How One Deck Overcame the Crowd

As the Magic: The Gathering World Championship XXVIII comes to a close, it's time to take a look at deck diversity.

American player Nathan Steuer piloted a standard Grixis Midrange deck to victory over Eli Kassis in three games in the recently concluded Magic world championship. The Grixis Midrange deck is a Blue/Red/Black deck that can do almost anything. It features efficient creatures such as Bloodtithe Harvester and Corpse Appraiser, which are used as common turn 2 or turn 3 drops. Additionally, it boasts the incredibly powerful Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and the mid-game bomb, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

Among the 32 top players, 21 piloted an Esper Midrange deck, many of which included current standard staples such as Raffine, Scheming Seer, and Dennick, Pious Apprentice. Three of the top four decks were Esper Midrange, with the only exception being the deck piloted by the winner, Nathan Steuer.

The most frequently used cards were Tenacious Underdog, Wedding Announcement, and Raffine, Scheming Seer, which appeared in 15, 15, and 14 decks respectively.

White and black currently offer the most efficient means of destroying creatures, with a 1-mana Cut Down, a 2-mana Infernal Grasp, and a 2-mana Destroy Evil (which also deals with enchantments, ahem Fable of the Mirror Breaker).

Esper Midrange scales well into the late game, with Raffine, the Scheming Seer able to power up creatures almost indefinitely. And with flying, he's just a little bit more annoying than he has to be. Despite the incredible depth that these 21 Esper decks had, they were still beaten by the only deck of its kind in the top 32. The reason for this is that Nathan Steuer's Grixis deck, which I have piloted for about a week now, is extremely effective.

The deck uses Sheoldred to great effect. With a well-timed Sheoldred and Invoke Despair, you can sometimes gain six life, have your opponent lose six life, and draw three cards on turn 5. This is INSANE when executed correctly. Additionally, you still have a beefy 4/5 blocker with deathtouch. If your opponent is able to come back from an Invoke Despair with a Sheoldred out, more power to them.

The way blood tokens and Reckoner Bankbuster are used is also highly efficient. Four Bloodtithe Harvesters can guarantee some Blood tokens and therefore some card draw, which is even more important when Sheoldred is in play. Additionally, if you get an early Bankbuster, you're almost guaranteed to draw three cards, as hardly anyone is running artifact removal these days.

The only real weaknesses of this deck are hyper-aggressive red decks and that stupid Azorious Control deck that uses Hullbreaker Horror. The latter deck is particularly annoying and difficult to beat, but fortunately, there's a little card called Concealing Curtains that can solve this problem, and it's not being used in many decks right now. As the meta develops, I think we'll see more of this underrated card.

In conclusion, decks are now taking full advantage of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, using efficient card draw and good old deathtouch to live up to her name.

The full decklist can be found here: https://magic.gg/events/magic-world-championship-xxviii