This week I want to take a look at a sweet Standard deck that I originally saw Conley Woods playing on Twitch one night. He named it “Shock Puppet” after the main win condition in Marionette Master. This deck caught my eye because it plays with some uncommon Standard cards as well as one of my favorite planeswalkers, Tezzeret the Schemer.
Shock Puppet – HankS | 1st PPTQ
Creatures
4 Contraband Kingpin
4 Marionette Master
Spells
3 Fatal Push
4 Renegade Map
4 Treasure Map
4 Hidden Stockpile
2 Doomfall
4 Cast Out
2 Spell Swindle
2 Fumigate
Planeswalkers
4 Tezzeret the Schemer
Lands
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Evolving Wilds
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Drowned Catacomb
2 Fetid Pools
1 Field of Ruin
4 Swamp
2 Island
2 Plains
Sideboard
3 Duress
2 Jace’s Defeat
2 Fumigate
2 Cruel Reality
1 Authority of the Consuls
1 Fatal Push
1 Arguel’s Blood Fast
1 Trespasser’s Curse
1 Crook of Condemnation
1 Spell Swindle
This list comes from HankS, a reddit user who took it to a 1st place finish at a recent Standard PPTQ. In short, the goal of this deck is to setup some cheap artifacts that can be sacrificed, such as Etherium Cells or Treasure tokens, play Marionette Master and Fabricate using +1/+1 counters to set it’s power to 4, then sacrifice the artifacts to deal 4 damage each. It’s important to remember that any of your artifacts being destroyed will trigger the Master including sacrificing your own Servo tokens or cracking a leftover Renegade Map.
An Abundance of Consistency
The biggest strength of this deck is how consistently it is able to pull off its primary gameplan. This is accomplished in part with the help of Renegade Map and Evolving Wilds to ensure you have the correct colors of mana to cast your dual-colored spells on turn 2. Contraband Kingpin and Hidden Stockpile are easily two of the most powerful cards in the deck. The fact that you can use these cards repeatedly to scry means that you will rarely be drawing poorly throughout the course of a game. The Aetherborn creature allows you to scry virtually every turn of the game because there are so many artifacts in this deck that can be cast or created. This includes new Servos from Hidden Stockpile, cells from Tezzeret the Schemer, either of the two maps, and even Spell Swindle making Treasure tokens.
This deck also offers a variety of removal to answer opposing threats. Fatal Push, Cast Out, and Tezzeret the Schemer all work together to slow the game down so that you have time to setup for a combo finish. While you may trade 1-for-1 with your removal for their creature, don’t forget that you will likely be able to draw better cards than the opponent because of being able to scry so often. One huge upside this deck offers is the ability to run Fumigate. This card is well positioned right now as there are plenty of decks in Standard aiming to win with a lot of tough-to-beat creatures. Fumigate cleans them all up nicely allowing you to continue developing your board for the huge combo finish.
If you do plan to pick up this deck and give it a shot, I highly recommend getting a good amount of practice games in before taking it to a large event. There are quite a few triggers on many different cards that can often be missed if you’re not used to looking for them. Also try to take advantage of all of the activated abilities you have at your disposal. Using your Hidden Stockpile on your upkeep means you get to scry before you draw and still get the Servo token at your end step thanks to revolt.
Well I hope you enjoyed this weeks brew. As always, if you have any questions or comments you can find me on twitter @UTDZac or leave a comment below.
