The first weekend for Magic with Fate Reforged legal in Standard and the bannings in effect for Modern and Legacy is in the books, and it was quite
interesting.
I love it when new sets come out or bannings are shaking up a format, and this weekend was no different. There were all kinds of decks being played in all
three formats, but there was really only two takeaways for me from the events of the weekend.
First of all, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is the real deal in Standard, and if you plan on being competitive, you need to keep that in mind.
People are going to play anything and everything now that Treasure Cruise is banned in Legacy and Dig Through Time, Birthing Pod, and Treasure Cruise are
banned in Modern. Just look at the Top 8 lists from the Premier IQs over the weekend. Diversity is the name of the game, which can make it a little
challenging when trying to metagame (which is why I generally like not metagaming in the Eternal formats).
Let’s talk about the Standard deck that we all played and how awesome it was. We were off by a handful of cards, but overall I really liked the deck. I was
able to draw in the last round with Dylan “Elemental Token Impostor” Donegan to min cash in DC, but Brian Braun-Duin ended up in ninth on breakers after
starting 0-2.
Getting to this build though? That was a bit of an adventure. Brad, Todd, BBD, and some others here in Roanoke had been putting in a lot of time during the
week in testing and preparing, but my time was limited due to work and trying to get in a little bit of streaming.
I was still pretty high on Mono-Green Devotion, as I had identified that Ugin, Spirit Dragon was just the best endgame that we could be doing. Using some
brews that started out by focusing on trying to use Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Treasure Cruise along with the Frontier Siege that BBD was working on, we
realized that Frontier Siege was just busted.
Brad had a solid R/W deck in reserve and continued to work on a Four-Color Delve list, while BBD just kept changing around his Sultai Frontier Siege deck.
The Mono-Green Devotion list that I was so keen on was almost card for card what Kali Anderson played to a 28th place finish, although I would have played four
copies of Ugin.
At some point Brad and BBD decided to try the Frontier Siege mana-ramping engine along with the card advantage engine from the Peach Garden Oath G/B
Constellation deck from Worlds, and we never really looked back. The deck was sweet, but I still almost pulled an audible. The Mono-Green Devotion deck was
amazing in the Ugin mirrors, since we had four Ugins and it was all about racing to it, but having the Thoughtseizes in the main and access to Downfall
gave the G/B deck a bit of an edge against the field and started to pull things closer to even against the Ugin decks.
Here is the list that we played:
Creatures (23)
- 4 Hornet Queen
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Eidolon of Blossoms
- 3 Doomwake Giant
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (23)
Spells (12)
First thing’s first: Frontier Siege is the realest.
There are some completely busted things that you can do with that card in this deck. Just to give you an example of how powerful the effect of getting GG
in each main phase is.
In a match against Mardu Control, I was stuck on two lands and a Sylvan Caryatid. My opponent had five lands in play and I Thoughtseized him:
What a hand!
I took the Stormbreath Dragon. I ripped a land that allowed me to get a Frontier Siege into play. Then the following turn, I ripped another land (a
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx), which allowed me to get an Eidolon of Blossoms into play and then play another Frontier Siege in my second main phase, and from
there it was just a flurry of card drawing, Thoughtseizes, Hero’s Downfalls, and Doomwake Giants to kill his soldier tokens.
The engine for the deck revolves around Frontier Siege and the fact that it gives us GG in each main phase. This lets you double up on spells early and
often allows you to pull ahead of your opponent. You can bury them in card advantage from our Constellation engine, or you can just play a Hornet Queen on
turn 4 or an Ugin as early as turn 4 if you have a Elvish Mystic + Sylvan Caryatid draw.
One of the awesome things about Frontier Siege is that we have so much to do with our mana in this deck that drawing multiples isn’t even all that bad, not
to mention the Dragons ability on the card isn’t completely irrelevant. With the Dragons mode chosen, our Hornet Queen becomes a super shotgun that can
kill basically everything that’s in play.
We strongly felt that both Hornet Queen and Ugin were such absurd plays, especially when they come down two or more turns before they would normally, that
we even ended up playing a full four copies of the Queen Bee.
Our sideboard was only off by a couple cards. We knew that we were soft to U/B Control going into the event, which is why we dedicated so many slots to
that deck. Cards like Read the Bones and Nissa, Worldwaker are both very good against the control strategies, and Thoughtseize is always a great option if
your opponent is trying to counter your spells or kill every creature that you play. We did want to keep in the Hero’s Downfall, and most of the time I
even boarded in a third one against these decks since Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver is such a good card against the Courser of Kruphix + Eidolon of Blossoms
decks.
Against the other midrange green decks, our plan was to cut all of the Hornet Queens and just be this great midrange deck with Thoughtseize and Hero’s
Downfall that can draw cards with Read the Bones and go over the top with Ugin and Garruk, Apex Predator.
Moving forward, I’m going to continue to work on this deck, but I was pretty unhappy with the Commune with the Gods and the Murderous Cut. I think that we
may want another Ugin and some other two mana spells. The turns that we get to cast a Frontier Siege and then follow it up with a two-mana spell in our
second main phase do a lot towards pulling us ahead, so maybe something like Voyaging Satyr is necessary. I also want a second Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx as a
24th land. Nykthos was absurd every time I had it, and I definitely want a 24th land since the times that I was losing usually had to do with not having
lands to cast my spells.
For those of you who aren’t making the trip to the Open Series this weekend in Indianapolis, or if you are making the trip, but you’re going to end up
battling in the Standard Premier IQ on Sunday, I highly recommend this deck. I’m sure BBD and/or Brad will go into it a bit more in depth later this week,
but this is what I would play if I had to jam another Standard event right now.
Creatures (26)
- 4 Hornet Queen
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 2 Voyaging Satyr
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Eidolon of Blossoms
- 4 Doomwake Giant
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (7)
This build is closer to a Green Devotion deck with the extra Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and the Voyaging Satyr, but we’ve also got another Ugin. We’ve also
gone up to four Doomwake Giant. I like getting rid of the Commune with the Gods since it just never really worked out, and I sided them out literally every
match. I also like moving the Thoughtseizes to the sideboard since it just felt a bit underwhelming most of the time that I was casting it.
I plan on bringing this deck with me to Indy in case I happen to not make day two, but hopefully that’s not the case.
There were some other pretty sweet decks that did well in Washington DC, including Gerrard’s unique Sultai Control deck, and it is something that I can
imagine people are going to be picking up. I actually really like the utilization of Rakshasa’s Secret along with the rest of the delve spells in the deck.
Standard is just full of all these awesome cards that are extremely powerful, and simply getting a two-for-one like that actually seems really sweet in
addition to the benefit of the self-mill to fuel Dig Through Time. I’m pretty impressed that he was able to identify just how good the Mind Rot effect
would be in Standard, and I can imagine that we will see a lot more of it moving forward.
The deck that I really want to talk about is the Temur Ascendancy combo deck that we saw this weekend. In fact, there were two different versions:
one that used Karametra’s Acolyte and one that just used Voyaging Satyr along with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to go infinite.
The list I really like is the one that Mark Toepfner piloted to an 11th place finish.
Creatures (34)
- 1 Hornet Queen
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 2 Polukranos, World Eater
- 1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
- 2 Sylvan Caryatid
- 2 Arbor Colossus
- 2 Boon Satyr
- 4 Voyaging Satyr
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Eidolon of Blossoms
- 4 Genesis Hydra
- 4 Temur Sabertooth
Lands (23)
Spells (3)
Basically, we have a Mono-Green Devotion deck that can just go infinite and kill your opponent out of nowhere. How you ask? Well, it’s simple.
If you have seven devotion in play along with your Temur Ascendancy, a Voyaging Satyr, Temur Sabertooth, and a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, you can make seven
mana from your Nykthos and use the Sabertooth to bounce your Voyaging Satyr. You can then cast the Satyr, untap your Nykthos, and use two mana to activate
the Nykthos again. This nets you one mana and lets you restart the loop. From here you can cast and bounce a Genesis Hydra over and over putting all of
your non-land permanents into play and then kill your opponent with infinite Nylea, God of the Hunt activations.
I’ve played a little bit with the deck, and it is actually pretty well-built. I was very impressed with just how good Temur Sabertooth is. It has a lot of
synergy with the rest of the deck, as being able to bounce enchantment creatures to trigger your Eidolon of Blossoms, resetting monstrous creatures like
Polukranos, World Eater or Arbor Colossus, and even saving your creatures from removal is quite powerful. I think that I would try to find a way to get
some number of Ugin into the main since we are ramping so hard, and Ugin is the next best thing to ramp into outside of just infiniting your opponent.
I feel like there has to also be a better way to build the deck, but I’m not sure what exactly we are looking for. I do know that Temur Sabertooth seems
like it’s pretty absurd in this type of deck. The biggest issue that I have with the deck is the same issues that all of the Green Devotion-type strategies
have. Sometimes you just draw the wrong half of your deck in addition to being quite weak to Ugin.
I’d love to hear what other ideas everyone has for potential Temur Ascendancy combo decks. I’m not 100% sure that it has what it takes to end up as one of
the players in the metagame, but it’s definitely worth looking into. Anytime you can just add one card to an already established deck to give it an
infinite combo, it’s worth exploring–especially if that card is naturally good against the control decks.
This weekend is quickly approaching, and I’ll be in Indy this weekend for the Legacy Open. It’s nice to see that Sneak and Show won the Premier IQ in DC,
and I will more than likely just be jamming old faithful. Make sure you stop and say hello, and check out the completed BBD/CVM playmat if you’re in
Naptown this weekend!