Kaldheim: Tergrid's Terrifying Turnaround

 Last week the new viking-themed set for Magic the Gathering—Kaldheim—released on Arena. The set features a host of fun mechanics for players to build decks around, including new options Foretell and Boast, and as always with the first couple of weeks post-release everyone is brewing some premium jank right now. Five Colour God Tribal, Izzet Giants, Orzhov Angels—right now the meta is shifting more than Kaldheim’s changelings, which is the perfect time to try out some funky combos.

With everyone’s attention focused on Tibalt’s Trickery at the moment though, some cards are flying under the radar. One of those cards is Tergrid, God of Fright. A double-sided creature/artifact, Tergrid’s ability to steal your opponent’s cards and her mono black colour scheme fit nicely into a bunch of deck combos. In the interest of science, we tried out a few of these to see where Tergrid best fits to get the most out of her and yoink as much as possible.

Attempt #1: Tergrid’s Army (Orzhov)

Our first attempt to throw Tergrid into a deck didn’t go too badly. The idea was to get out Tergrid and Doom Foretold, then keep sacrificing our Reassembling Skeleton to keep Doom Foretold going. Tergrid would grab anything Doom Foretold removed, and the board state would slowly tilt in our favour as we used their own stuff against them.

(Higher resolution deck image here)

As with most black decks, Thoughtseize was an obvious choice to add—even more so because of Tergrid’s ability applying to both discarded and sacrificed permanents (worth noting lands also fall under her ability!). Seal Away and Birth of Meletis provide some early game defence against aggro decks, while Blood on the Snow works as a last resort wipe card (with one returned creature courtesy of snow lands) if things aren’t going our way.

Initially Pharika’s Libation, Elspeth’s Nightmare, and Cruel Reality played a big part in the deck, but they weren’t quick enough to deal with opponents who played multiple threats by turn three so they were cut. Instead, Mythos of Snapdax was added as a bomb for when Tergrid is in play (to accompany our other bombs Valki and Kaya). 

Kaya fits into the deck easily, returned sacrificed creatures to our hand and giving us some removal potential even before her ultimate. But Valki/Tibalt is the rogue choice of the deck. Played as a creature Valki works as a discard-but-not-really for a creature of our choice, but with Blightstep Pathways and Savai Triomes letting us splash red, we can throw out Tibalt in the late game to really amp up pressure on our opponent.

A lot of the issues with this deck came from having to work around an inconsistent mana base. For people with more Isolated Chapels and Brightclimb Pathways this shouldn’t be an issue, though.

Attempt #2: Golgargrid (Golgari)

Oh man, the less said about this one the better. The idea was to use green to ramp up into a high mana base, get Tergrid into play, and throw out Torment of Hailfire to end the game. Super simple combo that didn’t rely on much at all, so it should have been an easy win.

Not a chance. The deck suffered massively against aggro decks—lacking enough early game threat removal—and lifegain decks, who could just absorb the damage from Torment of Hailfire no problem.

A concept to revisit, but not one we could get working in the time we had.

Attempt #3: Tergrixis (Grixis)

What were we thinking throwing Tergrid into a Grixis shell? Well, after the disaster of Golgargrid we adopted the philosophy of throwing anything we could at her and seeing what stuck.

(Higher resolution deck image here)

Ironically, it worked pretty well! With zero consistency, but plenty of removal and a number of threats other than Tergrid for opponents to worry about, this deck had a reasonably good win rate.

The downside? It was essentially a Grixis planeswalkers deck with Tergrid thrown in. Most of the wins weren’t due to her, and her ability rarely came into play (with all the discard and sac cards being used before she was on the field).

Attempt #4: Cruel Fear (Mono Black)

Unsurprisingly, this was the absolute best deck for Tergrid. A ridiculously high win rate in play queue (averaging 75-100%), with Tergrid earning most of the wins herself. The downside here is that in ranked it initially performed terribly, with constant mana floods and no answers to aggro decks. With that in mind we tweaked it slightly into its final form, which has performed quite well.

(Higher resolution deck image here)

Most of the cards in the deck make use of early game discards, with Waste Not capitalising to give a boost into the mid-game. Once Tergrid is out the value of every card skyrockets, with even Plaguecrafter able to shift the balance in our favour. All in all this was the most synergised deck for Tergrid, and the most fun to play. If you’ve been playing Kaldheim looking to use her, this is the best place for Tergrid to go.

Magic Arena: Why I Quit Standard and Started Playing Historic

I was first introduced to Magic the Gathering by a friend in 2013. He’d been involved with the game for years, and suggested the Duels of the Planeswalkers franchise on Steam as something we could play together since we lived in different cities. In my first game, he utterly crushed me; never had I been so completely outplayed in a video game before - but I was hooked. Nobody else I knew wanted to play, so for the most part I played alone against the DotP AI. When Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 released, I bought it immediately, and again for the 2015 game. I convinced other friends of mine to play, and got good enough most of the time I’d win.

When Magic Duels released in place of Duels of the Planeswalkers 2016 as a free to play game, I gave it a shot but wasn’t sold, still enraptured by previous games and at the same time breaking into a short but costly stint on Magic the Gathering Online. Not once have I ever played paper MTG, because I enjoyed being able to play in short bursts at absurd hours between work projects, but the virtual card game has been a constant presence in my life since 2013, even if I still stuck to the familiar old DotP games.

I was, then, excited but trepidatious when Magic Arena was announced by Wizards of the Coast. I joined the beta, and played a bit, but couldn’t convert my friends over to the game so returned to the DotP franchise once more. Eventually, those friends moved away from MTG, and I returned to Arena to give it another shot with Theros: Beyond Death. Once more, I was hooked. The limit on rewards was infuriating, but for the first time I was enjoying going against other players online with my off meta Black and White life gain deck. The animations were flashy, the mechanics were relatively smooth, and using cards I’d never seen before, especially planeswalker cards, was incredible fun.

Since the start of the British national lockdown in March I have been playing Arena every day. Initially I wasn’t winning a lot, but I was learning and having fun. I’d browse the subreddit or read articles between games on how things I’d never dealt with before, like drafting, worked. Eventually I branched out from my life gain deck into all different colour combinations and deck archetypes, enjoying them all for the different experiences of MTG they brought me. When the Core 2021 set released, I invested in decks built around the card Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Everyone online was saying he would be vital to the new meta, and I was looking to get wins more consistently to build my collection up.

It worked. I would win the majority of my games, at the cost of somewhat repetitive gameplay, and slowly I branched into variations of the deck which saw less consistent wins but were a lot more fun to play.

At the end of September, Zendikar Rising released and the majority of previous sets rotated out of the Standard format to become unplayable. My favourite deck became unplayable, and I like everyone else was forced to build new decks from a vastly restricted pool of cards.

With the restricted card pool the opportunities for the playerbase to build interesting, noncompetitive decks was substantially diminished. There were far fewer archetypes to build decks around, which led to a lot of repetitiveness in games and a renewed emphasis on building the most competitive, rather than the most interesting, decks.

Until this point, I had never played a game of Historic. The format was intimidating, with a huge card pool I was locked out of due to having not already invested in it and a reputation for an incredibly high power level. Winning games in Arena only rewards cards and packs from the Standard format, so the majority of cards are inaccessible to players unless they dedicate to a draft or to buying packs from Historic sets. 

After a month of post-rotation Standard, however, I was ready to jump into Historic. Standard seemed to have stagnated, with the high power cards like Omnath from Zendikar Rising banned and the meta settled into the same three or four deck archetypes. But more so, I was nostalgic for my old pre-rotation deck, a three colour Sultai (Green, Black, and Blue) deck I affectionately named YOLO. So without having bought a single pack or drafted a single card from pre-Core 2020 (the earliest Standard set from the last rotation), I launched into Historic. It’s the best decision I have made in my MTG journey.

Suddenly I was back to where I had been when I first rejoined Arena. My deck, which had previously been reasonably good, was losing to a huge variety of decks and cards I’d never seen before. The overpowered deck archetypes I’d so feared rarely appeared, and players were primarily running strange decks with obscure win conditions rather than highly competitive top tier cards. The whole experience was educational, and exhilarating. I spent all my in-game currency on packs for some of the older sets, used my Wildcards to fill in the gaps on a couple of fully Historic decks I wanted to try out, and went from there. 

I haven’t gone back to Standard, and have converted my Standard-playing friends into switching over to Historic too. The sheer variety of options in Historic makes for an endlessly rewarding and infinitely replayable experience. You’re unlikely to go against the same deck often, and very likely to pick up any number of new tricks and combos you never even considered just by facing opponents using them.

Despite all my loving praise for Historic, as well as my encouragement for anyone who feels tempted to try it out, Wizards of the Coast should be offering improvements to make the format more accessible. In the long run, it’s profitable for them. 

First, it should be clearer to players that you can play Historic casually, and not just the Historic Ranked option which is listed separately. Often people criticise that changing modes isn’t easy, which is rather infuriating as all you need to do is launch the Play queue with a Historic deck selected. Any kind of alert, even a loading screen tip like is used for many other basic aspects of the game, would solve this problem.

Second, the apprehension I felt about playing Historic is one shared by many Standard players. Wizards of the Coast could easily resolve this by offering a number of one time deals on Historic packs, similar to the bundles they release associated with each set, or to the Welcome Bundle they offer on the store. This would give players a starting pool of Historic cards, encouraging them to try the format and stay playing it.

Ultimately, Wizards of the Coast makes most of its money from MTG selling packs for the Standard format, so it isn’t surprising Historic has taken a backseat in its priorities. It is strange, however, for them to minimise such a potentially lucrative and enjoyable format. Wizards of the Coast have released Historic content in the form of the Amonkhet Remastered and Kaladesh Remastered sets, and the Historic Anthologies available for a limited time in the store, however these primarily appeal to existing players rather than attracting new players or Standard players to the format. Hopefully, the future will see the company look to utilising Historic in its business model more, which would translate into an even better experience for players.

Chris Jackson is a postgraduate historian from the United Kingdom and lifelong video game lover. He went to university to do two degrees in History not because it was a viable career path but because he was inspired by Civilization III as a child to conquer the world (at least virtually). His favourite games at the moment are Magic Arena and Crusader Kings III, and while his CV describes him as a bartender, his current job title is really Dungeon Master for his five ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.