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Second Thoughts On Dragons Of Tarkir

Ross Merriam has his deck lined up for #SCGINVI! See which cards Ross tested for the event that worked, and see which did not live up to his expectations!

I spent last weekend Prereleasing and talking/testing Standard with anyone that would have me in the hopes that one of the brews I wrote about last week would prove formidable. Unfortunately,
I have been left with a list of flaws that I doubt I have the time to fix. As frequently happens, spoiler season generates tons of excitement around the
potential of many cards only to have many of them fail to meet our high expectations. It feels similar to the NFL Draft, albeit without Mel Kiper’s insufferable commentary.

The white devotion deck, while improved, does not have a low enough curve and as such, consistently falls behind. The deck does not reach its overwhelming
end game quickly enough to justify putting itself behind that often, and its removal is not efficient enough to consistently return to parity. Still, it is
a deck that I will continue to look to when Magic Origins is released this summer since it really only needs one additional good earlygame piece.

Narset Transcendent underperformed in my testing, often eating a Hero’s Downfall before making a meaningful impact or simply being ignored by an opposing
aggressive deck. Still, unchecked it would certainly take over the game, so I could certainly see niche applications in the right shell. It just did not
show itself to be the staple I thought it could be.

Perhaps the card I was most disappointed with was Dromoka’s Command. On paper this card has an incredible blend of power, versatility, and efficiency that
I thought could eliminate the need for black in the Abzan Aggro deck in favor of a sleek G/W Aggro deck. In reality, the most hyped Command proved to be
fine but unspectacular, a reasonable removal spell that could fill the requirement of having some enchantment removal for this Standard format without
resorting to running narrow cards.

It is certainly possible that I am overlooking a great deck from overemphasizing early results, but with the relentless schedule of tournaments I play, it
is important to not waste too much time on a subpar deck. When I have more time and a more defined metagame to target I could certainly see revisiting
these ideas, but for Richmond it was time to move on.

Having left my testing disheartened that I was not getting any promising results, I recalled some advice I offered Anthony Lowry saying that if you did not
like any full deck you have worked on, try to find any piece of a deck that impressed. A card, a synergy, a shell, anything that could serve as a seed for
something bigger. So I mulled over the cards and decks I had tested looking for something that I actually liked, and one card stuck out:

The new Surrak was an easy card for me to dismiss until I read Brad Nelson’s article from last week. With such a strong endorsement from the man that
understands Standard more than anyone else in the world, I decided to take a second look. Initially, I had judged Formidable to be a Limited mechanic
designed to break board stalls. The idea of getting a bonus when you have eight power worth of creatures in play is not particularly appealing because
those are situations where your board is well-developed and you are likely to win anyway.

However, when placed on a card like Surrak, that provides most of the power to turn on Formidable by itself. The bonus becomes much more relevant, as it
will likely be turned on by the addition of a single creature. At that point, Surrak becomes more akin to a 5/4 haste creature that will give most of your
later creatures haste as well, a great return for four mana.

And while the G/W Aggro deck I tested saw Dromoka’s Command disappoint, Surrak was quite impressive. The ideal curve of Elvish Mystic into creature into
Surrak was an excellent opening, and the next creature with haste could catch you up from slower starts. So the operative question became:

What is the best Surrak, the Hunt Caller deck?

G/W did not feel as powerful as Abzan Aggro, nor was it consistent enough to warrant that drop in power. Abzan is an awkward shell for Surrak because you
already have Siege Rhino as a four-drop, and as good as Surrak appears to be, it is not Siege Rhino.

Abzan also felt awkward because Surrak plays so well with Elvish Mystic. The earlier you can land Surrak, the earlier you can take advantage of its
ability. When it comes to haste, earlier is better. With G/W out, I was led to G/R. I actually worked on a G/R Aggro list that did not have Surrak that
looked like this:


The primary idea here was to use Atarka’s Command as a pseudo-ramp spell instead of supplementing Elvish Mystic with Rattleclaw Mystic, thereby reducing
the number of dead draws in the mid- to lategame. Thunderbreak Regent seemed like a great supplement to Stormbreath Dragon at the top of the curve and
allowed for the use of Draconic Roar as an upgraded Lightning Strike.

As with most of my ideas, Atarka’s Command underperformed my expectations. The Explore effect it uses requires a significantly higher land count than this
deck can reasonably play in order to be effective, and it offers no real fixing. Adding Surrak would give the deck a high enough curve to want the
additional mana sources Rattleclaw Mystic would provide. Rattleclaw would also help fix the issue of playing four-drops with both double green and double
red in their casting cost.

Having that extra mana makes me favor Boon Satyr over Fanatic of Xenagos as a means to mitigate flood, leaving me with the following starting point:


That is 61 cards, so a cut certainly needs to be made, but for now I am fine testing that. This deck should take on more of a G/R Monsters feel from the
last Standard format with the slightly higher curve and extra acceleration. In a midrange-dominated format, that makes more strategic sense since you need
heavy hitters to do the lifting against the great midrange creatures that dominate the format. It is very possible that the G/R Aggro lists we have known
were suboptimal because they did not have enough good high-drop creatures to ramp into. Surrak and Thunderbreak Regent are both promising and should help
this deck contend with the G/W Devotions and Abzan Midranges of the world.

I left the sideboard mostly the same, with the one change being a swap of Outpost Siege for Nissa, Worldwaker. Outpost Siege is much more attractive in the
Command build because of the increased density of burn spells and lower curve. Without those, I prefer an additional threat against control decks, and
Nissa is the best there is.

Am I sure this is the best deck? Far from it. It may not even be the best deck “for me,” a cliché’ often used to justify playing inferior decks. But the
primary lesson I have gained from testing so far is that Dragons of Tarkir has not fundamentally changed this Standard format. It is still as open as any
Standard I can remember, with no deck gaining a significant portion of the metagame for more than a week or two. And the margins between the viable decks
are razor thin, so having experience with your deck is vitally important.

I have certainly lost sight of that fact, often spending excessive time fretting over what the best deck for a given weekend may be rather than trusting my
instincts and using my time more wisely to tune a choice that may be slightly less than optimal. Because of this I am comfortable saying that unless
something drastically changes in my knowledge of the format in the next two days, I will be playing G/R Aggro at the Season One Invitational in Richmond.
It is powerful and proactive, which is important when many people in the field will have untuned lists. Plus you may have heard that I am a pretty big fan
of Elvish Mystic.

Now if only I had a good Legacy deck…