Temur Simic Flash
An awesome new trophy brew, inspired by a classic
I keep trying different decks and they have all been ok, but not particularly good against the wide range of pressures in the current Standard meta.
I had an idea for a Simic Flash deck that I was low confidence in, but I kept thinking about it, so figured it was better to play it and get it out of my system.
And then it just kept winning. I went on a tear, something like 10-0 to start and moving towards the top of Mythic. Then I encountered a few losses, I identified a few issues, addressed them, took the deck into a league and trophied.
Simic Flash
This deck is inspired by Seth Manfield’s 2019 breakout Simic Flash brew from Mythic Championship VII. TCGPlayer Article Link. Decklist Link.
Here is the basic idea behind the deck:
I have had the idea for a version of Simic Flash featuring Rattlewurm for awhile. Marang River Regent finally gives Rattlewurm a good flash partner in crime that can act as a modal flash card draw and game altering threat. It can also discard Rattlewurm if the game calls for that.
Perhaps even more importantly it enables one of the best counterspells in the format, Dispelling Exhale.
And once we are there, may as well play one of the better ramp spells that is also a dragon.
The lifegain on Bloomvine Regent has also proved useful at sealing off avenues to win for opponents once you start to pull ahead.
Llanowar Elves is a given.
We are playing flash so Floodpits Drowner is kind of obvious. But it also makes Insidious Fungus much better and running maindeck Artifact removal is always nice in a Steelcutter meta.
Flash + Omen creatures also makes Smuggler’s Surprise the card draw of choice, especially as it gives the added win capabilities of flashing in your dragons.
With Simic Flash you want to be able to turn the corner quickly with big creatures so Lumbering Worldwagon fits nice. It effectively lets you double up haste creatures. Flashing in a big threat and then playing a creature mainphase and activating Worldwagon.
Then the one of Craterhoof Behemoth. No one sees it coming from a counterspell deck. But you do need to be able to put games away.
Here is my initial list from the 10-0 run.
The deck felt great. I think the key thing is that Dispelling Exhale (and any similar type of counterspell), is particularly well positioned at the moment. So trying to brew a deck that maximizes it is key.
The problem with Exhale is it does not scale into the very late game, but this deck is full of six power creatures, so it gets around that by actually ending the game.
Playing a Marang to bounce any blockers and then attacking in for huge damage with Lumbering Worldwagon is awesome.
People think they are fine against your Llanowar elf. Then you flash in Rattlewurm end of turn and Surprise in a Marang and Craterhoof and they have lost.
Temur Simic Flash
After the awesome initial run, some cracks began to show with the deck and it became closer to 50/50 in my next set of matches.
Core issues were:
Coming out of the gates a bit too slow
Running out of gas + flood
Craterhoof- The deck wants to 8 mana Surprise at the end of opponents turn, but Craterhoof wants you to do it on your turn. Also Craterhoof does not always win and then you can easily lose if it did not finish. However, the concept is right and the deck needs a finisher along the lines of Craterhoof
We have to go back to earlier this week for how I thought to address this. I was on my way into work, pulled out my phone, and to my dismay found I had “pocket dialed” entering the Tarkir Dragonstorm Sealed Arena Direct event.
Since, I did not have much time and the event ended in a few hours my gut reaction was to just take it as a loss and be out the $25. But then I looked at my pool and it was amazing. So I frantically built my deck in a couple minutes and blitzed through the event on my commute in, going 6-0.
The signature card of the deck was Ureni. Every time I cast it my opponent conceded.
Flash forward to me trying to figure out how to solve my Craterhoof problem and I was reminded of Ureni. A card that closes the game fast, but also stabilizes the board in the process and plays at the timing you want with Smuggler’s Surprise. It also further supports the deck’s dragon synergies.
The key thing with Ureni is unlike Craterhoof, it prevents the crack back if you are unable to finish them off that turn. This is particularly relevant against the creatures that provide incremental value every turn that this format is full of: Oculus, Manifold Mouse, Emberheart, Preacher, Tersa, etc. Those creatures allow decks to quickly rebuild from almost nothing.
Also, thanks to Ureni’s protection, for many controlling decks they can only interact with Ureni with wraths, so flashing Ureni in with Surprise is huge for ensuring you can get a big hit in.
To be able to cast Ureni, I’d need to go to 4 Fabled Passage, but doing that along with the Conduit Pylons I am already running opens up Molt Tender to address the “out of the gates a bit slow” problem.
My hope was that going to four Fabled Passage for additional land thinning, a fourth Pylons for more selection, Ureni which is better into an open board than Craterhoof, and better sideboard plans would be just enough to deal with the Running out of Gas + Flood problem.
At this point I took the deck into an MTGO league to get some clearer feedback on if this deck was actually good. And I immediately trophied the league.
Multi-inspiration brewing
This brew is a good example of the weird combination of factors it often takes for a successful brew.
Me being slightly obsessed with Colossal Rattlewurm for the past year
Me having a deck from six years ago in the back of my head
Cards from the new set that provide the missing pieces
The serendipity of accidentally joining a Sealed tournament and discovering a missing piece because of it
But the core that allows all of that to happen is just being willing to try a bunch of different things. You cannot force a combination like the above to work out, but you can increase your odds of it happening by taking a broad range of inspiration and trying a bunch of different brews.