Brewer's Kitchen: Yorion's Loop Station
Well, hello there! Today we are playing Historic Brawl with the new additions from Jumpstart Historic Horizons. For over a year now, the community has been pretty vocal on social media, asking for a permanent Historic Brawl queue. And with the recent update we finally got it.
Today’s deck is called Yorion’s Loop Station. Build around… you guessed it: Yorion, Sky Nomad.
When Yorion enters the battlefield, we may exile any number of nonland permanents we control and return them to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step.
The deck is packed full of permanents that generate value when entering the battlefield. All the way from drawing cards to stealing our opponents’ permanents. We also play some clean interaction and cards that help us gain even more value out of our payoffs.
Early Game
We spend the early turns setting up for our first Yorion trigger. One-drops are the hardest to find for this gameplan. But the ones we have are amazing. Soul Warden gains large amounts of life once we start looping our board and is our best insurance against early aggro.
Thraben Inspector will generate multiple clues over the course of the game to refuel our hand in the late game. Overwhelmed Apprentice is the weakest of the three but its scrying helps us improve our draws for the next few turns.
Legion's Landing is not a creature which limits its synergies with the rest of the deck but can be targeted by Yorion to create tokens.
The two/three-drops are the bread and butter of the deck. Almost all of them generate some form of value when entering the battlefield. Since we have a hard time ramping in Blue/White we want to make sure to play cards like Farfinder, Chrome Courier, and The Birth of Meletis to ensure land drops. On the draw we can also ramp with Loyal Warhound.
All of this sets up for Yorion. To get the most value out of it, we can play a Charming Prince, Soulherder, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling or Teleportation Circle. This way we can trigger Yorion again and start looping our permanents every turn cycle.
Mid Game
The Midgame is very dependent on our opponent. If they don’t interact with our board or pressure our life total, we can generate absurd amounts of value with every passing turn cycle. If we assemble a Yorion-loop, every permanent we play will enter the battlefield again and again.
As fun as this sounds, we usually spend the mid-game slowly trading up on resources against interaction and aggro. Cards like Lumbering Lightshield, Man-o'-War and Mesmerizing Benthid do a great job at slowing down aggression. Cloudblazer, Fblthp, the Lost and several other cards in the deck create card advantage.
Once we resolve a Yorion, we are in the business.
A lot of cards in deck allow us to exile and return it to the battlefield again to repeat the trigger but not all of them work the same way.
First of all, we play spells like Ephemerate to trigger Yorion again at instant speed. This can either save it from a removal spell or be used for value to trigger our permanents again.
Then we got cards that exile and return a creature every end step. Soulherder, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling and Teleportation Circle can trigger Yorion turn after turn. Since our permanents will return at the beginning of the next end step they will all reenter the battlefield at our opponent's next end step. Don’t get too greedy and exile all of your blockers for value, only to die before ever untapping again (I speak from experience here…).
The other way to trigger Yorion again is by targeting Restoration Angel, Charming Prince or Spark Double with it. Once they enter the battlefield again, we can target Yorion with their trigger to start the loop over.
Late Game
The late game is pretty much a scaled-up version of the gameplan. The more permanents we loop, the more value we get, the more permanents we can play. The deck almost never wins with damage. We either die or make the opponents concede to our ungodly amounts of value. While the lower part of our mana curve helps us generate card advantage, cards like Elspeth Conquers Death, Meteor Golem and Agent of Treachery will mess with our opponents' board whenever they enter the battlefield. Historic Brawl has a lot of decks with extremely powerful late games though. Some opponents may gain thousands of life or create an overwhelming board state. To close out the game for good, we can play Time Warp and return it every turn with either Shipwreck Dowser or Scholar of the Ages plus a repeated exile / return effect. At this point we take infinite turns. In the absolute niche case that our opponent still got enough life to prevent us from winning before we run out of cards to draw, we can trigger Overwhelmed Apprentice again and again to mill them out.
Interaction
As any Historic Brawl deck should, we play interaction to keep our opponent in check. Efficient interaction like Swords to Plowshares and Counterspell are an auto-include in almost any White/Blue deck. Some of our payoff creatures like Barrin, Tolarian Archmage or Skyclave Apparition can repeatedly be triggered to interact with the board as well. The only thing missing is a board wipe. I tried playing Dusk // Dawn to medium success but in the end, we just try to clog up the ground enough to stop creature aggro by blocking.
Cards that didn’t make the cut
When building the deck I had to make a bunch of cuts. Especially with the “enter the battlefield” theme, there are a lot of cards that can arguably be swapped out for others in this deck. If your collection is missing some of the cards, you can easily find replacements.
Here’s a list of possible inclusions:
Card Advantage:
Cavalier of Gales, Champion of Wits, Cloudkin Seer, Disciple of the Sun, Faceless Agent, Mentor of the Meek, Militia Bugler, Nadaar, Selfless Paladin, Niambi, Esteemed Speaker, Sea Gate Oracle, Skittering Surveyor, Skyscanner, Tome Raider,
Interaction:
Angel of Sanctions, Cavalier of Dawn, Dream Eater, Fairgrounds Warden, Frost Trickster, Tempest Caller, River's Rebuke
Board Presence:
Aven Eternal, Aviation Pioneer, Hanged Executioner, Harmonious Archon, Omen of the Sun, Reverent Hoplite, Whirler Rogue
Life gain / staying alive:
Angel of Grace, Brightmare, Dawnbringer Cleric, Dwarven Priest, Forbidding Spirit, Icebreaker Kraken, Inspiring Cleric
Retriggering Yorion:
Oath of Teferi, Vizier of Deferment, Wispweaver Angel
Tips and Tricks
While a 100 card singleton deck will have countless different card interactions worth mentioning, I’ll go over some of the most important ones in this section.
If you want to fizzle a removal spell with a card like Ephemerate, keep in mind that you can protect other permanents by targeting Yorion and then exiling that permanent and others (for value) with Yorion’s trigger.
Even though we are only playing two colors, the deck still manages to get value out of Field of the Dead. When searching your deck for lands, make sure you get your snow basics as well as regular ones to activate the Field as fast as possible.
Agent of Treachery is insane in the deck but also devastating when your opponent plays it. If they steal our Thassa, Deep-Dwelling or Soulherder they will quickly take over the game. Charming Prince can target creatures you “own”. If one of your creatures got stolen, you can exile it with the prince to regain control of it.
The usual Yorion loops will trigger every end step. If you hide Yorion and other creatures underneath a Lumbering Battlement or Glorious Protector you can get even more triggers of everything each turn cycle. I showcase a board state like this in the beginning of my video.
Addition in the Future
Historic is a constantly growing format. It’s very likely that we get a bunch of new cards for the deck in the future. Here are some of my favorites:
Wall of Omens would be the perfect two-drop for the deck. Its defensive stats and repeatable card draw fit the gameplan perfectly.
Flickerwisp could serve as another way to start a Yorion-loop. A 3/1 flyer might also be enough to close the game if the ground is clogged up with blockers.
Endless Sands would be a sweet utility land to grind out value when the game goes really long.
Venser, Shaper Savant is a great tempo play and could repeatedly return our opponents permanents to their hand.
Recruiter of the Guard could tutor up a lot of great cards whenever it enters the battlefield.
Solitude is Swords to Plowshares on a stick but probably too powerful for Historic.
Felidar Guardian would be the perfect fit for the deck but is unlikely to enter the format due to its interaction with Saheeli Rai.
Reflector Mage could be an insane tempo play and even though it got banned in Standard, I’m not sure it would be too powerful for Historic.
Wrap Up
Historic Brawl is a wild format. While the deck looks insane on paper, our opponent's aggression and interaction is often strong enough to keep us from going off at full potential. But the games where we do so are some of the most fun I’ve had recently on Arena.
Just a heads up: Your opponent will most likely scoop before you take infinite turns or loop ten permanents every turn cycle.
A lot of players have been complaining about the broken matchmaking system in the format. And while I agree to some degree, that is a topic for another article. For now, I’m happy that Historic Brawl is finally a permanent play mode and can’t wait to test out all the new cards for Jumpstart Historic Horizons and the upcoming Innistrad Midnight Hunt.
If you have questions or ideas for this or any deck, you can reach me on Twitter @Brewers_Kitchen or at brewerskitchen@mtggoldfish.com.
