Welcome to part three of the deck archetype series! With combo, aggro, control, and midrange covered in my last article, this one cleans up the rest with aggro-control, prison, gimmick, and meta.
Aggro-control (answers/tempo/redundant) wants cards that fill multiple roles. Simic Flash in Standard right now is a great example of this. Frilled Mystic and Brazen Borrower fill both answer and threat slots but are run mainly because they are answers with the upside of attacking. Other cards like Quench and Neutralize help fill out the answer section and emphasize redundancy. Although the deck plays few if any one mana spells to fill in the curve, Brineborn Cutthroat into Neutralize into Nightpack Ambusher is a great way to gain tempo over your opponent.
Prison is a fun archetype. Answers like Blood Moon, Chalice of the Void, and Ensnaring Bridge lock down specific threats (essential) to eventually grind out a win (inevitability). Stax and Free Win Red are common offenders here, and often drop these cards as early as turn one with cheap mana acceleration like Lotus Petal or Simian Spirit Guide. The faster they can lock down the board, the more time they have to ensure the win.
Gimmick is largely misunderstood. As the threats/tempo/essential archetype, it fits closely by combo and aggro and so is often mistaken for them. Even the name throws people off, that somehow this deck is built around some janky five card combo with a turn 17 win if it doesn’t get killed. To that I say two words: Bogles and Infect. Both decks rely on a specific interaction (in this case a small creature and pump spells) to secure a win. By itself, Slippery Bogle is just a 1/1 hexproof creature, and almost any deck can secure a win by turn 20. However, by throwing several auras onto it you’re now facing down a turn 3-4 kill. Gimmick falls apart fairly quickly if it can’t find both halves of its deck and so gets picked apart easily by cheap removal.
Meta rounds off the archetypes with answers/tempo/essential. I don’t have a specific deck for this, because each deck is specific to the meta it’s in. Having trouble with graveyard decks? Maindeck four Leyline of the Voids. Control getting you down? Thoughseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Remand. This style of deck wants to stop every threat your opponent plays using specific answers and win as fast as possible to avoid the longer matches. Most of the time this archetype isn’t a specific 60 with a sideboard, but is what your deck becomes to answer your opponent. You can certainly build a deck with every answer in the format, but it likely won’t be very good.
And that’s that! Three articles, eight archetypes, and infinite possibilities. Magic is a fascinating game, one that’s easy to learn but difficult to master. The more you dig, the more you know, and the more you know the more you dig. There’s so much to learn and I want to learn it all. Thanks for reading, and have a good whatever!
