Desecrated Dawn

TachyonAlpha
Posts: 3
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by TachyonAlpha » 4 years ago








The idea of this deck is to take advantage of the ridiculous value you can squeeze out of certain white cards with Yarok, the Desecrated.

Yarok isn't an essential part of the deck, it's designed so that it functions without him, it's just a case of if you come across him, and you get to cast him, he needs to be killed immediately, otherwise the value of every other card you play is going to be practically doubled.

Yarok aside, this deck doesn't really fit into any particular archetype. It certainly isn't aggro, that's a given if you're not playing red. It has control elements, for sure, but it lacks the counterspells, pressure threats and card advantage generation that are staples of control. It has a combo aspect, with the double triggers on Yarok, but unlike combo decks, it isn't an essential part of the deck; we don't actively search for that combo, and it doesn't outright win the game. To call it midrange would be adequate, there are a lot of high value cards, but they are highly dependent on how they're used, I.e. they're not amazing on their own, in a vacuum, which tends to be how midrange decks work. And as for tempo, that also depends on how the game pans out, to say there are no pressure cards would be wrong, but they don't really progress 'our' board state, we're more interested in slowing down our opponents, than we are rushing the game through, we'll win when we win, there's no clock.

All in all, if I had to slap a label on it, I'd call it a reactive-value-combo-midrange-tempo-control deck (because it has aspects of all of those archetypes).

The fundamental premise of this deck though, is its ability to deal with any threat, be it wide, narrow, or unorthodox. The only thing it can't react to is instants and sorceries, but the fact of the matter is, generally speaking, players win magic games by casting permanents. And the capacity to deal with permanents (of any type) is where this deck comes into it's own.

I'm gonna make a short list here to demonstrate how this deck interacts with all types of permanents.

Creatures (wide)




If they're small and in numbers, chances are they're all dead to Cry of the Carnarium (That includes you field of the dead). If they're just a little too big for Cry (e.g anthems) we can sideboard Ritual of Soot, which should bring most creature decks to a halt. Deputy of Detention gets a huge mention here too against tokens and certain other strategies (still looking at you, field of the dead).

Creatures (narrow)




If its a big thing you just don't want hitting you, primary tool is Dungeon Geists. God Eternal? Tap dat. Hydra? Tap dat. Cavalier? Tap dat. I think you get the point. If they want it back they're gonna have to kill Geists which is at least gonna give you some time to look for another answer if you need it. If Geists doesn't cut it though, you can use Cavalier of Dawn or Deputy of Detention, Ideally though the second best tool to Geists is Prison Realm. Doesn't work against everything, and like Geists can be dealt with, but it usually gets the job done.

Artifacts/Enchantments




Cavalier of Dawn and Deputy of Detention if necessary, aren't many targets in the current meta but it's still relevant to be able to deal with them. Experimental Frenzy, Bolas's Citadel, etc.

Planeswalkers




Prison Realm is the first choice here, provided we know our opponent can't get it back. Deputy of Detention is an option as well, but if we have a Cavalier of Dawn in hand, then it's the most worthy use of its ETB. Period.






Now of course all of this comes at a price, the price of playing four colors. To counteract this, a third of the deck is straight up mana fixing. Missing that fourth color? Urban Utopia. Just need to cast that Cry, but only have one black source? Sac that Guild Globe. Seriously, as long as you get one of those in your opening hand, chances are you aren't going to have mana problems. Gift of Paradise is also the safest and most effective form of mana fixing in standard, and it ramps. It can make a Cavalier of Dawn cast-able, which is no joke. Plus gaining six life when Yarok is out is a nice touch. The fact that the first two draw a card on entry is really key though, especially if you get Yarok out, then they draw two cards.



It's worth noting, this deck plays fairly well with your opponent on the play. The extra card, plus keeping that going into turn three after playing an Urban Utopia or Guild Globe is not to be underestimated. That's eight cards on turn three (inc draw), and that's options.

To round off, this is (an attempt at) a serious competitive deck, able to go toe to toe with anything else (in theory). And the best part? It doesn't have a single red card.

This concludes my description but I will also leave a list below here highlighting some other mentionable interactions in this deck:






Tamiyo, Collector of Tales is in here as all purpose search/retrieval. In fact retrieval is a noteworthy part of this deck. Tamiyo can bring back a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g *cough* Blast Zone, plus the death trigger on Cavalier of Dawn can return a sacrificed Guild Globe, which then draws an extra card. Tamiyo is mainly about the search though, the feel good factor of "if nothing is going on, and I can do whatever I want, I can just name Yarok, the Desecrated" :)



All the creatures in the deck, and those in the sideboard, are immune to Cry (and by extension also to Shock and Disfigure) and Ritual of Soot, so if an aggro deck sets up again and we have board and we can still sweep. The only exception to this is Deputy of Detention when sideboarding Ritual of Soot, but chances are if you're bringing in Ritual then Deputy probably isn't much use to you anyway in the matchup, so it's better to swap it out for Unmoored Ego, unless you need both Cry and Ritual of course, which is possible.



An interesting thing you can do with Cavalier of Dawn, if you need board presence, then you can blow up your own Urban Utopia, Guild Globe or even Gift of Paradise to put an extra 3/3 body on your side. And, if they kill Cavalier of Dawn, you get what you blew up back, which means an extra card or life gain. You can double this up with Yarok, ditching two mana fixers that you don't need anymore, and making two 3/3 bodies to seal out a win.






Access to Unmoored Ego, Veil of Summer and Teferi, Time Raveler in the same deck is just mean against control. Also Thought Distortion. Lots of people aren't keen on Unmoored Ego, but I'm a real advocate of it, which is why I run a whole playset in the sideboard. I've always found it to be potent, especially against certain strategies that only have one or two win conditions.



Update 24/08/2019: Trialled the deck at FNM and went 2/0, 2/0, 2/1. It was a really surprising result, the deck performed better than I expected, though I do think that those three matches weren't really entirely representative of the deck. That said, I did beat the current meta mono blue, as well as a long winded game against simic ooze, and boros feather, which I felt I won more down to how my opponent played and what cards they were playing. After considering people's comments which I asked for, and some comments I received on here by rujasu, I have made some amendments to the deck. The mana fixers stay, they were just always useful, brilliant curve out cards, and as much as people questioned having twelve, they're keeping their spot, for now at least. I've decreased the non basic rate for the mana base, mainly because I just didn't need all the mana sources, and shocking myself every turn or being a turn behind on mana is just unnecessary. The mana fixers are there for a reason, the most use I found for them was the card draw and ramp (which is supposed to just be a bonus). Apart from that, I cut one of each of the other cards, except yarok, to allow for three elite guardmages and another yarok (since I got one in my promo booster!), hopefully that will give my deck more versatility. The sideboard has changed as well, kept the ritual, ego, veil and teferi, the rest is now one of's the key main deck cards which I trimmed, the idea being I can have access to all of them in first game, then cherry pick which worked best and complete those playsets for game two/three.



Please feel free to leave a comment, let me know what you think, how it could be improved! Thanks! :D
Last edited by TachyonAlpha 4 years ago, edited 2 times in total.

Tags:

rujasu
Posts: 75
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: they / them

Post by rujasu » 4 years ago

How much have you played with this deck and how has it been doing for you? Manabase seems really tough with so many ETB-tapped lands and having to use so many slots on fixing.

As a mono-red player, the thing that sticks out to me is that mono-red will run over this deck easily (Cry won't make a difference and it can't interact with burn spells), but you might not be in a meta where people are playing that. Otherwise, I have no idea how this plays against the rest of the field without seeing it in action.

TachyonAlpha
Posts: 3
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by TachyonAlpha » 4 years ago

rujasu wrote:
4 years ago
How much have you played with this deck and how has it been doing for you? Manabase seems really tough with so many ETB-tapped lands and having to use so many slots on fixing.
I've not had chance to play with it properly yet, I've done some testing against a few decks of mine and from what I can tell it works fairly well, the early fixers function as good 'null' turns, the rest functions as you would expect. The mana base is difficult, I've found myself of course shocking in for a turn two fixer but the reality is against a lot of decks if I'm on the play then it doesn't hurt to play a turn behind (e.g. 2 mana fixer on turn 3). Don't forget those fixers are functional fixers though, they aren't just a dead card. I plan to take the deck to FNM tomorrow, see how it gets on.
rujasu wrote:
4 years ago
As a mono-red player, the thing that sticks out to me is that mono-red will run over this deck easily (Cry won't make a difference and it can't interact with burn spells), but you might not be in a meta where people are playing that. Otherwise, I have no idea how this plays against the rest of the field without seeing it in action.
Mono red is a bit of an oversight, but this deck is really designed for post rotation, and imo mono red won't exist after rotation, or at least it will be more creature based (like with the cavalcade chandra's spitfire deck or goblins), unless they reprint Lightning Strike I just don't see burn/storm decks still being viable (or not nearly as dangerous). That said you have a good point, if it's a fast mono red deck then all this deck can do is hope they don't get that perfect draw.

Most decks don't deal with that kind of mono red very well though. Maybe there'll be something in the new set to help this deck with mono red, nothing really at the moment sadly, that I can think of. If you have any recommendations, feel free to share! :)

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic

Return to “Developing Decks”