Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest - October 2025 (Locked)

{"ops":[{"insert":"So I took the jump scare challenge to mean something that happens out of nowhere that would be quite scary to find out you're sitting across from. That's why I made this Amy Rose deck which at first glance appears to be a normal equipment deck but is actually a burn deck in disguise. The deck focuses on using Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might to burn our opponents while it's power is increased by Amy. That's why there are a couple of instants that can split damage. The idea being that you would attack with Amy and Ojer, Ojer would get +X and then you would cast something like violent eruption to burn everyone down all at once. There are a couple of tutors in the deck as well to try and make getting Ojer more consistent. Thank you for looking at my deck and have a great day.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"A sinister deck, with the sinister six, and an evil twist of milling. Bwahahaha. Time to get sinister!!!@\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Starting off with a typical Go-Shintai graveyard enchantress plan, this deck hides a secret that'll have a few people scared out of their seats. The first one is Norin, the quintesential Magic coward who treats anything as a jumpscare. The rest will be your opponents when within a turn cycle Norin starts swinging for lethal damage like it was nothing at all!\n\nIn order to make this deck work, Norin has to first lose all abilities. To do this we'll need something like Darksteel Mutation, but simply casting it won't be enough since even trying to get it into play will have Norin running for the hills. With Goshintai's recursion ability we can put it onto the battlefield and attach it to Norin without him noticing, and from there we'll use the wealth of other voltron auras at our disposal to make him huge all within a single turn rotation. If all else truly fails you can always continue with the Shrine gameplan, but with how frusturating Shrines can be to play against I doubt your opponent will want to remove Norin.\n\nDue to it's jokey nature the deck sits as a high bracket 2, avoiding Game Changers like Demonic Tutor in favor of more bracket-appropriate tutors like Gamebreaker Lamia. Now of course it does still have tutors, and perhaps a few more than what others would classify as \"few\" for the bracket requirements, but given the nature of our game plan and what we are likely to be hitting I doubt it'll be a concern at the table talk. Another advantage of this deck over some other joke or surprise lists is that it is actually replayable and won't immediately win the game on the spot in a sudden combo. As shocking as this deck may be, it isn't as unfair as to leave a bad taste in your playgroups mouth and be relegated to your internet pile of banned decks.\n\nNotable Cards:\nZur can get enchantments out and onto Norin after he has been mutated, but even before hand you can put one onto Norin and have it go to the graveyard when he leaves so that Go-Shintai can get it back out afterward."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"The Sound of Drums can be played out of our own graveyard on its own and will make Norin deal double damage since he'll already be indestructible and swinging in repeatedly."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Animate Dead and all of the other reanimation enchantments make it so that we can tutor Norin straight into the yard safely and keep him coming back if he gets removed."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Scrabbling Skullcrab and Sage of Mysteries will fill the graveyard so fast that you likely won't need any other mill tools to help find Norin and your other pieces."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Lastly, Idolized may not be the most iconic or thematically scariest voltron aura, but Norin deserves his time in the sun."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"With Ureni as the commander, this deck looks like a dragon typal beat down deck. But... Surprise! Vivi is the hidden commander of this storm deck. With lots of fun combos hidden within, this deck can win in a multitude of ways.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"This is a simple, regular Kwain grouphug deck. It lets everyone draw cards, it gains life, it pillowforts, it does everything you'd expect it to. There's probably a couple finishers but nothing serious, it's just here to have fun with the table.\n\nWhat's with all the ramp? Eh, don't worry about it.\n\nWhy all those enchantments? I dunno, just how I built the deck!\n\nHaha, "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Opalescence"},{"insert":", that's cute, but it doesn't really do anyth-OH MY GOD IT'S "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"ENCHANTED EVENING "},{"insert":"AND "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"ELESH NORN "},{"insert":"WITH A STEEL CHAIR!!! "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"NOBODY HAS LANDS EVER AGAIN, EXCEPT ME!!!!!"},{"insert":"\n\nThat's right, Kwain's here to party with a super clunky combo (and a couple variants on it). It runs pretty simply: Pretend to be everyone's bff, give them cool stuff while stockpiling treasures and speedrunning your deck, then once you have anywhere from 4 to 16 mana (depending on how brave you're feeling) you dump Elesh Norn (or any anthem - Norn's in there for the style points), Opalescence, and Enchanted Evening and everyone scoops. "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"OR "},{"insert":"if you want to be lame you can drop Enchanted Evening and Aura Thief "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"OR "},{"insert":"Enchanted Evening and Cleansing Meditation (if you have Threshold). A well-placed Curse of the Swine also works wonders with Enchanted Evening and Opalescence on the board. Really, just make everything enchantments and either take em or blow em up.\n\nBecause Kwain's a good friend like that.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"This deck was built to as the question \"Which is more dangerous? The equipped creatures your opponents see coming, or the equip"},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"ment"},{"insert":" creatures they don't?\"\n\nThe deck, piloted by "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Arna Kennerüd, Skycaptain"}},{"insert":", starts out as a fairly typical equipment-based deck, playing some cheap equipment early on that come with their own tokens attached to them, allowing you to attack with them the turn you get your commander out, getting both tokens of the equipment and the tokens they come with to grow a wider board. Additionally, there are a few auras and equipment that also have strong ETB effects, mainly in the forms of removal, that can be repeatedly copied by your commander to clear the way for your creatures.\n\nHowever, one must imagine the board getting wiped at some point, or a Voltron-styled kill with our commander might not always be practical. So what are you to do with all these spare equipment tokens lying around, needing mana to equip them? The answer is using either "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Rise and Shine"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Cyberdrive Awakener"}},{"insert":", or "},{"insert":{"card-link":"March of the Machines"}},{"insert":" to mass animate all these copies of our equipment into threat themselves, hopefully making a large enough board state to immediately take out whoever might be left in the game at this point.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"This deck was built for the October 2025 Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest!\n\nThe central premise behind this deck is a heavily themed 'pirates getting plunder' deck, where they steal things (namely, cast other players' cards) and get treasure. Cards synergizing with this concept include [Gonti, Night Minister], [Kellogg, Dangerous Mind], and [Prosper, Tome-Bound]. Various cards in the deck have triggered effects from artifacts or treasures entering and leaving the board, and many other cards give treasures or exile cards to be cast later based on the presence of -- and/or actions taken by -- pirates, which makes the commander's passive, \""},{"attributes":{"background":"#ffffff","color":"#333333"},"insert":"Each creature you control but don't own [...] is a Pirate in addition to its other types,\" all the more effective. The other cards that benefit from stealing cards and/or casting them from exile, like [Laughing Jasper Flint] and [Vaan, Street Thief], feed the strategy by rewarding the main gimmick of the deck. All of this interplay, while serving to genuinely make the deck function as a commander deck, also serves to strengthen the illusion that there is no ulterior motive or alternative angle, thereby maintaining the theme of being a jumpscare deck."},{"insert":"\n\nThat said, the actual jumpscare of the deck comes in the form of the four cards in the deck that win the game based on the count of artifacts/treasures you control, ranging from a potentially-difficult-to-reach 30 to a shockingly low 8. While the rest of the deck is managed intentionally to present enough of a nuisance to come off as straightforward (stealing cards and generating enough treasures to generally be able to play them), the successful piloting of this deck necessarily demands that the player uses a decent percentage of their treasures and gains actual value from them in order to sell the lie of straightforwardness, while slowly amassing them over the course of the game.\n\nWhile the two cards with low thresholds for the wincon (8 and 10, held by [Mechanized Production] and [Revel in Riches], respectively) are feasibly obtained naturally, the other two ([Hellkite Tyrant] and [Knuckles the Echidna], with thresholds of 20 and 30, respectively) may pose a challenge as far as naturally generating and keeping such a high number of treasures without raising suspicion. To help with this, some of the treasure-generating cards in the deck can generate a large number of treasures at a time, like [There and Back Again] (generating 14 on its third and final time counter) and [Brass's Bounty] (generating as many treasures as you have lands at sorcery speed, which is more beneficial the later in the game you play it). These spells can also represent their own brand of threat, whether they are played before or after the wincon cards, as even without the immediacy of a one-round death clock from one of the wincon cards, the ability to cast 14 extra mana worth of stolen goods puts the pressure on opponents.\n\nObviously, to pay off the jumpscare and win off of one of the jumpscaring cards, since the wincons activate on upkeep and get played during main phases, it is important to be able to protect them for an entire round. Consequently, it is strongly recommended that at least two counterspells be kept in hand when making the central threat, though depending on the board state it may not be necessary. As far as timing/reliability goes, while the addition of tutors to the deck would ultimately up the chances of winning with a jumpscare (as wincons could be selectively obtained as soon as the board state supported them), I think that tutoring a combo piece is too strong of a telegraph to get the full effect of a jumpscare; ideally, you should have only the faintest sense that something bad is about to happen before the threat is presented, and I feel that a pile of treasure tokens growing slowly -- but steadily -- in the background does so perfectly.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"This is a legendary semi storm deck specializing in losing a lot of life while playing your cards. Right before you die or even when your basically dead, swap your life total with an opponent! The strategy is risky and hard to pull off, there are some powerful cards for gaining or leveraging life, the hard part is riding that thin line to victory but the payoff is priceless!\n\nI would not recommend this deck for beginners, it's hard to win with and its success rate can be very dependent on who your opponents are.\nGood luck!\n\nSome cards will be in the maybe board, cheaper or alternative options to fit your own tastes :)\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"It's your best friend, Chucky! This Good Guy is sure to make all your other friends jealous! They're going to be fighting amongst themselves just to get him! But not to worry! If something should happen to him, he'll find his way back to you for certain! All the other toys your friends have will wind up broken while Chucky remains. But playtime is more fun with friends! Sadly, only one will remain and Chucky doesn't like that. Thankfully, you can bring their toys back to help Chucky overcome the only opposition left to become your number one friend! You just can't keep this Good Guy down!\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"It's time to go real wide! Let "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Akim, the Soaring Wind"}},{"insert":" help you flood the board with tokens, and when your army is ready... "},{"attributes":{"strike":true},"insert":"pump it all and swing"},{"insert":" use it to cast a huge burn spell! Yes, you heard it right, this is not your typical horde, but one that will surprise your opponents (and their powerless blockers)! But how does it work?\n\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"The plan"},{"attributes":{"header":3},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nAs said earlier, the plan is the following: make lots of tokens, get one of the enablers to use them as mana, be it via cost reduction or sacrifice (or both!), and use it to cast a giant red X-spell to burn all your opponents away.\n\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Enablers"},{"insert":"\nWe have three kinds of cards to turn our tokens into fuel for our fire:\n"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Wand of the Worldsoul"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Invasion of Segovia // Caetus, Sea Tyrant of Segovia"}},{"insert":" can give our burn spell Convoke, letting us tap all the tokens for mana."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Magnus the Red"}},{"insert":" discounts our instants or sorceries for each token we control."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Ashnod's Altar"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Phyrexian Altar"}},{"insert":" let us sacrifice them for mana (bonus points if we already tapped them to Convoke)."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Finishers"},{"insert":"\nThe deck contains a suite of burn X-spells with different properties which can hopefully let us adapt to the game: for targeted options (that won't kill us) we have"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Comet Storm"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Jaya's Immolating Inferno"}},{"insert":", and for global ones (which can pierce through Hexproof), we have "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Rolling Earthquake"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Molten Disaster"}},{"insert":", which can even protect itself with Split Second.\n\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Tutors"},{"insert":"\nWe also have a collectiong of tutors, be it for our artifact enablers with "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Whir of Invention"}},{"insert":", for our finishers with "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Muddle the Mixture"}},{"insert":" and for either piece of the plan with "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Long-Term Plans"}},{"insert":" or "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Thalia's Lancers"}},{"insert":" (note that both "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Magnus the Red"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Jaya's Immolating Inferno"}},{"insert":" are legendary).\n\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"The deck"},{"attributes":{"header":3},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nAs (deceptively) expected, the deck is full of token generators. We try to include cards that can create tokens at instant speed to maximize "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Akim, the Soaring Wind"}},{"insert":"'s trigger by creating tokens in different turns, such as "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Illustrious Wanderglyph"}},{"insert":" or "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Thraben Doomsayer"}},{"insert":". We also try to include token-spawning effects in our lands ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Kher Keep"}},{"insert":"), interaction ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Ugin, the Ineffable"}},{"insert":") and ramp ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Luck Bobblehead"}},{"insert":" ) when possible.\n\nToken doublers like "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Mondrak, Glory Dominus"}},{"insert":" help us grow our army even faster, and the Soul Sisters ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Soul Warden"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Soul's Attendant"}},{"insert":") make it so we stay allive longer and make more likely for us to be the sole survivors to our "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Rolling Earthquake"}},{"insert":" or "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Molten Disaster"}},{"insert":". \n\nOur card draw is mainly focused on white effects to profit from our little guys entering every possible turn, making permanents like "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Welcoming Vampire"}},{"insert":" or "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Tocasia's Welcome"}},{"insert":" keep our hand full with a steady stream of cards.\n\nLastly, we have a couple board wipes to protect our life in case someone gets a scarier army, some combat tricks to protect our whole board, and some cards to protect our big spell and let it resolve, either in the form of countermagic or the newly printed "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Spider-Punk"}},{"insert":", which provides a rock-solid defense against our burn's biggest weaknesses and can even be found with "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Thalia's Lancers"}},{"insert":" if needed.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Oh, this is just an another (if they exist in the wild) Anthousa lands beatdown deck. WRONG, it is until it's not.\n\nThis deck aims to ramp as fast as possible and then churn through the deck with its cantrips and green big draw spells to do the following:\nanimate lands with cards like "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Sylvan Awakening"}},{"insert":" (along with our commanders ability)"},{"attributes":{"list":"ordered"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"untap them with the likes of "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Early Harvest"}},{"insert":" or "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Vitalize"}},{"insert":" (because our lands are creatures now)"},{"attributes":{"list":"ordered"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"then draw some more cards with more big green spells (or maybe the same spell as the deck packs quite a few recursion spells like "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Regrowth"}},{"insert":" )"},{"attributes":{"list":"ordered"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"repeat the process until you draw out the whole deck protecting ourselves with "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Abundance"}},{"insert":" (or just be good at counting cards)"},{"attributes":{"list":"ordered"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"After having our whole deck at disposal, it is time to unleash the biggest jumpscare of them all:\n\n"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Hornet Sting"}},{"insert":" \n\nHow does the deck win you ask? Simple, you just keep bringing back Hornet Sting back to your hand and cast it over and over again. With "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Seasons Past"}},{"insert":" you can recur all the cards needed to keep the stings flowing by untapping your lands and drawing it again over and over. Oh yeah and there's "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Sentinel Tower"}},{"insert":" if you don't want to take too much time explaining how the combo works.\n\nOne other mean and scary thing to do that would make your opponents jump from their seat and that is casting "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Ezuri's Predation"}},{"insert":" when their lands are animated with "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Natural Affinity"}},{"insert":".\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"This is a submission for the october deck buikling contest, it uses cheap landfall creatures then copying land ramp spells to appear to be a land fall deck but closing out by copying big x spells\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"The whole point is to make my opponents paranoid. They see me with a field of face-down 2/2s, and they're convinced every single one is a game-winning monster in hiding. So they waste their removal, spending their best spells to destroy what they think are my biggest threats. But every time they destroy one, they're just doing my job for me—feeding my graveyard a bunch of lands that were disguised as creatures. They think they're stopping me, but they're actually setting up my win. They finally clear my board, breathe a sigh of relief, tap out... and then BAM! All those lands they just sent to the graveyard for me come roaring back onto the battlefield at once, triggering a massive, game-ending Landfall. The jump scare is making them think they're winning while they're actually building my victory.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Glarb, Calamity’s Augur aka Glorb aka “Hidden Tide” is a Sultai lands-matter deck that plays like a slow, toolbox land deck while hiding a ninjutsu ambush plan. The deck accrues value from playing and replaying lands and doubling ETB effects, then converts that hidden resource advantage into sudden tempo swings and card-advantage blows when you ninjutsu evasive Ninjas into play at instant speed.\n\n "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Land value engine:"},{"insert":" Exploit top-of-library plays, extra land drops, Crucible/Ramunap-style recursion, and ETB land payoffs generate incremental advantage and a stream of tokens or ETB triggers.\n\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Masking and tempo:"},{"insert":" Play polite, non-threatening pieces (mana dorks, small utility creatures, pillowfort-ish interaction) so opponents ignore you while you assemble resources. \n\n\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Ninjutsu ambush:"},{"insert":" Use ninjutsu to convert a seemingly trivial attacker into a Ninja with a powerful ETB or trigger, creating a sudden swing in card advantage, removal, or board control.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"This deck is not primarily a life-gain deck. This is a deck of minor nuisances. Let me ping you for one damage. Let me gain two life. Let me pin down one creature. Let me just exist in your space and do practically nothing except cause minor hiccups. Not a big deal, right? You'll target someone else, right? I got one or zero creatures on the board, but answer cards in hand so don't touch me. Ah, I see you have left me alone with mana rocks on the board. Debt to the Deathless. Surprise, you're either dead or really low and I got a bunch of life. Here's a different jumpscare: Urborg + Karma. Now everyone is on a timer and I got Oloro so I don't care. Have fun :)\n"}]}