This week I wanted to talk about an old favorite that isn’t a brew of mine but is a fun fringe strategy called The Cure. The main synergies of the deck are based around the “free” green spells that require you to have a Forest in play and let your opponent gain life in order to cast the spell without paying the mana cost. Then we have Kavu Predator which gets bigger as our opponent gains life and False Cure which causes our opponent to lose two life for every one that is gained, providing a combo kill.
Here is the most recent deck list that I have piloted.
The Cure (False Cure combo)
| Lands (19) 3 Bayou 1 Dryad Arbor 2 Forest 1 Karakas 2 Savannah 1 Scrubland 1 Swamp 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 4 Verdant Catacombs 3 Windswept Heath Creatures (17) 4 Dark Confidant 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Kavu Predator 4 Skyshroud Cutter 1 Sylvan Safekeeper Spells (24) 4 Duress 4 False Cure 4 Green Sun’s Zenith 4 Invigorate 2 Reverent Silence 2 Sensei’s Divining Top 4 Swords to Plowshares | Sideboard (15) 3 Abrupt Decay 2 Cabal Therapy 2 Choke 1 Gaddock Teeg 1 Nihil Spellbomb 2 Pithing Needle 1 Reverent Silence 1 Scavenging Ooze 1 Tainted Remedy 1 Thrun, the Last Troll |
Creatures
Dark Confidant provides card advantage, absorbs removal for your other creatures and runs away by miles when given an inch.
Deathrite Shaman does a great impression of a one mana planeswalker with the three abilities. Mana ramp can give us the option of an easy turn two combo or a turn two Green Sun’s Zenith for Kavu Predator. The other abilities of Deathrite can help buy turns against opposing aggressive strategies, hate on graveyard strategies or give us the reach to get the last few hits in.
Kavu Predator is basically the little cousin of Tarmogoyf but is able to get much larger while having trample. Trample is a keyword in Legacy that we see very little of outside of Craterhoof Behemoth out of Elves and I believe is a great keyword to have currently. True-Name Nemesis is slowly back on the rise and having only one toughness means that Kavu Predator pushes damage through, unlike a Tarmogoyf or a Batterskull. Using Invigorate with Predator equates to three +1/+1 counters and a +4/+4 buff until end of turn. After giving your opponent three life you can clock them for an additional seven life a turn (an entire third of their life total).
Skyshroud Cutter is one part of the synergies in the deck. Casting this with a Predator in play means five counters on the Predator which can quickly even itself out, with a False Cure active it is basically an uncounterable spell that reads target opponent loses five life.
Sylvan Safekeeper is here as a way to protect our creatures from removal such as Swords to Plowshares, Abrupt Decay, or Lightning Bolt.
Combo
False Cure is the primary game plan and really the easiest way to win. The idea is to hopefully resolve a False Cure and add up to twenty life gained from free spells and/or Swords to Plowshares to kill an opponent. If we can’t straight kill with Cure it is possible that we can combine Cure with Predator with our free spells to give us a lethal attack.
Another fun interaction of False Cure is with Tendrils of Agony. If an opponent has a lethal Tendrils of Agony on the stack and you cast False Cure in response and have more life, they will lose four life every time they gain two and are likely to die from their own spell before you do.
Disruption
Duress leads up our disruption package by helping push the combo through stripping counter magic or removal that may trip us up. It is a cheap way to interact off the stack and otherwise avoid interacting entirely.
Swords to Plowshares not only removes problematic creatures but also combos with False Cure to completely negate the downside of removing a creature.
Reverent Silence is a more fringe form of interaction and doesn’t often come up in many match ups. It does interact with Miracles pre-board which is nice in order to prevent a Counterbalance lock from shutting you out. The better part about Reverent Silence is being part of the combo being worth six life from an opponent.
Other
Green Sun’s Zenith and Sensei’s Divining Top give us card selection to help improve our top decks and get what we need in our deck.
Sideboard
The sideboard is somewhat aimed towards blue decks and combo decks.
Abrupt Decay is our way to interact with the board especially Counterbalance to keep from dying early or being locked out of the game.
The Gaddock Teeg, Thrun, the Last Troll and Choke are directed at the Miracles match up to leverage the strengths that green provides in the match up.
Nihil Spellbomb and Scavenging Ooze are here to nerf graveyard strategies supplementing Deathrite Shaman from the main.
Cabal Therapy is additional discard to help fight combo decks.
Tainted Remedy acts as our fifth False Cure. It can come in against combo to give us a better chance at having a combo kill. It also works similar to False Cure by turning a Tendrils of Agony into a win condition for us.
Initial Thoughts
Initially when I played this deck I found it to be more of a fun deck than a competitive one. I have piloted it for a decent amount of store credit at my LGS, but consistency can be a big issue. Dark Confidant left alone is extremely efficient at pulling ahead. Green Sun’s Zenith is a great way to chain a bunch of Kavu Predators or dig out a Sylvan Safekeeper to protect the creatures that you have. If you ever want to troll your LGS and catch everyone off guard then this deck is a great one to pick up. Much of the deck is fairly cheap and it will certainly be good enough to win some store credit if you want to build a more well-known competitive archetype.
Happy brewing to each and every one of you. If anyone has an idea for a brew that they would like to see, I will gladly take requests and challenges on twitter. 🙂
Aaron Gazzaniga works part time at a game store and in his off time has been an avid magic player/brewer since 2003. Having begun in Odyssey Standard Block and always favoring control and prison style decks, we come to this moment in time where Aaron finally gets to talk about and share his ideas. If you want to contact Aaron tweet @aarongazzaniga