2 Steel Wall
3 Locket of Yesterdays
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Chromatic Star
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Artificer's Intuition
4 Thoughtcast
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Remand
4 Chrome Mox
3 Lotus Bloom
4 Brain Freeze
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Academy Ruins
1 Great Furnace
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Seat of the Synod
8 Island
Sideboard:
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Steel Wall
1 Pithing Needle
3 Spell Snare
2 Stifle
3 Ensnaring Bridge |
 Locket
Combo 2007.
Description of deck by Mike Flores
(quoted):
The Locket combo deck was a pre-World
Championships discovery by Patrick Chapin (and others independently)
that didn't get played largely because the players who knew about it
also knew about TEPS. The key card is Artificer's Intuition. With
Artificer's Intuition in play, Locket searches for Locket of Yesterdays
and three Sensei's Divining Tops. One Top goes to the graveyard, the
Locket hits the board, and then the Locket deck can play the other Tops
for one another for free a million zillion times, jacking the storm
count. From that point, it is storm for the win; Pearlman didn't play
Grapeshot, but most versions have at least one, just in case.
The deck is slower than TEPS but has a lot of things
going for it. Muddle the Mixture can get either Artificer's Intuition or
Brain Freeze, and with Artificer's Intuition in play, the deck can get
essentially any card, and often play that card for free. Artificer's
Intuition is an unlimited shuffling engine, meaning that with Sensei's
Divining Top in play, the deck has peerless selection even for
non-artifact cards (say you have to find the Brain Freeze). The best part
of the deck is that because it is so not known, few players really
understand how the deck works, and will play with the competence of a
poorly trained sea lion. Rumor has it that in his Top 8, Pearlman beat
players in Game 2 or Game 3 - after winning Game 1 (!!!) - with his
opponents naming cards with Cabal Therapythat weren't even in his deck.
The Locket deck is quite narrow, and there are several
Trinket Mage packages that will expressly beat it. For example, Locket
will have a tough time against either Chalice of the Void for one or two -
one stopping the primary Divining Top flip-flip and two stopping the kill
cards (or keeping Artificer's Intuition off the table, if early enough) -
and a Chalice and a Pithing Needle (or two Chalices) will completely lock
out the game. The only main deck out Locket combo has to a Chalice is the
one Engineered Explosives, so if you Needle that, there will be problems.
An early Pithing Needle on Artificer's Intuition, plus an answer to
Engineered Explosives, is essentially a hard lock, and Needle on Sensei's
Divining Top with an answer to the Chalice (for instance two Needles) is
similarly difficult to overcome. Tormod's Crypt seems good but is actually
embarrassingly bad. You'd think that blowing up the Locket deck's
graveyard would be good, turning off Locket of Yesterdays, but you'd be
wrong. Remember that Artificer's Intuition is an essentially unlimited
stack of Demonic Tutors, so the opponent will probably just pitch a
different Sensei's Divining Top (or whatever) and probably go off the same
turn.
I like the Locket combo for sure, and you can see how
difficult it should be to beat, strategically, if you don't know what is
going on, but at the same time how impossible it is for Locket to win when
the wrong opponent knows the cards.
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