Much Abrew: Saga Storm (Standard)
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. There's nothing I like more in all of Magic than drawing cards, so today, we're heading to Standard to draw some cards with Rite of Harmony—lots and lots of them—with a deck I'm calling Saga Storm! The idea is to play Rite of Harmony with Sagas that make creatures (like Teachings of the Kirin and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker), so we'll draw one card when the enchantment saga comes into play and another when the creature the saga makes is created. In a perfect world, we'll also have Hallowed Haunting on the battlefield, which will make a token when the enchantment enters the battlefield, giving us yet another card with Rite of Harmony. With the help of cost reduction from Jukai Naturalist, we can have some massive storm-style turns where we draw through our deck and build a massive, unbeatable board of tokens! How many cards can we draw with Rite of Harmony in Standard with Saga Storm? Let's get to the video and find out on today's Much Abrew About Nothing!
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Much Abrew: Saga Storm
Discussion
- Not only is Saga Storm my current favorite deck to play in Standard, but it's also surprisingly good! While we went 3-1 in our video matches overall, I have a 68% win rate with the deck over 22 matches and am 7-1 with the latest version of the deck (the one we played in today's video). The deck beats up on almost all of the black decks at the top of the meta and is incredibly fun to play!
- The main goal is to generate overwhelming amounts of card advantage with Rite of Harmony and then win the game with Hallowed Haunting tokens or Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr. Without any extra help on the battlefield, a single Rite of Harmony will turn Teachings of the Kirin and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker into draw-twos. But we can often generate even more card advantage than that. If we also happen to have a Hallowed Haunting on the battlefield, every enchantment cast will draw us an extra card from the Spirit token it makes, while the token from Wedding Announcement or a flipped The Restoration of Eiganjo can also draw us a card.
- On the topic of card advantage, one trick is that we don't just draw cards from the enchantments we cast during our Rite of Harmony turn. If we get the timing right, we will also get to draw with the sagas that flip since they'll exile themselves and come back as creatures. As such, the deck often wants to have an upkeep stop set so we can cast Rite of Harmony before our sagas flip into creatures at the start of our first main phase to get a little bit more card advantage.
- As far as actually winning the game, we'll eventually find Hallowed Hauntings and Jukai Naturalist as we draw through our deck, which let us have a bit storm-style turn where we cast a bunch of enchantments, make a huge board of Spirit tokens, and kill our opponent with a single attack. If we can get a Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr in the graveyard, we can usually win right away by using its aura side on a creature and swinging for lethal, without letting our opponent untap.
- Speaking of Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr, it's one of the most important cards in our deck. Not only does it work as a finisher, but being a bid lifelinker also is one of our best ways to beat aggro decks and catch back up after spending our first few turns setting things up by playing somewhat underpowered enchantments. While we do sometimes cast it as a creature, most often, we want to get it in the graveyard with [Fable of the Mirror-Breaker]]'s rummaging or The Restoration of Eiganjo's discard ability so we can use it as an aura to get in an attack with a huge lifelinking flier right away.
- One of the upsides of Saga Storm is that it dunks on all the black decks at the top of the meta, with a couple of exceptions. The biggest is Jund. While we have a great matchup against nearly all black-splash decks, Jund specifically is a brutal matchup because it randomly has a bunch of ways to kill enchantments, like Titan of Industry, Unleash the Inferno, and Tear Asunder. The other issue is Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Sheoldred's ability to drain us whenever we draw a card is brutal, pretty much completely shutting down our Rite of Harmony combo turns. When I first started playing the deck, our only way to answer a Sheoldred in the main deck was to try to gain a bunch of life with Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr. But it didn't feel like enough, so I added Touch the Spirit Realm to the deck, and things got much better.
- Speaking of Touch the Spirit Realm, outside of exiling Sheoldred, its channel mode can do some sweet tricks with our sagas. If we manage to flip a Teachings of the Kirin, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, or The Restoration of Eiganjo, we can use Touch the Spirit Realm to flicker it, returning it back to the battlefield as a saga and letting us reuse its abilities. We can also do this during our big Rite of Harmony turn, which makes Touch the Spirit Realm more than just a combo piece in our deck.
- So, should you play Saga Storm in Standard? I think the answer is pretty clearly yes. The deck is a blast to play, draws a ton of cards, and is even good, as a bonus! If you're tired of playing black decks, give Saga Storm a shot—you'll love it! Just make sure to set that upkeep stop on Arena so you don't miss out on any card draw!
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.
