Izzet Charm! Lotleth Troll! Dryad Militant!
This set looks awesome.
Tomorrow on GBTV, you’re going to see us give a full explanation of what you can expect for Standard after rotation, but the short list of it is:
- Standard shrinks by about 1000 cards, so naturally the amount of decks and quality of those decks decreases.
- Zombies gets a whole lot better and loses basically nothing.
- Delver might still be a deck.
- Control is typically good in a new Standard, but it might not be in this one.
Attempting to build Standard decks at this point might seem foolish, but I’m going to do it anyway. I love to brew and my notebook has seemingly endless pages, so I might as well. Standard is winding down, Legacy is still a thing thanks to the SCG Open Series, but Modern doesn’t really matter for most people until the next PTQ season.
Therefore, I’m writing about Standard (with a little Legacy fun at the end). To the surprise of no one, Delver is still good in current Standard. These days Delver should pack multiple hate cards for Zombies since it’s the most well equipped to deal with the flying menace. Past that, play your Thragtusks, build your brews, and have fun with it while it lasts.
Delver
Moving forward, I’m interested in seeing if Delver will still viable. U/R seemed like the most attractive initially, as Pillar of Flame and Bonfire of the Damned were a couple of the best cards in old Standard. I doubt creatures are suddenly going to be unplayable in new Standard, so you would think that those cards would continue to be good.
With Zombies on the rise, it’s easy to see that Pillar is going to be fantastic. However, Bonfire hasn’t been very good versus Zombies, and I don’t think that will change anytime soon. Their guys are too big and, unless you’re exiling them, don’t care about dying. Bonfire is a fantastic card right now, but that’s only because almost everything dies to it.
You could build a more aggressive U/R deck with Brimstone Volley and Thundermaw Hellkite, or you could be more controlling with Augur of Bolas, Talrand, Sky Summoner, and Mizzium Mortars. Naturally, I like the controlling version better or at least the idea of it.
I want to play something like this:
Creatures (13)
Lands (23)
Spells (24)
This slightly resembles the version I played at the SCG Standard Open in Buffalo. Granted, it is sans Ponder and Gitaxian Probe, which means Delver is fighting fair with everyone else and is forced to play a realistic land count. Maybe this type of deck simply isn’t viable, but I’ll find out soon enough.
Awkwardly enough, Zombies seemed like one of the bad matchups in Buffalo, depending on how many Pillar of Flames you drew. If you draw a Pillar and a Snapcaster, things should go easy. That won’t always happen, especially with Ponder gone. Maybe that means we need another color or another angle of attack entirely? Invisible Stalker is what I’m using in current Standard, but maybe I could play white and red. Geist of Saint Traft is still very good…
I also wouldn’t mind revisiting Delver with a heavy token theme. As it turns out, Talrand works pretty well with Lingering Souls. Favorable Winds is another card that seems to have been ignored for the most part.
Creatures (9)
Lands (23)
Spells (28)
With Unsummon and Azorius Charm, you should be able to hold off their aggression until you’re able to stabilize behind a wall of tokens. Since there’s no Gut Shot or hard removal, innocuous things like Blood Artist are a real problem, but at least this list has the aforementioned Charm and Vault of the Archangel to gain some life.
With the popularity of Bonfire of the Damned and the fact that cards like Mizzium Mortars are going to see play, playing a deck where the goal is to overextend might not be the smartest thing. Still, a single Lingering Souls or Talrand’s Invocation often demands a sweeper, especially with some Crusade effects in play.
Control
I don’t doubt that control will exist in new Standard; it just remains to be seen what colors it will be. Each color has potential, but what do we actually need? If you’re trying to win, you should build your deck with that in mind. Because of that, I made a list of what each color offers us, give or take a couple things I might have missed.
Blue
Snapcaster Mage
Think Twice
Forbidden Alchemy
Essence Scatter
Amass the Components
Augur of Bolas
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Temporal Mastery
Fettergeist
Lone Revenant
When building a modern control deck, you need to build it to beat creatures. Once that happens, you’ll inevitably run across some psychopath playing four Trading Posts and zero creatures, and you’ll be kind of screwed. Right now, blue gives you some card selection and filtering but doesn’t really offer any hard card advantage. Overall, it’s not the most impressive color, but it might be necessary in order to find the right answers or just keep the gas flowing in the late game.
U/W Miracles might be a thing also, but without Day of Judgment, I’m skeptical. Feeling of Dread isn’t quite good enough, no matter what Alex Hayne tells you.
Black
Unburial Rites
Tragic Slip
Vampire Nighthawk
Mutilate
Liliana of the Veil
Tribute to Hunger
Black has some solid removal, especially in the multicolored department, and it’s one of the few colors that has ways to kill Geist of Saint Traft. However, unless you want to be Zombies, it’s slim pickings.
Unburial Rites is a fantastic strategy, but Gisela is dangerous as long as Zealous Conscripts is around. Griselbrand is obviously a fine Magic card, but it might be more trouble than it’s worth. You could just settle for hard casting six-drops instead of winning big with eight-drops.
Red
Blasphemous Act
Desperate Ravings
Pillar of Flame
Bonfire of the Damned
Mizzium Mortars
Faithless Looting
Magmaquake
Wild Guess
Rolling Temblor
The best thing red has going for it is Pillar of Flame and a variety of sweepers. It also pairs well with Unburial Rites, but until I see something of Titan or Elesh Norn quality, I probably won’t try to mess around with that.
White
Oblivion Ring
Lingering Souls
Terminus
Restoration Angel
Entreat the Angels
Vault of the Archangel
Terminus and Oblivion Ring are fantastic, as those are the removal spells which are great against Zombies, but are they enough? Past those, white also looks pretty thin, and being able to Restoration Angel my Augur of Bolas isn’t going to sell me.
Green
Mulch
Abundant Growth
Farseek
Thragtusk
Garruk Relentless
I like the mana fixing, but what really stands out is Thragtusk. If I end up playing some sort of control deck, it probably doesn’t matter what base colors I have because I will have Thragtusk in my deck anyway. That card is such a gigantic beating against any strategy that isn’t going over the top of you, so it’s hard to imagine playing without it.
Artifact
Gilded Lotus
Chromatic Lantern
Lotus is sick if you want to go the Grixis/Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker route or just have a bunch of expensive spells, but it’s probably not worth it. Chromatic Lantern is the artifact you should really be building around.
Multicolored
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
Izzet Charm
Selesnya Charm
Dreadbore
Olivia Voldaren
Huntmaster of the Fells
Vraska the Unseen
Rakdos’s Return
This is where the real power is. Aside from Thragtusk or planeswalkers, your finishers are likely going to be multicolored.
Here’s my first take at a control deck, although it might just be better to call it a Rock deck:
Creatures (8)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (25)
Should this list be playing Abundant Growth? I’m honestly not sure, but it feels wrong to omit it.
I bet that list has far less blue in it than you thought it would. Truth is, blue isn’t good for much right now, so perhaps this deck is better off as just Jund? Oblivion Ring kills everything, including Geralf’s Messenger, but is it really that much better than Dreadbore? Whether Amass the Components is good or not depends on the metagame, which we don’t really know about yet.
Making sacrifices to play Five-Color Control means we’re doing powerful things or we need to splash in order to answer specific threats. In this case, it seems like the latter, so what about keeping it consistent?
Creatures (11)
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (25)
Spells (18)
Is that mana base pretty? Definitely not, but a pile of removal, planeswalkers that protect themselves, and solid, life gaining beaters is probably a good place to be in new Standard. Of course, there are several other options, such as Mizzium Mortars, Borderland Ranger, and even Diabolic Revelation. There’s also the possibility that we want to be a Sign in Blood deck. Maybe we could try to make Mutilate work, but that seems like a stretch.
Aside from Zombies, this is the best deck that I can imagine right now. If this type of strategy does become popular, ramping might become incredibly important. Being the first one to Vraska or Rakdos’s Return is going to result in a lot of game wins.
Zombies
Naturally, we need to take a look at our enemy.
Creatures (26)
- 4 Diregraf Ghoul
- 4 Gravecrawler
- 4 Geralf's Messenger
- 4 Blood Artist
- 2 Disciple of Bolas
- 4 Dreg Mangler
- 4 Lotleth Troll
Lands (23)
Spells (11)
This list is a little rough, but the premise is obviously solid. I’m unsure if the Blood Artists are worth it considering how aggressive the curve is already. Rakdos Shred-Freak or Highborn Ghoul might actually be better. Depending on what Golgari Charm does, I could very easily see a couple of those slotting in, possibly instead of Murder, as I expect all the Charms to be very good.
Having some more four-drops might be wise. Maybe the deck wants a higher end, but that all depends on how the metagame shapes up. If you’re playing a lot of grindy matchups, you’re going to need a way to fight in the late game. Vraska certainly isn’t the worst thing you could be doing, but that card doesn’t exactly fit into a hyper-aggressive maindeck.
B/G seems like the obvious build of Zombies, and I can’t imagine anyone straying too far. The Golgari cards are just too good. You also get Thragtusk and Vraska out of the sideboard but you’re going to want an extra land. Assuming our 23 maindeck lands provide sufficient colored sources, that land could be a Grim Backwoods, which plays well with the majority of cards in the deck.
Other than those, I’m looking forward to brewing with Invisible Stalker, Geist of Saint Traft, and Rancor. We’re still a few cards short though…
Crossing Some Things Off The Bucket List
A couple weeks ago, I started playing some Legacy on Magic Online with the intent of crossing some things off my bucket list. I started with this list of B/R Reanimator/Storm:
Creatures (4)
Lands (14)
Spells (42)
- 3 Tendrils of Agony
- 4 Goryo's Vengeance
- 4 Cabal Ritual
- 4 Duress
- 4 Dark Ritual
- 4 Entomb
- 4 Shallow Grave
- 4 Lotus Petal
- 4 Thoughtseize
- 2 Gitaxian Probe
- 1 Past in Flames
- 4 Faithless Looting
Sideboard
Unsurprisingly, I was unhappy with my lack of Brainstorms. Outside of Faithless Looting, the deck was lacking ways to filter through redundant combo pieces. When you were going off, it was awesome, and when you could take someone by surprise with the sideboard, it was even better. Sadly, there were consistency issues, and I couldn’t quite convince myself to keep playing this deck.
Instead, I moved further down the list.
Creatures (12)
Lands (17)
Spells (31)
I used the above list to win a Premier Event on Magic Online. The list worked out well, but it definitely could have benefited from some Wastelands. As I said last week, I just started buying up Legacy cards on Magic Online and didn’t quite have enough to buy everything. I played without them (and a Liliana of the Veil that I would have liked in my sideboard), but it worked out!
Death’s Shadow provided a quick clock and overperformed in the RUG Delver matchup. I have yet to be as happy to play against RUG as I am with this deck. Playing this type of U/B deck reminded me of the good ol’ days playing BUG, and I like it. No game feels completely out of my grasp, and while I might not have huge blowouts, at least I get to feel like I’m playing Magic.
That’s about all I can ask for.
Happy brewing!
GerryT
@G3RRYTÂ on Twitter