I realized I wrote up but never posted several more blogs about the Kitchen Table League, I'm gonna do some months-belated catching up. I'll do my best to update it with links to each deck's page when I can.
My Kitchen Table League of cheaply constructed battle decks has swollen to somewhere near a dozen decks, so I thought I’d better make a list and give a brief overview of each one in the meta, how it plays, and what inspired it. Most of these decks were built from leftover draft chaff, but more than a few are based around Duel Decks, Theme Decks, and Intro Decks from Magic’s past that I remember playing with.
Duel Decks: Dihada
Duel Decks: Dihada is an idea I’ve had buzzing around ever since they printed Geyadrone Dihada. I’ve drafted MH3 so many times I’ve lost count, but it’s at least enough times to draft four copies of Dihada.
The general idea behind Duel Decks: Dihada was to build a Grixis control/tempo deck that used Dragon’s Rage Channelers and lots of looting to fill the graveyard and drop a Tombstalker for nearly free. The only problem is the actual Dihada planeswalker card - it kinda sucks. In most games, it frequently hits the field and proceeds to do nothing. Even in this creature-heavy meta, there aren’t really enough big things to steal or corrupt that you’ll be doing anything besides her +1 ability. Which isn’t so bad, except this deck would prefer opponents swing at its planeswalker instead of its own life while it's trying to land a Tombstalker. I’d hate to shift the entire meta around just to justify the Dihada deck, so it's currently in a limbo state while we work out the rest of the meta.
Boros Sunforger/Radiance
Boros Sunforger came out of the original Boros theme deck from Ravnica: City of Guilds. One of the first theme decks I remember purchasing, this deck permanently altered the chemicals in my brain when I saw Sunforger and Lightning Helix for the first time.
One of the first goals I set for myself when I started building the KTL meta was to find a way to make old, bad mechanics playable. Radiance has mostly been forgotten by players these days, thanks to its symmetrical effect making it an unreliable mechanic in mirror matches, but I think there are a few bangers hidden amongst the junk. Bathe in Light, in particular, is a board-wide protection spell in this deck, basically Braven The Elements-ing everything you own for just one more generic mana. Rally the Righteous is another fun trick, especially when you fetch it from your library with Sunforger.
I remember the strategy insert for the Boros theme deck instructed you to “... play one creature on turn one, two creatures on turn two, three creatures on turn three…” and so on, and that’s really stuck with me as far as deck building in red goes.
Rakdos Hellbent
In a similar story to the Boros deck, I also have a strong memory of purchasing the Rakdos Hellbent theme deck from a Target back in the Bush era. Similar to the Boros deck, I wanted to take the bad Hellbent mechanic and see if I couldn’t use the newest Modern Horizons cards to kick it up a notch. The results have actually been spectacular.
Rakdos Headliner is just the two-drop a red/black aggro deck needed, and when followed up by a Rotting Regisaur it’s a really hard-to-answer play. Using the madness costs of Terminal Agony, Blazing Rootwalla and others makes sure you don’t just throw away cards without value, and once you can stick being Hellbent on your turn your whole deck becomes nothing but threats. Notably I really like running Bottled Cloister in this deck, since it’ll both enable Hellbent and draw you extra cards, and defend from the odd Duress-equivalent someone tries to throw at you. Not that they’d really do that, typically when playing against the Hellbent deck you want to keep as many cards in its hand as possible.
Mono Black Vampires
Another aggro deck, the Mono Black Vampires deck is basically a carbon copy of the 2012 Vampire Onslaught Event deck. It’s a powerhouse aggro deck with four copies of Vampire Lacerator, four copies of Gatekeeper of Malakir, four copies of Bloodthrone Vampire, and a single Bloodghast. I’ve removed the Skinrenders and Dismembers for power level reasons, but I’m considering returning the Dismembers.
This deck is simple and sweet. It's here to play creatures and turn ‘em sideways. Ironically, this deck plays more like that Boros deck’s strategy guide suggests than the actual Boros deck.
Duel Decks: Elves
Duel Decks: Elves was one of the first Magic the Gathering products I remember purchasing. I played the hell out of it with my younger brother. It has gone through numerous reworks and rebuilds over the years, most notably as the basis for a Pauper Elves deck I ran in 2019. The deck got disassembled and reassembled during the pandemic since there were no live Pauper events to attend, and since remained the janky Lorwyn-era elves deck we’ve all come to know and love.
Orzhov Exalted
Back in 2013 every dude I knew in high school who played Magic pooled our cash and set up our own tournament in my homie’s parents’ basement and played our own FNM with prize packs on the line. I built black/white exalted and just slammed all the exalted creatures from the 2013 Core Set in and topped it off with Oblivion Rings and Duress. It was unstoppable. Protection from White and Black on my two main two-drops made me champion. Here, the deck is presented with Gerrard’s Verdicts as an alternative to power it up a bit.
Orzhov Clerics Combo
Ten years ago, despite nobody in my play group of high school friends showing the slightest interest in playing some low-power legacy, I constructed an Orzhov clerics deck built around the Conspiracy combo deck from ten years before then. It’s a dinky deck that uses Conspiracy and Rotlung Reanimator to get a Cleric Zombie token for every cleric that dies, more if you can land another Rotlung. Or, it can get you infinite life by using that Kor cleric with the 0-mana activated ability. This deck’s existence is how I know I’m meant for this.
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