Deck history #1 - Talir Combo

In every episode of my Eternal deck history video series I include a modern take on the historic archetype. Some of them will still be good, while others are in a much worse state thanks to nerfs or because they just received less support to keep up with powercreep compared to other decks.

This list for episode 1, which is about Talir combo, belongs to the second group. It still uses the old combo of Talir + Kairos, but thanks to the last Talir nerf in 2022 you can at most play 1 of the units drawn with Kairos for free, which means that you will basically never OTK the opponent. You still end on a good board and a ton of cards in hand and if Kairos stays alive, you can deal a lot of damage on the following turn. That will be enough to beat some decks, but still lose in way more games than the old combo used to. Coupled with the fact that you won't always get to the combo, I would give this deck about a 4/10, meaning it's not completely unplayable on ladder, but there are way better options out there (Praxis Midrange is definitely the superior time ramp deck, for example).

The combo is Talir + a Merchant/Last Chance to draw a Merchant/Etchings to draw Kairos, who gets summoned for free thanks to destiny (although you have to keep in mind that the "2 units" on Talir's effect includes units drawn before you played her, so if you drew a unit at the start of your turn you can't go for the Last Chance into Merchant route because then the Merchant would be the second time unit you drew that turn). The rest of the deck is mostly ramp (to get to 8, 9 or even 11 power faster) or interaction (to survive until then and to kill cards that can prevent your combo, like Grand Suppressor or Combrei Lawmage).