So it’s probably no secret by now that the whole set of New Phyrexia was leaked (and spoiled early as a result). As far as I can tell it’s looking to be one of the most exciting sets in a while. But, this is not a review article; I’ll save that for another day. Instead, I want to look at two cards in particular…
Bloodchief Ascension
Like it is no secret that [NPH] has been leaked, it’s no secret that I am a Johnny. My two best Commander decks are based around assembling one of a multitude of combos which will win me the game. This card, was very Johnny when it was released. However, by itself, it is just not good enough. Getting the counters on this thing made the deck almost choose its colors for you: 
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. The main problem here? Red does not lend itself to Johnny cards very well. If you want to assemble a combo, you need to do two things: Find the pieces of that combo, and then protect it. Obviously red doesn’t draw cards well (part of the reason it is so very bad in Commander). Black doesn’t really have any efficient tutors in its colors, and card draw for black is pretty few and far between. This leaves the need for blue. Well, the shards tri-lands are long gone now which makes 3 color decks which don’t include green nearly impossible to build, or extremely slow. Even then, getting to 6 damage to activate this thing basically means you might as well just drop this card and go straight aggro, since by itself, it doesn’t do anything. After this is activated, there’s also the chance that it just gets blown up somehow, meaning you’ve just lost a card for next to no gain. However, there is one little gem in [NPH] that is just dying to shack up next to our vampiric villainess to the left here…
Mindcrank
Yes, this little — likely $0.25 — uncommon. See, like Bloodchief Ascension, this artifact alone just does not matter. 1 damage for 1 card? Why not just go for straight damage? After all, players only start the game with 20 life, while their decks are 60 cards. This thing doesn’t even benefit from in-block mechanics like poison counters, proliferate, battle cry (obviously its not a creature), etc. Why put this in the set at all? Well, as we know not every card can be nuts like Jace, the Wallet Emptier. As can probably be seen, mill is not a very efficient strategy now that both Howling Mine and Font of Mythos are both gone. So why is this card so good? Can’t see it yet?
The Combo
As I was saying, not all cards can be nuts, or “do” something. Look at Ichor Wellspring. It draws you a card, and then without the aid of any other card, it will do nothing else. One mana of any color is worth more than one card, so why pay 
for something that janky? Well, cards like Bloodchief Ascension, Mindcrank, and Ichor Wellspring all like to be abused. Much like the more popular Kuldotha Rebirth, they all scream “Find something that makes me good!” Or even in this case, “Find something that makes me work!” You see, due to the interesting wording on Mindcrank (“Whenever an opponent loses life…”), an activated Bloodchief Ascension will both cause your opponent to simultaneously mill their entire library, and lose 2 life for each card milled that way. All it takes with both these cards out is a single point of damage to win the game. So now that we know a somewhat viable combo will exist in standard, how do we make it work? How do we make this deck kick ass?
Well, unlike having Bloodchief Ascension by itself, or mingled with red to activate it, in the same block as Mindcrank, we have Proliferate. This allows us to only need 2 damage to be done to an opponent before we go into a nearly non-interactive playing mode. By this I mean, we need only to put one counter on BCA before we simply start digging for Mindcrank. Of course, if its the other way around, we need to have a backup plan. Luckily, mono 
control is looking pretty nice post-[NPH]. The only problem with going that route is needing draw spells and more efficient ways to proliferate. Hence, we go 
/.
The Deck
So now we have a basis for a deck, so how do we pack it to “get there”? Well, we need to worry about aggro. That means packing board wipes like Black Sun’s Zenith. How about control? Well, Inquisition of Kozilek and Duress are good these days I hear. How about other non-interactive decks like Valakut? Well, since a good part of our deck could be artifacts, tectonic edge could be maindecked as high as 4. What do all of these cards have in common? They all put a card into your opponents graveyard, which can help defend early game, while simultaneously end the game after the combo is assembled. So how about activating BCA? Well, Thrummingbird is a nice 2-drop that helps proliferate counters. The only problem is it doesn’t pack the 2 life punch needed to put the first counter on BCA. Got two of these baddies on the board? You can activate BCA in a single turn. 2 damage puts the first counter on, then double proliferate to activate BCA. Pretty nice. We probably don’t want four of these though. Most decks that I’m aware of don’t pack non-creature hate, so we don’t need to defend our combo pieces as much as defend ourselves. Black can take care of some creatures, while Mana Leak and Spell Pierce can help us against Caw-Blade and Infect, etc. We could also go creatureless, which makes a good chunk of many decks useless. I myself am a proponent of that.
So with the above in mind, hows about a list?
4x Tezzeret’s Gambit
4x Preordain
4x Sign in Blood
3x Spell Pierce
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Mana Leak
4x Go for the Throat
4x Mindcrank
3x Necrogen Censer
4x Bloodchief Ascension
4x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Tectonic Edge
3x Darkslic Shores
3x Drowned Catacomb
5x Island
5x Swamp
(4x) Black Sun’s Zenith
(3x) Duress
(3x) Spreading Seas
(4x) Mental Misstep
(1x) Spell Pierce
So there you have it. In my meta, I expect KRed, BR Control/Vamps, Valakut, etc. No one, and I mean no one sides in any sort of artifact/enchantment hate. Assuming I can survive them long enough, the deck should perform pretty well. With a creatureless build, Doom Blades and GftT fall by the wayside except against Creeping Tar Pit. Sign in Blood and Necrogen Censer help activate BCA, the former also helping you draw into the combo alongside Tezzeret’s Gambit (which also helps activate BCA).
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For now, this is all theory. However, the Conley Woods inside us all will likely greatly appreciate the efforts put into this deck. If you’re looking for a meta-breaking deck, I think this will be it.
PS: Will try to update card links as they become available at the official Gatherer.
PPS: Get on getting those BCAs while they’re cheap!
Walking Planes 