Daily Digest: The Shape Of Standard To Come

Not only is this build a success story and a surprise, but it will almost undoubtedly be around in some form after Battle For Zendikar is unleashed! If you want a safe pick for #SCGWOR this weekend, GerryT recommends you check this one!

By Gerry Thompson

September 8, 2015

Is this what Standard is going to look like post-rotation? Very few of these cards are actually rotating, and the few that are will likely have
replacements. Is Disciple of the Ring actually playable?

James Newman took this beast to the Top 8 of the Standard Premier IQ in Cincinnati last weekend, and that was no easy feat. He went 6-0-2 during the Swiss
before eventually falling to Abzan Control in the Top 8. His deck controls the earlygame with permission and removal and eventually tries to turn the
corner with Sarkhan, The Dragonspeaker , Disciple of the Ring, or Keranos, God of Storms. This deck will likely never have full control unless there’s been
a flipped Jace in play or maybe a Disciple of the Ring.

I appreciate the minor usage of Dig Through Time here since your graveyard wants to be used for Jace and Disciple. If the usual four Digs were present,
you’d have too many cards fighting over the use of your graveyard. Instead, James turned to old favorite Jace’s Ingenuity, which might be better for this
deck anyway. Lightning Strike and Anger of the Gods might have to team up at some point to take out a Siege Rhino, so you’d probably rather have more raw
resources to work with. The same can be said of Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy — You probably just want a bunch of cards and don’t necessarily care what they are.

We don’t need help to keep this archetype for next season, although who’s to say that it will be any good? Anger of the Gods can be replaced with Radiant
Flames (and an off-color dual land), we may get a U/R creature-land, and certainly there will be something to use instead of Dissolve that isn’t straight
up Cancel.

Magma Spray is surprisingly absent given Hangarback Walker’s ubiquity, but Anger of the Gods is making up for that. Unfortunately, the sideboard options
appear to be quite weak for U/R, but perhaps Battle for Zendikar will bring us new enemies and new tools to fight them.

U/R Control

James Newman

5th Place at Star City Games Premier IQ on 09-05-2015

Standard

Creatures (7)

Planeswalkers (2)

2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

Lands (27)

Spells (24)

Sideboard