Killer Combo – “Hide and Seek”

We spent Game Day at Hall of Heroes – a great little shop in Mt. Pleasant, MI, and we had a lot of fun despite the fact that we were rather poorly equipped. Having just got in from Colorado all I had was a Pre-Con combined with cards from a couple drafts. Brad, my TCP compatriot, decided to play with the “Rot From Within” Event Deck.

While I did win a few games, Brad actually made it to the final four with “Rot From Within” which is a testament to that deck’s out-of-the-box power.

Today’s combo is one we came up against a couple times at Game Day. Using Gitaxian Probe to prepare the ground for Inquisition/Duress is something that came to our minds when we first started looking over the New Phyrexia spoilers, but we yesterday was the first time we really saw the power of this combo.

Not only does a first-turn Gitaxian Probe allow you to prepare for everything your opponent has in store in the coming turns, but it allows you to most effectively play a discard spell, and when followed by Inquisition of Kozilek in particular, can ensure that your opponent’s start is slow.

Gitaxian Probe’s second effect of drawing a card to replace itself leaves you with a card advantage where you would have otherwise had to do a one-to-one card trade.

This combo, which we like to call “Hide and Seek”, is one of the best first turns in Standard, in my opinion. It gives you much-needed data about your opponents hand and the often-crucial card advantage at the outset of the game.