Last week here at Hipsters I was able to enlist the help of Jerry Mee and Kate Donnelly to present the spoiler for Cascading Cataracts featuring three interesting Legacy brews. Jerry went for the indestructibility and went all in on Armageddon and featured Bringer of the White Dawn. Kate built on her beloved Mud Post adding Fist of Suns and Door to Nothingness for some sweet ways to power out threats and kill her opponents. I went with what I am mostly familiar with—a Mono Green Twelve Post build that could leverage a high mana count and land tutors to cast cards like Maelstrom Archangel to in turn cast cards like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Progenitus while also aiming to activate a Door to Nothingness.
On the day that our article released we were met with critics because, with the ability to make all five colors of mana with one land, no one bothered to address the obvious synergy with converge. Challenge accepted. Here I have three converge brews to present for the critics, one for each relevant format (sorry Vintage).
Standard
Converging from Standard
I have filled this deck with sweet cards to get off Bring to Light, including Baral’s Expertise, which can then allow you to cast Yahenni’s Expertise for free and then cast something like Lost Legacy or Ruinous Path. The expertise cards give us some very interesting value options when considering Bring to Light and the ability to fully converge for five.
In the early game we have some Radiant Flames, Fatal Push, and Declaration in Stone to buy us time to get to the top of our curve. Just remember that if the converge cards are cast off the expertise spells that they will do nothing due to the fact that no mana was spent to cast them.
The targets for Bring to Light are some of the most powerful creatures currently available in Standard, cards that provide card advantage or are simply a way to dig out of a fairly tricky position. Although the planeswalkers are not able to come down with a Bring to Light, they are powerful enough on their own to warrant their slots in the deck and can still be cast off a Baral’s Expertise.
Modern
Coverge Into Modern
Here in Modern we are aiming for a creature-based combo deck using Bring to Light as a kind of tutor for whatever key cards we need. Similar to Kiki-Chord we are full of creatures that provide some amount of card advantage as well as an easy win with Kiki-Resto combo.
Deceiver Exarch, Orzhov Pontiff, and Restoration Angel can combine to make a fairly disruptive early game powered out by our five mana dorks while we are able to set ourselves up for a turn four Bring to Light snapping off the infinite combo to finish a game quickly.
I have included some Tribal Flames and Path to Exile as easy ways to clear the board and buy us time. The deck is also set up fairly well to allow us an interesting sideboard option of changing our deck from Bring to Light value to Tribal Zoo. While our opponent decides to max out on discard, Grafdigger’s Cage, and the like we can board into some number of Wild Nacatl, Geist of Saint Traft, Lightning Bolt, and even Death’s Shadow to give them a surprise they aren’t likely to forget any time soon.
Legacy
Converge Legacy
With Legacy I took the obvious and easiest route when brewing in five colors to open the doors for Bring to Light and chose Nic Fit as my shell. Veteran Explorer allows us to get two basic lands which means as far as mana fixing goes we are already halfway to cast anything we draw.
Our Bring to Light package here includes some of the hardest-hitting and resilient threats that Legacy has to offer. Sigarda, Host of Herons is a nightmare for most any deck to answer—hexproof and stopping your opponent from being able to use sacrifice effects from cards like Liliana of the Veil. Thragtusk is well out of Abrupt Decay range as well as newcomer Fatal Push. In a more aggressive match up it gives us a great buffer on life and when answered it leaves behind a 3/3 beast.
These two creatures are fairly common in Nic Fit strategies and can both be grabbed by Green Sun’s Zenith. Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice has been seen before in high-placing Nic Fit lists as well due to the synergy with our planeswalkers she has been included here. The more interesting and fun options that we have are: Blood Baron of Vizkopa, Dragonlord Ojutai, Nylea, God of the Hunt, and Bituminous Blast.
That’s right I have gone deep into the Spice Cabinet and made Bituminous Blast my shout out to Jerry Mee as the spicy sixty-first card. While hitting a creature for four damage we can cascade into Atraxa, Nylea, Garruk Relentless, Pernicious Deed, Liliana of the Veil, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, etc. I think by now you all get the point that there are many powerful cards to hit off Bring to Light into Bituminous Blast and if we have the extra mana we can even respond to Blast and use a Brainstorm to set up what we are cascading into.
Parting Words
I hope this article of three brews using Cascading Cataracts with converge can bring redemption to Brew Corner, Hope Eternal, and The Spice Cabinet. I want you all to know that your voices are heard and if anyone ever wants to challenge Jerry or I to a brew feel free to reach out to us. I created this special e-mail address [email protected] for all such requests which Jerry and myself will both have access to.
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