Clone Coronet Magic has been terrorizing the ladder summoning multiple 9-drops on turn 4. You can watch Copperpitch pull off the crazy combo in his video below at 4:24.
The Divine Coronet
4 Mana 1/1 Legendary Neutral Structure Creature
Can’t Attack.
Roar: Gain +4 health. If this creature has 9 health or more, delve a 9 mana creature and summon it. If it has less, shuffle it into your deck.
The first time you play Coronet, it will buff itself to 5 health and shuffle itself into the deck. The second time, it will buff itself to 9 health and delve a 9 mana creature to summon. The Clone Coronet deck aims to play Coronet twice ASAP and copy it so you can summon multiple 9-drops early.
There are a few different builds of Clone Coronet Magic. Both decklists are from [8M] Sifu.
GU_1_4_CEpCEpBGyBGyBErBErBBxBBxBASBASBDMBDMCBwCBwKAfKAfCEoCEoBDrBDrCDbCDbHAFHAFBDsBDsIBDBGCBGCLAJ
https://gudecks.com/decks/GU_1_4_BASBASBBxBBxBDMBDMBDrBDrBDsBDsBErBErBGCBGCBGyBGyKAfKAfLAJCBwCBwCDbCDbCEoCEoCEpCEpHAFHAFIBD?godPowers=100126&creator=[8M]%20Sifu&userId=1457818&archetype=Aggro%20Magic
GU_1_4_BDWBDWBGyBGyBErBErBBxBBxBASBASBDMBDMCBwCBwKAfKAfCEoCEoBDrBDrCDbCDbHAFHAFBDsIBDBGCKAuKAuLAJ
https://gudecks.com/decks/GU_1_4_BASBASBBxBBxBDMBDMBDWBDWBDrBDrBDsBErBErBGCBGyBGyKAfKAfKAuKAuLAJCBwCBwCDbCDbCEoCEoHAFHAFIBD?godPowers=100126&creator=???&userId=1457818&archetype=Aggro%20Magic
The deck consists of the normal Lost in the Depths (LITD) deck structure with the combo pieces and a ton of 1-cost draw, foresee, and removal cards that you obliterate with LITD. The first version is based on the Clone Portal Wrangler Magic deck with 2 Clones and 2 Warp Engineers. The second version cuts a Clone and Warp Engineer for 2 Immaterialize.
The 1-cost cards are interchangeable for the most part. They all dig for LITD or slow down the opponent. The 1-cost draw spells, and foresee creatures are common among all Clone Magic decks. You can flex the remaining card slots for Vanguard Axewoman, Ancient Texts, Backstreet Bouncer, Assistant Alchemist, Rampart, or Erratic Portal, etc. Safeguard Incantation is a flex card to have something to play after LITD while waiting for 4 mana and to protect your face.
The combo pieces are:
The combo works like this if you draw all the combo pieces.
Depending on your draw or decklist, you can skip a Warp Engineer and a Clone to get it out faster with only 2 Coronets. This way you don't wait to draw 2 Warp Engineers and 2 Clones.
I wrote about The Divine Coronet when it was first spoiled here @meltysquid/lights-verdict-spoiler-the-divine-coronet. My thoughts about the card were mostly right. Coronet Turbo War with Out of its Misery and Spoils of War is a meme, Mistress Scythia Nature has never seen play, and Coronet sees a little play in Control Light. You can read how Coronet fits into Control Light in this article by kstreet @kstreet/getting-the-most-out-of-coronet. Lost in the Depths and Clone Coronet Magic works a lot better than I expected. I didn’t see many Clone Portal Wrangler Magic decks in the meta and I haven’t played that deck before, so I didn’t think that Coronet would be a big improvement. Oh boy, was I wrong.
The Divine Coronet version of Clone Magic has a lot more strengths compared to the Portal Wrangler version. It is faster and more consistent since it has fewer combo pieces,
8 pieces(2x Portal Wrangler + 2x Warp Engineer + 2x Clone + 2x Form of Unity) vs
5 pieces(1x The Divine Coronet + 2x Warp Engineer + 2x Clone). And the 9-drops you summon can have frontline to protect your face. As a result of these strengths, Clone Coronet has been seeing a lot of play on the ladder. On the other hand, it doesn’t have the OTK potential of the Wrangler version with Form of Unity.
It is an odd combo deck that is favored against aggro and loses to Control opposite to most other combo decks. Aggro has a tough time getting through the 9-drop frontlines, while Control has easy answers with order or sleep to stall and plenty of removal.
Save your pip going first so you can use it to get to 4 mana on turn 3. Keeping draw spells in hand after playing LITD lets you draw into your combo sooner.
You always pick Clear Mind to be able to Foresee 2 every turn to look for LITD and be able to stack your deck to draw Coronet.
You want to hard mulligan for LITD. I think you should keep combo pieces in the opener so you don’t need to spend the turns drawing them later. You want to look for a 1-drop after finding LITD since you can't rely on your opponent having a 1-drop. Foresee creatures are slightly better to keep in the opener than the draw spells since they let you see the same amount or more cards and can contest the board early.
You have around a 40% chance to find one of your 2 copies LITD in the first turn from the 3 opening cards, 3 mulligans, and first turn draw.
Picking the right 9-drops to summon depends on the matchup and what the current board state is. Against Aggro you want frontline to protect your face and against Control you want Ward so your creature doesn't get removed. You have a 19% chance to see a specific creature from the 9-drops you delve. Remember you have to find a way to kill your opponent quickly since you won't have any cards left in deck after the combo and you will take fatigue damage at the end of turn equal to how much unspent mana you have.
Polyhymnia stops most aggro decks with frontline and armor 4. Eris is decent against control since her Hidden stops her from being removed immediately and her effect can obliterate 20 cards from your opponent’s deck. Remnis is funny to summon, you’ll get a random 9-drop and your opponent has to decide between killing Remnis or letting him live to get a 9-drop for themselves. Thaeriel’s Anvil can get you multiple frontlines but the Anvil can’t attack and clogs your board. Anagreos has godblitz and can deal 12 damage to face immediately but has no ward. Echophon has blitz, twinstrike, and overkill so you can clear board easily.
Avatar of Magic (AoM) can OTK if it lives until the next turn and you have a spell in hand. Most of my wins were from AoM living then playing a leftover Clone or Immaterialize and start blasting my opponent with a couple of Beams. AoM is hard for most decks to kill with Ward and Protected. It might be worth keeping a 1 mana spell in hand for AoM.
The counters I talked about in my previous Coronet article were mostly accurate with the meta counters seeing play while others are unused. If your 9-drops get removed, you will have no way to win the game.
Transform hasn’t seen a lot of play seen. Most gods don’t have good transform cards and Magic is hamstrung on mana to pop the ward and use Ratify in the same turn.
The same thing with hard removal, having the mana and cards to get rid of ward and remove the 9-drop is difficult.
Obliterate works well, bypassing ward. Divine Judgement and the new An End to War work great for Control Light and Control War.
Stalling with sleep or order works better than I expected since you are on a clock dying to fatigue.
Most decks haven’t teched in bounce cards to adapt to 9-drops. I guess the bounce cards aren’t strong enough overall and Coronet isn’t popular enough to warrant finding room for them.
Cutthroat Insight stops the deck completely if you can steal Coronet before they play it. The new Dearly Departed stops the deck too, but it is too weak to find room in decks.
Fast aggro decks can rush you down before you can summon a 9-drop. They also can have the reach to get around your frontlines. Aggro Deception has Orfeo’s Distraction and Stoneskin Poison. Aggro War has Slayer and Flank creatures. Card Draw Magic has plenty of burn spells. Over the Line Death bypasses your frontline completely.
Something I didn’t expect to be a problem was board space. You need two spaces open on board to play Coronet and summon a 9-drop. Coronet can’t attack, so it’s stuck taking up space and you can’t get rid of it. Surprise Delivery can clog your board and stop you from having room to play Coronet.
Here's some of my gameplay with the deck. It’s a linear combo so there isn’t very interesting gameplay to see and not much to make note of.
0:00 Enrage War
Polyhymnia stops them dead in their tracks.
4:49 Control Light
They have no out for Avatar of Magic and I beam them to death the following turn.
9:27 Card Draw Magic
Card Draw Magic has the reach to kill you after you summon 9-drops but my opponent couldn’t find the damage and I bash their face in with hydras.
19:26 Aggro Deception
They run me over with Switch Duelist and Merrick. The Surprise Delivery was an interesting counter.
23:12 Control Deception
I forget Cutthroat Insight is a card then insta-concede.
25:34 Control Deception again
This time I pop off before Cutthroat Insight can stop me, then I start blasting.
29:57 Control War
Some sloppy playing from me, not that I think it mattered a lot. They had answers for my 9-drops and couldn’t kill them before succumbing to fatigue.
