Second place in a PTQ is no easy pill to swallow, but I think I’d be pretty happy about getting that far with this much of a brew. With all five colors, every draw step is going to be a platinum hit, so it’s not surprising to see this type of deck get there.
This deck gets in lots of chip shots with Mantis Rider, Siege Rhino, and Crackling Doom, so opponents without lifegain are going to be under the gun quickly. Kolaghan’s Command, Den Protector, and Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy also do a reasonable job at returning your incidental damage spells. It’s basically like every card in your deck comes with a Lava Spike attached.
This deck has the Soulfire Grand Master + Painful Truths engine that I love in Standard, but it doesn’t stop there. Treasure Cruise is another powerful card drawer that this deck gets to play. Murderous Cut and Tasigur, the Golden Fang also take advantage of all those fetchlands going to your graveyard, but I feel like five total delve spells might be too many. Den Protector also taxes your graveyard usage.
A whopping sixteen fetchlands provide the colors necessary to cast your spells and the graveyard fodder for delve. This deck is Mardu-based, but it branches out into the most powerful, efficient cards in Standard to form a (nearly) unbeatable aggro-ish machine.
Creatures (18)
- 4 Mantis Rider
- 4 Siege Rhino
- 2 Soulfire Grand Master
- 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
- 3 Den Protector
- 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Lands (25)
Spells (17)
Sideboard
