Hello brewers, and welcome to the first week of Oath of the Gatewatch brews! This week, we make a departure from the normal routine of having a look at decks that have done well in events and instead focus on some decks that I have built using cards from the new set. I'll make no guarantee that these decks are tier 1, but I have tested them and won with them so they are at least playable!

All of the decks are standard legal decks this week, as that is the format that gets shaken up the most by the new set. Some are newish archetypes, some are updates on old or existing archetypes, but all of them are fun to play! A quick shout out to my good friend Scott who contributed two of this week's decks as well.

Ah, Goblins. A deck that is near and dear to my heart, across multiple formats. It was only natural that this would be the first deck I would brew after seeing these two cards spoiled:



Reckless Bushwhacker is an updated version of the Pauper staple, Goblin Bushwhacker. In the Pauper deck it allows you to set up an alpha strike out of nowhere, kind of acting like a common version of Atarka's Command. Of course, in standard, you can actually play Atarka's Command, so it acts like number 5-8 of that card, buffing the team (casting both Atarka's Command and Reckless Bushwhacker in one turn with a horde of goblins out is quite fun!)

In recent Standard seasons goblin decks had access to Obelisk of Urd and, once it rotated out, the goblin deck disappeared. Oath of the Gatewatch brings us a similar card with Stoneforge Masterwork. In terms of power level it's probably not quite as good as the Obelisk, but it is quite good. In one game of testing I was able to cast Subterranean Scout, targeting a Goblin Piledriver and making it unblockable, then equipping Stoneforge Masterwork to the Piledriver and attacking for 20 damage just from the Piledriver alone.

When I brewed this deck, I took a leaf out of Atarka Red and included a bunch of pump spells. And then I remembered that Zada, Hedron Grinder is a goblin:

In one game of testing, I was able to play Dragon Fodder into Hordeling Outburst into Zada, Hedron Grinder, and all survived. Next turn, I cast Titan's Strength on Zada, followed up by Temur Battle Rage, to create an army of five 4/2 double striking/trample goblin tokens and a 6/4 double striking/trample Zada!

Might of the Masses was an interesting choice for me - it may be correct to just play Become Immense like Atarka Red does, but you often have a lot of goblins on the battlefield so for 1 green mana it does sometimes outperform Become Immense.

Tutelage Creatures

1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion

4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

0 cards



Other Spells

4 Sphinx's Tutelage

4 Magmatic Insight

2 Oath of Jace

2 Grip of the Roil

4 Tormenting Voice

3 Kozilek's Return

3 Monastery Siege

4 Treasure Cruise

2 Chandra, Flamecaller

11 cards Lands

4 Shivan Reef

4 Evolving Wilds

7 Island

6 Mountain

4 Wandering Fumarole

2 Blighted Cataract

21 cards



Last week we took a look at a white/blue Sphinx's Tutelage deck, but hands up if you remember when blue/red was the Tutelage deck of choice? If you don't remember Tutelage, here's a reminder:

Well, when I saw this card spoiled, it made me remember:

The new Chandra's +0 ability is what caught my eye. Activating it with seven cards in hand and a Sphinx's Tutelage in play mills your opponent for 16 cards, which is huge. Two Tutelage's in play is 32 cards and a very panicky opponent. It's not as hard as it seems, either: the deck contains nineteen ways to gain card advantage, plus the card draw ability from Tutelage itself. But that's best case scenario: even if you activate it with, say, four cards in hand and one Tutelage in play, you will still mill your opponent for 10.

Chandra is not the only Oath of the Gatewatch card in this deck, though:

Let's take a look at them in order.

Oath of Jace is one of our mill accelerators and also helps fill the graveyard for Treasure Cruise. It also allows us to filter our draws if we have a flipped Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and/or a Chandra out.

Previous versions of this deck played Anger of the Gods as board control. With no access to that now, Kozilek's Return comes in to do (almost) the same thing, though at instant speed. Plus, if we ever cast Kozilek, it does it again but better!

Grip of the Roil does a couple of things for us. Not only does it draw us a card (and mill our opponent), but it can lock down their biggest threat as well. In testing, I faced a red/green ramp deck that managed to cast an early Dragonlord Atarka. By using Grip in my opponent's upkeep, I was able to keep it from attacking, and with a flipped Jace I was able to recast it (and others I drew) to lock it down for the whole game.

Wandering Fumarole is mana fixing for us, as there is not a lot for enemy colour pairs in the format right now. It also acts as a win condition should we need it.

Finally, Kozilek. I'll admit I included him, but haven't actually needed to cast him yet. There is only six sources of colourless mana as well, which is important to remember when you are discarding cards - make sure you keep at least two colourless lands. If we cast him with an empty hand, we can draw seven cards, which again triggers Tutelage.

Back at the beginning of Battle for Zendikar, I brewed up a mono-white aggro deck that a version of went on to do some good things on Magic Online. This time around, we can look at an updated version that includes a few Oath of the Gatewatch cards to see what the deck is up to. This version isn't as low to the ground as the previous one.

The above three cards are the cards from Oath that have been added to the deck. Oath of Gideon is a token generator, though two 1/1s for 3 mana isn't exactly Raise the Alarm level of quality. Where it does shine, though, is allowing Gideon, Ally of Zendikar to come into play, immediately generate an emblem, and stick around to make more creatures and/or attack. This is pretty invaluable and goes a long way to making the Planeswalker better than he already is.

Eldrazi Displacer is a very interesting and powerful addition to the deck. Flickering a Knight of the White Orchid, Mardu Woe-Reaper or our other new card, Linvala, is pretty good value, but it can also flicker an opponent's creature before combat to remove it as a blocker, due to the fact the creature comes back in tapped. A 3/3 body for 3 mana is also not too shabby!

Finally, Linvala. Our bomb creature. There isn't much to say about her except that she is really, really good, and I look forward to casting her!

My friend Scott has piloted this deck against me and done well with it (against other brews), so I expect it to be an ok deck in the upcoming standard.

A 4 Colour Rally deck won a Grand Prix this weekend just gone, so I'm sure I don't necessarily need to go through the ins and outs of the deck as there will probably a bunch written about it elsewhere. Instead, let's look at a couple of cards from Oath of the Gatewatch that might make an appearance:

Let's start with Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim. She's a 2/3 for 2 mana, which is already good, but she also has Deathtouch on top of that. But her real power in this deck comes from her second two abilities. They both act as a sacrifice outlet, which will in turn trigger the abilities of Zulaport Cutthroat, Catacomb Sifter and Grim Haruspex. But on top of that, her second ability is fantastic if you can get to 30 life, something not necessarily easy but certainly not impossible in this deck.

In my testing, Reflector Mage is an insane Magic card. If Man-o'-War was already good, this can only be better. It's going to be a limited bomb, but it is also very good in constructed. In testing with a different deck, it allowed me to keep bouncing large Eldrazi creatures and keeping them off the board for a turn, and also forcing my opponent to spend copious amounts of mana to recast. Look out for this card to make an appearance in a lot of decks. In this particular deck, it doesn't add a lot to the overall deck's strategy, but like I said, it is just a Good Magic Card!

That's it for this week - only four decks instead of the normal five, but don't worry, there is a reason - that's because there will be another four Oath brews next week! Until then, keep on brewin'!

Contact Shane on Twitter: @CrymsonKnight