Slowgurk Lurking in the Shadows

Hello there! My name is Kyle Gonzales, and I’m here to talk about the deck I won my Standard RCQ with 4C Legends! This deck is not really too popular in the standard format but can really pack a punch if you’re not prepared for it. For NRG champs, this was my front runner for decks I wanted to play, thanks to teammate Cris Smith, due to its resilience and being hard to interact with. This deck is filled with powerful Legends that all synergize with each other very well and Interact well with the Channel Lands from Kamigawa Neon Dynasty.

This deck plays more channel lands than any other deck in the format with a whopping 12 copies between the main deck and the sideboard. Otawara, Soaring City and Takenuma, Abandoned Mire are both automatic 4-ofs in the deck, one being a powerful removal spell and the other being a way to recur our threats over and over again. The other lands like Sokenzan, Crucible of Fire and Boseiju, Who Endures are in smaller amounts, not because they aren't powerful but because they don’t line up as well in the current format. All of them are powerful in various situations and can do absurd things when looped over and over again.

Now comes the centerpiece of the whole deck, Slogurk, the Overslime. This card has some pretty busted synergies with all these channel lands by being able to pick them up with its leaves the battlefield ability. Not only can they be picked up by Slogurk, they also trigger it just by channeling them to put counters on our Slogurk to be able to loop these cards over and over. Slogurk is one of the hardest cards to interact with by our opponents, it having its own protection by being able to bounce itself to our hand along with our channel lands being able to return him from our graveyard or even bounce it back to our hand with Otawra. Now note that Slogurk’s ability to pick up lands from the graveyard triggers whenever it leaves the battlefield, meaning that whether they kill it, exile it, or bounce it we will always get value back by picking up lands on the way out. With all these synergies your opponents will never have a good time no matter how they interact with Slogurk.

Alongside Slogurk are more powerful support Legends that also synergize with these channel lands. Inti, Seneschal Of the Sun and Titania, Voice of Gaea are very powerful legends on their own but really work well with all these channel lands in our deck. With Inti, every time we channel any of these lands we get to exile cards from the top of our library to get us extra value and help churn through our deck to help look for our combo pieces. Titania works well by being a stonewall against the early aggro deck but can gain us life to help buffer our life total with our channel lands to help stabilize. Not only is its body very good at defense but it also has some hidden reach on it so your opponents flyers have a tougher time getting through periods.

Another powerful engine in our deck revolves around two pretty unexpected powerhouses in the deck, Relic of Legends and Rona, Herald of Invasion. Rona is a pretty obvious inclusion in our legends deck since nearly every spell in our deck is a legend and Rona can help churn through our deck to find combo pieces. Not to mention its cool interactions with Inti being able to turn our card selection into cards advantage with every loot. But the unexpected synergy comes in when Rona is combined with Relic of Legends. This turns Rona into a super mana dork being able to tap for mana off Relic then immediately able to untap to keep casting more legends. This saves a ton of mana overall being an effective cost reducer to all our legends and to allow some crazy and eventful turns.

Now comes the legends in our deck that don't really synergize with the deck but are powerful on their own to deserve a spot in our deck. Glissa, Sunslayer is a very powerful creature on the ground being able to always win in combat with its first strike and deathtouch combo. This is one of those cards that demands an answer right away otherwise it’ll continue to run away with the game. It having multiple modes to choose from whenever it hits a player makes this a very flexible card and can be good in almost every situation. Ertai, Resurrected is next on our list and is one of the best creatures being able to interact with the board or the stack. It can counter wraths that try to sweep the board or get rid of problematic threats that are in our way. And Ertai can be looped over and over again via Takenuma and Otawara making it so we’ll have no issues interacting with our opponent. We even play a very notable The Goose Mother, being a very flexible card by being a two mana legend early to decrease the cost of channel lands, and a big threat late game by being a big flier that also gives us a lot of food to either gain us life or to exchange them for some card advantage

This deck does also play a one of planeswalker and it sure is a good one, Jace the Perfected Mind. This card is really good in the matchups where we have to grind a lot and where we won't typically win with combat damage. Its plus helps relieve pressure from us, Its minus helps fill our yard with lands to pick up and allows us to draw additional cards, and its ult pretty much wins us the game by milling them out. Usually one ultimate isn't good enough to end the game on its own but looping it with Takenuma and Otawara can definitely win the game quickly. Domain is one of the matchups that this card really shines in since they can't interact with this card well and we typically won't be able to get through with creatures with all their sweepers and big creatures.

If you’re into dumb busted combo decks this is the deck for you right here! But this deck isn’t very easy to pilot right off the bat, this deck takes time to master in order to play it efficiently. As you play the deck you’ll slowly learn all the niche interactions with certain cards and gain a great understanding of the deck which will surely gain you an edge in all your games. I do think this deck is really well positioned in the current standard format and would highly recommend bringing it to an RCQ once you’ve gained a lot of reps on it. Good luck to all readers that happen to play the deck and as always, stay Legendary!