Single Scoop: Orzhov Prison (Historic, Magic Arena)
Gameplan
If you aren't familiar with it, there's a sweet interaction between Nine Lives and Solemnity
These two cards combined make it so damage is irrelevant to us. For the most part, we're immune to aggression outside of cards like Stomp and Questing Beast. Before Tibalt's Trickery was released into the Bo1 ladder, I was mono white but now that there's a chance to lose as early as turn 2 thanks to Trickery. Because of this, a card like Thoughtseize is needed more than ever.
Because of the need for something like Thoughtseize, we're adding black but luckily there's a lot with the addition of black. With Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath gone, the best known decks are goblins, auras, and Jund or Rakdos Sacrifice. With that in mind, a card like Shadows' Verdict absolutely wrecks Auras and Sacrifice. Goblins is a bit rough so we're just hoping to assemble the Nine Lives combo as they don't have ways to answer our enchantments.
After we've locked down the board, we can use cards like Karn, the Great Creator to find an artifact to help close out the game or to continue to lock our opponents out some more. We've got cards like Castle Ardenvale as a back up win condition. This may seem like a joke but the card definitely closes out games. If not Castle, we've got Approach of the Second Sun.
Conclusion
The Prison deck is amazing in the best of one queue when there's so much aggression and random unfair magic going on. I would say our absolute worst match up is something like Mono Blue or Azorius Control as they can just counter a few key spells and seal the deal with a planeswalker like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. Sure, we have a shot at beating the control decks with something like The Immortal Sun but often times, I just don't play these matches and concede and move on if I'm trying to efficiently ladder because of how long the games will go and the low win %. Outside of those match ups, everything else is fair game and potentially a favorable match up!
I'm sure I'm not the only one that has been keeping the Nine Lives combo alive so let me know if you have any sweet variations of the combo through comments or on Twitter! Thanks for watching.
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-Your Friendly Neighborhood AsianAvenger
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