8 Decks For SCG Dallas And New Standard

For a Week 1 Standard event, information is everything.

Everyone has about a week to understand Ixalan; figure out what the exodus of Battle for Zendikar, Oath of the Gatewatch, Shadows over Innistrad, and Eldritch Moon does to Standard; and then figure out how Ixalan fits into that equation.

To say this is impossible is a colossal understatement, but our goal is to gather as much information as possible in an attempt to reach that goal. Much of doing well at a Week 1 Standard event is just knowing what is going on before it actually happens. This means having a good idea about how your deck is built and what your sideboard plans are, and more importantly not being surprised by what your opponent is doing.

Today we’re going to get right to it by looking at eight possible decks for #SCGDFW this weekend, some built by me and some found elsewhere. These decks are all viable choices for the event with proper tuning, but what we’re really looking to do is gather information about what is possible in the format. You don’t want to be surprised when your creatureless U/W Control opponent sideboards into seven creatures or your G/R Electrostatic Pummeler opponent kills you on Turn 4.

As Benjamin Franklin said: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing for a Day 2 filled with side events.”

I think that’s how it went…

Anyway, let’s jump right in!

U/W Approach

JRaffe (5-0)

Test deck on 09-28-2017

Standard

Planeswalkers (1)

1 Gideon of the Trials

Lands (12)

Spells (47)

Sideboard

Beginning our look at a new format with a control deck?

…you’re so predictable, Jim.

U/W Approach was a fringe deck at the tail end of last Standard season and it gained a few interesting tools from Ixalan. It also lost some key early removal spells to rotation, but this is heavily offset by no longer having to deal with Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.

With a maindeck completely devoid of creatures, U/W Approach has an excellent Game 1 against most decks because of how many copies of Fatal Push, Harnessed Lightning, and other removal spells people have to play to deal with the multitude of amazing creatures currently available. This is a major advantage for a Week 1 deck, as one look at all the cards people are excited about shows nothing but creatures:

Dinosaurs! Pirates! Vampires!

People want to play with the new exciting threats, and U/W Approach does a very good job of containing them with cards like Fumigate and Settle the Wreckage while also providing a win condition completely different from all of these perceived threats. This is usually a recipe for Week 1 success, so do not sleep on this deck.

It also forces players to play around new, tricky cards like Settle the Wreckage, which is great for inducing mistakes. I can’t tell you how many players walked blindly into my very obvious Archangel Avacyn blowouts Week 1 of Shadows over Innistrad Standard, and putting players into unfamiliar waters over and over again will usually yield positive results.

Tip: Be aware of Settle the Wreckage, but don’t play around it just to play around it. Sometimes it is going to be correct to attack into it and make them spend their mana (so they can’t do something like Glimmer of Genius). Never forget your goal is to “make the play that helps you win the game,” not “be clever and play around Settle the Wreckage.”

The weakness of U/W Approach lies in two Ixalan reprints and a current sideboard staple:

U/W Approach is entirely dependent on resolving some very expensive, sorcery-speed threats, and a well-timed Duress, Spell Pierce, or Negate can completely unravel their plans. Having access to any of these three cards will wildly swing your matchup against the deck, which is something to keep in mind when building your deck and sideboard. Also be aware that the U/W Approach players are aware of this as well; be ready for them to bring in creatures like Regal Caracal and Torrential Gearhulk!

U/W Approach is probably going to be the most important deck at #SCGDFW, so whether you plan on playing it or playing against it, be ready.

Mardu Vehicles

Jim Davis

Test deck on 09-28-2017

Standard

Creatures (17)

Planeswalkers (6)

Lands (15)

Spells (22)

Sideboard

It may no longer have Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, but the fact remains— if you want to beat up on control decks, play Mardu Vehicles. Fumigate is back in a big way, which means that playing a wide variety of sticky threats like planeswalkers, Vehicles, and Scrapheap Scrounger is a great way to punish that. Also, while we may have lost Thraben Inspector and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, all of these remaining cards are just so good!

Most of the usual Mardu Vehicles core remains intact, and this deck still has some of the most unfair draws in the format. Toolcraft Exemplar into Heart of Kiran is as good as ever, and being able to line up planeswalkers on Turns 3 and 4 really pushes it home. With people interested in playing big midrange creatures in Temur Energy and four- and five-mana Dinosaurs, Unlicensed Disintegration starts to look even more appealing than normal.

And as always, Mardu Vehicles has one of the best and most flexible sideboards in the format. The deck goes big with cards like Vance’s Blasting Cannons and Fumigate, deals with Ramunap Red with cards like Authority of the Consuls and Magma Spray, and gains a fantastic tool against control in Duress.

Of course, the main issue that Mardu Vehicles has is a somewhat unsightly manabase.

R/B Aggro

Jim Davis

Test deck on 09-28-2017

Standard

Creatures (19)

Planeswalkers (3)

3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Lands (12)

Spells (26)

Sideboard

Another option for maximizing your aggressive Unlicensed Disintegration deck is to simply drop the white mana, going for a more straightforward B/R Aggro deck. While the threats are a bit less resilient, you gain a lot of reach with Cut // Ribbons and a full set of Lightning Strikes, as well as the card advantage that Bomat Courier and Ruin Raider can provide.

Both decks are looking to maximize Unlicensed Disintegration, but there’s one other possible Heart of Kiran deck on my mind. Sometimes, in order to move forward, you need to look backwards.

R/W Dwarves

Jim Davis

Test deck on 09-28-2017

Standard

Creatures (20)

Planeswalkers (2)

2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Lands (10)

Spells (28)

Sideboard

Remember Depala, Pilot Exemplar?

Depala, Pilot Exemplar won the first Standard SCG Tour Open where she was legal; perhaps it’s time to give her another look. Moving back towards cards like Veteran Motorist may already be the way we need to build our Vehicles decks, and moving to a much easier two-color manabase and the card advantage that Depala, Pilot Exemplar can provide may just be the answer. With eight game-changing Vehicles and Depala, Pilot Exemplar providing a legitimate card draw engine, R/W Dwarves can rumble with the best of them on power level. Hyper-aggressive Toolcraft Exemplar into Heart of Kiran draws are still available to us, but the deck can go long much better than our other Heart of Kiran decks.

The deck also contains an interesting energy subtheme as well. This of course is highlighted by Harnessed Lightning being one of the best removal spells in the format and Aethersphere Harvester being fantastic, but it also gives us access to Aethergeode Miner.

…Aethergeode what now?

A mostly overlooked card, Aethergeode Miner is actually a very solid two-drop. It’s a Dwarf, it can crew any of our Vehicles, and it’s almost impossible to kill with a little bit of energy floating around.

Tip: When you use Aethergeode Miner’s blink ability, it returns to the battlefield untapped. This is nice as a form of pseudo-vigilance, but even more important because it can crew multiple Vehicles at a time or crew Heart of Kiran both on offense and defense.

Proactive plan, aggressive draws, good removal, good late-game engine… looks like a reasonable Standard deck to me!

G/R Pummeler

INS0MN1Q (5-0)

Test deck on 09-28-2017

Standard

Creatures (21)

Lands (12)

Spells (27)

Sideboard

Okay, let’s hop off the Heart of Kiran and see what else is going on.

Oh yeah, Turn 4 attack you with a 40/40 trampler… that sounds fun.

When it comes to new formats, it’s often a great idea to bring a powerful, fast, proactive deck to the table. Everyone’s deck is going to be untuned and prone to stumbling, and the faster you can kill them before they recover, the better. Not many Standard decks can kill on Turn 4 through blockers, and G/R Pummeler can while also playing many of the usual energy cards that have proven themselves time and time again.

I personally wouldn’t play G/R Pummeler at #SCGDFW. It’s not really my style, and I expect people to be over-prepared for creatures. But that doesn’t mean that other people won’t play it, which makes being aware of the deck very important.

There’s also a Pummeler-less G/R “Pummeler” deck floating around as well.

R/G Energy

gabrielbelous (5-0)

Test deck on 09-28-2017

Standard

Creatures (23)

Lands (11)

Spells (26)

Sideboard

These are the sorts of curveballs that can really throw people for a loop in a Week 1 Standard tournament. You’ve been super-stingy with your removal all game because you’ve been waiting for your opponent to cast Electrostatic Pummeler, and they don’t even have it in their deck!

Tip: Whether they have Electrostatic Pummeler or not, remember that G/R Pummeler decks with lots of combat tricks play like Modern and Legacy Infect – the best time to interact with them is on their end step or on your turn, never in combat if you can help it.

As long as you can manage the Electrostatic Pummeler and pump spell angle of these two decks, you should be well prepared for their normal energy cards because of how much practice you put in against Temur Energy.

…you have prepared against Temur Energy, right?

Temur Energy

Falleaf (5-0)

Test deck on 09-28-2017

Standard

Creatures (23)

Planeswalkers (1)

1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Lands (15)

Spells (21)

Sideboard

Make no mistake about it, this is the Week 1 Standard boogeyman:

If you want to win #SCGDFW, you will need to beat this deck multiple times.

Temur Energy has lost almost nothing from rotation, which is a scary thought because it was one of the best decks pre-rotation. Still, Temur Energy is just your usual Standard “good stuff” deck. It plays some of the best removal spells and threats in the format, held together by the energy engine that provides extra card advantage and board control.

So how do we beat them? Going wide can overcome their one-for-one removal, which can also be out-sized by large enough creatures. A deck like U/W Approach does a great job of ignoring most of their cards in Game 1, but once those copies of Negate and Spell Pierce come in, it’s going to be a whole different ballgame.

Temur Energy may have one of the best sideboards in the format, with new tech like Cartouche of Ambition and the rediscovered Confiscation Coup providing ample ammunition against Ramunap Red and other big green decks, respectively. Add that to a powerful countermagic suite of Negate and Spell Pierce and some extra removal spells, and Temur is well-suited to handle almost anything after sideboarding. If you’re trying to beat Temur Energy, you must keep their sideboard in mind as well as their maindeck and be prepared for what they are going to bring in against you.

“How do I beat Temur Energy” is going to be one of the most difficult questions to come out of #SCGDFW. Hell, it was a difficult question last format too.

Okay, we’ve got one last stop.

Riddle Me This

Jim Davis

Test deck on 09-28-2017

Standard

Creatures (8)

Planeswalkers (3)

3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Lands (10)

Spells (39)

Sideboard

When Hour of Devastation was released, I built a sweet U/R Prowess deck called Riddle Me This, which did well at a few events early in the format. I really liked the deck, but ultimately moved on to other things and then got caught up playing Modern on the SCG Tour.

It’s lost Fevered Visions and Stormchaser Mage, which are pretty big hits, but also gained Lightning Strike and Opt, and most importantly Vance’s Blasting Cannons. In most decks, Vance’s Blasting Cannons is nothing more than a watered-down Outpost Siege (which is still often good enough), but in this deck we are live to flip it at almost any point. Spitfire Bastion is quite the payoff and this is one of the few Standard decks capable of realistically achieving it.

I can’t really recommend the deck as-is because I haven’t gotten to test it extensively yet, but it sure does look like a ton of fun.

And that’s the lesson of this being our eighth list for the day:

It’s Week 1 Standard: people are just going to play sweet brews that they think are awesome.

That’s a lot of the reason why Week 1 Standard is so much fun; it’s full of experimentation and the joy of discovery. This can make things difficult for you, because you may end up playing against cards or strategies you haven’t played against before or thought about yet. As such, it’s going to be very important to expect the unexpected and do your best to figure out what your opponent is doing on the fly.

You can’t prepare for everything, so be ready for anything.

This is the most excited I’ve been for an event in a while! See everyone at #SCGDFW!