Jim Davis earned another trophy with his performance at #SCGBALT yesterday. The debut of Shadows Standard was remarkably aggressive with a strong display of aggressive white strategies looking to capitalize on various Human synergies and Always Watching.
Jim went just a tad bigger, though, with a Collected Company shell reminiscent of things we’ve seen before but with a few twists. This Kevin Jones brew (which earned both Jones and Dan Jessup a Top 16 finish as well) notably uses Duskwatch Recruiter as a way to avoid running out of gas and to hasten the ability of the deck to deploy threats.
Flipping the Werewolf is no problem when Bant Company is already incentivized to leave up cards like Bounding Krasis, Dromoka’s Command, and Collected Company, making the Recruiter an excellent two-drop for this Company deck.
Another powerful new addition is Tireless Tracker. This weekend we saw the detective in a variety of decks and it never failed to impress. Not only does the Human have a formidable rate, but the ability to seamlessly generate card advantage just by making land drops means that this Company deck has an overload on effects that will prevent it from running out of steam.
One thing that I find particularly interesting is the manabase. I was certainly in the camp that three-color decks would be quite difficult to pull off in Shadows Standard, but perhaps I was going about it the wrong way. By largely ignoring the Shadow lands and instead just focusing on getting as many basics on the battlefield as possible with Evolving Wilds, an overload of Battle lands suddenly doesn’t look as awkward. It’s still to be seen whether this is an effective solution, but it’s our first taste of a successful three-color strategy.
The sideboard is largely what one would expect from a Bant deck, being able to pair the power of white’s removal with some of blue’s disruptive elements like Negate and Ojutai’s Command. Certainly the most interesting card present is Invocation of Saint Traft, no doubt a tool intended to create a huge clock against decks like Eldrazi Ramp. However, that deck failed to put up any impressive results this weekend and will likely begin to fade into obscurity.
We’re still just at the cusp of Shadows Standard, but the stage has been set. Jim Davis is your #SCGBALT champion and the #SCGINVI in Columbus is sure to be just as exciting as this past weekend!
Creatures (27)
- 1 Hidden Dragonslayer
- 1 Den Protector
- 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
- 1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
- 4 Bounding Krasis
- 4 Reflector Mage
- 4 Sylvan Advocate
- 2 Archangel Avacyn
- 2 Tireless Tracker
- 4 Duskwatch Recruiter
Lands (25)
Spells (8)
