Notes & Combos

Early M1 - Azamina Labrynth

Distracted metagames are some of the best times for specific decks to attack, and despite a new banlist coming out a couple of days ago, a lot of the metagame is still occupied with dealing with the top two decks of last season. That said, we're still very much in a midrange world where Fiendsmith and Primite engines can be found in abundance (and often together), attached to a cluster of strategies trying to edge out slight advantages over one another in grindy partial-mirrors.

I opted for Azamina Labrynth for this season’s climb largely because I've been pleased with how it plays into these dynamics. The deck doesn't have much trouble operating over the top of a good swath of the field: Reasoning and its cousin cards lend easy parity skip opportunities, abruptly breaking you out of neutral and putting you ahead on resources to such a degree that all these decks with interaction suites loaded with one-for-ones / one-for-nones and passive value engines that typically dictate midrange wars basically become trivial to out trade. And the build offers a stable of threats and tools that are nicely aligned for the environment at the moment - Saint notably being towards the top of that list.

Be that as it may, one of the biggest selling points for me was its potent late game. Azamina cards in a more dedicated capacity are way grittier than they are commonly credited for, and when melded with Labrynth, made for a level of sustainability and resource scaling that’s uniquely challenging to overcome right now once it gets going given some of the nuances of the cards propping it up. The payoffs and loops with Lovely here were particularly productive and games this climb were often just a matter of stabilizing early and seeing that through.

I enjoy decks with a lot of tenacity and a good amount of decision-making that's tethered to clear rewards, and this one certainly checked those boxes for me. All in all this was nice to play and clear M1 with.