Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Achievement Unlocked has been on hiatus for a long time, but once Theros spoilers were out and I saw this combo, I knew at some point I would have to build it. I’m talking of course about the Fathom Mage – Archangel of Thune – Horizon Chimera combo that lets you draw your deck and swing for a lot. Gaining life and drawing cards are my favourite things to do in Magic, so this seemed right up my alley.
Before Theros came out I tried to throw the combo in a Simic splash white deck with a bunch of mana dorks and evolve creatures. It would always get off to a promising start but just had no staying power and was vulnerable to even one well-timed piece of removal. As every brewer should I filed the idea away for future use and moved on. Ali Aintrazi played a version of the deck but without the combo (omitting Fathom Mage) and although it looked like fun, I saw this at a time I was cutting down on Magic.
Two things happened in short order recently that made me come back to the deck. The first was hearing that Reid Duke had played Prime Speaker Bant at an SCG Open and done pretty well with it. Prime Speaker Zegana has been one of my favourite creatures since Gatecrash, and being able to flash it in thanks to Prophet of Kruphix seemed ridiculous. The second was seeing this decklist:
[deck title= Bant Wizards by Pete Casella, Top 8 at TCG Player MaxPoint Event]
[Lands]
4 Breeding Pool
4 Forest
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
2 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Temple of Mystery
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
2 Angel of Serenity
3 Archangel of Thune
4 Centaur Healer
4 Elvish Mystic
1 Fathom Mage
3 Horizon Chimera
2 Prime Speaker Zegana
1 Progenitor Mimic
2 Prophet of Kruphix
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Voice of Resurgence
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
1 Primeval Bounty
3 Sphinx’s Revelation
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
2 AEtherling
1 Bident of Thassa
2 Gainsay
3 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Nylea’s Disciple
1 Plasm Capture
3 Rootborn Defenses
1 Simic Charm
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
This looked like exactly what I wanted to be doing. There were a few choices I felt made little sense though, so I tried to figure out what my plan was and how best to enact it. Here’s the 75 I took to FNM:
[deck title=Prime of My Life]
[Lands]
4 Breeding Pool
4 Forest
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
2 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Temple of Mystery
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
1 Angel of Serenity
3 Archangel of Thune
3 Centaur Healer
1 Chronicler of Heroes
3 Elvish Mystic
1 Manaweft Sliver
2 Fathom Mage
3 Horizon Chimera
2 Master Biomancer
2 Prime Speaker Zegana
1 Progenitor Mimic
2 Prophet of Kruphix
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
2 Selesnya Charm
2 Simic Charm
2 Gainsay
3 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Nylea’s Disciple
1 Plasm Capture
2 Rootborn Defenses
2 Detention Sphere
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Sphinx’s Revelation seemed like overkill in a deck with Zegana and Horizon Chimera. Primeval Bounty would have been fine if I wasn’t trying to maximise Garruk, but I was. Two Angel of Serenity seemed ambitious in a deck that really wanted to win before it hit 7 mana, so I cut one Angel of Serenity. Instead I ran an extra Fathom Mage for the combo, Master Biomancer because it’s dumb, Nylea to let me push through damage after I combo off in case the Chimera’s trample isn’t enough, and a Scavenging Ooze because mise. The board changes were largely for the expected local meta: black and blue devotion, Esper and hyper aggro.
Battle Plan
Let’s see if I can remember how to do this. With the deck basically being a midrange beatdown deck with combo elements I want to make sure my achievements let me succeed both ways. They will still be a challenge of course, the article stops being fun if one of the achievements is “win a game” for example. Oh shut up.
Combo off. This is an obvious one. In case you’re not catching the combo right away, Horizon Chimera gains you a life whenever you draw a card. Archangel of Thune puts a counter on all your dudes when you gain a life. Fathom Mage says you MAY draw a card when you put a +1/+1 counter on it. The “may” on Fathom Mage is particularly important in that it stops you from just losing when you do this, and the flash, flying and trample on Horizon Chimera make it very likely you will be able to push through lethal.
Draw 5 cards from Garruk’s +1 Kind of luck-based but really, what better feeling is there?
Draw 10 or more cards from Prime Speaker Zegana Oh right. That feeling. Yeah, that one’s better.
Attack for over 100 damage without the combo Doing it with the combo might also be rough since people are likely to just scoop, but this way I can attack for a reasonable amount and flash in a Zegana for silliness. I like silliness.
Progenitor Mimic copying Master Biomancer Because “If you are winning, instead win more” can be fun sometimes.
That should be enough. I would love to Plasm Capture something huge but I am not sure I want to build an achievement around a board card. Right then, list and achievements in hand, away we go!
War Report
Normally walking in to Midgard at 5pm on a Friday would mean seeing a good half dozen people already playing test games or trading. Not so this week as there was a total of one person in the building for FNM. I had missed three weeks in a row due to travel so it was good to be back where I “belong” on a Friday night. The deck was ready to go but just for a change I was scared of my aggro matchup. I figured my board could handle monoblue but monoblack was something of a concern too. Fortunately Nick McNeil and good old Chris “Extra Balls” Stoyles were both on that particular format boogeyman and I was able to grind some games against it and learn my sideboard plan. I split 6 games and figured out where I wanted to be just in time for the flood of players to come in to the store with ten minutes to spare. A six-rounder awaits!
Round 1 – Jakob Peet with GW Good Stuff – I hadn’t seen Jakob before, but he had a good deck and seemed to know what he was doing. Despite people leaving the game every now and then we are always attracting new players to FNM and I feel like, as one of the older and more experienced players, I should be doing everything I can to make newcomers feel welcome. Hopefully I managed to do that.
Game 1 would set something of a theme for the night as I kept a slow 6 after shipping back a one-lander. I had no idea what I was facing and keeping 4 land, 4 drop, 5 drop was not a recipe for success against pretty much any deck. Especially when the 4 drop is Fathom Mage. I would quickly fall to single-digit life as an army of Boon Satyrs conspired to slam into me. Fathom Mage followed by Archangel of Thune enabled me to trade with a Boon Satyr , and a Prime Speaker Zegana on the next turn put me in a position to trade Archangel for a Polukranos, World Eater who had found some Unflinching Courage. His Nylea made chump blocking hard, and I was on 1 life before I could cast multiple creatures in a turn and actually get some beef on board. Prophet of Kruphix into Archangel of Thune was a good turn, and once I found the other two pieces of the combo I was able to go from 1 life to 45 and win the game in the same turn. First game and we have an achievement!
Game 2 poor Jakob unfortunately mulls to 5, but my Voice of Resurgence and Elvish Mystic aren’t exactly putting much pressure on him. He finds a Sylvan Caryatid to stem the bleeding, then is able to cast a Loxodon Smiter to completely halt my attack. The game sort of stalled out at this point, with Selesnya Charms on both sides taking out Polukranos, Arbor Colossus and Prime Speaker Zegana. The cards of that last one enabled me to play out double Archangel of Thune, which with a Fathom Mage on the board let me find the Chimera in short order for a great start to the evening.
1-0
Round 2 – Matthew Murphy with Esper Control – Smurf has been on Esper since rotation, with very few changes. He now knows the deck inside out and is always near the top of the standings with it. Game 1 my hand once again did not apply enough early pressure to beat Esper, and Aetherling did what Aetherling does. Game 2 was a story of a different planeswalker as Garruk, Caller of Beasts hit the board on turn 4 with Smurf tapped out for a Jace. He would draw me 6 cards over the next two turns before Smurf fired off a desperation Merciless Eviction on planeswalkers to clear the advantage machine. He had to tap out to do so, and I had 9 mana in play and all three pieces in hand. I flashed in the Chimera at the end of turn, untapped and played Mage into Archangel before attacking with the Chimera for lethal. Smurf shook his head in disbelief at having lost to at least one “bad card” as we shuffled up for game 3.
Sadly game 3 would be decided by what I am pretty sure was a crucial misplay on my part. With a Voice of Resurgence in play and Smurf on 10 life (having played a Sphinx’s Revelation into a Plasm Capture he knew I had but forgot about), I flashed in Horizon Chimera on his turn. He Dissolved it, which I expected, and as I reached for a token he pointed out it was his turn and I didn’t get one. That would cost me some damage which may or may not have made the difference in the long run, but with time being called right after Smurf resolved an Aetherling I conceded, knowing I wasn’t winning.
1-1
Round 3 – Alex Bruff with GB Kibler Aggro – Alex is another younger player but already a very good one. He’s been playing some variation of Golgari deck for a while and has it down to a science. The temptation for young, new players is to just change decks every time they lose, which actually might hamper their development.
Just to continue the theme I kept a slow hand in game 1 and was promptly run over by multiple Dreg Manglers. I am not sure why I keep doing that, especially when I knew his deck could roll me if he had any sort of reasonable start. Game 2 would be better as I got a turn 3 Master Biomancer and followed it up with a pair of Sylvan Caryatids, which of course were fat enough to hold off almost everything Alex had. Meanwhile Archangel was getting in for beats each turn, in turn growing my Caryatids. A Horizon Chimera flashed in to hedge against removal sealed the deal.
Game 3 was an interesting one as I kept a hand with both Voice of Resurgence and Centaur Healer, but only Caryatid as a white source. When Alex end stepped a Devour Flesh to take it out, I thought I was in trouble. Two Doom Blades and two Thoughtseize proceeded to shred my game plan, and Alex was able to take it home. Not much I could have done to play around that sort of hand, and any white source would have made for a different game.
1-2
Round 4 – Joseph Duke with Boros Aggro – One pattern I noticed when making decks for this article series was that I would often roll over and die against strong aggro decks. A lot of the spells I want to be casting cost too much mana to be effective against a deck that can half my life total before I do anything relevant. Looking at the curve of this deck I was worried it might have the same problem, and this would be the first real test of that theory. Joseph is another new, young player who I hope will be coming back.
Game one wasn’t actually fair. A turn two Centaur Healer would be followed up by a turn 3 Fathom Mage, turn 4 Prophet of Kruphix and turn 5 Progenitor Mimic…copying Centaur Healer. Not many aggro decks can handle that, especially not one that has trouble making anything bigger than a 2/2.
Game 2 wasn’t much better, as an early Garruk drew me a Voice and Healer, then next turn drew me all three pieces of the combo plus Elvish Mystic and another Voice. Yup, all five to the hand!
I didn’t have time to hit the full combo though as I got lethal through before casting the Fathom Mage. She’s risky to cast against red unless you can get her out of burn range right away, and I was in a stable position anyway.
2-2
Round 5 – Tyler Parrill with Angry Birds Naya – Tyler has been playing Naya since before rotation, a list very close to the one I helped brew up with Scotty Mac, Dan Dusang and Jason Clark. He’s basically mastered it by now, so this was going to be tough without question.
Game 1 showed me just how obscene the deck could be. A Master Biomancer was followed by a nice, fat Archangel of Thune, which had to play defence for a bit. A second Biomancer followed…
…which led to a 12/12 active Nylea, God of the Hunt. Attacks still seemed poor since he had a Stormbreath Dragon in hand, revealed off a Domri activation. I had to kill the Domri and he had to keep the Stormbreath back on defence, so I copied it with a Progenitor Mimic. I had to do this to survive instead of copying a Biomancer and getting another achievement, but it still seemed pretty good to have hasty dragons every turn. Well, sadly he had Selesnya Charm to take my copy out (with the 7 counters it had from double Biomancer), but it WOULD have been sweet. He still couldn’t handle my ridiculous army and I was able to alpha strike for some amount of damage over 50.
Game two was all about Stormbreath Dragon, as I could not find an answer for it. That’s something I will need to address in future builds, especially if the Dragon starts to see more play. Game 3 was not a real game of Magic as we both got stuck on two lands, but he had double Chained to the Rocks for my two Voice of Resurgence and then drew two Anger of the Gods as I developed my board state. I couldn’t recover from the second one and dropped another close match.
2-3
Round 6 – Daniel Saunders with Boros Blitz – Another new (to Midgard, at least) player with another aggro deck. By this point I know I can beat the fast decks with the right draw, so I’m a little less worried. Or I was, until a Phalanx Leader got some Madcap Skills and an Akroan Crusader benefitted from Titan’s Strength. That…that was some damage. Akroan Hoplite joined the party and I was never so glad to see the 0 on “+X/+0” as when he attacked with a 13-power Hoplite. Voice of Resurgence was able to trade with it, Master Biomancer came to the party and soon thereafter was joined by his remarkably similar-looking but somewhat larger friend Master Biomancer. Archangel of Thune, Prophet of Kruphix and double Horizon Chimera helped refill my life total, and although I didn’t find Fathom Mage I was able to flash in a 22/22 Prime Speaker Zegana after blockers. A couple of Hopeful Eidolons had left him at a reasonably high life total, but with all the Chimeras (Chimerae?) and the Archangel in play, the attack was for over 180 damage.
Game 2 saw Daniel play a lot more conservatively, seemingly worried about the potential of my deck to win out of nowhere. When your deck is designed to win in a hurry, that is probably not the best of ideas. Horizon Chimera and Archangel of Thune once again performed the dual task of padding my life total and bringing the beats, and another Prime Speaker Zegana (for a sensible number this time) sealed the deal and left me at an even record.
3-3
Mystical Teachings
The first thing I noticed after six rounds was that Prophet of Kruphix was by far the most important card in the deck. Being able to do everything at instant speed and never having to worry about tapping out are both such underutilised and important abilities, and a lot of people simply dismiss Prophet as “bad” or “an EDH card.”
I never once cast Angel of Serenity, and the Progenitor Mimic might be better in the board. I think they can easily be replaced by Scavenging Ooze. The Manaweft Sliver and Chronicler of Heroes should be some sort of removal or utility, slightly weakening Garruk but definitely improving the consistency of the deck. I would love to squeeze in Arbor Colossus but triple green is a little too greedy.
On a general level I learned that my mulligan decisions still need a LOT of work. Some of the hands I kept would not have beaten any deck, but had lands and spells. Well they might have been OK against midrange decks, but those don’t really exist at the moment. I had got past this problem but seem to have regressed somewhat, especially when I think I am out of the running for prizes.
That’s about all I have to say this week. I am very curious though folks…which do you prefer? This column, or Stream of Consciousness? Or neither? Help me decide which direction to go in more often.
Chris is a deck brewer, podcaster and lover of bacon. He’s recently realised he isn’t completely terrible at this game.
