Deck of the Day

Junk Constellation - Eidolon of Blossoms

Junk Constellation by Nam Sung Wook

2nd at Pro Tour Journey Into Nyx – Theros Block Constructed on May 18th 2014

 

The final pairing at the Pro Tour consisted of two Junk decks, this one and that of the champion Patrick Chapin. For those that aren’t aware Junk is a three color combination consisting of White, Black and Green. While the two decks both went for similar packages of removal, ramp and included Elspeth they went in different directions with the focus of their creatures. Nam Sung decided instead of going for raw power from monstrous creatures to work with the synergy of enchantments from Constellation.

The deck focuses itself around the card drawing engine from the Constellation ability on Eidolon of Blossoms and the 19 enchantments in the deck where Eidolon will draw you a card whenever you play an enchantment with it in play. There is also the formats standard Green excelleration package consisting of the two awesome anti-Aggro ‘walls’ Sylvan Caryatid and Courser of Kruphix which happens to also be an enchantment for the Constellation engine. The beatdown plan comes in the form of another enchantment with Herald of Torment who is either able to Bestow itself to beef up one of the other creatures or just go to town itself, which is very relevant in the format as a Flying threat and possible blocker against Prognostic Sphinx. Another enchantment Brain Maggot is there as part of the disruption package in conjunction with Thoughtseize to strip away those hard to deal with threats and gain valuable information about the opponents game plan. It wouldn’t be right for a White Midrange deck to not play one of the most powerful cards in the format and we find the decks lone planeswalker Elspeth, Sun’s Champion to provide additional threats to the board, destroy any creature which are too powerful, or even create an emblem to pump your entire team into a Flying horde. The deck rounds itself out with an robust suite of removal with a full set of Hero’s Downfall to kill creatures or planeswalker threats, a pair of Silence the Believers to banish a few pesky creature threats in one shot, and also Banshing Light which not only hits a wide range of permanent threats but is also an enchantment to trigger Constellation. While the deck is already strong on draw, when you stick an Eidolon, it does also run all three sets of on color Temples to Scry through the deck as fast as possible.

We will see how popular this more offbeat build of Theros Block Junk deck is at Grand Prix Manchester. I imagine that given the power of this draw engine and the synergy of the decks many moving parts that it will be somewhat popular though we will see if the metagame adjusts to deal with this type of strategy. It seems that in a format centering around enchantments that most decks would already be packing hate, but there might be a new tweek to it that will help push it to the pinnacle instead of just second best.
Eric J Seltzer
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Email: ejseltzer@hotmail.com