When I was testing for the recent Pro Tour in Washington DC, I lamented the fact that the event was Modern rather than Standard. Part of my rationale was
similar to that of some other pro players who have expressed a distaste for the format in that I don’t feel like Modern is great for top level competitive
play thanks to the number of powerful linear decks that require very specific sideboard cards to beat. But more importantly, I wanted to be playing
Standard! As I’ve mentioned time and again, I think the Standard format since the release of Khans of Tarkir may be the best Magic has ever seen, and I was
excited by the prospect of seeing firsthand what impact Fate Reforged would have on it.
So far, I’ve only been able to experience the format as a spectator, but even from afar the metagame looks awesome. Fate Reforged has inspired all new
decks, as well as breathed new life into old ones. Today, I want to take a look at some of the decks that have stood out to me from recent events as
looking powerful, exciting, or just plain cool.
Creatures (31)
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Polukranos, World Eater
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 1 Boon Satyr
- 4 Voyaging Satyr
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Eidolon of Blossoms
- 2 Genesis Hydra
- 4 Whisperwood Elemental
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (23)
Spells (4)
Let’s start at the top, shall we? Robert Berni took down last weekend’s Standard Open in Houston with an updated take on G/R Devotion. Most previous
iterations of devotion tended to be either Mono-Green or splash black for Doomwake Giant, but Robert instead opted for a red splash, solely for Crater’s
Claws. Green devotion decks are great at producing huge amounts of mana thanks to Nykthos, Shrine of Nyx alongside Voyaging Satyr and a whole lot of
colored mana symbols, and what better to do with that mana than point a giant fireball at your opponent’s face? Crater’s Claws also happens to double as a
way to deal with troublesome creatures on the other side of the table, something green decks aren’t always well-suited to handle.
The real new hotness in Berni’s deck though, is Whisperwood Elemental. The new green mythic rare flew under a lot of players’ radars at first but has since
proven to be a serious player in Standard, especially in a deck with both a lot of creatures and a lot of mana. Unless your opponent is able to kill the
Whisperwood Elemental on the turn you play it, you’re guaranteed to get a 2/2 manifest in addition to the 4/4 body, with more manifests every turn that the
elemental survives. Getting 6/6 worth of stats for five mana is already pretty attractive, and against removal effects it’s even better that it’s split
across two separate bodies. With over 50% of the deck made up of creatures, you have a pretty good chance of manifesting something with the potential for
even more value.
In addition to the value it provides every turn it’s in play, Whisperwood Elemental also protects your team from the eternal enemy of green creature-based
ramp decks – board sweepers. Normally, when you’re playing a green deck and you play mana accelerant into mana accelerant into fatty, the absolute last
thing you want your opponent to do is to play some kind of wrath effect and undo all of your hard work. With Whisperwood Elemental though, you can respond
to your opponent’s Crux of Fate or End Hostilities with its sacrifice ability and start your next turn with multiple manifested cards in play. And who
knows – one of them could be a boat!
The real fun comes when you pair Whisperwood Elemental and its army of manifest creatures with the other new face from Fate Reforged – Ugin, the Spirit
Dragon. Ugin has probably seen more play in this Standard format so far than any eight casting cost card ever before him, and rightfully so, since he’s
downright awesome. He’s a freaking SPIRIT DRAGON! It may seem strange to play an expensive board-sweeping planeswalker in a deck that plays so much to the
board itself, but there’s a key conditional to Ugin’s minus ability that’s easy to overlook: Because Ugin only exiles permanents that are one or more
colors, you can activate him to wipe the board of everything except for your manifests from Whisperwood Elemental. While you will lose the Elemental itself
and you can’t sacrifice it to protect your other non-manifest minions because Ugin is an exile rather than destroy effect, the colorless nature of the
manifests does mean that you can totally clear your opponent’s board while retaining some elements of your own. And if you’re ahead on the board, you can
just plus two Ugin to Ghostfire something twice before using his ultimate, which seems pretty hard to beat.
One thing that I really like about Ugin, along with Crater’s Claws, is that it gives you absolute trump power against most other lategame-focused decks.
Previously, a deck like Sultai Reanimator might have been able to assemble an overwhelming board presence with Hornet Queens plus Whip and a stocked
graveyard that you couldn’t possibly break through, but now you can wipe that all away with a single Ugin activation. Or, barring that, end the game with a
massive Crater’s Claws to the face.
This deck really feels like it covers a lot of different bases. You can win simply by ramping into a quick Polukranos and beating your opponent down, by
playing a long value game with Whisperwood Elemental, or by closing things out in one fell swoop with either Crater’s Claws or Ugin. The deck doesn’t do
quite as much attacking as I might like, but it’s hard for me to say no to a deck with mana creatures, fatties, and fireballs. This is definitely on my
short list of decks that I’m looking to try out myself, and it’s certainly shown its pedigree with Berni’s win, with Tannon Grace also finishing in the Top
8 of the same event and Carlos Ballester Garcia posting a Top 8 finish with a similar list across the ocean in Seville. Expect some videos with it very
soon!
Creatures (30)
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Stormbreath Dragon
- 3 Boon Satyr
- 4 Goblin Rabblemaster
- 4 Heir of the Wilds
- 3 Ashcloud Phoenix
- 2 Yasova Dragonclaw
- 4 Flamewake Phoenix
- 2 Shaman of the Great Hunt
Lands (23)
Spells (7)
Speaking of decks that I want to try, Matt Wey’s semifinalist R/G Aggro list is clearly right up my alley. Now this is a deck for a green mage who
likes to attack!
What really stands out to me the most here are the four copies of Flamewake Phoenix and two copies of Shaman of the Great Hunt. Both are cards that really
piqued my interest during spoiler season, and neither had really had found much of a home before now. If decks like green devotion are popular, it makes
sense for R/G to take to the skies and fly over the ground that gets so clogged up by Whisperwood Elemental and friends, and Wey does exactly that, with
seven total phoenixes – four Flamewake and two Ashcloud – alongside four copies of Stormbreath Dragon.
While Shaman of the Great Hunt can’t necessarily get in on the action on clogged boards, he does pair very well with Flamewake Phoenix. His four power
means that he triggers the Phoenix’s ferocious ability to come back from the graveyard at the beginning of combat, and his own trigger helps the little
flier hit harder and harder each time it connects. That’s a big deal and can add up quickly. A Flamewake Phoenix by itself needs to hit ten times to kill
an opponent, but with Shaman along for the ride that number is cut nearly in half.
Boon Satyr is another great way to help speed up the clock of your red fliers, and it too pairs very well with Flamewake Phoenix. Boon Satyr’s bestow is
effectively a four power haste creature with whatever evasive abilities of the creatures you already have in play, which in a way makes the Boon Satyrs
pretty similar to Stormbreath Dragons five through seven here thanks to all of the fliers.
One interesting thing to note about this deck is that absolutely none of the creatures die to Valorous Stance, which is a pretty nice characteristic in a
world full of R/W Aggro decks. The only creatures with four or more toughness are Stormbreath Dragons, which have protection from white! That does
unfortunately mean the deck is a bit weak to both Wild Slash and Drown in Sorrow, but you can’t have it both ways.
With only Elvish Mystic and Heir of the Wilds as creatures to play before turn 3, I’m a little skeptical of this deck’s ability to curve out quickly every
game. I think I’d like to see a couple of copies of Rattleclaw Mystic like I played in my previous version, which could also help a bit with the amount of
double red cost spells in the deck. My inclination would be to cut maybe a single Lightning Strike and one copy of either Yasova or Boon Satyr, but I’d
need to do some actual testing before I could figure that out. And I’m sure I will soon – this is another on my short list of decks to play in my upcoming
videos!
Creatures (1)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (28)
Spells (27)
This list is not one that I see myself playing any time soon, but I feel obligated to include it since it did win Grand Prix Seville in the hands of
Immanuel Gerschenson. U/B Control was already a powerful deck in Standard prior to Fate Reforged, as we saw with its victory at Grand Prix Denver shortly
before the new set released. The new set introduced several cards that play right into the deck’s strengths – Crux of Fate and Ugin.
We already talked about Ugin in Green Devotion, where it serves as a safety valve in case everything goes wrong. In U/B Control, however, Ugin is the
primary gameplan. This deck is all about using countermagic and removal to deal with opposing threats as they come until it can chain together the card
drawing of Dig Through Time and Jace’s Ingenuity and eventually land a huge game-ending threat. Previously, Pearl Lake Ancient was the finisher of choice.
The combination of flash, self-protection, and uncounterability made it a trump against other control decks, but it is both expensive and limited to
blocking a single non-flying creature, making it a poor defensive measure against aggressive decks.
Enter Ugin. Ugin can not only wipe the board, but win the game as long as you can protect him for just a few turns. On top of that, Ugin’s minus ability is
an exile effect, dealing with pesky hard-to-kill threats like Ashcloud or Flamewake Phoenix. It’s hard to ask for much more than that out of your victory
condition.
Previously, U/B Control decks leaned heavily on the relatively slow and vulnerable Perilous Vault to clear the board, but now that role is primarily played
by Crux of Fate, with Ugin supporting. While Crux doesn’t clear the board of planeswalkers and other non-creature threats – and occasionally can’t wipe out
both dragon and non-dragons – it is a much faster and more reliable sweeper in most cases. Having to use two full turns worth of mana and telegraph your
sweeper to your opponent frequently made Vault just a little too inefficient to keep up, while Crux shuts things down right away.
To be honest, when I look at a deck like this, I’m not really looking at how it might be improved. I’m looking at how best to beat it. If I were expecting
a lot of U/B Control at my next tournament, I’d almost certainly play something very similar to Matt Wey’s list we just looked at. Both Flamewake and
Ashcloud Phoenixes are very difficult for U/B to deal with effectively, and the fact that Crux can’t hit both Stormbreath along with the rest of your
creatures at the same time is actually quite relevant. I’d also sideboard some number of copies of Xenagos, the Reveler, who is probably the absolute best
card available for the matchup. The Nissas that Matt played are also quite powerful, since neither Perilous Vault or Ugin’s activated ability actually kill
the animated lands, but I think the difference between four and five mana is big enough that’s I’d lean toward playing the Reveler instead.
All told, Standard looks like it’s in a great spot right now, with a variety of strong decks across a wide range of different play styles. I mean come on –
in the same weekend, across the world from one another, two different decks with completely different colors and gameplans won major tournaments. The only
similarity between them? They both played an eight casting cost SPIRIT FREAKING DRAGON PLANESWALKER!
Now that’s the kind of world that I want to live in.