My Upkeep Took 10 Minutes to Resolve | Brewer's Kitchen
Hello there! Brewer’s Kitchen here and today we’re gonna have another one of those videos where I have to edit out a ton of the clicking in Arena’s interface. While we’ll act like a regular Wizard ETB deck for the first turns of the game, once the moment is right, we’re gonna hit them with an infinite combo out of nowhere.
Gameplan
Looking at the deck list, it appears like a generic Wizard/Human/Bink deck. Naban, Dean of Iteration will double up all ETB (Enters the Battlefield) triggers from Wizards we control. While most of the creatures in this deck are Wizards, in the end, we’re not really using it primarily to double up triggers for value. Most of the cards in this deck have a reason to be in the deck that might not be obvious at first. Before we go into the details, let’s first explain our combo.
Naru Meha, Master Wizard will copy an instant or sorcery we control when it enters the battlefield. Now just imagine what would happen, if we copied a spell that triggers this ability again like Ephemerate. And just like that, we go infinite.
With Ephemerate on the stack, we can flash in Naru Meha, copy the Ephemerate, use it to blink herself, retrigger her copy trigger, target Emhemerate again, repeat infinitely.
With the context of this combo in mind, the deck list makes a lot more sense. While it’s kind of a nombo to play Thalia's Lieutenant with non-humans like Soulherder or not triggering double with Naban, Dean of Iteration, it will grow infinitely large when we combo off.
The same is true for Soulherder. While blinking a creature every end step is neat for vale, we actually play it to infinitely trigger its second ability, turning it into a huge creature when comboing off.
Sage's Row Denizen is probably the weirdest inclusion in the deck. While it seems obvious in the context of the combo, slamming a Thalia's Lieutenant into a Denizen on turn three will look like we’re just playing random cards.
Now if we combine the Naru Meha loop with Naban, Dean of Iteration, we’ll end up with two copies of Ephemerate with every loop, allowing us to use them on our other creatures. This will let us infinitely blink our entire board. Cards like Aether Channeler or Reflector Mage can clear the way for our infinitely big attackers, and Overwhelmed Apprentice will just mill out the opponent on the spot.
The fact that Plan B of the deck is curving Naban into Wizards like Reflector Mage gives the deck a lot of tempo advantage to set up the combo. Just make sure, you don’t run into Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines since our one-off Otawara, Soaring City is our only way to keep it off the board for a turn.
Wrap Up
This deck was super fun to play since every creature brings with it a bit of value, allowing for a solid gameplan if the opponent has too much interaction to go for the combo. Regardless of this, the coolest part was the insane bug we ran into in game two. I’m not gonna spoil anything in case you haven’t watched the video yet but that was certainly the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen happen on Arena.
If you have questions or ideas for this or any other deck, you can reach me on Twitter @Brewers_Kitchen or at brewerskitchen@mtggoldfish.com.
