Against the Odds: Smothering Tentacles (Standard, Magic Arena)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 227 of Against the Odds. Last week, we had another Theros: Beyond Death Against the Odds poll, and Nadir Kraken #332 came out on top. As such, we're heading to Theros: Beyond Death Standard today to make some Tentacles. Lots and lots of Tentacles. While Nadir Kraken #332 is the centerpiece of our deck, our plan for building around Nadir Kraken #332 is pretty spicy, involving making tons of mana with the help of Smothering Tithe #22, Emergency Powers #169, and Nyxbloom Ancient #190, which will allow us to make tons of Tentacles and some huge Nadir Kraken #332s as we draw through our deck. Eventually, we will find our copies of Kenrith, the Returned King #303 to give our Tentacles haste and smash our opponent with a horde of sea monsters! What crazy things can we do with Nadir Kraken #332 in Standard, and what are the odds that we will actually win some games with our Tentacles? Let's get to the video and find out in today's Against the Odds; then, we'll talk more about the deck!
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Against the Odds: Smothering Tentacles (Pioneer)
The Deck
When Nadir Kraken #332 won the pool, I was pretty sure we were going one of two directions. The first deck I tried was a Hydra's Growth #172 / Nadir Kraken #332 build looking to make a single Nadir Kraken #332 as big as possible by adding counters to it and doubling them each turn with the aura. While the idea was sort of fun and funny when it worked, the deck itself was pretty boring, playing like a Bogles deck looking to protect Nadir Kraken #332 with Karametra's Blessing #26 and Alseid of Life's Bounty #143 and drawing cards with Setessan Champion #198 Planeswalker Stamp. The second plan for Nadir Kraken #332 was more or less what we ended up with: make a bunch of mana, draw a bunch of cards, and try to make a ton of Tentacles to win the game. However, while building the deck, I had no idea how over-the-top explosive and fun the deck would end up being in practice!
Nadir Kraken #332 wants us to do two things: draw a bunch of cards to trigger its "+1/+1 counter and create a Tentacle token" ability and have a bunch of mana to repeatedly pay for the ability. As such, our deck is a weird mashup of ramp and card draw that actually plays more like a combo deck than traditional ramp or control.
Growth Spiral #88 and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath #277 are the perfect ramp spells for a Nadir Kraken #332 deck because along with ramping us, they also draw us a card, which triggers Nadir Kraken #332. With a Nadir Kraken #332 on the battlefield, we can cast something like Growth Spiral #88, draw a card and put a land into play, and then use the land to pay for Nadir Kraken #332's ability to grow the Kraken and make a Tentacle. As such, both Growth Spiral #88 and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath #277 are great with Nadir Kraken #332 on their own, while also helping to support our meta-gameplan of ramping into some powerful seven-mana cards...
Wolfwillow Haven #246 and Nissa, Who Shakes the World #84 Imagine: Critters Foil are our backup ramp spells. While they don't work directly with Nadir Kraken #332, they do help us get up to seven mana, which is where our huge Tentacle combo turn can happen. Normally, I try to avoid playing Nissa, Who Shakes the World #84 Imagine: Critters Foil because it sees so much play in tier decks and players (including myself) are tired of its power, but in this case, the awesomeness of our combo turns makes it worth playing Nissa to make them work.
Smothering Tithe #22 does double duty in our deck. On one hand, it's another ramp spell, making us Treasure tokens as our opponent draws cards (unless they pay mana, which they rarely do). On the other hand, it's also an essential piece to our combo along with Emergency Powers #169. Emergency Powers #169 allows our deck to do absurd things. If we can cast Emergency Powers #169 on our turn with a Smothering Tithe #22 on the battlefield and our opponent mostly tapped out, we'll get to draw seven cards, make seven Treasures (which we can either use to pay for seven Nadir Kraken #332 triggers to make a bunch of Tentacles or, if we happen to draw into another copy of Emergency Powers #169, cast another copy to repeat the process), and also put a permanent from our hand onto the battlefield...
Ideally, the permanent we put onto the battlefield will be Nyxbloom Ancient #190, at which point things get really crazy. Even though we have to sacrifice them, Treasure tokens technically tap for mana, which means once Nyxbloom Ancient #190 hits the battlefield, all of our Treasure tokens will suddenly turn from Lotus Petal #1601s to copies of Black Lotus. With a single Nyxbloom Ancient #190 on the battlefield alongside a single Smothering Tithe #22, a resolved copy of Emergency Powers #169 will make 21 mana in Treasures (with multiple Smothering Tithe #22s or Nyxbloom Ancient #190s, we will basically have infinite mana). This allows us to pay for Nadir Kraken #332's triggered ability as many times as we can trigger it, while also drawing through our deck by chaining Emergency Powers #169 (which makes more mana each time) and other card-draw spells...
If we are lacking a copy of Emergency Powers #169 or a way to win the game, Hydroid Krasis #212 gives us a backup card-draw spell that we can sink all of our (hopefully tripled by Nyxbloom Ancient #190) mana into, hopefully drawing us into another Emergency Powers #169 or our finisher...
Eventually, as we cast a bunch of Emergency Powers #169 and Hydroid Krasis #212es, we'll find our one copy of Kenrith, the Returned King #303. By this point, we should have at least 40 or 50 Tentacle tokens along with a few 10- or 20-power Nadir Kraken #332s, so we can just cast Kenrith, the Returned King #303, use it to give all of our creatures trample and haste, and smash in at our opponent for a hundred damage or more out of nowhere! If something goes wrong, Kenrith, the Returned King #303 also enables a weird backup combo that can force our opponent to deck themselves by making them draw their entire deck. If we can get Kenrith, Nyxbloom Ancient #190, and two copies of Smothering Tithe #22 on the battlefield, we can activate Kenrith, the Returned King #303's card-draw ability targeting our opponent for four mana, which then makes two Treasure tokens worth a total of six mana thanks to Smothering Tithe #22. Doing this over and over again technically makes infinite mana but also just directly kills our opponent since eventually they will draw every card in their deck and lose to drawing a card with an empty library!
Matchups
Probably the most challenging matchup for Smothering Tentacles is dedicated aggro like Mono-Red. As we saw in the videos, our deck can go over the top of anything in Standard, even decks built to go over the rest of the format, like Simic Ramp. On the other hand, we can have some slow hands, and we don't have much instant-speed interaction, which means a pile of aggressive red creatures backed by Embercleave #120 can be a problem, especially if our draw is slow.
The Odds
All in all, we only got in four matches with Smothering Tentacles because just those four matches took more than three hours before editing. While Smothering Tentacles certainly isn't a fast deck, it was effective, considering we went 4-0, making Smothering Tentacles about as good as it gets for an Against the Odds deck. More importantly, Smothering Tentacles is perhaps the most fun deck we've played in Theros: Beyond Death Standard. The combo turns are some of the craziest, most over-the-top things you can do in the format, where we basically have infinite cards and mana and are only limited by the amount of time we have on our clock. Add in some funny backup infinite combos that happen almost by accident (like forcing our opponent to draw their deck with Kenrith, the Returned King #303), and Smothering Tentacles was just not oddly competitive but also amazingly fun to play!
Vote for Next Week's Deck
Next week we'll get back to normal with polls that feature a variety of sets, but for this week we're giving some Theros: Beyond Death cards that have fallen just short on recent polls once more chance at glory. Which of these cards that have come in second or third in recent Against the Odds polls should we build around next week (most likely in Standard)? Let us know by voting below!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today! Don't forget to vote for next week's deck! 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.
