RW Control is kind of neat.

Is there a playmat with this art? It's dope as hell.

Sup people, Dan here. I'm back playing Standard, and I've actually won a game or two, so I figured I'd share a deck.

For a bit I didn't really write anything, cause honestly, my decks were hot garbage and I was a salty nerd, so I took a break to find a better job and start getting singles. Seriously, you don't even want to see the shit tier decks that I was trying to force. It doesn't hurt that I can afford good cards now, so I don't have to play with the watertrash that I had to before.

Someone tell me if you crack the code for this monster, because I most definitely have not.

But here we are, with the ballers, casting Nahiri and Glorybringer, and it feels good man. Real fuckin' good.

Since I didn't really have strong decks other than Eldrazi (which actually aren't half bad right now), I spent a lot of Amazon gift cards to put together a R/W prison style deck with a whole lot of control cards. It's turned out nice, so check it:

Click on these words for a decklist! Nahiri and the critters get wacky

Let's Get ~Tropical~ Everyone

Alright, this deck is a little zany. I've been liberal with the one of's, so this deck is bad if you aren't super lucky like me. Here's what we do,

Nahiri is good, so I try my darndest to take advantage of all the insane shit she is capable of. The rest of the deck is removal, early blockers, and then later there are some big annoying critters to protect Nahiri. The lady herself also exiles dudes and different artifacts/enchantments, which keeps the board squeaky clean despite the hordes of zombies and Scrapheap Scroungers running around. Eventually she ults, and you probably win.

Seriously have you read that -8 ability? It only takes TWO ticks to get to 8! That's so speedy!

Her ult opens up to any of the fun-of's in our deck, assuming you like creatures. Or artifacts, I guess? Dunno what you'd grab. I had a Panharmonicon in from the sideboard once, then grabbed that puppy and cast a Linvala when I was at 2 life, so you can do that if you're a god damn madman. There is one flex slot in the sideboard that I keep changing. I have a Combustible Gearhulk there now, and I couldn't tell you why. I've had it come in instead of Chandra against decks with creatures too big for her ult to clean up, or planeswalkers, I guess. Attacking through a 6/6 first strike is rough for some decks, but whatever. You do your thing, I give you permission.

Tons of different exile effects make us hose Zombies, which is dope, cause like three dudes play that shit at my LGS. Sweltering Suns might be better than Kozilek's Return, but I have no control of my life and lost my copy of the card. Sometimes being instant speed is a good thing though, but your mileage may vary.



The Core Fours Or something more clever...

Use your four-ofs to eventually get to the part of your deck you need. Thraben Inspector blocks and digs us deeper into our deck, sometimes she gets feisty and boinks 'em, too. Eldrazi Displacer is a decent sized blocker at three mana, and his activated ability can stall a game out forever by exiling tokens, stopping attackers, blinking our value creatures, and just overall make me so happy. You have no idea how good it feels to chump Gideon with a Thraben Inspector, blink the lady, and be rewarded with another clue. It's the new Tireless Tracker, except way slower. Man, that card would be so good in this deck.

A match made in Innistrad. Love at first tentacle.

Anyhoo, Nahiri, the dopest card in this deck, is of course a four of. Aside from Never/Return, she's super hard to get off the table. Even just by chumping with a Thraben Inspector you get her to ultimate range, and then it's on the opponent to get some damage on her before you pop it off. Meanwhile, you're filtering through your various one-of's to grab the answer you need to defend her even more, whether it be removal, more blockers, or I dunno, another Nahiri? Why not.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention the synergies between Displacer and Nahiri. Blink their Avacyn or Heart of Kiran, and then it's nice and tapped for Nahiri to exile. Hooray!

The bigger bois

We've also got a couple cards that are two or three-ofs. These are all fine to draw, and help us get zany with our main cards. Harnessed Lighting and Declaration in Stone are both super strong cards against so many decks right now; exiling pesky gods, zombies, huge things, and early aggression. Harnessed takes down small ones, and honestly just getting energy is mana fixing for our Aether Hubs, which are just stupid, stupid lands. Seriously, they are just so insane in any red deck in Standard right now, letting them be three colors quite easily.

Oh shit, there's a promo of this?

Then the creatures are great five or six mana plays. You can ult Nahiri for them, which is the dream, but you can also tap five of those twenty five lands we're playing plop them down from your hand. Glorybringer is nutso. I can't believe I haven't been playing with this card. It kills so many things, cleanly answers Gideon, and lets us turn the corner extremely fast once we've taken control. Same thing with Goblin Dark-Dwellers - pop back more removal to kill a creature, menace for an evasive threat. Remember all those removal spells you cast early? They're back to clean up more. Angel of Sanctions is a nice hit too, getting rid of pesky high-loyalty walkers or big thingies.

I always type "dank-dwellers" cause i'm a fucking juvenile.

And you know, sometimes you grab you get to ult Nahiri, grab a Bedlam Reveler. You re-fill your hand (or fill your graveyard), then attack them cause it has haste. Duh. But first you cast a removal spell you just drew to trigger prowess, and you kill Gideon cause that idiot just kept making knights, and you just dec in stoned four of them. End of turn, he bounces back to your hand, so just cast him again on the cheap next turn, because you discarded or cast some spells. That will refill both yer hand and yard yet again. And by then you probably have something good going on in your hand or graveyard to do. If not, who cares, you just nuked the board and have a fat butt blocker chillin'. Then you go buy a lottery ticket, cause you got something good going on.


The Bad-ish news.

Ok, obviously that doesn't happen so perfect every game. This deck can miss, and it can miss hard. Sometimes you just don't draw the right piece, or flood out, or get too many colorless lands, or only get creatures when you need removal, etc. Not advised if you don't like to mulligan. That one cost black-cycling-instant that exiles 3 cards from our graveyard totally crushes us. Blue-counters are a bit rough as well, since we often tap out on our main phase. That's ok though.

Censor need not apply.

This deck may not win the next GP you go to. Minneapolis for me, so if you see a dude in a purple tank with a Salami on it, it's probably me. Assuming I'm still in good enough shape that it isn't embarrassing, even though it's totally embarrassing either way.

But I've definitely cranked through four or five FNMs undefeated, so it can at least win games against Zombies, RW Aggro, GB Counters, Tokens decks, UB Control decks, and a tons of other zesty stacks being played at my LGS. We actually have a wild meta going on right now, and it's great. The Marvel ban has made a huge impact on Standard, and it feels like a decent place right now.


The >>>Future<<<

Hour of Devastation comes out soon, so that's neat. Good and bad things come with that for Nahiri and the Eldrazi. The good is the new mechanic Eternalize. Cheap chumps early that come back as real threats late is absurd for our deck, and we can even just discard one with Nahiri and alt-cast them just as a big guy.

We get Solemnity, which is fucking nuts. Do you have any idea how spicy of a hate card that's going to be? RG Energy, GB Counters, and one of the toughest creatures for our deck, Bristling Hydra, completely nuked. And Nahiri still goes up. Oketra's Last Mercy seems hilarious to play against anything aggressive. Cast early and be able to live for five mana to cast it again with Dark-Dwellers. Suck it nerds!

Amonkat

I can't wait to see the RW split card too, as much as I hate their layout. They seem to be a lot stronger this time, and if one half costs one and the other half costs two, like some sort of removal, it's probably going to be a new four-of. I swear to god if it's a shitty five cost threaten I'ma be so pissed.

Crook of Condemnation for Control decks is going to blow, though. It doesn't replace itself like Relic does, and costs mana, but being able to target a card at instant speed is scary. Reason/Live looks nutso as well, and I do not look forward to people playing that against me. Supreme Will, Nimble Obstructor in Spirits decks, and Chandra's Defeat all seem like a bad time as well. WE WILL SEE, I S'POSE.

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Thanks for taking the time to read this! Be sure to start checking in on us right here, on Twitter @HeavySalami, and just kind of around. Someone should check in on Gaige too, cause I haven't seen him for like a month. Luckily we are renting a place together in a week, which is gonna be a hoot and a half. Expect more dumb decks, and maybe even streaming to pick back up on our Twitch Channel if we get real motivated somehow.

Like the deck? Have suggestions or a way better deck to share? Think Nahiri's stupid? That's fine, but you should know you're definitely wrong. Whatever is goin' on for you, shoot us a message by using the form to the right, or sends us an email at heavysalami@gmail.com.