Hey everyone!

This week I thought I’d bring a fresh perspective to Standard. Leading up to Worlds is not the best time for Standard strategy articles because the pros/authors don’t particularly want to show off their secret tech to the world. Luckily for you, I have absolutely nothing to hide because I have no idea what I’m playing at Worlds next week. A lot of testing has given me a lot of ideas about the format, but there’s no deck that really stands out as being exceptional. So there will be no mild derision of my bad matchups, no enhancing the appeal of decks I think I can beat, nothing but the truth, pure and simple. Let’s get into it!

The Aggro Corner

Delver Red

This deck has, surprisingly, lived up to its initial promise. I say surprisingly because we (the Australian team) tried to make a U/R Snapcaster/burn deck work at the start of the format and failed for a very simple reason—the mana isn’t consistent enough. Given you want to play a fairly low land count and have access to only four U/R duals, you can’t really play more than 13 to 14 sources of either color. For some perspective, Solar Flare often plays the same or more than that many sources of all three colors, has Think Twice and Forbidden Alchemy to smooth draws, and still occasionally can’t cast Day of Judgment on turn 4. U/R has it pretty tough if they want to regularly be able to cast Chandra’s Phoenix. Ponder certainly helps, which is a card we didn’t have in our original builds, but the prospect of having to mulligan two-Mountain hands with five good spells doesn’t excite me.

Delver Red feels much more like a Fish deck than a conventional burn deck. You don’t expect to deal them 20 in five turns; you plan to trade one-for-one with their relevant spells, establish board presence, and win via beatdown over many turns with one or two guys. Snapcaster Mage is at his very best in this deck, rivaled only by his excellence in U/B Control. Snapcastering Incinerate brings back memories of Bloodbraid Elf into Lightning Bolt; targeting Ponder feels like Silvergill Adept all over again; and targeting Vapor Snag is Man-o’-War plus (and don’t forget that you can target Snapcaster itself and go again). Grim Lavamancer is also miles better here than in boring, old, conventional Mono Red, with Ponders, Vapor Snags, Incinerates, Dismembers, and Mana Leaks to provide fuel. These two creatures are how the deck gets ahead, particularly in the creature matchups, and Delver itself is a pretty quick clock.

What it beats: Guys that die to Grim Lavamancer and Arc Trail, clunky draws reliant on resolving a single big stabilizer like Consecrated Sphinx.

What it struggles with: Early removal plus better late game, hexproof creatures equipped with Swords.

Should you play it? I probably wouldn’t, but if you think you can draw Sulfur Falls a lot, go nuts.

Red

Boring, old, conventional Mono Red. This deck has been around since approximately the dawn of time, and its strategy has not changed significantly since then. Attack you, burn you, burn you; are you dead yet? The current incarnation of the deck has access to Shrine of Burning Rage (the best non-creature-based kill condition since Cursed Scroll) and Stromkirk Noble (the best red one-drop since, well, Goblin Guide and Grim Lavamancer; I guess red has had a lot of good one-drops recently).

Recent additions to the deck include Geistflame, which has turned out to be very good with the proliferation of one-toughness creatures. It kills green mana dorks, Grim Lavamancer, Snapcaster Mage, and Champion of the Parish, then kills another one a few turns later and incidentally triggers Shrine twice. Some lists play Gut Shot over the ‘flame, which I like a lot less—saving one mana is great if you have the perfect draw with Stromkirk Noble + Gut Shot to kill their Birds of Paradise, followed by Stormblood Berserker, followed by Chandra’s Phoenix, but more often than not you’ll have a mana spare somewhere along the line, and Geistflame is much better with a Phoenix in the bin or when you have a Shrine in play. I get that Gut Shot also triggers Stormblood on turn 2 if you miss your one-drop, but it’s not really good enough—you’re one-for-twoing yourself, and if they have a Doom Blade, you’re back to zero. It’s a useful interaction, and I’m all about maximizing positive interactions in deckbuilding, but it’s just not powerful enough to seriously influence your decision.

As for one-drops, four Stromkirk Noble is a given, but then you have to balance the pros and cons of Grim Lavamancer, Goblin Arsonist, Furnace Scamp, Spikeshot Elder, and Reckless Waif. I would run two Lavamancer—you don’t mind drawing one, but it isn’t really great either, and the second one is almost always a Mons’s Goblin Raiders. Reckless Waif is very good against the blue control decks, while Spikeshot Elder and Goblin Arsonist are better in the aggro matchups, and Furnace Scamp is just bad, and you should not run it. I like four Chandra’s Phoenix because I tend to like cards like that. Phoenix is very difficult to block or deal with and gives you a lot of reach. Your deck is a little less explosive than if you just had burn and one-drops, but you shouldn’t be trying to make your good draws better anyway.

What it beats: Slow control decks that max out on Think Twice and Forbidden Alchemy at the cost of early removal.

What it struggles with: Timely Reinforcements + Snapcaster Mage, G/W decks that have bigger and better creatures.

Should you play it? Only if you have the sick metagame read and know that people are cutting cheap removal and Timely Reinforcements. That card is pretty unfair.

Tempered Steel

Yeah, this deck still exists, although no one has really taken it seriously for a while. That’s good because a lot of ramp players have been cutting Ancient Grudge from their sideboards, and you aren’t nearly as worried about Timely as the red decks (you can just go over the Soldiers). On the other hand, Grim Lavamancer from Delver is very good against you, and Arc Trail isn’t going anywhere in a hurry. G/W decks are still siding Naturalize because it kills Angelic Destiny and Oblivion Ring, so there’s splash damage there as well.

As far as specific card choices go, I think Blade Splicer is very well placed at the moment. It wasn’t amazing in Block (although still very good) because of Leonin Relic-Warder in the mirror, but it’s just one of the most cost-efficient three-drops in the format, particularly with Signal Pest. Origin Spellbomb is still there to give you consistency at the cost of speed (again, this is the kind of thing I like to do). Hero of Bladehold can probably move to the sideboard—you want a low land count, and most of its appeal in the Block deck was that it dodged all the artifact removal people were throwing at you. I don’t particularly like Mikaeus. It can be good, but it’s very slow and clunky and vulnerable to tons of stuff. Certainly no Steel Overseer.

What it beats: Everything, if you get the right draw. If you get the wrong draw, it still beats a slow start that can’t deal with fliers.

What it struggles with: Removal, particularly mass removal and repeatable removal (Grim Lavamancer, Ancient Grudge, Day of Judgment, Arc Trail).

Should you play it? A resounding maybe. It’s well off the radar and extremely powerful. But then again, there was a reason it fell off the radar in the first place—Ancient Grudge is a blowout, and you’re still a little inconsistent.

Midrange

U/W Humans

I still have difficulty accepting that this deck is actually good. I mean, come on, it’s White Weenie. It plays a creature enchantment that costs four mana, not to mention Grand Abolisher, which is a Grizzly Bear half the time. Then you have Doomed Traveler, which is, well, Doomed Traveler.

That said, results have proven me wrong. Grand Abolisher may be a Grizzly Bear, but it stops any potential blowouts when you resolve Angelic Destiny. Doomed Traveler is actually quite well placed. It’s very annoying for the aggro decks to get through, and it’s very annoying for the control decks to kill, particularly when it’s doing them two a turn with the aid of Honor of the Pure. Moorland Haunt is amazing and gives the deck a ton of reach in the late game, and Champion of the Parish is pretty big.

This deck also plays a little like a Fish deck, albeit one with a much heavier creature emphasis. You can certainly kill very fast, but you also have a lot of capacity to grind the opponent out with Moorland Haunt + Honor/Swords + Mana Leaks. You have a lot of little positive interactions throughout the deck which is quite nice—Angelic Destiny and Sword of War and Peace work well with any of Grand Abolisher, Mirran Crusader, or Geist of Saint Traft. Grand Abolisher also works nicely with the three-drops, inasmuch as it stops control decks from countering them, which is basically their only way to interact with a Geist. Honor of the Pure is awesome with Moorland Haunt and quite acceptable with Doomed Traveler, Mirran Crusader, or Geist.

What it beats: Control decks. This deck is a big part of the reason why I no longer think U/B Control is good enough.

What it struggles with: More efficient creatures and more aggressive strategies. Fundamentally, it’s a Fish deck. G/W Tokens is not a great matchup.

Should you play it? If you know the ins and outs and have a good plan for the mirror, you could do a lot worse.

G/W Tokens

Token decks are always fun. Make an enormous number of creatures, turn them sideways, hope they don’t have a Wrath effect. Spot removal doesn’t do so well against Garruk Relentless, Elspeth, and Geist-Honored Monk. Unfortunately, Day of Judgment does very well indeed against Avacyn’s Pilgrim into Blade Splicer into Hero of Bladehold. Day, Slagstorm, and Black Sun’s Zenith are among the most difficult cards for G/W to beat, particularly when followed by a Primeval Titan or Consecrated Sphinx.

Still, when they don’t have a sweeper, G/W is undeniably powerful. Getting to run eight mana dorks makes it a lot faster than the other midrange decks, and you can often race even the aggro decks with a turn 3 Hero. One of the things I really like about G/W is that it’s possibly the best deck in the format if your opponent mulliganed, or got a bad draw, or is just doing something boring and slow. You consistently do much more powerful things on turns 3 through 6 than anything else. Hero or Garruk can easily win the game by themselves when they arrive turn 3, and even if they deal with them, Geist-Honored Monk and Elspeth will probably mop up. One-for-ones just won’t cut it—it’s go big or go home.

There’s a big difference between the draws where you have three mana on turn 2 and the draws you don’t, and as such, cheap removal for mana dorks is very good against the deck. Also, mulligan appropriately—Gavony Township, four land, Mikaeus, Mortarpod might not look terrible, but you can do a lot better. There’s a reason Martin Juza won a GP with this deck; he mulligans much more aggressively than a lot of players (including myself). Also, I don’t like Overrun much. People are combating G/W with removal and sweepers, making Overrun only worthwhile if you’re already ahead.

What it beats: Decks without enough ways to interact. Also, Mono Red, you just go bigger.

What it struggles with: Wraths + lots of removal + counters or O-Rings for planeswalkers.

Should you play it? It’s not a bad choice. Make sure you have a good plan against control and tear red apart all day long.

Ramp of various stripes (Mono-Green or R/G or G/W/r)

Sometimes you just want to go big. This deck showed up in a big way at GP Brisbane, but since then has been on the decline somewhat. It has reasonable matchups across the board without being hugely favored against anything. Beatdown is good if you draw Emissaries and Slagstorm/Day; control is good if you ramp into more Garruks, Titans, and Zeniths than they can counter. The various builds have their own advantages and disadvantages—Dungrove Elder is excellent against control, but the lack of sweepers really hurts you in the G/W matchup. I think Day of Judgment is mostly just better than Slagstorm, so there’s that in favor of G/W/r, but the mana is worse, and you don’t get to play as many Inkmoth Nexuses, which makes Primeval Titan less effective. Also, you don’t get to play Palladium Myr!

What it beats: Depends on the build. Red is generally good across the board, provided you have Emissaries somewhere.

What it struggles with: Again, depends on the build, but I don’t think anything is too bad. Ramp is the 50% deck of the format.

Should you play it? There’s a ton of room for tweaking, so if you think you have the right build, it could definitely get there.

The Big, Bad Control

U/B Control

I touched on this one in my article last week, and my opinion hasn’t changed substantially since then. This deck was great when no one knew about it, but now that Mirran and Phyrexian Crusaders, Dungrove Elder, and Fish decks are the norm rather than the exception, it’s much less so. Luis Scott-Vargas was really trying to make the deck work—it’s very much his style—but after losing a ton of matches to U/W Humans and other bad matchups, he’s decided not to sleeve up Nephalia Drownyards for Worlds.

What it beats: Midrange decks without untargetable threats. G/W Tokens is pretty solid. Control decks without Drownyard or a very good plan against it.

What it struggles with: Midrange decks with untargetable threats. U/W Humans, Dungrove Green, Mono-Black Infect. Pure aggro is not the best either.

Should you play it? Probably not.

Solar Flare

Control decks really want to be running white these days. Day of Judgment is very well placed, and Oblivion Ring is a nice catchall. Solar Flare doesn’t struggle with Mirran Crusader nearly as much as U/B, especially given Liliana.

Flare decks have quite a bit of room for tweaking. You can play any of Sun Titan, Grave Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, and Consecrated Sphinx as six-drops, run any number of Dissipates you feel like, try Nephalia Drownyard or Ghost Quarter, and split your removal between Doom Blade, Oblivion Ring, and Tribute to Hunger as you see fit. Think Twice, Forbidden Alchemy, Mana Leak, Liliana, Day of Judgment, and Snapcaster Mage are the cards that are not optional, but even here lists vary from two to four copies (and some even cut Liliana entirely). As always, it’s a metagame decision. Counterspells are good against control, removal is good against aggro, etc., etc. I think Wurmcoil Engine is my least favorite six-drop because he’s the only one who gets you no advantage if he cops an O-Ring immediately. Running one or two each of the other three does seem reasonable though.

I like four Think Twice and four Forbidden Alchemy in this format. It’s important to be able to draw lots of cards in the control mirrors because whoever misses their land drop first falls way behind. Nephalia Drownyard and Ghost Quarter are super important in the mirrors, as is Surgical Extraction out of the board. You can really make a huge difference in your control matchup by changing just a few cards, as chances are you get to see most of your deck anyway. If you can’t fit Drownyard, Sun Titan + Unburial Rites + Ghost Quarter is effective against it, and bear in mind that Surgical Extraction can target nonbasics. Beatdown comes down to whether or not you can stop their early rush with Mana Leak, Doom Blade, Liliana, and Day, but post-board Timely Reinforcements is the best card in the format against red variants (particularly with Snapcaster Mage).

What it beats/struggles against: Depends on the build. This feels like a cop out, but it really does! How many Days and Doom Blades you’re running will be crucial against aggro, while Lilianas, counters, and card draw is what you need against control. You can’t cover all the bases in the main, so make sure you can always sideboard into the optimal configuration.

Should you play it? Why not?

And that’s it for this week. See those of you who can make it to San Francisco this weekend!

Jeremy