The Incredible Husk
Like many Magic players the world over, the writers here at Troll Trader spent a good portion of this past weekend watching coverage of the Pro Tour. The advent of a new standard format had left us all fairly excited to see which new decks, and which old ones, would light up the feature match area. Whilst the Top 8 was dominated by Jeskai variants and the familiar menace of Abzan, the decks that really draw our attention are decks that look a little bit different. I am sure I was far from alone in watching the performances of Christian Calcano‘s Blue-Black Aristocrats deck, and feeling that I had just seen the deck I wanted to be playing. Luckily for me, a local store had scheduled a Grand Prix Trial to take place Pro Tour Sunday, so I didn’t have to wait long to give the deck a whirl!
With a couple of feature matches and Calcano’s mainboard deck tech to work with, I began scrambling through boxes of cards looking for the discarded draft commons and uncommons that make the deck tick.
Whilst the original list was pretty tight, with most of the cards performing vital functions, I quickly realised that there was plenty of room for customisation. As a result I soon ended up with a huge pile of cards across several colours that I wanted to test out with the deck’s core shell. Whilst green would usually lay claim to be black’s main partner in crime when it comes to sacrifice strategies, the sheer power level of cards like Kolaghan’s command drew me towards adding red. One of the biggest strengths of the original list was its simple and effective mana base.
Adding a colour to a deck which relies upon pace and curving out is not without risks. However, by adding red, and thus being in the Blue-Black-Red Grixis Shard, enables efficient use of both the new Battle for Zendikar Dual Lands and the cycle of fetch lands available in standard. Once I was satisfied that it would be possible to construct a land base that would support the addition of a third colour, I got down to building.
The vast majority of my mainboard remained exactly the same as Calcano’s. The mainstays of the deck are Nantuko Husk, Zulaport Cuthroat and Liliana, Heretical Healer. Older players will need no introduction to the power of Nantuko Husk. Whilst its pretty unimpressive stat to mana cost ratio can leave it looking relatively weak, with each creature you sacrifice to it giving it a +2/+2 buff, it doesn’t take much for this creature to transform into a game ending threat. The rest of the deck is primed to make effective use of Nantuko Husk’s sacrifice ability. Liliana, Heretical Healer is a prime example of this. Rather than relying on your opponent to kill your creatures to flip her over to her planeswalker side, being able to take control of the timing of her transformation by simply sacrificing a creature at instant speed, significantly improves her power level. Zulaport Cuthroat also plays well with the Husk, every time you sacrifice a creature you gain a life and your opponent loses one, meaning each Nantuko activation becomes even more of a threat.
Whilst Nantuko Husk may be the focus of the deck, it doesn’t have any inbuilt form of evasion and is relatively easily blocked. This is where Whirler Rogue comes in. Not only can its activated ability make our buffed Husk unblockable, but it also comes with a total of three bodies to sacrifice and deal even more damage. Cards that make multiple bodies to feed the husk are a crucial part of the deck, Sultai Emissary makes two bodies and Hangarback Walker can make anything from two upwards, depending on how much mana you have available. Bloodsoaked Champion is also pretty strong here, his “raid” activated ability allows him to be sacrificed and replayed multiple times during combat. This level of card efficiency allows you to generate your own card advantage without having to draw any additional cards. For me this was one of the most appealing qualities of the deck, and something I wanted even more of.
Calcano’s deck contained a copy of Vampiric Rites. This enchantment functions as a both an additional sacrifice outlet and a source of card draw. However, the addition of red to the deck gave me some other options here, one of these was Pia and Kiran Nalaar. I have felt for some time that this card is underplayed, and was just waiting for a deck to utilise it properly. Pia and Kiran does a pretty good job as a fifth copy of Whirler Rogue, it brings in three bodies when it enters the field and whilst it can’t make anything unblockable, its activated ability can function as a form of reach. It is worth noting that Chandra’s parents can also sacrifice a Hangarback Walker to unleash a horde of Thopter token’s at instant speed whilst potentially clearing a pesky blocker out of the way.
As good as Pia and Kiran are, the main reason to play red was the power level of Kolaghan’s Command. Whilst it has not had quite the same impact on the Standard metagame that it has had on Modern, all 4 modes of the spell have a useful function and its lack of standard play has had more to do with the paucity of decks running both black and red, than its potential. In this deck the command has several uses, it can act as burn either to finish a player off or remove an opposing creature such as Soul Fire Grandmaster, or artifact destruction to remove Thopters and Hangarback Walkers. In addition it can be used to bring back crucial creatures from your graveyard to your hand.
This can be very effective, as many players will focus on keeping your board clear of key threats such as Nantuko Husk or Zulaport Cutthroat. The final discard mode is used less often, although it can be very powerful if used in concert with Liliana’s +2 ability, or when an opponent is running low on resources.
Having a third colour also broadened the options available in sideboard. The popularity of Jeskai decks, and the potential for Anafenza, the Foremost to interrupt the deck’s functions, made Rending Volley an obvious choice. It kills virtually every creature in the Jeskai archetype decks for only 1 mana! Outpost Siege provides additional card draw and can be very hard for control strategies to beat. Access to red mana also makes it easier to gain full advantage of Brutal Hordechief, a card which gives us an additional source of indirect damage and has the potential to take over the the game if left unchecked. The other cards included in the sideboard are relatively narrow. Smothering Abomination is both a large threat and takes maximum advantage of the deck’s sacrifice theme, whilst Minister of Pain can be used to minimise the danger presented by token strategies. Temur Battle Rage is a potential game ender, but is only really viable against decks that are likely to tap out against us.
After some hurried play testing I eventually settled on this list;
Main Board Sideboard
Creatures (32) 3 Rending Volley
3 Bloodstained Champion 3 Dispel
4 Sultai Emissary 2 Outpost Siege
4 Zulaport Cutthroat 2 Temur Battle Rage
4 Nantuko Husk 1 Smothering Abomination
4 Liliana, Heretical Healer 1 Brutal Hordechief
4 Whirler Rogue 1 Dark Petition
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar 2 Minister of Pain
Instant (5)
Land (23)
5 Swamp
1 Island
So how did it play? Well most importantly it was incredibly good fun to play, and the sheer number of lines and possible plays made for a very challenging and rewarding day of magic. In the end the deck was good enough to secure me the win despite some of the sideboard cards not performing quite as well as hoped. I was very impressed by the deck’s ability to mulligan well and recover from adverse board states, and to give my opponents some pretty awkward decisions to make.
So, if you enjoy nothing more than killing players from improbably high life totals, and want your opponents to bemoan the fact that they thought dying in standard to a rag tag collection of limited reject cards was a thing of the past with the death of Bant Heroic, then this is the deck for you. I know I will be sleeving this deck up again next weekend, and if you join me, I’m sure you will enjoy it as much as I have!
@TTMalfico
