This is a crazy idea I just had and I believe that it's just crazy enough to work.
I have no idea why I wanted to try building around
Hedron Alignment
, but whatever the reason was I just couldn't get this idea out of my head. The challenge with Hedron Alignment is three fold, the first being how to find all four copies fast/reliably enough. The second being how to get one into your own exile. The third is deciding what you want the rest of the deck to do while you're trying to pull off such shenanigans in the first place and live long enough to do it.
So what's the best way to do all of those things? Zombies. That's what.
Zombies is what I landed on for both color and practical purposes. You would think that White would be the way to go since it has the most options to exile permanents like Anguished Unmaking, Angelic Purge,
Ironwright's Cleansing
, and Quarantine Field but I think they all pale in comparison to the power of Lost Legacy. There are many things that I can do with this card and it is by far the best option to get Hedron Alignment into Exile. I'll prove it, and then get back to the Zombies.
The first reason that it is the best way to put an Alignment into exile is that it can put it there from any of three different locations as needed. You get to choose a player (yourself), and then find from among the graveyard, hand, and library any number of the named card (one
Hedron Alignment
, please), then exile it. Then you even get to draw a card for it. Brilliant. You can also use this against your opponent to take away key combo pieces and win conditions if you know what they are.
The other main reason that there would be four of these in the main board is for that part about card draw. Turn three you can play it, target yourself, and name
Eternal Scourge
. This guy can be played from Exile so there's literally zero drawback. You get all four copies even if one or two are in your hand and they replace themselves with four cards. If that's not super sweet then I don't know what is. This pseudo-zombie helps guarantee creature drops that aren't essential for the combo, but are essential for staying alive. If they die in combat and you are still digging for cards, just "Lose" them again and draw more cards. They also play well with our other pseudo-zombie
Scrapheap Scrounger
. The Scrounger can exile the Scourge to go back onto the Battlefield as needed and also bring along our pal Prized Amalgam. The Amalgam is another non-essential Alignment piece, but it's persistence along with the Scourge and Scrounger make your staying power in battle quite real and your recovery from board wipes a cinch.
So Exile is completely covered. Card draw is partially covered, but there needs to be more.
Catalog
is nice at instant speed and with the discard outlet does give you a way to drop an Alignment into your Graveyard if needed. Since there are Zombies that don't care if they are in the graveyard you shouldn't have very many bad decisions when it comes to that, but the best part is that you even get to draw first before deciding. Geier Reach Sanitarium works sort of in the same way and is a repeatable means of getting the job done as needed, but also gets you through your deck a bit faster. Finally, the Alignment itself can Scry 1 for just two mana and it's repeatable since you don't have to tap it. Since it also has Hexproof and there are few if any ways to get it off the table you can play an early Alignment and then Scry your way to find whatever you need with unused mana every turn.
Discard outlets are abundant with the activated abilities of other Zombies like the Stitchwing Skaab and
Geralf's Masterpiece
, and Collective Brutality enables discard while also offering hand disruption, small spot removal, and life drain. These all pair quite nicely with
Alms of the Vein
to keep yourself nice and healthy while you work towards your main goal. Discarding is basically the only way to get an Alignment into your graveyard so there has to be plenty of options for when the time is right.
All that life drain and Zombie action should keep your opponent busy while you dig for more Alignments. Two options to Tutor your way there are Diabolic Tutor and Behold the Beyond. Behold is like a warning that your opponent has two turns to finish you off because tutoring for any three cards you could possibly need will surely set up the win on your next turn and then all you have to do is reveal the Alignment from your hand on the second upkeep. The rest of the deck being so... Zombie... should result in a fun surprise for your opponent. If the game goes the way it should they shouldn't even notice what you are up to. The beautiful part is that there is very little they can do to get in your way either and since this type of build is completely unheard of most people will not have answers to these things in their sideboard. Most will be worrying about dealing with Gearhulks and Eldrazi Titans being cheated onto the field and the answers to those things don't line up with this deck whatsoever.
The sideboard has a little bit of counter with
Summary Dismissal
and
Void Shatter
, both are options to get an Alignment into Exile (though wasteful) but obviously give you answers to whatever your opponent is up to. The rest of the sideboard focuses more heavily on the beatdown win by enhancing Zombies with
Graf Harvest
for Menace and adding yet another way to Exile your own Scourge while adding tokens, as well as
Shamble Back
to Exile a Scourge to gain a 2/2 Zombie and 2 life for just one mana. Aligned Hedron Network seemed appropriately named for a Hedron Alignment deck, but it also serves as a means of dealing with those pesky Eldrazi Titans and Gearhulks without the possibility of Exiling any of your own creatures since all but one will never have enough power to be sucked in by it. Liliana does come to mind as a solid choice for this or any Zombie deck, but I'm more about the alternate win while also maintaining a budget.
All things considered I believe the fastest you can "win the game" is 7-9 turns though the fastest I've literally pulled it off is 10 turns.
Actually since posting I've run through dozens more hands and successfully pulled off the setup in 7 turns with Behold the Beyond on turn 7, then played and held onto Alignments on 8, and ready for the insta-win on my 9th upkeep. That's what I think to be the most specifically "win-able" turn. I still had three Zombies on the board during that time to stave off death too.
In any case, that seems fair and "reasonable" for a setup with so many conditions and pieces. Without it I feel that you can comfortably flood the board with zombies by turn 6 and aggro a win by turns 7-9, which I think is also acceptable since that aspect of the deck is very easily achievable and difficult for most decks to overrun any faster. The beauty is that both of these things build up at the same time which is even better. Of course there are plenty of combo decks available now that don't care how many creatures you have or what you are trying to set up yourself that can assemble in as fast as 4-5 turns, but those rely on near-perfect draws and do not have nearly the same consistency and typically lack in the mid-range.
Thanks for reading along with my take on setting up the
Hedron Alignment
victory. I like how it doubles as a fun Zombie aggro deck as a solid backup plan.
