White Zoo

Deck by Marc Lanigra

At first this was not its own archetype, but instead bunched together with Lestree Zoo as just zoo. But we decided to split zoo into two different archetypes as they play out quite differently. The white zoo deck is a little more controlling than the more classic Lestree Zoo which focuses all its energy on killing your opponent as fast as possible. The deck is focused in white and green but often splash blue for power, Serendib Efreet and Psionic Blast. It can also play red but then it’s more often built like a Lestree Zoo.

The thing that makes it a zoo deck is that this deck also is built around a bunch of aggressive mana efficient creatures. White gives this deck access to Savannah Lions which means that you can play eight two power 1-drops together with Kird Ape or that you at least have a powerful 1-drop if you want to cut red completely. Other creatures you can use in the more aggressive builds are Argothian Pixies, Elvish Archer and Serendib Efreet but it’s also possible to add some more expensive creatures like Erhnam Djinn and even one or two Serra angel.

The thing that sets this deck apart from Lestree Zoo and Arabian Aggro is the use of white’s efficient removal in the form of Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares. These cards allow the deck to answer most of what the opponent does at the same time as you’re are hitting him or her with your creatures. But as these cards often take the space otherwise occupied by burn and because of the life Swords to Plowshares gives your opponent the deck become a lot less aggressive even if its still considered an aggro deck.

Living Plane Combo

Deck by Steve Rich

This deck is all about mana screwing you opponent completely without even playing a land destruction spell. Instead the game plan revolves around resolving a Living Plane to make all lands creatures. With Living Plane on the table you then start to pick off your opponent’s lands, which are now 1/1 creatures, by pinging them to death with a bunch of different cards. One of the most used ways to kill the lands is Tim, or as he’s actually called Prodigal Sorcerer. Other good cards are Fireball, Pyrotechnics, Rod of Ruin and if you want to be extra evil, Earthquake.

If you go for Earthquake you should build you deck to be able to operate without lands, that means mana dorks, Fellwar Stone and more. However, remember that the opponent also could use cards like that so it’s good to also pack some artifact destruction spells in your deck. Crumble is probably the top choice here as it’s in the main color and because the life doesn’t matter much if the opponent won’t play another spell for the rest of the game.

If you are a little slow to lock down the opponent it’s good to have some removal in the deck. If you play a red version, you can use the same cards that later will kill lands as removal in the early game. You should also think about how you will protect your Living Plane as most cards in your deck will need it to stay around. Either you play blue for counterspells or you could use green’s own counterspell, Avoid Fate.

Some other interesting cards are Drop of Honey and Sandstorm. Both are quite good at handling your opponent’s lands even if Sandstorm is more of a corner case card. And if you can afford it, The Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale is a fun addition. Last but not least Pendelhaven could also be a really good inclusion as it makes your lands bigger than your opponent’s and Instill Energy can make Tim ping twice. 

And one more thing, remember that with Living Plane on the battlefield, lands have summoning sickness. So if the opponent doesn't have white mana for his Disenchant he can't just play a Plains and kill your Living Plane. You will have a turn to take care of the pesky land.

Suicide Blue

Deck by Mg

In the early days of Magic the color pie wasn't as thought through as it is today and as blue was the color of "magic" it accidently got a little bit of everything, even though it probably shouldn't have. This makes it possible to build a deck with burn, counterspells, efficient creatures, card draw and different types of removal without the need of any duals at all.

There's only one "small" drawback, a drawback that gives the deck its name, Suicide Blue, and that is that many of the cards in the deck is quite treacherous. Serendib Efreet, Psionic Blast and Mind Bomb is all cards that hurt you as well and another often used card is Unstable Mutation which in time will kill your own creature.

But you can also play less dangerous creatures like Flying Men, Dándán, Zephyr Falcon and Phantasmal Forces for a more "safe" deck. Other solid cards that you can find in these lists are Unsummon, Boomerang, Counterspell and Energy Flux. The choices are yours.

Green Blue Berserk

Deck by Gordon Andersson

This deck has a simple plan, play a small creature or two, preferably with flying, and then use pump spells to end the opponent in just a few attack steps. The creatures of choice is first of all Scryb Sprite and Flying Men but as eight creatures isn't enough the deck often play Argothian Pixies and sometimes Serendib Efreet.

To make these small creatures able kill as fast as possible the deck uses cards like Pendelhaven, Giant Growth, Unstable Mutation and most importantly Berserk. The deck needs a lot of mana to be able to play all the pump in a single turn and sometimes also have mana for some protection so it's essential to play mana dorks like Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves. And one should not forget that even the 0-powered bird can act as an attacker because of all the pump spells.

Other cards that can be used are Psionic Blast for some reach, Avoid Fate for protection and Concordant Crossroads for more speed and as an answer to The Abyss.

And last but not least a fun little fact is that this is the deck that Magic's lead designer Mark Rosewater played at the very first World Championship in 1994.

Lestree Zoo

Deck by Jokemon

The Zoo deck is one of the most classic decks in magic history and zoo decks are still being played today even in more modern formats. The most famous version of the old school zoo deck is Lestree Zoo which is named after Bertrand Lestree who piloted his zoo deck to the finals in the world’s first ever Magic World Championship in 1994.

There are many variants of zoo and here we are going to focus on the versions that focus in the colors red, green and blue. There is however also a white zoo deck on the site if you want to read about that.

The main plan for this deck is to play a bunch of mana efficient creatures and then use burn to annihilate your enemy as quickly as possible. The creature base is often made up by Kird Apes, Serendib Efreets and Erhnam Djinns and if you only play those the deck is sometimes called Arabian Aggro. Other usual suspects are Argothian Pixies, Whirling Dervish and Elvish Archers. It’s also not uncommon for this deck to play some sort of mana producing creature like Birds of Paradise.

Other cards that often see play are of course burn spells like Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Psionic Blast but you can also choose to play Giant Growth and Berserk. Another card that see quite a bit of play is Ice Storm which can help you keep your opponent of balance long enough for your creatures to finish him or her off. It also helps you with troublesome lands like Mishra’s Factory and Maze of Ith.

Artifact Aggro

Deck by Patric

The foundation of this deck is a playset of Mana Vaults which are used to power out big creatures as Su-Chi, Juggernaut and Triskelion. The plan is to stick one or more of those big threats early and then ride them to victory while the opponent still builds up their mana or plays creatures that are easily outmatched by yours.

The deck usually also plays a full set of Copy Artifacts which makes it possible to follow up your big threat with a two mana copy even though you've already used your Mana Vault. You can also play Serendib Efreets and cut the Juggernauts to make all your creatures "bolt proof". Another consideration is of course the small but threatening creature Atog.

UR Burn

Deck by Gordon Andersson

UR Burn is one of the top decks in the format and can be built in many different configurations. The foundation of the deck usually consists of 4 Serendib Efreet, 4 Lightning Bolt, 4 Chain Lightning and a couple up Psionic Blasts.

The rest of the deck can either be built to maximize the aggressive side with more burn, Electric Eels and/or Flying Men, or it could be built more as a tempo deck by adding counterspells and some control elements. You can also build the deck with some amount of main deck Blood Moons and Energy Fluxes if you want to be a little hateful.

The Machine/Coffin Combo

Deck by Hardy

These two decks share the same idea, are quite similar and sometimes use the same cards so we'll bunch them together here. The idea is to reset the counters on the creatures Triskelion and Tetravus, so you'll be able to swarm the board with 1/1 creatures or just shoot the opponent in the face for a lot of damage.

Coffin Combo utilizes Tawnos Coffin for this purpose as it remembers the amount of counters on the creatures it exiles. Therefore, the creature returns with both three new counters and the ones it had when it was exiled.

The Machine instead uses Hell's Caretaker to reanimate the creatures over and over again and use the counters on them between each repetition. That's about it. The rest is up to you!

Twiddlevault

Deck by Felipe Garcia

This deck is a fragile but powerful combo deck that spends its early turns developing its board with Mana Vaults, Sylvan Library and Howling Mine. The plan after that involves getting a Time Vault on the table and as that card is restricted the deck usually plays a couple of Transmute Artifact. When the Time Vault is in play the deck starts to go off by untapping the Time Vault using Twiddle.

Each Twiddle becomes a one mana Time Walk and thanks to Howling Mines and Sylvan Library you usually end up drawing another Twiddle, Regrowth, Recall or actual Time Walk to continue taking turns. While taking all of the turns you also slowly build up your mana to be able to cast a big enough Fireball to end your opponent.

To make the kill a little easier the deck often utilizes Mirror Universe and Sylvan Library to give the opponent a lower life total to Fireball away.

Power Monolith

Deck by Gordon Andersson

This is a combo deck that utilizes a powerful combo which Wizards actually thought was to powerful and therefore tried to stop on many occasions by issuing different erratas.

The combo works by combining Power Artifact with Basalt Monolith. This makes the Monoliths untap cost become one colorless and as it still taps for three colorless you are able to get infinite mana. This mana is then used to end your opponent with a huge Fireball or sometimes the classic artifact Rocket launcher (but do remember that Rocket Launcher has "summoning sickness").

The rest of the deck can be built in many ways but it usually uses a lot of counterspells to keep you alive and protect the combo. Sometimes the deck is built like a toolbox deck that uses Transmute Artifact to get the right answers or combo pieces like Basalt Monolith and Rocket Launcher.

Parfait

Deck by Pefken

Parfait is an old Vintage archetype which started as a mono white tap out control deck with prison elements. The 93/94 Parfait deck is also often based in white but the main part of the deck is the artifact package. There are four central artifact pieces of the deck and those are Howling Mine, Winter Orb, Relic Barrier and Icy Manipulator.

These cards synergize heavily with each other and make up both the decks card engine and lockdown engine. The plan is to use Icy Manipulator and Relic Barrier to tap down the Howling Mine and Winter Orb so that only you get to draw cards and untap all of your lands.

Aside from these artifacts, the deck uses white for cards like Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares to be able to survive until it can set up a lock, and it can also use blue for counterspells. With blue the deck also get access to Transmute Artifact and of course, power.

Last but not least, don't forget to put in a wincon or two.

Stasis

Deck by Henrik Jerberg

Few deck archetypes are so frowned upon as Stasis. But it's also loved by many players who essentially don't want their opponents to be able the play the game. Or in other words, they want to have ALL the fun themselves. The decks game plan is to use the namesake card Stasis to lock down the game until you can win.

How you win is probably the least important part of the deck and the wincon can be anything from a Feldon's Cane, which let you deck your opponent, to a Serra Angel that can attack without worrying about not untapping.

The most important part in the deck is how you turn Stasis is an asymmetrical effect. The most common way for this is to bounce Stasis at the end of your opponents turn with Boomerang or Time Elemental and then replay it on your turn. Another way is to use Reset to untap your lands and last but not least you can also play a Birds of Paradise and enchant it with Instill Energy.

Other cards that you usually find in a Stasis deck is removal and counterspells so that you can answer everything that slips through your Stasis lock. You can also use Howling Mines to deck the opponent even faster and Kismet to make his land drops obsolete.

Artifact Toolbox

Deck by Mg

This is a toolbox deck that is based around artifacts and its namesake card, Transmute Artifact. It uses Transmute Artifact and a bunch of different artifacts, mostly one ofs, to always be able to have a good answer to whatever the opponent is doing. As this format contains a lot of powerful artifacts the possibilities are endless, but some of the more common ones are Mirror Universe, Triskelion, Icy Manipulator, Jayemade Tome, Ivory Tower and City in a Bottle.

The two most common ways to build this deck is either mono blue or black and blue. The main reason for playing black is the card Guardian Beast. The beast helps you keep your artifacts intact by making them indestructible, but it also gives you access to two powerful combos. The first combo is with Chaos Orb as it lets you flip the orb without the orb being destroyed. The second combo is with Nevinyrral's Disk and lets you blow up all of your opponents permanents while all your artifacts, including the disk, stays on the table.

The Deck

Deck by Martin Berlin

This is THE control deck of the format. It's been around since the beginning of the game and was the best deck for many many years. The core of The Deck is blue and white but it splashes the other three colors to get access to all of the formats most powerful and restricted cards. It then combines those powerful cards with the formats most efficient answers in the form of Counterspell, Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares.

Another very important card is Jayemdae Tome which lets The Deck draw the answers it needs to survive. As wincons the deck usually use cards like Mishra's Factory, Serra Angel, The Hive or something similar.

Field of Dreams

Deck by Gordon Andersson

Ever heard of the Modern deck Lantern Control? This is the old school equivalent. The deck's signature card is Field of Dreams, a card which makes both players play with the top card of their library revealed.

With Field of Dreams in play the fun start as the deck then can use Millstone to control what the opponent will draw by milling him or her when there is a dangerous card on top. It can also be used to keep the opponent from ever drawing mana sources, which is even more fun (at least for the player who plays this deck).

Two other cards that the deck usually uses as card drawing engines are Sylvan Library and Sindbad. With Field of Dreams in play you will always know if Sindbad will work and Sylvan Library works well with Millstone as it lets you choose the best card out of three each turn. Also, Sylvan Library and Sindbad combos great with each other as you are able to put a land on top with the library and then draw it with Sindbad.

The deck's name comes from that the only way to win a timed round is to get the opponent to concede.

UW Skies

Deck by Seb Celia

At first glance UW Skies looks a lot like The Deck but there is one big difference and that is that UW Skies usually plays up to four Serra Angel and four Serendib Efreet. What to cut for those eight cards is of course the hard part and the easiest solution is to skip splashing for all the restricted cards. It's also not unusual to cut a couple of books and other slower control cards.

Apart from that change UW Skies plays the same control package as The Deck, which means playsets of Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares and Disenchant. Because of that, UW Skies is quite the formidable control deck but as it also plays a bunch of big monsters it can quickly change pace and go on the offensive quite well.