Since Magic Arena has hit the scene, I’ve found that most of my Standard brewing is now done online. Gone are the days when I would have two to three Standard decks on the go, testing multiple builds in order to perfect my brews. Nowadays I am spending more time than ever getting my magic fix on the digital plane. This is actually a bit of a blessing, as with family and work commitments I have found my time for paper magic in short supply. However, I still like to have at least one Standard deck in paper for the rare occasions I can get down to my local game store for an FNM or weekend tournament.

That deck used to be your basic RDW build or the occasional White Weenie brew, but recently I’ve found myself moving away from aggro. In fact, my current deck is one-part ramp, one-part combo, and runs four colours as opposed to my usual one. It is capable of winning games in an instant and combines two popular strategies from the last season in one lovely janky pile of cards. What’s more, the deck is completely rotation proof, so if you wanted to get it for yourself you would be able to play it for the next twelve months without issue. The deck’s name? Reclamation Gate.

As the name suggests, the deck is an amalgamation of the combo deck Temur Reclamation and the ramp deck Gates. The game plan is simple. Ramp up to an obscene land count with cards like Growth Spiral and Circuitous Route, then use the combo of Wilderness Reclamation and Expansion // Explosion to one shot our opponent in our own end step. So that’s the plan, but how do we go about pulling it off?

Well, as I stated above, we want to ramp up as quickly as possible with full playsets of Growth Spiral and Circuitous Route. Both of these cards can put us ahead on mana quickly, and help us fix our colours (which we are going to need). We can even use an Expansion // Explosion to double up on our ramp spells and hit a critical mass of lands. But, ‘why are we running Gates?’ I hear you ask. Why not a regular package of shock and check lands? Well for one they are more expensive. But it’s also because we are running a full playset of Guild Summit.

This three-mana enchantment allows us to dig through our deck at lightning speed. With only a single copy on the table both Growth Spiral and Circuitous Route draw us two cards deep into our deck. This is doubled up when we have a second copy down or when copying them, not to mention just drawing a card off playing a land. This can quickly give us some massive card advantage and give us the cards we need when we need them.

To finish the game out we run full playsets of both Wilderness Reclamation and Expansion // Explosion, as well as three copies of Electrodominance to add to our suite of Fireball effects. To round off the deck we want to make sure we can complete our game plan without being interrupted. To handle creature-based aggro decks four copies of Gates Ablaze help keep the board clear, and for those counter heavy brews Dovin’s Veto allows us to go off without being foiled by Sinister Sabotage.

Our final non-land card in the deck is a playset of Shimmer of Possibility. This two-mana sorcery is great for digging through our deck and finding the silver bullet you might need to seal away a game. Lastly, we need to look at our mana base. Four copies of Izzet Guildgate, Simic Guildgate, and Gruul Guildgate as well as two copies each of Boros Guildgate, Azorius Guildgate, and Selesnya Guildgate cover most of our bases. To help with the fixing we also run a playset of Plaza of Harmony as well as a single Gateway Plaza, rounded off with a single Island, Mountain, and Forest, our twenty-six land mana base is complete.

When it comes to a sideboard, I’ve gone for a transformative strategy. After game one our opponent will be tempted to board out their removal since we are a noncreature deck. When that happens, we can switch gears and go for a more straightforward Gate plan. Gatebreaker Ram and Gate Colossus are great payoffs considering our mana base, and Archway Angel can make sure we don’t get run over by aggro decks. If we are worried about our opponent having an endless stream of creatures, we can go heavy in on removal with three Lava Coil and a couple of Deafening Clarion.

Not only is the deck a fun rotation-proof deck to shake up your local meta, but it’s a pretty budget deck, only costing around $60. I’ve been having a blast playing it and am keen to see where I can take the deck in the future. I’ve already been looking at combining Vivien, Champion of the Wilds, Wilderness Reclamation, and Hydroid Krasis for some insanely big flying jellyfish hydra beasts, but that’s a tale for another time.

What do you think of the deck? have you been trying out something similar at your local FNM? Why not tell us in the comments below. And while you’re, there you could like and subscribe to keep up to date with all we do here at Master of Magics.

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