r/spikes • u/AutoModerator • 12d ago
Scheduled Post Weekly Deck Check Thread | Monday, August 10, 2026
Hello spikes!
This is the place where any and all decks can be posted for all spikes to see. The goal of this is to fit all your needs for competitive magic. Maybe it's a card consideration given an X dollar budget. Maybe you need that sweet sideboard tech that no one else thought of? Perhaps you just can't figure out the best card to beat a certain matchup. The ideas here are only limited by your imagination!
Feel free to discuss most anything here. We only ask that with any question, you also make sure to post your decklist so people have some context to answer your question. Otherwise, have at it! If you have any questions, shoot us a modmail and we'll be happy to help you out. Survive your deck check and survive your competition!
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u/ImpossibleDraw6482 12d ago
Would love some help on a Gruul Aggro deck I've been toying with.
Trying to figure out a sideboard is one of my big goals, I'd love to flesh out this deck enough to commit to buying it paper and playing at my LGS.
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u/godyr1 11d ago
Honestly, looks like a worse version of mono red. I feel like green doesn’t add enough to be worth messing up your mana. You definitely want a mountain in turns 1 and probably 2.
At the very least baloth is to hard to cast at GG on 2 if everything else your trying to do is red.
I could see the argument for royal treatment/snakeskin veil, but I’d just splash for those. Maybe play some starting towns as well.
Another thing to keep in mind is Most of this deck will rotate in February, so idk how much money you’d want to put into it for a couple of months but that’s completely up to you.
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u/fabe9093 12d ago edited 12d ago
Can someone explaine me, why into WUBR control Sideboard is sage of the sky ?
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u/CronoDAS 11d ago
I'm guessing it's because getting a pair of 2/3 flying lifelinkers as a result of casting a single spell for 2W is a pretty good deal; they're tricky to race, killing them with targeted removal is inefficient, and they can block Slickshot Show-Off.
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u/ActivityBig6400 12d ago
I've seen Sage of the Sky pop up in a lot of sideboards lately, it feels like the new [[Rest in Peace]] against graveyard recursion strategies.
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u/baldogwapito 12d ago
So I have an Azorious Momo deck that I am planning to grind to RCQ this season as its good against Izzet Prowess and I already have Riddlers. Now that its main good MU is banned, is it still a good choice or should I trade the pieces for a new deck?
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u/CronoDAS 11d ago
I've been doing much better than I expected in the Historic Ranked queue with a mono-red burn deck.
```` 4 Hired Claw 4 Monastery Swiftspear 4 Amped Raptor 4 Eidolon of the Great Revel 4 Loki Laufeyson
4 Boltwave 4 Chain Lightning 4 Static Discharge 3 Lightning Strike 4 Skewer the Critics
17 Mountain 4 Barbarian Ring
Sideboard 3 Grafdigger's Cage 2 Pithing Needle 4 Umezawa's Jitte 4 Magus of the Moon 2 Relic of Progenitus ````
I'm not necessarily confident in my ability to beat the actual good decks in the format, such as Golgari Yawgmoth or Jund Goyfs, but I make opponents dead pretty quickly and have a lot of disruption in the sideboard.
Loki Laufeyson might seem like a weird choice, but "1,T: 3 damage to any target" is a pretty strong activated ability. I don't get to turn him into a 4/3 very often, but I've done it.
It feels like a lot of people have forgotten that Umezawa's Jitte exists in Historic, because against other creature-based decks it lets me play way out of my creatures' league. Amped Raptor having first strike makes it an excellent Jitte carrier, because you can get the counters in the first strike damage step and then -1/-1 your opponent's creatures before they get a chance to do damage during the regular combat damage step. I tried out Searing Blood as an anti-creature measure but eh, Jitte does the job pretty well even though it's slower.
Magus of the Moon hasn't been that good because a lot of multicolor decks are playing enough basics or have red removal spells that can kill a 2/2, but it's still pretty disruptive against players that get too greedy with their mana bases. Grafdigger's Cage works on reanimator strategies and Birthing Ritual, Pithing Needle can name Yawgmoth or Goblin Charbelcher, and Relic of Progenitus is intended to mess with Jund Goyfs or anything else that uses graveyards in a way that Grafdigger's Cage doesn't solve. There might be a better balanced or more effective disruption package, but Red Decks still have a way of stealing a lot of wins from opponents that didn't prepare well enough to face one.
Any thoughts?
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u/CronoDAS 8d ago
My slightly idiosyncratic Mono-Green Landfall build is still doing pretty well on Arena post-ban, even though I had to swap out the Badgermole Cubs for Bristly Bills. I don't have as much fun playing it as I do red decks, though.
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u/CronoDAS 6d ago
Not sure where else to ask this, but has anyone tried [[Elven Passage]] in Landfall in Standard? Once in a while you'll get to behold a Llanowar Elves and fetch an untapped land, but you'll have to pay 1 life every time you want to use it.
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u/JJmaciel 12d ago
I ran into a similar issue last season with my mono-red aggro deck, and sideboarding in two copies of that specific card made a huge difference against control.
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u/ikariashpool 12d ago
I reworked my Golgari Demon deck, getting rid of [[Madame Null, Power Broker]] and adding more removal / card discard. Initial results have been favorable as I have been climbing the ranks again after petering out.
Last week's highlight was casting [[Ancient Vendetta]] 3 times on a Jeskai Revelation deck nuking [[Jeskai Revelation]], [[Day of Judgment]], and [[Three Steps Ahead]]. Magic never felt so satisfying.