Post Pro Tour Amonkhet, we somehow we find ourselves in the
interesting position of Mardu Vehicles having been almost 30% of the day 1
metagame and yet rarely showing its face in the feature match area. This
can only be good news for fans of Standard going forward, following on from
the reactionary fear after #SCGATL that the
deck was still too good and we were doomed to five weeks (give or take
three days) of Mardu mirrors.
I do love Magic players sometimes.
At time of writing we don’t have any decklists from the Pro Tour to
discuss, but there were some general themes and emerging powerhouses to
talk about, as well as some potential answers we can play with for Game
Day, FNM and of course #SCGKY. We’ll have a more detailed look at
some of the fun brews from the Tour in the next article.
How Do You Stop a Sun From Approaching?
If there’s one thing that has become very clear in the early days of this
format, it’s that Approach of the Second Sun is a real card that is
incredibly difficult to interact with. Most decks just cannot do anything
to prevent the inevitable ending, short of just beating down.
Aside from the expected home in U/W control shells, we’ve also seen it show
up in Aetherworks Marvel decks (also somewhat expected) and as the win
condition in the New Perspectives combo deck. Given that only blue really
has a way to deal with the card when cast, how do other colors beat it?
It is, as we have seen, exceedingly difficult to just race the Second Sun
Control decks. Aside from the seven life they gain from the first casting,
they also have Fumigate and sometimes Renewed Faith to buffer their life
totals and plenty of spot removal and countermagic to keep the pressure
off. This isn’t a glass-cannon combo deck. That said, the Zombies decks can
provide enough pressure and resiliency to fight through the removal, and
the B/W versions even have a decent amount of reach. Transgress the Mind
can definitely catch the card in hand, and we can also Lost Legacy for it
to really ruin the control player’s day.
The combo version is even more susceptible to Lost Legacy, but also doesn’t
have the removal and sweepers that U/W has. That said, it can win as early
as turn 5 with an ideal draw and, once again, is very hard to stop once it
gets going. Unlike with U/W versions, the New Persepctives deck has an
additional point of vulnerability in New Perspectives itself. Responding to
Shadow of the Grave with removal on New Perspectives will stop the combo
cold, and is a lot easier to pull off than stopping the Approach of the
Second Sun.
But what if, like me, you want to play Approach of the Second Sun but don’t
want to be vulnerable to any of this? The fact that you need to get to
seven mana and plow through six more cards to win the game is the
built-in drawback, especially in a format with several viable aggressive
decks. The answer to that question would appear to be ramping. A green base
not only lets us cast Approach early, it also provides several ways to
clear cards from the top of the deck to allow us to redraw and cast it
again. We have the option of G/U splashing white just for the finish, or
sticking to G/W and sacrificing cards like Pull from Tomorrow for Fumigate
and Cast Out. I think the G/U version is better, because we also get Part
the Waterveil:
Creatures (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (33)
There are some cards in here that are reaches, and Spring is near the top
of that list. As we’re probably not going to be casting Mind very often, is
Natural Connection (being at instant speed) just better? I think the
possibility of drawing two cards right now is better than the ability to
ramp at instant speed, lacking as we have any landfall payoffs.
Baral’s Expertise is going to have to do a lot of work here, both to keep
the opponent off our backs and to put a number of powerful things into
play. Expertise can cast a lot of this deck (though sadly not Spring any
more, another small point in the favor of Natural Connection), not least of
which are the two powerful ramping four-mana spells. With that said, I wish
we could reliably play Engulf the Shore in this deck.
I wanted to avoid any creature-based ramp because the removal in the
top-tier decks right now is so good that we are not going to get much use
out of those creatures. Even using the awaken cost on Part the Waterveil is
a risky prospect in the face of Unlicensed Disintegration, Never, Murder,
and even Dark Salvation given that we are not going to be removing many
Zombies from the battlefield. Lumbering Falls and Ulamog, the Ceaseless
Hunger should be safe in most cases, though Oath of Liliana is a real
concern.
I won’t pretend to be happy about playing Haze of Pollen in my main deck,
but this is an aggressive format and we do need time to
get set up. Without Fumigate to reset things we are at the mercy of our own
deck drawing well, and although we can do some things to influence that, we
do need to prepare for the better aggressive draws. Weirding Wood over Gift
of the Harvest might seem to fly in the face of that concept to some
degree, but the extra card draw from cracking the Clue is important enough
that I want to start there.
Nissa’s Renewal should hopefully provide something of a buffer, though we
need to be careful not to cast it after we cast Approach of the Second Sun!
Divine Aggression
On Tuesday of last week, I sent the following list to my good friend
Samantha who wanted to beat down with Hazoret the Fervent in Standard:
Creatures (25)
- 2 Falkenrath Gorger
- 3 Lupine Prototype
- 4 Noose Constrictor
- 4 Longtusk Cub
- 3 Hazoret the Fervent
- 1 Combat Celebrant
- 3 Rhonas the Indomitable
- 2 Samut, Voice of Dissent
- 3 Bloodrage Brawler
Lands (21)
Spells (14)
Sideboard
I really liked how Hazoret plays with Rhonas the Indomitable, and the rest
of the deck was designed to just empty our hand quickly and put a lot of
damage into the opponent’s face as quickly as possible. Having seen the
deck tech on Jund Gods, I was pretty happy to be so close to a decklist
that the pros themselves had brought to battle. That said, I think this
list has some obvious holes in it that need to be addressed.
I am not sure the energy package is the way we want to go. I didn’t want to
play Greenbelt Rampager because of the negative synergy with Lupine
Prototype and Hazoret the Fervent, but Longtusk Cub has the potential to
just run away with games by itself. Harnessed Lightning as well is one of
the best removal spells we have. If we cut the energy package we can go up
to four Falkenrath Gorger and add four Kessig Prowler to make our one-drops
more consistent, even though neither of them can crew Heart of Kiran alone.
Combat Celebrant is a test, and I think it is fine to try out when we can
potentially get double use out of a Rhonas pump. Bonus: It also untaps
whatever we might have used to crew Heart of Kiran. The one toughness and
lack of haste make me pretty wary, but sometimes the payoff will be worth
it. Turning on Rhonas is not nothing, either.
Two Samut,Voice of Dissent is not only too many, it’s probably the wrong
five-drop when Glorybringer is in the format. Getting a five-drop stuck in
our hand also makes our hand-emptying cards that much worse. Although
cutting the energy theme would likely lead me to Lightning Axe over
Harnessed Lightning, I don’t really want to include something on the
grounds that we can always just discard it to Lightning Axe.
Noose Constrictor is definitely a pet card (up there with Olivia, Mobilized
for War right now) and does have some good synergy with the deck, but
Channeler Initiate might be a better choice here.
Exemplar of Strength would also be worth considering. Channeler Initiate
has the advantage of speeding up our early deployment while becoming a
threat itself and should probably have been in the deck to start with.
Having seen how scary Insult can be, I am loathe to cut it. Aggressive
decks have to be careful about the number of reactive cards they run,
finding the balance between clearing out blockers and clogging up their
hand with spells they can’t cast. Injury has the bonus of only being
reactive in the graveyard, so it’s much more reasonable to include here.
The sideboard is a work in progress. I am very excited about the prospects
of Harsh Mentor against some of the slower decks as they punish everything
from cracking Clues to crewing vehicles. Sadly it doesn’t care about
Planeswalker activations, but that damage can be redirected to them.
Prowling Serpopard is an answer to a local metagame that is heavy on
control decks with as many as fourteen counterspells, but could easily be
taken out for something else…like Glorybringer. I’d also really like to
find a home for By Force and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar in the 75.
Build a Better Marvel
One thing that really stood out to me was how many different ways there are
to play Aetherworks Marvel decks right now. We knew about Temur, Bant
(sadly without Inspiring Statuary) was an emerging strategy, but Team
Puzzle Quest really brought something interesting to the table with their
Sultai version.
Aside from anything else, playing black in a Marvel strategy lets us play
Liliana, Death’s Majesty, which is one of my stated goals for the next few
weeks. Seriously, that card is too good. Reanimating Ulamog, the Ceaseless
Hunger seems like a reasonable use of three loyalty, does it not? And is
that Demon of Dark Schemes I see hiding out? That makes me unreasonably
happy, as I have been waiting for that card to take off. That we can cast,
reanimate, or hit the Demon on a Marvel activation may be exactly the bump
it needed to start seeing some play.
Remember when Ishkanah, Grafwidow was a completely fair and reasonable card
that was easy to beat? No, you don’t. Stop pretending. You know what’s even
better than one Ishkanah? Recurring Ishkanah. If all those Spiders aren’t
enough to give you the win via opponent’s arachnophobia, they certainly do
a fine job of making sure you aren’t dead.
Is Sultai the best way to go? Temur does offer Whirler Virtuoso as a
stalling mechanism that also produces energy, plus it has the ability to
switch it up and play Bristling Hydra in the sideboard against decks that
can either Lost Legacy all your Ulamog or Dispossess all your Marvels.
I have also toyed with playing a single Aetherwinds Basker as an
alternative win condition with a swarm of Thopter tokens, and perhaps even
Decimator of Provinces and/or Elder Deep-Fiend to make use of those Rogue
Refiners. Nissa, Vital Force is an option here as well to join her BFF
Chandra, Torch of Defiance as a conversion plan in the sideboard.
Do we even need blue? Abzan Marvel is something that has been on my radar
for a while, with the white giving us access to Fumigate and Emeria
Shepherd to go along with the G/B shell from the Sultai list. We do lose
Rogue Refiner which is a big hit, but we could perhaps pick up that deficit
with Live Fast? Not a great card, but it does some of the job.
The benefit to Abzan is in the ability to go longer and to sideboard into a
solid Planeswalker plan with two very powerful six-mana options. We also
get Cast Out, Anguished Unmaking, and Linvala, the Preserver to play with.
Thalia’s Lancers is an option to fetch up Aetherworks Marvel, and we could
even consider Sigarda, Heron’s Grace as a silver bullet!
That’s all we have this week folks. As always, thanks for stopping by. Next
time out we will take our usual deep-dive into the Pro Tour decklists to
find those hidden gems we can take and tweak to make them our own. Until
next time…Brew On!