Meme or Dream? Can I Make Discover Combo Work in Standard?
Welcome back to Meme or Dream?, the series where we take janky-looking decks that have found success on Magic Arena and put them to the test to find out if they are as janky as they look, making them a meme, or sneakily powerful, making them a dream! We normally play decks Wizards publishes on Magic.gg for Meme or Dream?, but we're doing something a bit different today: we're playing a wacky viewer-submitted deck whose creator—Stone Rain Productions—used to go 5-1 on Magic Arena. The idea is to bring discover combo—which has found success in older formats—to Standard! The challenge is that we can't combo with Geological Appraiser since Standard doesn't have any three-mana clones, or Quintorius Kand since Standard has no planeswalker clones. This means we need to try to combo off with Trumpeting Carnosaur, meaning we can't play any non-combo pieces that cost less than six mana, giving us an absurdly high curve. Sure, there are some ways to cheat by playing high-mana-value spells that we can cast for less mana, but still, this probably has the highest average mana value of any deck I've ever played in Standard.
There's also another weird quirk of the deck: normally, with discover combo, you are guaranteed to win the game if you can resolve your discover card and dodge removal, but today's deck is a bit different. If we resolve a Trumpeting Carnosaur, there are 12 total cards we can discover: 11 clones (Mirrorhall Mimic, Undercover Operative, and See Double) and a single Imodane's Recruiter. The idea of Imodane's Recruiter is that it can give our massive board of Carnosaurs haste so we can win right away, dodging sweepers like Sunfall, which is super important in Standard. The problem is it means if we resolve a Trumpeting Carnosaur, we're not 100% to win the game; instead, there's a roughly 8% chance that our first discover hits Imodane's Recruiter and we fizzle. It's actually a bit scarier than this. We usually need three Carnosaurs to win the game, which means we lose if either of our first two discovers hits Recruiter. The upside of dodging Sunfall probably makes it worth the cost, but it's still a bit awkward that we can pay such a big cost in deck building to make the discover plan work, dodge removal, resolve our combo piece, and still lose!
In the end, even though the deck looks pretty janky, it ended up being a dream! We went 4-1 with the deck, which is a shockingly good record for such a wacky brew, and the deck could potentially be even better! Moving Vanquish the Horde into the main deck would help against aggro. Another easy addition is Cavern of Souls to make sure we can resolve a Trumpeting Carnosaur. I'm also not sure if Imodane's Recruiter is worth it in the main deck. If you look at the most played decks in Standard, you'll see that only Domain and Orzhov Midrange are playing wraths in the main. Considering how Recruiter can fizzle our combo, it might be better to start with it in the sideboard. Against non-wrath decks, we don't need to haste up our team to win, so we can make sure our combo is 100% in the main deck. Then, if we play against a wrath deck, we can bring in Recruiter as a counter, paying a price in consistency to dodge our opponent's sweepers.
All in all, though, even in its current form, Discover Combo in Standard was way, way better than I expected. If you want to jank people out by resolving a single Dinosaur, give the deck a shot! It's hilarious and works way better than it should!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
