By now I can only assume you’ve read a few articles about G/W Devotion, so I’ll spare you yet another primer on how good the deck is. What I will tell you
is that the deck is great, but it is certainly beatable. It has a few exploitable weaknesses and is relatively soft to planeswalkers and sweeper effects. I
ended up playing G/W Devotion at Grand Prix Miami, but I hated it. The deck was incredibly linear, and even when you were clearly going to win a game, it
usually took four or more turns to actually get the job done.
Most of all, the deck was incredibly boring to play, which is great since the entire format is going to change with the next set. Dragons of Tarkir is
coming fast…faster than normal. In the past, the spring set didn’t release until May, but things are changing with the new rotation schedule to start
soon. And with that, we only got to play Fate Reforged Standard for six weeks or so, but perhaps that is a good thing. I couldn’t imagine having to slug
through months of G/W Mastery of the Unseen decks, and I’m sincerely hoping that isn’t the case once Dragons of Tarkir comes out.
I’ve been keeping up with the spoilers quite a bit, and one thing I noticed was quite intriguing. This is a two-color set, where Khans of Tarkir was a
three-color set. It will be interesting to see if these new cards will start pushing us toward two-color strategies instead of keeping us glued to the old
Khans. With the destruction of the Khans and reforging of the clans, the new Dragonlords will certainly usher in a new era, but it is not clear on whether
or not those Dragonlords and their Commands should just go into established three-color archetypes.
Take Me to Church
I also noticed that a lot of the cards spoiled thus far are going to push the devotion mechanic pretty hard.
The last hurrah for Nykthos and all the devotion cards from Theros, it seems. I think it was a clever move to lower the power level of those cards by
making many of the strongest cards in Khans of Tarkir have just a single point of devotion, but I also think they really want us to remember that Master of
Waves is a card. Shorecrasher Elemental is a bigger version of Frostburn Weird, but it can also dodge spot removal. I’m not sure if this card is good
enough on its own to bring Mono-Blue Devotion back around again, but all it takes is another few good two-drop creatures.
We could see a rise in white devotion with Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit. This card works surprisingly well with Master of the Unseen, and it doesn’t take a
whole lot more to get Nykthos going so you can churn out multiple 3/3s every single turn. We’ve already seen what Master of the Unseen can do if you have a
ton of mana in a green shell, but what if you aren’t even splashing? Alongside Arashin Foremost and Ojutai Exemplars, a white devotion strategy could come
around in a big way.
Dragon Whisperer is probably my favorite of these cards so far, just because of how absurd it can be with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Red devotion decks
haven’t been the same since they lost Burning-Tree Emissary, but the last two sets have given us Mardu Scout and Dragon Whisperer to fill the hole
Burning-Tree Emissary and Frostburn Weird left behind. Alongside Eidolon of the Great Revel, we now have three different two-drop creatures that could help
fuel Nykthos. But Dragon Whisperer just fits the bill perfectly. It gives you something to do with excess mana regardless of what point in the game you are
in. Flying, pumping, or just churning out dragon tokens, Dragon Whisperer could singlehandedly make Red Devotion into a deck again. Time to dig out your
Fanatic of Mogis.
It will be interesting to see if there are a few more double-symbol cards for each color and if they’re good enough to bring back the devotion decks that
dominated Standard just a year ago. I’m not quite sold just yet, but we still have a lot of spoilers left to go. A few good early drops in each color could
go a long way in reviving those dead archetypes. I don’t even know if they have to be good creatures so long as they have a high devotion count. It took a
lot of people a while to figure out that Frostburn Weird was actually good, so the bar for “devotion playable” isn’t all that high.
While there are a few cheap green creatures with multiple green symbols in their mana cost, I don’t think they’ll make the cut, nor did Green Devotion need
any kind of boost to begin with. The other colors could use a pick-me-up, but we just saw a Green Devotion deck win Grand Prix Miami. I’ll be pretty
unhappy if those decks get a boost, honestly.
I am wary of Devotion making a comeback, but I suppose it will be difficult for it to be too dominant. Devotion strategies had a tough time against decks
with a lot of removal and sweepers, since those decks could mostly eliminate their devotion count. If those decks see a rise in power level, we could
adjust. We’ve seen it before, and we know how to attack it, at the very least. On the bright side, they’re printing these powerful devotion enablers in the
last set of Khans block, so they won’t ruin Standard for a whole year. Honestly, I’m quite excited to see how good they can be.
Haters Gonna Hate
I’m not actually sure whether I love or hate this new cycle of sideboard cards. Depending on how the metagame shapes up, all five could be serious
contenders for sideboards in a variety of decks. They shore up a lot of holes that certain archetypes were soft against, and they’re incredibly cheap.
These cards are seriously powerful, and I’m not even sure that’s a good thing. With the current trend of three-color decks, it isn’t that difficult to play
three of these in your sideboard. They seem powerful enough to justify the space, and they could be your best option going into an unknown new format.
Let’s go over them one-by-one and talk about where they should go and what they’ll potentially be good against.
This card could be the foil to both red and white devotion decks, though it still doesn’t stop Master of Waves. I don’t know if Rending Volley will see all
that much play in Standard, but I do know that it will be unbelievable in Modern. Combust already saw some play, but it was fairly restrictive thanks to
costing two mana and being a sideboard hoser. Rending Volley kills basically everything that Combust kills in the format for one mana less.
It would not surprise me if Rending Volley became an auto-staple in Modern sideboards in the first week of legality.
The color white has always been opposed to red and black, with hate cards like Celestial Purge and the like. Now we have a sideboard card for control decks
that is just insanely powerful. Condemn was a strong removal spell in control decks for a long time, but this card out of the sideboard could shore up a
lot of problems. White doesn’t have a lot of instant-speed removal, so this could be perfect in a deck that wants to play Jace’s Ingenuity and Dig Through
Time.
The downside of this card is similar to the downside of Rending Volley, as it doesn’t kill Stormbreath Dragon. But that just leads me to the next card.
This could be the showstopper for blue decks. As a sideboard option for Blue Devotion, this card is a clear winner. It stays in play to help Thassa and
Master of Waves, and it is incredibly reminiscent of Tidebinder Mage. The fact that it has flash will make it stand out in control strategies, since it can
lock down Stormbreath Dragon and other haste creatures. This was a pretty sizeable problem for control decks in the last few months, as there is no “Doom
Blade” in the format. Encase in Ice doesn’t get the creature off the table, which could pose a problem, but it could see play out of a number of decks.
Talk about hating Sylvan Caryatid. This card seems like the perfect sideboard card for an aggressive black deck to take out an early Courser of Kruphix or
mana accelerant while also dealing a few points of damage. Tomoharu Saito played an interesting Black Aggro Obelisk of Urd deck in Grand Prix Memphis,
finishing just outside the Top 8. If that deck ends up getting better with the new set, Self-Inflicted Wound could be a major sideboard card for that type
of strategy.
On top of aggressive black decks, something like Abzan Aggro could greatly benefit from a card like this. Opposing decks could put a brick wall in your way
pretty early. This card helps claw through that wall while also helping to make up for opposing lifegain effects like Courser or Siege Rhino. Of all the
hate cards, this one is probably my favorite, as green is such a dominant force in Standard at the moment.
And now we get to the most innocuous one of all. This is what Autumn’s Veil wanted to be. At the moment, green decks have a pretty tough time beating
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. I assume that this card was printed so that games against Ashiok weren’t so lopsided, but this card has a lot of other
applications. Being able to effectively Negate a Hero’s Downfall or other black removal spell is fantastic in decks that are trying to play big monsters
like Whisperwood Elemental, but the fact that it is modal and can provide you with a number of important effects against a control deck is great.
Of all the sideboard cards in this cycle, I think that Display of Dominance will see the most play, mostly because every green deck wants an easy way to
interact with Ashiok. It is also important to note that this card can kill Whip of Erebos, and a number of other powerful non-creature permanents.
Cooking with Fire
Things are heating up.
We’ve already talked a bit about Dragon Whisperer, but this string of red cards feels pretty ridiculous if you ask me. It is pretty clear that they want to
push red with the new set, but I don’t know if that is actually wise. R/W Aggro has been one of the strongest decks in Standard since the release of Fate
Reforged, all thanks to Outpost Siege. I also feel like red decks have too many good cards as it is, as most of the red decks in Standard don’t even play
Ashcloud Phoenix.
What this probably means for the Mono-Red archetype is that it will be flush with options, and you will have a lot of options for building your deck. You
can be burn-heavy, creature heavy, or just run the Sock Full of Batteries beatdown version with Titan’s Strength and Akroan Crusader. You can also get a
little bit bigger with Thunderbreak Regent and Ire Shaman. Regardless of how you build your red deck, you will probably be able to find a version
well-suited to combat what is being thrown at you. Options are never a bad thing, but that just means the archetype will become incredibly complex on the
deckbuilding side.
All of the cards listed above could potentially see play in Mono-Red, but it is very possible that many of them will be overshadowed by the options already
at our disposal. It would be smart to keep an eye on these cards over the next year, as they will likely find a time to shine once the cards from Theros
block rotate out of Standard. But one card, to me, stands above the rest. I’m ready to take the fall if this card ends up being bad, but I’m betting the
house that it is good.
We’ve had Skred Red, an aggressive red deck that hinged on Skred to take care of large creatures so that you could keep attacking. We’ve had other bigger
red decks that used Flame Slash to do the same thing. Now, in a world where Siege Rhino is one of the biggest creatures around, Roast feels like it could
fill the same role.
Roast can’t kill flying creatures or go to the dome, but it can kill just about any ground-pounder being played in Standard. Courser of Kruphix and Siege
Rhino are often too large to punch through and can constantly eat your team while gaining back precious life points. Roast, like Flame Slash and Skred
before it, will be able to clear the path of most blockers so that your creatures can deal a lot of damage, even if it can’t hit the player like Lightning
Strike or Flame Slash.
I also think Roast will see play in Modern, as it gives red decks an easy way to kill Tarmogoyf, Spellskite, Siege Rhino, and even Tasigur. While it isn’t
an instant, which can be a huge drawback at times, it does almost everything Flame Slash does just a little bit better. It does cost two mana instead of
one, which makes it a bit worse with Snapcaster Mage, but I can’t even describe how valuable it would be for a Snapcaster Mage deck to have a red spell
that can kill Siege Rhino. The card poses a lot of problems, and you don’t always have the ability to splash another color to kill it.
I’m just glad I don’t have to play Harvest Pyre anymore.
I’m also pretty excited about this card for a number of reasons.
The cycle of Commands all look pretty sweet, but it will take playing with them to fully appreciate how powerful they will be. Almost all of the abilities
on each one have merit, though they won’t always be cost-efficient. But Atarka’s Command is incredibly cheap and can act as a Skullcrack in most
situations. When it isn’t a Skullcrack, it is pumping all of your Hordeling Outburst tokens while dealing your opponent three damage. I haven’t seen a card
that can deal that much damage for two mana in quite a while.
It is important to note that this card can’t kill creatures, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be incredibly useful. Aggressive red decks are having a tough
time against Siege Rhino, and being able to stifle that lifegain trigger while dealing three in the process is effectively dealing them six. Since
Skullcrack rotated last year, we’ve felt the effects of Siege Rhino greatly. Now, red mages will have a solid response.
There are more red cards still that could see play across multiple formats.
I’m not saying that Sarkhan Unbroken is the best planeswalker of all time, but he is absolutely ridiculous. The new Sarkhan is quite powerful on multiple
fronts, but he obviously works best in a deck full of removal spells. He can act as a card advantage engine, or a finisher. Hilariously enough, his
ultimate is his worst ability, though I could see it doesn’t some interesting things. Dragonstorm was a deck, after all.
But I’m most excited about his potential applications in Modern. Temur is one of my favorite color combinations, and I’ve had quite a bit of success with
Tarmogoyf-based Splinter Twin decks. Those decks often lean away from the combo after sideboard and have some big game-breakers like Batterskull or
Keranos. I believe that Sarkhan is better than both of those cards.
While Sarkhan Unbroken might not be as good in Standard as he ends up being in Modern, there is still a lot of potential for him. Temur decks are a little
awkward at the moment because they’re focusing on being aggressive. I think that Sarkhan will tilt us more towards the control side of things. And with
removal spells like Roast at our disposal, we’ll have answers to just about any creature our opponent could throw at us. If I were to build a deck in
Standard around Sarkan Unbroken, it would almost undoubtedly be base U/R with just a splash of green.
Finishing Touches
I am not great at building new decks. I can point to a card and tell you how I feel about it, or what style of deck it should go into, but putting all the
pieces together is not something I’ve ever really been good at. What I do know is that this set looks incredibly powerful, though many of the cards are
subtle. Much like Mastery of the Unseen, I think it will take time for many of the sets best cards to be “found.”
On paper, many of the cards that are good seem pretty obvious. The implications of having a ton of expensive, powerful, multicolor dragons to choose from
are unknown to us just yet, but I’m not sure I’m going to like it. When everyone has access to a Stormbreath Dragon proxy, it could make a lot of games
feel monotonous, even if you’re playing against a different archetype each time. I do like the complexity in the spells, and pushing some of the cheaper
creatures in a direction of devotion. I think it could shake things up on a massive level.
My first project will be a U/W Devotion deck, where I try to fit Master of Waves alongside Dragonlord Ojutai. My second project will likely contain Sarkhan
Unbroken, though I honestly have no idea where to even start. I don’t have plans for a third project, as I’ll probably just let Brad take the reins on new
Standard decks for the Season One Invitational.
Having big sets enter into the fray is always fun. With the Season One Invitational coming to Richmond in just a few weeks, it will be interesting to see
what people come up with in the new Standard format. A small part of me is afraid that Mastery of the Unseen will end up being the new Pack Rat, but this
set seems like it has a lot of powerful cards that will keep that from happening. This set has no lack of big hitters, and I’m ready to swing for the
fences.
Did I also mention that Dragonlord Atarka is basically Trogdor, the Burninator?
What a bad time to be a peasant.