Dual Decks
Dual decks are my attempt to create a series of interesting casual decks, designed to be played against each other. The twist is that each dech is built using two separate creature tribes, and tied together with Maskwood Nexus which gives all creature types to all of your creatures. Each deck aims to show off both the strengths of its tribes, as well as a few famous MtG combo mechanics used in unusual ways. Each Dual deck is 61 cards, with the last card being an Un-card or playtest series card which is added for silliness, and can be removed if you prefer.
You can find my full set of Dual Decks here!
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Summary
Demon Snakes (or Snake Demons) is a deck with strong combos, light on early firepower but if it survives long enough it WILL kill everything and turn them into Snake-Demon-Clowns. If your favorite thing in Magic is to assemble a sick 5-card combo, this is the deck for you.
Opening hands
This deck is rather lenient when it comes to opening hands. It eventually needs to get to 5-6 lands, 4+ lands in the starting hand isn't a problem, especially with the ability to cycle some of them.
Combo Mechanic: -1/-1 counters
-1 counters are a strong form of removal on their own, and Hapatra is an excellent payoff to go with them. She's often just strong enough to keep you safe until the big combo plays come out.
Combo Mechanic: Cycling
Basically all of the Cycle/Discard synergy comes back to Archfiend of Ifnir, but that's still enough to make it a big part of the deck. You can even Swampcycle a troll into a Canyon Slough, then cycle it AGAIN for a card if you want.
5 snakes with deathtouch is great value for a turn 3 play, but if the Ammit manages to recover itself the value just keeps rolling in!
Discard Blood Seeker to Noose Constrictor: put a counter on each opposing creature. For each counter, make a Snake-Demon-Clown. For each Snake-Demon-Clown, return Blood Seeker to hand. For each Blood Seeker trigger, discard it to Noose Constrictor...
In the end, you destroy all of your opponents' creatures and make snakes equal to their combined toughness. This combo is surprisingly much easier to assemble than it first looks, since Blood Seeker with Maskwood Nexus can repeatedly search for the remaining 3 cards.
Un-card: Trigger Happy
A truly excellent card design that feels like cheating, but in a fun way. It can return Blood Seeker. It can heal Ammit. It can trigger Rakdos, Archfiend, or even just Hapatra. And for the ultimate meme, it can trigger Liliana's Contract: you still need 4 demons to win the game, but you've got Maskwood Nexus >:)
