Into the Arena: Armageddon in Historic!

I think as Magic players we all sometimes have the urge to put down whatever it is we have been playing and come up with something entirely new. One of the greatest parts of Magic is exploring the vast card pool to find brand new strategies and combinations of cards. My personal favourite format for brewing these days is Historic, and I recently spent some time brewing a deck I like to call Historic Armageddon. 

It all started with my love for Ramunap Excavator. The three-drop from Amonkhet acts as a Crucible of Worlds on legs and is interesting as a potential value machine when combined with lands like Tranquil Thicket and Fabled Passage. The creature also pairs nicely with a pair of creatures that unbelievably never see play; Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Azusa, Lost but Seeking. Playing Fabled Passage from the graveyard two or three times a turn is a very effective way to ramp and thin the lands from a deck. The cherry on this cake, however, is a very special Saga from Dominaria. Combined with a Ramunap Excavator, Fall of the Thran becomes a very asymmetrical effect. The six-mana enchantment is the only card in Historic that destroys all lands and, even if it takes more setup, an Armageddon effect is always quite impactful. 

Past this package of land-based creatures and Fall of the Thran, the deck can take many directions. I decided to start by building a controlling take on the strategy by including black cards such as Thoughtseize, Extinction Event, and Fatal Push. I also added Nissa, Who Shakes the World as a powerful way to take over games that also perfectly matches the strategy of the deck. The idea was that slowing down the opponent would provide time to set up the pieces of Ramunap Excavator and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove before dropping Fall of the Thran. Here is a look at the decklist.

In practice, I often found that the deck was a turn or two too slow. As well, playing Fall of the Thran in a controlling deck often meant destroying all the lands when I was already behind on board, which just made it harder to come back. From here I decided to go the opposite direction and build a quick and aggressive version of the strategy. Since the important creatures are all three mana, Collected Company was clearly a possible inclusion. In order to increase the creature count for Company I decided to add mana dorks, which also help accelerate the gameplan. The cost for this version was cutting most of the interactive spells, but ideally the extra aggression would make up for that.

This second version of the deck felt much more streamlined. The more proactive approach allowed the creatures to shine for their power and toughness as well as their abilities, and Fall of the Thran became a real game-ending play when it was backed up by a clock. However, the deck ended up just feeling like a bad Collected Company deck, where the gameplan was slower and the Companies themselves hit less impactful creatures. I decided to reimagine the deck once again.

In a very Goldilocks-style approach, I ended up building a deck that feels somewhere between the first two iterations. I brought back some of the interaction such as Extinction Event, and cut the Collected Companies. But rather than going for a controlling strategy I decided to focus even more on the primary gameplan of the deck by adding a copy of Knight of the Reliquary, a Crucible of Worlds, and a pair of Azusa, Lost but Seeking. Another interesting inclusion is Tormod’s Crypt, which acts as incidental graveyard hate while also turning Fall of the Thran’s second and third chapters into one-sided effects. Additionally I included three copies of Binding of the Titans because the saga quite literally binds the deck together by putting lands in the graveyard, providing lands in hand if necessary, and gaining a little bit of life along the way.

This third iteration of the deck performed best, and even more importantly to me it perfectly executed the gameplan I had imagined. Having Crucible of Worlds and Azusa added a good consistency to the combo. Powerful cards like Nissa, Who Shakes the World and Extinction Event backing up the main gameplan also really helped win games that this deck normally couldn’t. 

Although this deck probably doesn’t have what it takes to compete at higher levels in Historic, it is a super-fun way to play the format with a unique approach. Since Field of the Dead is banned there really haven’t been many land-based strategies in the format despite the existence of powerful cards such as Scapeshift, Azusa, Elvish Reclaimer, and Crucible of Worlds. As someone who enjoys blowing up lands even when I can’t see my opponent’s face as I do so, this deck was super fun to conceive. 

Find me on twitter: @dreynolds2727

Check out the stream: twitch.tv/dawsonreynolds