By Niels Viaene

When building decks for League standard I usually focus on an interesting card or a set of cards that share an interesting mechanic and try to make interesting decks with them.

Magic has three overarching archetypical decks: Aggro, Control and Combo. An actual deck can fit into multiple categories. You can have a control deck with a Combo finish, for example.

In League Standard, it is very hard to make a dedicated Combo deck because they usually require more complex cards that are usually put at Rare or Mythic. What League Standard does have, however, is Synergy decks. They sometimes feel like combo in that they generate pretty powerful effects from less impressive cards. It is these kinds of decks I like to try and build around interesting cards.

One of these cards is Nantuko Husk. At 2/2 for 3 mana it doesn’t look impressive, but there is so much you can do with it. Two things we are going to focus on is the fact his sacrifice effect does not cost mana and the fact he starts off as a 2 power creature that can become rather large when surrounded by a few friends.

Since mana bases in League Standard are rather restrictive (I could fill a separate article dealing only with mana bases) my initial deckbuilding exercises usually are limited to two or even one color unless I want to make a set of cards work in more colors. So let’s see what we have in those options.

Mono Black

Sacrificing is a subtheme of Black and as such, there are plenty of Black cards that go really well with Nantuko Husk.

There are creatures that are nice to sacrifice:

Cards that do a bit of sacrificing themselves:

Creatures that like to see things dying:

I tried making a mono Black deck but I felt I was just a few cards short of making the deck really good and fun to play. So I had a look at other colors to see if I could get some help. Grim Haruspex and the Smothering Abomination were so good that I would be amazed not to be playing them in every possible version of the deck. On top of that they are quite cheap as far as rares go. Another card in the cheap rare category is the Bloodsoaked Champion. These three combined cost less than a fifth of the third restricted card, Liliana, Heretical Healer.

Black-Green

Ah, the natural ally. The Green Black color combination has long been about the cycle of life, everything is bound to die and be reborn. This fits or Strategy very well and we can easily find a few very powerful additions or our deck:

Blisterpod as the most efficient sacrificial lamb

Catacomb Sifter coming with a friend and offering extra utlity.

Suddenly we are looking at an actual deck. The list below is an Aggro-Synergy deck. It plays very much like a normal Aggro deck but where a more classical deck would fall off in the mid game against slower, more powerful decks BG-Husk will punch through with a huge unblockable Husk or reload and flood the board with Grim Haruspex. This decklist also introduces Rogue’s Passage, our go to card to make sure Nantuko Husk comes through.

Green-Black Nantuko Husk v1.0

Creatures

4 Blisterpod

1 Bloodsoaked Champion (R)

4 Sultai Emissary

4 Carrier Thrall (U)

4 Zulaport Cutthroat (U)

4 Catacomb Sifter (U)

1 Merciless Executioner (U)

1 Grim Haruspex (R)

1 Smothering Abomination (R)

4 Gurmag Angler

Other

4 Bone Splinters

4 Complete Disregard

1 Evolutionary Leap (R)

Lands

4 Jungle Hollow

4 Evolving Wilds

2 Rogue’s Passage

6 Swamp

4 Forest

Black-Red

Red is your crazy party animal friend, he is reckless and explosive. In Red Black you will often find yourself adding a lategame plan to the impulsiveness of Red. Here we will be using Husky mostly to sacrifice creatures we have temporarily stolen. In addition, Red has goblins, and as everyone knows, they make funny little popping sounds when they die. So again we have more food for our Nantuko friend and also a Subterranean Scout that will help him punch through even the hardiest defenses.

The list below is Synergy-Combo like. Even from a seemingly harmless board it can do some very dangerous things like stealing two creatures, attacking with them and then sacrificing them for cards. This deck will have issues keeping up with the early game and therefor has some more classical elements to it as well.

Red-Black Nantuko Husk v1.0

Creatures

1 Bloodsoaked Champion (R)

4 Sultai Emissary

4 Subterranean Scout

4 Carrier Thrall (U)

4 Humble Defector (U)

1 Grim Haruspex (R)

1 Smothering Abomination (R)

4 Enthralling Victor (U)

Others

4 Fiery Impulse

1 Vampiric Rites (U)

4 Act of Treason

4 Complete Disregard

Lands

4 Evolving Wilds

4 Bloodfell Caves

8 Swamp

8 Mountain

Black-Blue

Blue is your smart friend who bails you out. In this relationship you are the reckless one and Blue is adding the lategame. The main reason to pair up with Blue is Whirler Rogue for sacrificial fodder and unblockability, after that the game gets more diverse. Here we choose for Ruthless Deathfang to have more game against midrange opponents.

The list below is Control-Synergy. You will spend the earlier turns setting up and staying alive, drawing cards here and there to get to where we want to be. Use your early drops to trade and maintain a healthy life total against Aggro, against Control or other synergy decks, try to cause as much early damage as possible. In mid game try looking for Deathfang into clearing their board, finish with a big Husk hit. This list is the most tested of the 4, and plays a lot more like a classic control deck than any of the others. There is also the most room for adjusting the deck and probably has the most ways you can go.

Blue-Black Nantuko Husk

Creatures

4 Sidisi’s Fatihful

4 Sultai Emissary

4 Nantuko Husk

3 Merciless Executioner (U)

4 Whirler Rogue (U)

3 Ruthless Deathfang (U)

1 Grim Haruspex (R)

1 Smothering Abomination (R)

Others

1 Bone Splinters

1 Vampiric Rites (U)

1 Negate

1 Disdainful Stroke

2 Complete Disregard

3 Murderous Cut (U)

1 Ob Nixilis Reignited (M)

2 Treasure Cruise

Lands

4 Dismal Backwater

4 Evolving Wilds

8 Swamp

8 Island

Black-White

Sacrifice is Murder, Murder demands Justice and Justice is blind. From White we get Murder Investigation, essentially doubling up your tokens in one swoop. With this deck we are going to go most all-in of all the decks. Our winning move involves sacrificing your entire board to Nantuko husk, then sacrificing your Husk to himself to get tons of soldiers. Usually you will do this at the end of your opponents turn and then kill them with Harsh Sustenance or Brutal Hordechief if Zulaport Cutthroat didn’t already finish them off.

White-Black Nantuko Husk v1.0

Creatures

1 Bloodsoaked Champion

4 Sultai Emissary

4 Carrier Thrall (U)

4 Zulaport Cutthroat (U)

4 Nantuko Husk

1 Grim Haruspex (R)

4 Mardu Hordechief

1 Brutal Hordechief (M)

1 Timely Hordemate (U)

1 Smothering Abomination (R)

Others

4 Murder Investigation (U)

4 Harsh Sustenance

1 Complete Disregard

2 Murderous Cut (U)

Lands

4 Evolving Wilds

4 Scoured Barrens

8 Plains

8 Swamp

Conclusion

We see a lot of cards reappearing in all the decks. I chose to avoid Liliana because of her monetary cost but you can quickly see a lot of the decks have a rare slot left for her if you do have access to her.

All these decks are also largely untested. All of them need tweaking and I suspect most of them will need a little more removal. Feel free to tinker around and change things to your liking.