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Preparing for the Monthly Championship

CommunityTwinfox

If you are anything like me, your fingers are itching to build some decks and play around with all the cool new cards Reality Fracture brought to the format. There are two issues however. First, the upcoming tournament on Saturday is the monthly championship, so it's time to bring your A game. Second, maybe even more important, you haven't played a lot of Magic in the past months. Well, at least that's the position I find myself in right now. Luckily for me Crypehead and Quadrangle just dropped their new meta guide, which you can read here and that's more than enough info to get us started.

4c Control

When preparing for a tournament, it is important to see what the best decks currently are and without a doubt 4c Control is currently at the top of that list.

The deck aims to use Tablet of Discovery to start casting Jeskai Revelation as early as turn five. With a whole lot of interaction spells to stop the opponent from doing their thing until they can do so. The removal has also been tuned to dodge both indestructible and ward, most of it even dodges hexproof. Inevitable Defeat is especially strong because it can get rid of literally anything and drains the opponent for three.

Jeskai Revelation

All in all this seems to rightfully be the best deck in the format and is probably the safest pick for the tournament. There is just one caveat. To effectively pilot a control deck you need to know how to interact with the opponent, what needs to be dealt with and what can maybe stick around for a few turns. This kind of meta knowledge is especially important if you want to win the mirror match. As I don't have that, I need to keep looking.

Izzet Opus

The second deck that consistently performs well, the meta guide also lists it as the second best deck.

This is a combo deck that wants to cast spells that cost five or more mana while having Molten-Core Maestro or a Colorstorm Stallion in play and then swing for one big hit. The deck also uses Tablet of Discovery to quickly produce a lot of mana and backs it up with a bunch of interactive spells (do I sense a trend here?).

Colorstorm Stallion

The deck looks like a lot of fun to pilot and is seems reasonably strong, even against 4c Control. Unfortunately it also falls more into the controlling category for the first few turns of the game and I don't have this kind of brain power, so we keep looking.

Practiced Offense

If we can't play control, we need to beat them, which means we need to win by turn five. The best way to do that consistently, that I found, is this card from Strixhaven:

Practiced Offense

According to the meta guide the best Practiced Offense deck is Kithkindred. A deck that wants to play cheap creatures and curve them into Offense. Sounds exactly like the type of deck we're looking for. Unfortunately there were no new Kithkin in Reality Fracture and I want to play some new cards.

Another deck that curves cheap creatures into PO is Mardu Discard. This deck works by discarding cards like Bloodghast or PO to Hardened Academic or Iron-Shield Elf and then recurring them while simultaneously growing Moonshadow and Marauding Mako. With Dark Matter Manipulator and Stinging Vitriol there are at least two cards from Reality Fracture that fit right into the deck.

While Mardu Discard is probably my personal pick, there's another deck that is less susceptible against exile based removal and graveyard hate, uses more new cards and is more capable of winning longer games (at the expense of being around one turn slower than Mardu Discard). That deck is Mono White Angels/Lifegain. A synergistic deck built around soul sister-type effects that got some great new additions with Liliana the Faultless and Lyra, Archangel of Dawn and Unflinching Hortimancer. If you have the wildcards, you can even try Enlightened Confidant and Ajani Resolute. So many options!

More Reality Fracture

There are many more cards from Reality Fracture that I would like to build around, but unfortunately I don't have the time (or the wildcards) to do that before Saturday. If you have the time, feel free to play around with a Boros Superfriends deck built around Ajani Unrelenting and Elspeth, Storm Slayer with Gideon's Memorial and Way of the Pyromancer as ramp pieces. There are so many new red cards that Mono Red Prowess/Burn with Pompous Battlemage // Improvised Act and Stingcaster Mage has to be a viable deck, right? And there has to be something you can do with Darklight Phoenix.

Ajani Unrelenting

Anyway, that is all for now. I hope this goes live before the tournament and you find it to be somewhat useful.

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