It has been over a year since I began discussing my love for Astral Slide on this website and although I put the deck down for a while, with Miracles now missing from the Legacy field it feels like a good time to pick it up again. While Miracles in general wasn’t a terrible match up, the sheer number of answers and card selection plus graveyard hate is really tough for me to beat. This deck relies heavily on keeping an Eternal Witness and Astral Slide online to continuously grind down value. Swords to Plowshares and Council’s Judgment make it very difficult to keep the engine moving when the key pieces are exiled.
Moving onto the updates with the release of Amonkhet and all of its cycling glory:
Astral Slide
| Lands (26) 2 Barren Moor 2 Bayou 1 Forest 1 Plains 2 Savannah 1 Scrubland 3 Secluded Steppe 1 Swamp 3 Tranquil Thicket 3 Verdant Catacombs 1 Volrath’s Stronghold 3 Wasteland 3 Windswept Heath Creatures (5) 1 Archfiend of Ifnir 4 Eternal Witness Spells (30) 3 Abrupt Decay 3 Astral Slide 4 Life from the Loam 3 Liliana of the Veil 4 Living Wish 4 Mox Diamond 3 Swords to Plowshares 3 Unearth 3 Vindicate | Sideboard (15) 1 Archfiend of Ifnir 4 Duress 1 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Gaddock Teeg 1 Karakas 1 Loaming Shaman 1 Orzhov Pontiff 1 Peacekeeper 1 Reclamation Sage 1 Siege Rhino 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale 1 Thragtusk |
Creatures
Archfiend of Ifnir is the card that I was most excited for. It is a fast clock with evasion and with every card discarded or cycled we can wipe out an entire opposing board of creatures. While a single -1/-1 counter on any given creature may not kill it, it is still a counter and over the period of a few turns it can easily lead to a clean board.
Living Wish Board
Living Wish allows us a decent sized toolbox of utility lands and creatures without needing to fill the deck with random dead cards. The creatures all have specific uses and while they are mostly the same as they were I have added an additional Archfiend of Ifnir and Loaming Shaman.
Loaming Shaman gives us some solid graveyard hate to keep up with other graveyard decks and also allows us to refill our own library to ensure we will not mill ourselves out, a very real potential threat from the large amounts of card draw and dredging that we are able to do once the engine is online.
Removal
Pernicious Deed while a very good board sweeper has been replaced with Vindicate. I wanted a cleaner answer to planeswalkers and the ability to destroy basic lands when my Life from the Loam/Wasteland lock can’t shut down my opponent. I also have found that Archfiend of Ifnir has been a decent replacement for Pernicious Deed for when I need to clean up a full board.
Initial Thoughts
I have actually been able to acquire this deck online to practice and refine it. So far I have been very impressed. Archfiend is everything and more than what I expected of it. I have even been streaming this deck and plan to continue streaming it. If changes are made I will be updating the list with reflections behind the changes that I feel are necessary. If you are interesting in following the progress be sure to follow me on twitter for updates and notifications of streaming.
Happy brewing to each and every one of you. If anyone has an idea for a brew that they would like to see, I will gladly take requests and challenges on twitter or in email at [email protected].
Aaron Gazzaniga works part time at a game store and in his off time has been an avid magic player/brewer since 2003. Having begun in Odyssey Standard Block and always favoring control and prison style decks, we come to this moment in time where Aaron finally gets to talk about and share his ideas. If you want to contact Aaron tweet @aarongazzaniga