Fun Brews for Ixalan Treasures Event
This weekend's stop on our summer "MTGA Planecation" is the Ixalan Treasures format. This free to play format lets you bring any standard deck to the table, with a special emblem that generates one treasure each turn. This creates a format where aggro decks get more aggressive, midrange decks get to their 5+ drops as early as turn 2 and artifact shenanigans can be abused. The special reward for battling through this format is 1000XP, Rebecca Guay basics and a full-art, unhinged Mountain after 6 wins.
I've found through these events, you get players who really embrace the format and then you get the crowd showing up with their Tier 1 lists. I'd say, if your intention is to get to 6 wins as fast as possible, 16 land mono red aggro is likely the best option. Now, I'm not here to write about mono red, scapeshift or esper tempo decks for this event, I get enough of those in ranked. I am here to share the 3 brews that were a bunch of fun to play, and got me my 6 wins in about an hour.
Ixalan Treasure Event - Dimir Artifacts
Main 60 cards (21 distinct)
Lands - 24
Side 11 cards (9 distinct)
Main 60 cards (21 distinct)
Lands - 24
Side 11 cards (9 distinct)
Main 60 cards (21 distinct)
| Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (17) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| $10.12€3.890.02 | |||
| $1.01€1.090.03 | |||
| $0.20€0.140.03 | |||
| $0.15€0.070.03 | |||
| $0.49€0.550.03 | |||
| $42.53€27.242.98 | |||
| Creature (3) | |||
| $0.99€0.640.02 | |||
| Planeswalker (16) | |||
| $0.33€0.210.03 | |||
| $5.45€5.252.22 | |||
| $4.45€4.700.06 | |||
| $1.48€0.920.02 | |||
| $0.99€0.640.04 | |||
| $2.01€1.910.02 | |||
| $13.99€8.460.02 | |||
| Land (24) | |||
| $0.25€0.080.03 | |||
| $0.50€0.400.10 | |||
|
7
Island
|
$0.15€0.040.05 | ||
|
1
Swamp
|
$0.20€0.050.03 | ||
| $2.40€1.790.02 | |||
| $14.39€13.130.29 | |||
| $2.06€1.270.02 | |||
Side 11 cards (9 distinct)
| $2.40€1.300.07 | |||
| $0.20€0.080.03 | |||
| $1.00€0.250.03 | |||
| $0.30€0.120.02 | |||
| $0.23€0.110.03 | |||
| $0.30€0.190.02 | |||
| $0.26€0.110.02 | |||
| $2.97€1.890.20 | |||
| $16.00€11.670.03 |
The first deck up looks to abuse the fact that these free treasures happen to be artifacts. This Dimir list looks to take advantage of playing a bunch of cheap artifacts like Fountain of Renewal
, Guild Globe
, and Mox Amber
to create tokens off ideally a turn 2 Sai, Master Thopterist
or Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
. Since we have a number of artifacts/colorless cards, Mystic Forge
serves as an experimental frenzy like card for the deck. A couple key planeswalkers worth calling out from the deck:
While not the powerhouse in standard as he is in eternal formats, Karn's static ability here lets us turn off the opponent's ability to crack treasures for mana. His plus can destroy their tokens, or animate one of our artifacts. His minus allows us to play a wishboard in this best-of-1 format to grab situationally good artifacts for the matchup.
This Karn generates us card advantage or creates construct tokens that scale in size based on the number of artifacts in the deck.
Ugin can reduce the cost of our artifacts, creatures tokens/card advantage and in a pinch serve as removal.
Tezz is one of the real payoffs for going heavy on artifacts. His plus is great in this deck, as it can potentially result in lethal life swings. I only had one since it was a buy a box promo, but if you have some to spare for the event, going up to 2-3 would be ideal.
Ixalan Treasure Event - Simic Hydra Ramp
Main 60 cards (17 distinct)
Lands - 24
Side 11 cards (9 distinct)
Main 60 cards (17 distinct)
Lands - 24
Side 11 cards (9 distinct)
Main 60 cards (17 distinct)
| Creature (23) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| $0.25€0.220.03 | |||
| $0.20€0.070.03 | |||
| $0.39€0.320.03 | |||
| $0.90€0.930.02 | |||
| $0.30€0.130.02 | |||
| $1.20€1.620.06 | |||
| $5.40€2.380.02 | |||
| Planeswalker (8) | |||
| $0.93€0.690.03 | |||
| $5.45€5.252.22 | |||
| $3.33€2.440.02 | |||
| Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (5) | |||
| $26.30€21.842.00 | |||
| $0.60€0.480.02 | |||
| Land (24) | |||
| $0.35€0.220.02 | |||
| $1.20€0.920.02 | |||
| $16.91€15.270.17 | |||
|
6
Island
|
$0.15€0.040.05 | ||
|
8
Forest
|
$0.16€0.100.03 | ||
Side 11 cards (9 distinct)
| $0.24€0.110.03 | |||
| $1.00€0.250.03 | |||
| $16.00€11.670.03 | |||
| $25.10€13.560.02 | |||
| $0.30€0.120.02 | |||
| $0.30€0.190.02 | |||
| $2.97€1.890.20 | |||
| $0.23€0.110.03 | |||
| $0.20€0.090.03 |
The second deck is a Simic ramp deck that has the payoff of massive hydras. A llanowar elf on turn 1 means on turn 2 you untap with 5 mana. This means you could drop a Nissa, Who Shakes the World
or a 6/7 Voracious Hydra
on turn 2. Nissa can generate huge amounts of mana from there, allowing you to steal your opponent's board with Mass Manipulation
or potentially combo kill your combo by casting a Finale of Devastation
for X=10, getting Bioessence Hydra
which at minimum would be a 14/14 trample + haste.
I've included the Karn, the Great Creator package mentioned above, but you could play more Gargos, Vicious Watcher
or fatty of your choice.
Treasure Event - Mirror March Elemental
Main 60 cards (20 distinct)
Lands - 24
Main 60 cards (20 distinct)
Lands - 24
Main 60 cards (20 distinct)
| Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (8) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
3
Shock
|
$0.19€0.060.03 | ||
|
2
Neoform
|
$0.94€0.480.03 | ||
| $1.03€0.500.02 | |||
| Creature (28) | |||
| $4.90€3.780.02 | |||
| $0.52€0.690.03 | |||
| $8.12€5.040.02 | |||
| $0.20€0.070.03 | |||
| $0.25€0.100.03 | |||
| $0.25€0.120.03 | |||
| $0.39€0.320.03 | |||
| $0.20€0.120.03 | |||
| Land (24) | |||
| $0.45€0.280.02 | |||
| $1.00€0.710.02 | |||
| $11.56€10.220.88 | |||
| $13.00€11.930.96 | |||
| $2.63€2.320.03 | |||
|
2
Mountain
|
$0.15€0.040.04 | ||
|
2
Forest
|
$0.15€0.020.03 | ||
| $16.91€15.270.17 | |||
| $0.35€0.220.02 | |||
The final deck is one of my favorite to play when I need to reach my daily rewards quick. The deck is a more combo focused variant of Temur Elementals, where you try to get out a Mirror March
as early as possible. This allows all your future creatures to potentially generate a large amount of hasty copies the turn they enter. This means some hilarious turns of multiple Risen Reef
, Creeping Trailblazer
that all pump each other up +1/0 or Healer of the Glade
which nets you 3 life for each copy. The "combo finish" of the deck is casting an Omnath, Locus of the Roil
which if it makes any number of copies, all enter the battlefield at the same time, see and trigger off each other. This often times means you can just direct everything at your opponent and win on the spot. In the gameplay video, Omnath was copied 5 times and was able to one shot the opponent.
For those who missed the live stream on Twitch and want to see these decks in action, the YouTube gameplay is above. Also let me know in the comments what your fun brews in this format are.
About MTG_Joe:
MTG_Joe
I am a part time content creator on YouTube playing everything from budget brews to Tier 1 lists. I enjoy focusing on build guides and explaining strategy through my videos to help our newer and returning players. I am also very engaged in the Arena Subreddit community, also happy to chat MTG.
Youtube & Twitch: MTG_Joe
Twitter & Instagram: MTG_Joe2
