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Over the weekend at the Star City Open, someone started the day 5-1 with Ascendency Combo.
"Big deal" you're probably thinking. "Ascendency Combo is old news". Well, you're thinking of the Jeskai Ascendency combo deck. This deck wins by comboing with a different ascendency - Temur Ascendency.
The decklist is as follows.
It may not be obvious just staring at the cards, and you may think the deck wins by drawing a ton of cards with the Temur Ascendency draw trigger (that was my first thought when I heard the deck existed) but it actually wins by giving creatures haste. If you're interested in watching the entire interview, it can be found at this link.
Basically, the deck makes infinite mana by untapping or replaying a mana creature. There are several combos.
[cardimage cardname="Temur Sabertooth"][cardimage cardname="Karametra's Acolyte"]
Once you have the mana, pay 2 to bounce the acolyte. You can replay it and if you have Temur Ascendency out, retap it immediately. If you can generate 7 mana, you can use 2 to bounce it, 4 to replay it and net a mana. Net a mana enough times and you have an arbitrarily large but finite amount of mana. Use it wisely. Or don't, I don't care. I'm not the DCI.
[cardimage cardname="Singing Bell Strike"][cardimage cardname="Karametra's Acolyte"]
Again, you need to be able to tap for 7 mana, but you can pay 6 to untap acolyte and net a mana each time.
[cardimage cardname="Voyaging Satyr"][cardimage cardname="Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx"]
You untap Nykthos with Satyr then either untap Satyr with the Singing Bell Strike or bounce it with Temur Sabertooth. These cards are the mana engine. You then have to find something to do with all of that mana. If you can't find anything, keep bouncing a big creature with Temur Sabertooth (the one time where drawing them in multiples doesn't suck) and replaying it until you draw your deck. Alternatively, you can try this combo.
[cardimage cardname="Genesis Hydra"][cardimage cardname="Nylea, God of the Hunt"]
Cast a big Genesis Hydra and go through the whole deck until you find Nylea. Nylea has haste, Nylea gives trample, Nylea has indestructibility, Nylea has a pump mechanism. I hope further instruction won't be necessary. There is one more fun thing to do with infinite mana.
[cardimage cardname="Polukranos, World Eater"]
Boom.
I hope you're as excited about the deck as I am. I knew I liked Temur Sabertooth!
Not only is this a sweet deck, but different version of this deck came in 11th place as well!!
I came to post this as well. The 11th place list looks a bit more polished, which makes it surprising that they featured the other guy on camera when they were likely in similar places in the standings throughout the tournament.
Either way, this is the other list: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=79122
” Nylea has haste, Nylea gives trample…”
Nylea does NOT have haste or give haste.
It has haste from Temur Ascendency. You may recognize Temur Ascendency from being a card you need to have in play to go off. But thanks for being condescending.