Effigies are beatable, UFO block decks still reign supreme

Hello everyone, BurnedByKevin here, and today I wanted to talk about how to deal with burning effigies and their place in the Metagame.

I’m not going to lie, when I first saw burning effigies I wanted them to be errated on the spot. The sheer power level of an easy aura cost spell and the benefit you get from it was insane. I think with the release of seance and the endless possibilities of deck building with this set, it was hard at first to really figure out what I wanted to build, and my initial thoughts were “what can beat burning effigies?”. And of course, you got to be fast. With confidence I can say at least 3 decks can beat effigies or steer well against it, and of course more not mentioned. 

Lightning - lightning to my knowledge has the most usable fleet beasties in the game. Virtually everything in the deck has fleet besides hornet, or ball lightning if you play that over phantom car. The sheer speed of lightning and overall power can outshine burning effigies, especially in a world with call of the storm. Quetz still remains a menace and always will be. No need to go into detail about that. Lightning is very hard to combat, so speed vs speed will be the game in that matchup. 

Cosmic - Cosmic is still tier 1, and has one of the best search engines in the game due to lizard people, (keep in mind lizard people has just enough base attack to one shot a effigie token) to ensure you always have fuel and beasties at bay. The fact cosmic can swarm the field, and consistently grab your beastie aliens will ensure you can outpace effigies, and still have a good end game with the Flatwoods lockout or El Verde to abuse more abilities. Also having access to a board wipe that hits all non aura pages, the 2nd page to do so besides flood the earth, which in fact gets rid of Effigie tokens. Cosmic is still a great option moving forward. 

Water - Water archetypes never went anywhere, just weren’t being played as much, but it still remains high on the throne. Water having access to a board wipe to hit all pages, crab having stone skin is relevant and always will be, and Oklahoma octopus alone can shut the deck down if brought out early. Water still has crazy amount of power and control vs virtually any deck, There is a lot of different water builds you could play to combat effigies, but just the type advantage alone can overcome it. Let’s not forget dampen exists. 

Now I’m not saying burning effigies are bad, because they obviously are not, I just think was too much focus on it, when in fact they are very beatable, it still will be a tough match nonetheless, but atleast you’ll be more prepared. And also keep in mind, all the decks I listed are not just good against burning effigie decks, but in my opinion all decks in the format. I know with seance it can be a lot to take in, in which direction you want to steer in when it comes to deck building, just know there’s a ton. Of course, there are cards I didn’t mention which people could sideboard etc, but people should know that already! What are your thoughts? 

CAST ON!