Inside Out Combo

Inside Out Combo is a red-white deck that wins with one enormous hit from Tireless Tribe: the Tribe discards cards for free toughness, Inside Out swaps that toughness into power, and Escape Tunnel or Fling makes sure the damage lands. Most of the rest of the list either digs for those pieces or makes the discards free: Thrilling Discovery and Pursue the Past refill the hand, and Aurora Eidolon and Sandstorm Eidolon return from the graveyard to hand to be pitched again, while Sneaky Snacker returns from the graveyard to the battlefield.

The deck is a niche choice, at 0.5% of the field, but it keeps turning up in the money. Kirblinxy took it to 5th place with a 5-2 record in the Pauper Challenge on August 1, and Nathan Fursa's Boros Tribe build finished 9th at 5-1-1 at the NRG Series Pauper Trial on August 22; two more pilots posted undefeated 5-0 League runs in the first half of September.

What makes the deck attractive is how little of the opponent's deck matters against it. The plan does not care about blockers, life totals earned through combat, or a slow value game; it cares about whether the opponent can interact at instant speed on the kill turn, whether they can exile the graveyard the recursion leans on, and whether they can prevent damage or gain enough life to push the required swing out of reach. Games are decided on those axes, and the rest of this guide is built around setting up the one turn where none of them are available to the opponent.

The deck wants to do one thing: put Tireless Tribe on the battlefield, fill your hand, and then on a single turn discard that hand to the Tribe, switch its stacked toughness into power with Inside Out, and hit the opponent once for the game. The priority that decides most games is protecting that one turn. The kill needs Inside Out to resolve and the Tribe to survive from the switch until the damage is dealt, so every decision before it (what to discard, when to draw, whether to attack) is about arriving at a turn where the opponent cannot stop either of those things. Lightning Bolt and Fling are the only ways the deck touches the opponent's board, so it does not try to win a fair game; it tries to end the game before the fair game matters.

The fuel comes from draw-and-discard spells paired with creatures that refuse to stay in the graveyard. Thrilling Discovery and Pursue the Past both discard first and then draw more than they cost, so each one turns spare cards into fresh ones while loading the graveyard. Aurora Eidolon and Sandstorm Eidolon return to your hand whenever you cast a multicolored spell, and the draw spells and Inside Out are all multicolored, so pitching an Eidolon is free and the same Eidolon gets pitched again and again. Sneaky Snacker returns to the battlefield on any turn you draw your third card, which the draw spells arrange on their own, giving you a body that comes back without spending a card. Bitter Reunion replaces itself as it enters and can be sacrificed on the kill turn so that a Tireless Tribe cast that same turn can attack immediately.

A game has three phases. Setup is landing Tireless Tribe early and chaining Thrilling Discovery and Pursue the Past so the hand fills with cards you can afford to throw away. The payoff turn is activating Escape Tunnel on the Tribe while its power is still low, resolving Inside Out, discarding a fistful of cards, and swinging once for lethal: the Tribe is the deck's true win condition and this single-hit combat kill is its default mode. When the opponent has blockers or you would rather not wait for combat, sacrifices the switched Tribe for the same total as a burst of direct damage at instant speed. The close is simply making sure the swing or the Fling is the last thing that happens, and when that turn is disrupted, the deck has a slower second act to fall back on.

Tireless Tribe

The one-mana creature the entire deck is built to deliver. Its discard ability costs no mana and works at instant speed, so before the kill turn it is also the best blocker in the deck: pitch a card in response to damage and it survives any early attacker or burn spell. The pumps only ever raise its toughness, which is what keeps it a legal target for Escape Tunnel all the way up to the switch. Play it as early as possible; a second copy is worth holding once the opponent has shown removal, since the combo is off the moment you have no Tribe and no way to find one.

Inside Out

The card that turns a wall into a kill. Its hybrid cost means red mana pays for it, and it is an instant that also draws a card, so it can be cast after attackers are declared, after blockers if the Tribe is already unblockable, or at the end of the opponent's turn to set up a Fling. It counts as a multicolored spell, so casting it also returns any Eidolon from the graveyard to your hand, often supplying the last discard of the turn. A spare copy is fine to cast just for the card when you are digging for the rest of the pieces.

Escape Tunnel

The delivery system. Its unblockable ability only targets a creature with 2 or less power, which is exactly why the Tribe fits until the switch resolves. Its other ability fetches a basic land, which fixes an opening hand short on one color, but every Tunnel cracked for a land is one fewer kill turn that ignores blockers, so decide early which job each copy has. Because the Tunnel never taps for mana, the mana for Inside Out has to come from your other lands.

Fling

Inside Out Combo is a linear, tempo-positive combo deck with a fast clock and only Lightning Bolt and Fling as interaction, so it is the beatdown in most pairings by default. The exceptions come from the four axes every matchup is fought on: whether the opponent can act at instant speed on the kill turn, how their clock compares to our setup time, how much of the recursion survives graveyard exile, and whether damage prevention or lifegain pushes the required swing out of reach.

Vs. Aggro. Against creature decks that come out faster than our setup, we take the control role until the kill is ready. Tireless Tribe is a wall, not an attacker, in the early turns: the free pumps let it block most ground creatures and survive, the life from Thrilling Discovery, Pursue the Past, and Wind-Scarred Crag buys the extra turn, and Lightning Bolt goes to the creature that would otherwise force a block. The play that shows the role is blocking with the Tribe and pitching an Eidolon to survive, then casting a draw spell to rebuy that Eidolon so the block cost nothing.

Vs. Midrange. Against decks that trade one for one and back it with removal, we are the beatdown, and the matchup is fought on the removal axis: whether they can kill the Tribe at instant speed once Inside Out has resolved. The recursion package means their one-for-one trades run out before our fuel does, so there is no need to rush into open mana. The play that defines the role is holding the kill until you can cast Inside Out with Loran's Escape mana up, or until they tap low on their own turn, and keeping Bitter Reunion on the battlefield so the second Tribe attacks the turn it lands.

Vs. Control. Against counterspell decks we are unambiguously the beatdown, and they hold the inevitability, so durdling loses. The whole matchup is the counterspell axis: Inside Out is the one spell that must resolve. Chip in with the Tribe and from the start so their life total forces them to spend mana on their own turn, then exploit the fact that the Tribe's pumps, , and are all instant-speed: the play is waiting for the turn they tap out and killing them at instant speed with before they untap.

1. Activate Escape Tunnel on Tireless Tribe before Inside Out resolves, and before blockers could be declared. The Tunnel only targets a creature with 2 or less power, and if the Tribe's power climbs above that before the ability resolves, the ability does nothing. Toughness pumps never move the Tribe's power, so even a fully pumped Tribe is a fine target right up until the switch resolves; after it, the Tribe's power is whatever its toughness was and the Tunnel cannot see it. An unblockable effect also does nothing once blockers are already locked in. A hand of Plains, Wind-Scarred Crag, Escape Tunnel, Tireless Tribe, Inside Out, Pursue the Past, and Aurora Eidolon on the play shows the order. Turn one is Plains and the Tribe. The Crag enters tapped on turn two, so the turn is just an attack for 1. On turn three, play the Tunnel, tap and sacrifice it targeting the Tribe at 1 power, and let that resolve before doing anything else; then attack, cast Inside Out off the Plains and the Crag, and the Tribe is still a 1/1 when it resolves. Now each discard is worth four power: the first makes it 5/1, and pitching all five cards in hand makes it 21/1, unblockable, into an opponent at 19 life. Only instant-speed interaction can stop it.

2. Cast Inside Out before dumping your hand into Tireless Tribe. The switch is applied after every other effect on the creature no matter when those effects started, so a discard made after the switch has resolved still shows up as four more power. Committing cards only once the switch is safely on the board means a counterspell or a removal spell in response costs you one card instead of the whole hand. Pitch before the switch only when you have to, such as saving the Tribe from damage.

3. Hold Loran's Escape for the window after resolves rather than spending it on early removal. Before the switch, answers nearly any damage pointed at it with a free discard, so protection is wasted there. After the switch its toughness is 1, and any stray point of damage kills it before combat damage is dealt; that one window is where the spell earns its slot.