Much Abrew: Conspiracy Unraveler Combo (Standard)
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Much Abrew About Nothing! Over the last few weeks, people have asked me to play one Standard card the most: Conspiracy Unraveler. I've gotten endless messages and emails saying that we should combo off with the card in Standard, so today, we're finally heading to Standard to unravel some conspiracies! The idea is pretty simple: loot a Conspiracy Unraveler or Breach the Multiverse into the graveyard, use Reenact the Crime to cast it for just four mana to get Conspiracy Unraveler, and then find Repository Skaab and exploit it to return Breach the Multiverse to our hand so we can free-cast it with the help of Conspiracy Unraveler. At this point, we should be functionally infinite—we reanimate the Skaab, exploit it to return Breach to our hand, free-cast it with Conspiracy Unraveler, and keep doing this until we mill our opponent's entire deck so we can pass the turn and make our opponent die to drawing on an empty library! How good is Conspiracy Unraveler in Standard? It is realistic to go infinite with the deck? Let's find out on today's Much Abrew!
Much Abrew: Conspiracy Unraveler Combo
Discussion
- First off, Conspiracy Unraveler Combo is absurd. All in all, I'm 14-2 with the deck, for a nearly 90% match-win percentage. While it can be beaten by graveyard hate, for some reason, graveyard hate still isn't that popular in Standard. Until people start respecting the graveyard, I think Conspiracy Unraveler Combo is a sleeper choice for best deck in the format.
- The idea is to loot aggressively in the early game with Collector's Vault, The Modern Age, and Kaito Shizuki. The looting serves two purposes: filling our graveyard and digging for our key combo pieces.
- Next up, we need to find a Reenact the Crime or a Beseech the Mirror (which can sacrifice a Kaito token, a The Modern Age, or Collector's Vault to tutor up and cast Reenact the Crime.
- At this point, our goal is to use Reenact the Crime (with the help of one of our looting cards) to get Conspiracy Unraveler. Sometimes, this means casting Conspiracy Unraveler directly with Reenact the Crime; other times, we use Breach the Multiverse to dig for Conspiracy Unraveler and cheat it into play.
- The real fun begins once we get Conspiracy Unraveler on the battlefield. While we can win just by beating down with the big flier (with the help of Atraxa, Grand Unifier), ideally, we'll just combo off and win the game on the spot. The combo revolves around the interactions between Breach the Multiverse, Conspiracy Unraveler, and Repository Skaab. We can use Conspiracy Unraveler to cast Breach the Multiverse for free and hopefully mill Repository Skaab to reanimate it. When we reanimate the Skaab, we can sacrifice it to itself, thanks to exploit, to return Breach the Multiverse to our hand. Thanks to the 10 cards we just milled with Breach, we should have enough mana value in our graveyard to cast Breach again for free with Conspiracy Unraveler. Once we get to this point, we're functionally infinite. We can keep going through this loop until we eventually mill our opponent's entire deck (and also our deck), at which point we can simply pass the turn, and our opponent will die during their draw step by drawing with an empty library!
- As I mentioned before, the backup plan (if we can't go infinite or find Repository Skaab) is to just beat down with big fliers. As a 6/6, Conspiracy Unraveler is a real clock, and doubly so if we can use it to cast an Atraxa.
- With our best draws, we can go infinite on Turn 4, which is pretty fast for a Standard combo deck, although going infinite on Turn 5 is more common.
- As far as matchups, our biggest worry is graveyard hate. Even though most Standard graveyard hate doesn't actually stop Breach the Multiverse, it's hard to win with Reenact the Crime if our opponent can keep our graveyard clean, which slows the deck down significantly. Graveyard hate also mutes the impact of Conspiracy Unraveler since we won't have enough cards in our graveyard to collect evidence and cast things for free.
- Discounting graveyard hate, midrange is our best matchup. Aggro is also fine, although decks like Boros can sometimes race us, especially if they are on the play. Meanwhile, control is tricky, although we can usually win eventually if we play around their interaction and build up enough mana to pay for things like No More Lies and Make Disappear—it just takes a lot longer than it does in other matchups.
- It's also worth mentioning that Reenact the Crime is an instant. While we usually cast it during our main phase so we can combo off (we can't do the Breach the Multiverse / Repository Skaab loop at instant speed), we sometimes can use Reenact the Crime during our opponent's turn to surprise reanimate an Atraxa or even to reanimate one of our opponent's bombs that they connive into the graveyard with a Raffine, Scheming Seer or discard to Liliana of the Veil.
- If you decide to try the deck, my best advice is to mulligan aggressively to find a looting effect. Without a Kaito, The Modern Age, or Collector's Vault, the deck can have some pretty clunky draws where you end up with a million seven-drops and no real way to get them on the battlefield. Here, the surveil lands help too, filling the graveyard and also helping us dig for our combo pieces.
- Finally, the sideboard is pretty straightforward. Duress and Deep-Cavern Bat come in against control to help us fight through counters, while Boarded Window and Path of Peril help against aggro. Boseiju, Who Endures will theoretically let us destroy graveyard hate, although it is a bit awkward that we have so little green mana, so it can be inconsistent, while Unlicensed Hearse lets us be a responsible gamer and stop opponents' graveyard decks.
- So, should you play Conspiracy Unraveler Combo in Standard? I think the answer is clearly yes. The deck feels pretty busted. Maybe eventually, players will start overloading on graveyard hate to stop it, but for now, it really feels like one of the best decks in the entire format. The deck is surprisingly consistent and, thanks to the Turn 4 combo potential, oddly fast. If you like the idea of reanimating things or comboing off in Standard, give Conspiracy Unraveler Combo a shot—the deck is pretty sweet!
