Dogged Pursuit: Standard Obsessive Menace

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Introduction

In the latest Standard set Avatar: The Last Airbender, each of the four bending arts has a corresponding Ascension enchantment, and only black, which has no bending, is absent. But is this cycle really missing a corner? Just like Fire Lord Sozin, the counterpart to the four bending rulers, black also has a corresponding Ascension enchantment, except that instead of the bending power of natural elements, it runs on mortal obsession. As for whether that obsession is strong enough to stand against the four bending arts, let me verify it.

Card Analysis

Obsessive Pursuit
Enchantment
When this enchantment enters and at the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and create a Clue token. (It’s an artifact with “{2}, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.”)
Whenever you attack, put X +1/+1 counters on target attacking creature, where X is the number of permanents you’ve sacrificed this turn. If X is 3 or greater, it gains lifelink until end of turn.

Unlike the bending Ascensions that keep accumulating quest counters, Obsessive Pursuit is about the number of sacrifices in a single turn, and it endlessly provides Clue tokens that can be sacrificed to draw cards. If you sacrifice three or more, it also gives that creature lifelink, a combination of card flow, survivability, and burst, provided you have enough mana to sacrifice repeatedly.

The Avatar: The Last Airbender Limited sacrifice theme is placed in white-black, and the white-black color pair in Standard does have a corresponding theme to play, but simply slotting into it seems a bit dull. What other strategies can create lots of tokens to sacrifice? As it happens, I developed a suitable archetype not long ago.

That’s right, our generous newspaper boss, J. Jonah Jameson, and his menace reporters. Whenever your menace creatures attack, Jameson pays wages for each attacking menace creature, giving you Treasure tokens. Sacrificing a Treasure not only costs nothing but also gives you one mana in return, letting you pay the cost to sacrifice Clues or quickly dump the cards you’ve drawn. The decklist is as follows:

Decklist

For this deck’s basic structure, please refer to the earlier article Hollow Menace. The original version emphasized offense and expensive reanimation, but after adding Obsessive Pursuit, the deck’s makeup had to increase the weight of sacrifice, so in the new version I removed the more aggressive creature picks and added the new one-mana menace creature that gives a Clue when it dies, Callous Inspector, and the menace slasher Sawblade Skinripper, which, whenever you sacrifice a permanent on your turn, deals damage to any target at end of turn equal to the number sacrificed. In addition, since Obsessive Pursuit keeps draining your life, and the condition of sacrificing three or more permanents to gain lifelink has a certain threshold, the two-mana slot keeps the lifelink creature Nullpriest of Oblivion to improve the player’s survivability.

To adapt to the new Standard environment of the post-Vivi era, I adjusted the removal, sideboard, and deck makeup to some degree, but since Obsessive Pursuit needs attacks to trigger, I still kept two copies of the enchantment Ferocification, which can grant haste and menace.

Gameplay Demo

The Bo1 test games were already demonstrated in a video in the previous article, so this time let’s use a Bo3 against blue-green Ouroboroid as an example. In game one, with multiple early spot removal spells and Nullpriest’s lifelink, I won the life total race against my opponent. In game two, I only realized in my opening hand that I’d forgotten to take out Strategic Betrayal. Since my opponent’s deck spreads wide, Strategic Betrayal couldn’t precisely pick off their key creatures, and that is exactly what happened. With no other spot removal drawn, I was naturally taken out by the opponent’s Warden of the Grove hydra and Ouroboroid combination. In game three, my opponent developed quickly with Jackal, Genius Geneticist, Warden of the Grove, and Pawpatch Recruit, but my sideboard Iroh’s Demonstration worked wonders, and together with the lifelink from Obsessive Pursuit, I successfully turned around the board disadvantage and won.

Conclusion

Although Wizards of the Coast released a new ban list early, before the release of Avatar: The Last Airbender, ending the era of Vivi dominating Standard, in theory a relatively peaceful period should follow. I never expected Badgermole Cub to take over so soon, which makes me wonder whether this early banning was deliberate (laughs). Will this environment be able to balance itself? Let’s wait and see.