Against the Odds: Cursed Recording Combo (Standard)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Against the Odds! The other day, I opened up my email and found a message from Bant4Lyfe that promised to include a sweet new combo for Standard. So, I opened up the email to find something spectacular: an 11-step combo that allows you to win the game by resolving a single Beseech the Mirror with a Cursed Recording on the battlefield! I immediately set about brewing, and the end result is the Cursed Recording Combo deck we're playing today, which is about as close as you can get to playing a Timeless- or even Legacy-style Storm deck in Standard! How can we combo off with Cursed Recording? What are the odds of winning by resolving a single Beseech the Mirror? Let's get to the video and find out on today's Against the Odds!
Against the Odds: Cursed Recording Combo
The Deck
So, record-wise, we finished 6-5 with the deck, although honestly, we should have been at least 7-4 since one of our wins came from not going into full control mode at the right time during the combo, where we were literally 100% to win the game! All this is to say, I think that Cursed Recording Combo might actually be at least somewhat competitive! Most of the cards in our deck don't really matter—they are removal or card draw to find our combo pieces or to help us stay alive until we get our combo online. (The fastest we can win is Turn 5.) So, rather than talking about every single card in the deck, let's focus on the steps to complete the combo. While there are variations to the loop, most of the time, we win the game by repeating the same 11-ish steps. If you want to win with the deck, here's what you need to memorize.
Step 1: Activate Cursed Mirror
Step 2: Cast Beseech the Mirror Bargaining Cursed Mirror
This will give us two copies of Beseech the Mirror, which we can use to tutor up and cast anything in our deck with mana value four or less.
Step 3: Tutor and Cast Cursed Recording
The first copy of Beseech the Mirror resolves, and we us it to tutor up another copy of Cursed Mirror.
Step 4: Activate the New Cursed Recording
Here, it is super important to go into full control mode on Magic Arena. If you don't, you won't be able to activate it before the second Beseech the Mirror resolves, and the combo will fizzle.
Step 5: Tutor and Cast Another Beseech the Mirror, Bargaining Cursed Record
Yep, we're doing this again...
Step 6: Tutor and Cast Stormsplitter
When the first copy of Beseech the Mirror resolves, we grab our finisher, Stormsplitter, which will make a token copy of itself whenever we cast an instant or sorcery spell.
Step 7: Tutor and Cast Reenact the Crime, Targeting Beseech the Mirror in the Graveyard
When the second Beseech the Mirror resolves, we tutor up and cast a Reenact the Crime to target the Beseech the Mirror in the graveyard. This will trigger Stormsplitter to make a copy of itself, giving us two Stormsplitters.
Step 8: Cast Beseech the Mirror from the Graveyard, Bargaining the Token Stormsplitter
Now, we cast the Beseech the Mirror from the graveyard with Reenact the Crime, bargaining away the token copy of Stormsplitter. This will trigger the remaining Stormsplitter, leaving us with two copies of Stormsplitter.
Step 9: Tutor and Cast Reenact the Crime, Targeting Reenact the Crime in the Graveyard
Now, we use the new Beseech the Mirror to tutor up and cast a Reenact the Crime, targeting the Reenact the Crime in our graveyard. This will trigger both Stormsplitters, giving us four total copies.
Step 10: Cast Reenact the Crime from the Graveyard, Targeting Beseech the Mirror in the Graveyard
Now, we cast the second Reenact the Crime to flashback Beseech the Mirror, bargaining away a Stormsplitter token. This will trigger our Stormsplitters, leaving us with seven total copies after we sacrifice a token.
11: Tutor as Many Beseech the Mirrors / Reenact the Crimes as Possible to Make a Ton of Stormsplitters
At this point, we tutor up as many Beseech the Mirrors and / or Reenact the Crimes as we have left in our deck, doubling our Stormsplitters each time. Depending on exactly how many we have drawn, this will make more than enough Stormsplitters to win the game. With all the copies of Beseech and Reenact in the deck, we can make hundreds of hasty tokens!
Wrap-Up
And that's the combo. It sounds complicated, but outside of needing to go into full control for step four (which, again is super important—missing this will fizzle the combo), it's pretty easy to memorize once you do it a few times. We've got enough copies of all of our key combo pieces that we can draw one and still have enough action to combo off and win. Plus, we have Volcanic Spite to put combo pieces back in our deck if we happen to draw them early.
We can also win by hard-casting a Stormsplitter and then casting a Beseech the Mirror, bargaining away a random token from something like Fountainport or Collector's Vault, and then looping Beseech the Mirrors and Reenact the Crimes until we have enough Otters to win.
A couple of other notes about the deck. First, targeted removal can fizzle the combo, but we can prevent this by leaving up an instant that we can cast in response, to make another copy of Stormsplitter. If you are worried about removal, it's often worth trying to wait an extra turn before going for the win. Second, if we're worried about facing too many hate cards, we can also bring in Urabrask's Forge from the sideboard as a backup way to win the game since the only way we can win with our main deck is Stormsplitter, Fountainport tokens, or reanimating something from our opponent's deck with Reenact the Crime (which is tough since we don't really have blue mana unless we can make Treasure tokens with Collector's Vault).
Conclusion
All in all, the combo is awesome! I'm super impressed that Bant4Lyfe figured it out! While there is a bit of a deckbuilding cost, the combo is only two cards, and I think there might be a chance that it's at least semi-competitive in Standard, although it probably will get a bit worse once people know what we are up to. Right now, people aren't especially scared of Cursed Recording, which makes it pretty easy to play it, have it stick around for a turn or two, and then combo off. It gets harder when people realize that we can win at any moment once we have a Cursed Recording on the battlefield since our opponents will focus on killing it. But for now, it's a hilarious way to get some free wins once you memorize the loop!
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.
