Deck: Augur Harvest

A while ago, an MTGS user by the name of Alfred created a deck called "RB Insane" which exploited Grim Harvest and the Recover mechanic. He used Martyr of Ashes for board control and heavily relied on the Transmute mechanic to produce a 'toolbox' for various matchups, each of which he would strengthen in the sideboard. His main Recover triggers were Mogg War Marshal, Martyr of Ashes, and Gutless Ghoul.

The deck used land destruction and board sweep to take control. However, it was painfully slow to victory, and relatively difficult to maintain pressure on the opponent's manabase, even with Icefall's recursion.

With the release of Future Sight, however, RB Insane got a whole lot stronger, and has mutated into a deck I've been working on, called Augur Harvest.

Here's my current build:


AUGUR HARVEST - by Polyjak

22 LANDS
7 Snow-Covered Mountain
7 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Rakdos Carnarium
4 Terramorphic Expanse

4 SIGNETS
4 Rakdos Signet

18 CREATURES
4 Martyr of Ashes
4 Augur of Skulls
2 Emberwilde Augur
4 Gutless Ghoul
3 Dimir House Guard
1 Subterranean Shambler

16 SPELLS
4 Skred
3 Last Gasp
3 Grim Harvest
4 Strangling Soot
2 Wrecking Ball

SIDEBOARD
4 Mindstab
4 Feast of Flesh
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Subterranean Shambler


Mogg War Marshall isn't needed to trigger Recover, because the only Recover spell in the deck now is Grim Harvest, and the Augurs provide a very potent sac outlet indeed. In fact, the crux of the deck has now shifted to the synergy between the Augurs and Grim Harvest (hence the deck's name). I took out Shred Memory because the spells at the 2-drop level are either essential to the deck (the Augurs) or are unnecessary. Plus, I've found heavy reliance on Transmute to be too slow for competitive Pauper.

Another big change is that I took out the land destruction element, because Augur of Skulls moves the deck in a discard direction, which I feel is the correct direction to go. Land destruction is difficult to maintain, and even if you keep blowing up lands, they can slip some creatures through to cause problems. By recurring a discard stick, you can keep their hand empty, and kill whatever does manage to come down.

Dimir House Guard is left in, however, to fetch either Wrecking Ball or Subterranean Shambler, whichever is more necessary at the time. Of course, the House Guard may also be cast as a 2/3 evasive regenerator, and serves as a solid win condition alongside recursive Emberwilde Augurs.

The removal suite may need tweaking, now that I look at it. Last Gasp was a remnant of the 2-drop tutoring made possible by Shred Memory, and now that it's gone, perhaps something that can kill Baloths, Aurochs, and Ephemerons may be better. (The black seal comes to mind.) Additionally, there could be an increase in dedicated discard (though the black augur does seem pretty potent on his own). This isn't the finished product by any means, but it's a strong start to a deck that should be competitive in the current Standard environment.




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