Before the first cards in Alara Reborn were spoiled, I was pretty sure the set would help two-color decks, particularly two color allied decks, quite a bit. Gold cards tend to have an abundance of colored mana symbols that put too much pressure on decks that are playing other colors, which strongly reward decks that devote all or almost all of their lands to casting specific colored gold cards. Five-color decks generally want cards with a lot of colorless mana symbols so that all of their lands can contribute to all of their spells. This is why attempting to support Cloudthresher, Esper Charm, and Volcanic Fallout can lead to some really awkward draws, even with Vivid lands in the format. The set didn’t disappoint, and I think it has introduced a lot of exciting new options for two-color decks.
Green/White got an excellent package of new aggressive creatures in the form of two reasonable blades (Naya Hushblade and Bant Sureblade), Quasali Pridemage, Knotvine Paladin, and Dauntless Escort. Behemoth Sledge is also a significant upgrade on Loxodon Warhammer in decks than can cast it, as the extra toughness can save a lot of mana and fights against the plan to trade with all the creatures that get equipped, one of the most reasonable plans against Loxodon Warhammer.
Building a Green/White deck is still a little awkward as there aren’t many great one-drops, and those that there are have to compete with Treetop Village and Windbrisk Heights. The G/W decks that have been gaining some momentum recently in pre Alara Reborn Standard thanks to the StarCityGames.com cash events have been playing Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch, but those cards interact very poorly with the lands and also don’t fit particularly well with the exciting new two-drops. Making a manabase that can support one mana Green creatures is even more problematic when trying to fit Spectral Procession, as those decks do.
I’m interested in trying to build a G/W aggro deck, but I’m not sure that it has the tools to beat tokens. My first take looks something like:
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Steward of Valeron
4 Quasali Pridemage
2 Knotvine Paladin
4 Dauntless Escort
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Wilt-leaf Liege
3 Elspeth, Knight Errant
4 Path to Exile
2 Behemoth Sledge
2 Overrun
4 Treetop Village
4 Windbrisk Heights
4 Brushland
4 Wooded Bastion
5 Forest
2 Plains
Noble Hierarchs help the colored problem somewhat. They demand extra Green, but that makes Overrun easier to cast, and in exchange they provide White mana to cast Elspeth. I have 9 cards that let me play them on turn 1, and when that doesn’t happen they can still help smooth the curve later, so I think they’re worth including. Given the number of four-drops I think Steward of Valeron is better than Knotvine Paladin, but the little that I’ve played with him (in Limited) makes it clear that he can certainly get huge quickly. Excluding Spectral Procession hurts Windbrisk Heights and Overrun, but I think the mana is better without it, and without Anthem effects the tokens are just too likely to get outclassed. I think Overrun should usually be lethal based on giving larger creatures trample rather than highlighting the pumping more small creatures side of it. Path seems like it has to be included as the color combination’s best way of interacting with the opponent (and fighting cards like Mistbind Clique and Sower of Temptation), and Behemoth Sledge seems important for trampling through tokens.
The sideboard would definitely want some Wraths to take advantage of Dauntless Escort powered blowouts in the creature matchups, and would probably include some standards like Celestial Purge, Oblivion Ring, Guttural Response, or Stillmoon Cavalier. Lack of fliers is a bit scary, so it might even include Scattershot Archers or Cloudthreshers.
As for Red/Green, I don’t like the idea of building around Jund Hackblade by playing one mana hybrid creatures. I don’t like Figure of Destiny in decks where many of the lands can’t pump it, and I think Tattermunge Maniac is just bad. Instead, I prefer Brian Kowal’s suggestion of playing come into play tapped lands on turn 1 and Fertile Grounds on turn 2. Then play big creatures and 4 Volcanic Fallouts to punish token decks.
The problem with this approach is that it leads to a deck that looks terrible against Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender, Celestial Purge, Path to Exile, Terminate, and Terror. My first build, for example:
4 Fertile Ground
4 Trace of Abundance
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Woolly Thoctar
4 Spellbreaker Behemoth
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Deus of Calamity
4 Volcanic Fallout
1 Banefire
4 Treetop Village
4 Jungle Shrine
1 Reflecting Pool
4 Karplusan Forest
4 Fire-lit Thicket
3 Forest
3 Mountain
Sideboard options include Pyroclasm as another answer to tokens; Thornling as an attempt to deal with Celestial Purge and Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender (and Black removal), getting the nod over Chameleon Colossus due to the importance of trample against white decks; Oblivion Ring for planeswalkers and possibly Bitterblossom; Guttural Response as a nod to the potential difficulty against Five-Color Control; and more Banefires.
This looks like the kind of deck that often has cards like Incinerate, but I think Volcanic Fallout does what that’s trying to do here. This build feels clunky, but none of the cheaper options feel quite right to me here. It’s possible that this color combination just doesn’t quite have the tools for this format.
It should be noted that the enchant lands and Garruk are an obvious core for a mana ramp deck that could go in a very different direction. I could easily see those cards pairing with Broodmate Dragons and Violent Ultimatum instead of five-power dorks.
Anathemancer has me pretty excited about Red/Black. As I learned from my old car-winning Goblin deck, I really like blocking with creatures that incidentally damage my opponent, and I think that might be a reasonable plan again. I would start with something like:
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Bitterblossom
4 Goblin Outlander
4 Terminate
4 Anathemancer
4 Mudbutton Torchrunner
4 Marsh Flitter
4 Murderous Redcap
4 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Auntie’s Hovel
4 Sulfurous Spring
4 Graven Cairns
3 Mutavault
5 Mountain
4 Swamp
The sideboard would include 4 Thoughtseize as well as some Thought Hemorrhage, Everlasting Torment, maybe Guttural Response or Banefire, maybe something like Shambling Remains to go more aggressive, maybe even a couple Boggart Shenanigans.
I understand that the Mudbutton Torchrunner probably looks really bad, but I’ve honestly loved the card when I’ve played with it, and I feel pretty good about it in this deck, given the stated plan at the beginning. Everlasting Torment is pretty exciting with so many 1/1 and 2/2 creatures that get to profitably chump block, even if it is kind of bad with Murderous Redcap. The basic idea with this deck to play like tokens, but when the board gets gummed up with tokens, you try to win without attacking. This worked very well with my old goblin deck, but the plan may actually revolve too much around Boggart Shenanigans. These were cut due to fear of not enough goblins because of Bitterblossom and Anathemancer, but it’s possible that I should just have a few anyway. This is probably the shell in this article that I’m most interested in.
Another take on it is to splash White for Reveillark, which would look something like:
4 Mind Stone
4 Terminate
4 Fulminator Mage
4 Anathemancer
2 Volcanic Fallout
4 Murderous Redcap
4 Marsh Flitter
3 Ajani Vengeant
4 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Reveillark
4 Vivid Marsh
4 Vivid Crag
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Auntie’s Hovel
2 Windbrisk Heights
2 Swamp
3 Mountain
This deck is slower and it’s curve his much higher, so I was afraid of Bitterblossom because I thought it might kill me. Still, both increasing the curve and cutting Bitterblossom hurt their Faeries matchup a lot. I added Volcanic Fallout, but it won’t be enough. This maindeck is never beating Faeries. On the other hand, it looks very good against Five-Color Control, and Fulminator Mages with extra sweepers in the board should be good against Windbrisk Heights strategies. The sideboard here would feature Thoughtseize, more Fallouts, probably Infests as well to deal with pro-Red creatures, Guttural Response, probably Bitterblossom, and maybe some White cards like Celestial Purge.
I’m hesitant to suggest this as it looks a little questionable to even to me, but it’s possible that a Blue/White Esper Aggro deck exists at this point. It would look something like:
4 Court Homunculus
4 Esper Stormblade
4 Ethercaste Knight
4 Vedalken Outlander
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Ethersworn Shieldmage
4 Master of Etherium
4 Path to Exile
4 Cryptic Command
2 Broken Ambitions
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Mystic Gate
2 Fieldmist Borderpost
7 Island
5 Plains
The mana is hard to do for this deck, in that the specific color requirements are heavily strained by Cryptic Command, but there’s a huge reward for playing enough basics in that the Borderposts are awesome in this deck as they turn on Esper Stormblade and pump Master of Etherium. Whether this deck is any good depends largely on whether Ethersworn Shieldmage is as much of a blowout as I think it might be. Countering Volcanic Fallout and provided one sided fogs in combat is enough to make me think this guy might have some game. Ethercaste Knight is a little rough in that I’m not convinced that the card is any good, but I think the synergies with so many cards in the deck make it good enough.
This deck should also consider cards like Esperzoa and Sanctum Gargoyle. The sideboard could contain things like Scourglass, Wrath of God, Reveillark, Sower of Temptation, Negate, Celestial Purge, or Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender. I basically see this as a Merfolk deck, but where the creatures look a little bigger on their own, Master of Etherium is about five times as large as Merrow Reejerey, and Ethersworn Shieldmage provides an interesting twist.
I think G/B is the opposite color pair that clearly gained the most from Alara Reborn, with Maelstrom Pulse, Putrid Leech, and Lord of Extinction all having potential in Constructed. The problem with Maelstrom Pulse is that it isn’t an elf, which makes it very hard to fit into a G/B elf deck. G/B has a serious interest in being an elf deck as Gilt-Leaf Palace makes the mana much better, and Wren’s Run Vanquisher is still an amazing two-drop. An elf deck is certainly possible, and one could play more or less my deck from Nationals last year with Putrid Leech instead of Tarmogoyf, but I don’t think that’s a good deck for the metagame at the moment because I would expect it to have problems with White decks. A Doran deck might let us take better advantage of new cards. Perhaps something like
3 Treefolk Harbinger
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Putrid Leech
4 Doran, the Siege Tower
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Crib Swap
2 Nameless Inversion
3 Chameleon Colossus
1 Rootgrapple
3 Pulse of the Maelstrom
2 Behemoth Sledge
2 Profane Command
4 Murmuring Bosk
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
2 Llanowar Wastes
4 Windbrisk Heights
2 Mutavault
4 Treetop Village
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
This list doesn’t play Lord of Extinction, but it just occurred to me that it has an extremely favorable interaction with Profane Command. This deck also might be getting too cute with its Treefolk Harbingers, but I like how they help the mana and I think they make Infest a much better sideboard option, and I think it’s a card this archetype wants to take advantage of. The sideboard would certainly contain Thoughtseize, but I’m not sure exactly what else the deck needs access to. Reveillark certainly has no shortage of targets in this deck.
The Doran deck is nothing new, and I don’t really want to go into modifying all the known Standard decks with Alara Reborn, so I’ll cut myself off here… but I will mention that if Bant splashed Red instead of Black, Colossal might could do really fun things with Rafiq, or a card like Cold-eyed Selkie or Cephalid Constable that triggered off of the amount of damage it did.
I hope to get a chance to do some dedicated Standard testing with some new decks in this next week, and maybe come back with detailed thoughts on something I like there, but Limited is my first priority to prepare for Honolulu, so we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, I hope some of this has given you some thoughts on some other directions for your Regionals testing.
Thanks for reading…
Sam