This tasty bit of Jank is brought to you by Joswuade and BDC.
Full disclosure: I was testing this deck and it’s still not perfected.
With the new card from Kaldheim, Icebreaker Kraken, hitting arena last week, I knew it was only a matter of time before I tested the icy waters of Kraken tribal.
Ikoria gave us a marvelous enchantment in Ominous Seas that encouraged card draw into an 8/8 KRAKEN. And, the more card draw, the more lands you can get your hands on. This helps you build to another famous 8/8 Kraken when you play the card KIORA bests the Sea God. This one comes with, not only, Hexproof, but a complete shutdown of your opponent on the second phase of the saga and an outright stealing of an opponent’s creature on the third.
And I had also put a Reflections of Littjara in the deck to copy every Kraken I play. The only problem is that, since I didn’t actully play them, the Enchantment didn’t copy the tokens I got from Kiora Bests the Sea God and Ominous Seas unfortunately. But, even without doubling these menacing beasts, two 8/8 Krakens and an expected tapdown and theft should be enough to take down any deck.
Or one would think so.
Enter my worthy opponent. He starts out with a Questing Beast and burn cards; keeping it close. But with Rousing Read, I took to the skies and got a Kraken from Ominous Seas. So I think I can outpace him at this rate. And if it weren’t for his meddlesome jank and deceptive build, I would have gotten away with it too.
Although the deck looked strong enough and kept things close, he needed something to counteract my Krakens. And, BOY, did he find it!
The first card in this combo was Maskwood Nexus. Now, this card seems harmless enough, at first. But the very act of making every creature you control, have in graveyard and library ‘EVERY CREATURE TYPE’ can be deceptively broken. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of this card in the future meta.
Then, he drops The World Tree.
Never take this card for granted. It comes in like an innocent land ramper by allowing all of your lands (Once you have 6+) to tap for any color mana. This is important because of that last ability that you’re sure your opponent will NEVER get off since it costs double WUBRG.
That’s the problem, my opponent did just that; sacrificed The World Tree to pop that last ability. Now, once again, we’re usually not worried about it since it only goes after ‘god cards’. But, with the Maskwood Nexus out, all creature cards everywhere were also GODS! So basically, he unloaded his whole library of creatures and me without a boardwipe (I knew I should have splashed white in this deck).
Still, must I remind you, I had 2 8/8 Krakens out and next turn Kiora Bests the Sea God was going to tap all of those creatures he had just janked onto the field. So I wasn’t worried.
Then, when the time came for Kiora to do her thing, none of his creatures tapped. There were so many creatures on his side of the field that I had missed seeing one crutial card: Ashaya, Soul of the Wind. If I had seen it, I would have anticipated what happened next. None of his creatures tapped to Kiora. You can see on the video I began to scurry around to find out what card had done this horrendous act.
But, once I saw it, I understood. I had used Ashaya in a deck before and survived several board wipes because of the one phrase: ‘nonland permenants’. That’s right, Kiora could not tap any of his creatures becase Ashaya made them land also.
Well played, Joswuade! But, as I’m fond of saying, “You’re either winning or you’re learning!” And I learned a new jank thanks to you and WILL definitely try it out. In the meantime, I’ll keep brewing the Krakens and get back to you when they are worthy of their own video! Until then, beware the World Tree and the Maskwood Nexus while I try and ‘Release the Krakens‘!
AoE Table Top 