be sure to not fall into the trap of underestimating it, or you'll almost certainly be on the losing end of a Haunt the Network in no time.
Due to its unorthodox style of play, plenty of practice with the deck is critical to succeeding with it. Learn the lines, figure out how to play around and beat sideboard hate cards, and the Omniscience Combo deck will deliver!
