Fastest Kills in Standard and Extended

Zero Quest

Ok I’ve played the original version of this deck ( quest for the holy relic ) and I have to confess I hate it. If it works and annoyingly, when I play it, it seems to work all the time, its brutal quick and there’s no coming back from the brink.   So in age old ‘Vader’ style I thought, if you can’t beat them... Eat them...

Ladies and gentlemen this is Zero Quest and it has the fastest potential win of ANY Standard deck (that I know of..)

Its combo based and about as stable as the Euro, but I’ll give you the skeleton and I’ll leave it you to sculpt a T-REX out of it.

You will need

4 Leyline of Anticipation

 4 Memnite

4 Everflowing Chalice

4 Mox Opal

4 Ornithopter

4 Kuldotha Rebirth

4 Goblin Bushwhacker

4 Lightning bolt

4 Goblin Chieftain

4 Chimeric Mass

4 Scalding Tarn

4 Arid mesa

14 Mountains

So... what does it do?

Well it can swing for 12 damage on turn ONE.

Yep, you read that right not turn two... turn one... You’ll need the god hand, but the deck is designed to generate that relatively easily ... So 12 damage on the first turn how? Well you elect to get second if you win the flip, or if your opponent wins you’ll probably be going second anyway. 

What you need in an opening hand is any combination of the following... 0 mana artifacts, mox opal, rebirth and most importantly the leyline...  As long as you have the leyline you opponent is going to have a bad day, just how bad is dependent on your luck...   

Here’s the trick...  Let’s say you have the god hand, and I cannot stress enough you don’t need it.

Leyline, ornithopter, mox opal, kuldotha rebirth, 2 x memnite, goblin bushwacker... Keep the hand and immediately as the game begins lay the Leyline. Now during your opponent’s upkeep step flash in the menites , the ornithopter and the mox opal, then use the opal for one red and sac the ornithopter to play the rebirth. This will give you 5 x 1/1’s before your opponent has even laid a land.

In your FIRST turn, draw and play a land and tap the opal and the land to play the Goblin bushwhacker making everything a  2/1 and allowing you to swing for !2 damage on Turn one in turn 2 lay a Goblin chieftain and that ain’t game, you ain’t playing right.

  

Of course these are god hands, but think about the deck, even if you can’t pull of the ultimate in turn one you could have a any number of battle ready 1/1’s ... 

No islands for leyline? Nope, it’s there for one reason and one reason only, mulligan till you find it.  Like I said this is the skeleton and we at Adventures in the Meta encourage you to make your own decks.   

Sideboard, we’re going to leave this to you to and I suggest that you completely change strategy on game two because a smart opponent will elect to play 2^nd in game two if you beat them game one.

Here are some other ideas to play around the leyline...

 Add Beastmaster’s Ascension and Birds of Paradise... and in your opponents first turn you can flash in the birds off the opal and then in your first turn you can lay a land and play Beastmaster’s Ascension, and swing for 3... In your 2^nd turn that’s game...

There’s even a horrific Extended Combo which is potentially a one turn kill.... again during your opponent’s turn flash in the memnites/ornithopters and then use the opal to play Amulet of Vigor.

In your first turn, play Windbrisk Heights and stick an Emrakul under it... As it comes in un-tapped, thanks to the Amulet you can then swing with 3 memnites and use the opal to activate it, thus ‘casting’ Emrakul and getting the extra turn...  Swing in on the next turn (which is really still your first turn) and that’s 21 damage including the memnites)

So there you have it the fastest kills in Standard and extended, that don’t require any help from your opponent.(You can do nasty things with Summoning Trap, but this will require your opponent to cancel your spells for you.)

Update for Christmas  (you can abuse this build further by the addition of Shared Discoveries ) of course you can now add islands too which will make the leylines work

update Dec 25th... I've been thinking about this concept over and over and I've come to a startling conclussion... If Wizards do introduce an Artifact Land in Mirrodin Besieged then I think we've just invented the new Archetype.

Why? Well for one thing the Mox opal will finally be playable anyway and with both llanowar Elves and Birds of paradise being 1 drop mana producers with leyline ofanticipation in play it could be easy to drop 3 mana on turn 1 - or 2 if that doesn't happen (which let's be fair, is a good plan b)... and that would give you access to a staggering choice of options including tutors, culitvates, turn one ratchet bombs with mana to spare ... the list is endless and you could easily replenish your hand... 

Turn one cultivate  - turn two jace's inginuity... anyone?

DECK ONE : CONTROL THIS

Ok we're starting with a belter... This deck has a rare and acheivable Turn 4 kill and is difficult to stop...

It revolves arround three key cards and is therefore somewhat combo based, it has elements of red deck and some of it you may recognise, but the twists are entirely homebrew... And best of all, it doesn't use a single rare!

Ladies and gentleman.... We give you CONTROL THIS!!!

The principle The deck is really centred arround  zetkar shrine expedition   kiln find , elemental appeal and the twist is this ...


In my experience in magic the more a card can do for you and the less you have to pay for it, the more valuable it is in a deck.... So The Shrine is obviously awesome a 7/1, trample and haste creature that, after you have enough triggers, come in when you say so for 2 mana is cheap... The kiln fiend...  a front pumpable 1/2 is equally playable, but the trick is  Not of this world... Obvioulsy a 7 mana counter spell is too pricey for most decks and the boys in theWizards R&D dept. clearly meant it for use with the massive eldrazi. They may have been drinking when they did, though becausre they forgot the plucky 7/1 trampler you get free from siimply dropping some land... So, turn 4 kill I hear you ask? ... Oj here's the trick...

Turn one - Lay a mountain.and burn your  opponent in the face with either a lightning bolt or a galvanic blast...  Opponent goes to 17/18

Turn two lay mountain  drop shrine - pass turn...

Turn three lay Terramorphic Expanse (put shrine to one) Your oppoenent will note that you have a potential 7/1 on your next turm and if they are smart they will keep mana open for the answer...then use two red to drop kiln fiend... pass turn ( In their turn sac Teramorphic expanse and get mountain put shrine to 2) you now have 3 red mana.

Turn four - Drop mountain put shrine to 3 counters, sac it create 7/1 elemental, depending on your opponent and their deck they might try an answer here, but more likely they'll wait until you've used your all mana... so use one red for assault strobe on shrine elemental, giving it double strike. Your opponent will probably try and kill it here,.use Not of this World on their answer, kiln fiend is now also at 7/2  you now have lots of other options for the other three red... you could lightning bolt  any blockers or fling the kiln fiend if he meets a blocker or you could  double bull rush the elementzal making it a brutal 11/1 trampling double strike  Either way you win unless they're playing fog and no-one plays fog (or do they? Watch out for our next top budget deck featuring amongst other cards the very underrated fog)

The rest of this deck we'll leave to you... you could add ember smiths and cheap artifacts like memnites for cheap removal,chump blockers and burn and to help get the galvanic blasts up to full power... or just go for lots of burn like Staggershock, burst lightning and searing blaze...

Here's the horrible moment when your opponent discovers his £500 deck has just been eaten by some uncommons...

Like we said at the start... Control This...

The reason this blog exists is fair play...

Its all very well to have all the fetch lands and Jace the bloody Mind Sculptor if you can afford to spend £500/$700 on a deck.

Ok, So there was always red deck wins, but with the arrival of Koth of the Hammer, the man has managed to spoil that avenue too...(Is it just me or does Koth Of The Hammer look like he likes wearing dresses on the Weekend? Not that I'd say it to his face)

Oh Wizards run their Building on a budget section and whislt we applaud it, it can push the value of the cards they highlight back out of budget...

So how do you compete? Well thats why this blog exists we're going to get thinking and get chatting and get innovating and we shall be bringing you the best in top budget builds.  

Because there's nothing more satisfying in the realm of magic than smashing a two grand deck with a handful of commons and some thought...