I’m kind of annoyed right now. You see, the time right after the release of a new set is my absolute favorite time in Magic. I love trying out new cards, building new decks, watching how the metagame develops, and figuring out the best way to adapt to it. More than anything, though, I love playing in tournaments right after a new set comes out to get a chance to see all of my ideas in action.
Therein lies the problem. I spent last weekend in Las Vegas for one Patrick Chapin bachelor party, so I didn’t make it out to Guadalajara for the Grand Prix there. The next three Grand Prix—Providence, Houston, and Las Vegas—are all Limited. It’s not until Grand Prix Miami, a full month from now, that I’m going to get a chance to play Standard, and by then it’ll hardly be a "new" format at all. I have to say its times like this that I’m jealous of people on the East Coast and in the middle of the country for their easy access to the SCG Open Series because I’d love to be in driving distance of a big Standard event almost every weekend.
As a result of my lack of opportunities to compete in big Standard events, I haven’t been doing quite as much brewing as I otherwise might be. That said, me doing less brewing than usual is probably pretty similar to a lot of people doing the most they ever do—I just can’t turn it off. I’ve been messing around with a number of different decks on Magic Online, and I have a bunch of other ideas bouncing around in my head that I haven’t had a chance to try out yet. So what I want to do today is go over both the battle-tested brews and the sketches that exist only in my head and talk about what excites me and concerns me about all of them.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
The very first deck that I actually put together on Magic Online with the new set was an aggressive RUG deck. I liked the idea of playing a deck that could utilize Ral Zarek, which seems like an excellent card if you can take advantage of the ability to tap down an opposing blocker. It seemed like the sort of card that could help push through damage against opposing midrange or control decks and also provide a source of repeatable removal and card advantage against other aggressive decks. My first build looked something like this:
Creatures (29)
- 3 Borderland Ranger
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 2 Wolfir Silverheart
- 4 Thundermaw Hellkite
- 4 Flinthoof Boar
- 4 Burning-Tree Emissary
- 4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
- 4 Zhur-Taa Druid
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (16)
Spells (8)
I liked the idea of being able to sideboard cards like Izzet Staticaster against aggressive decks, particularly the Blood Artist builds that seem to have risen in popularity on Magic Online. Staticaster works particularly well with Ral, letting you kill two-drops with his untap ability, but even on its own it seems good with the number of one-toughness creatures out there.
Unfortunately, the deck didn’t operate quite like I’d hoped. Burning-Tree Emissary was disappointing since the deck wasn’t quite aggressive enough to really leverage the body, so it ended up being a weak draw later in the game that didn’t have enough support to be high impact early. My deck just had too much mana as well, especially with Ral able to double as mana production, without great ways to leverage it. My next build of the deck went in a different direction:
Creatures (24)
- 2 Borderland Ranger
- 3 Arbor Elf
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 4 Wolfir Silverheart
- 2 Thundermaw Hellkite
- 4 Flinthoof Boar
- 2 Izzet Staticaster
- 3 Aetherling
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (16)
Spells (16)
Sideboard
This deck scaled back the aggressive elements to be more of a midrange/ramp style deck. I was liking Wolfir Silverheart, especially in combination with Ral to push him past blockers, since it poses a powerful offensive threat that can also make it very difficult for just about anyone to attack you. Thundermaw Hellkite is an awesome attacker, but if he’s your first creature hitting the red zone in a game, he takes some doing to get the job done—plus he’s really not very good on defense.
The main direction here is trying to lean on Aetherling. With Arbor Elf, Farseek, and Ral, this deck can get an Aetherling into play very fast. The problem I found, though, is actually being able to play it with mana to protect it. My mana in this version was something of a holdover from previous iterations that were lighter on blue cards, so I would frequently end up being unable to get three blue mana to play and protect my Aetherling, which kind of defeated the purpose of playing it at all.
This next version is totally untested and raw (and I’m sure pretty terrible) but looks to solve some of the mana issues as well as move the deck even more in the direction of Aetherling. More cheap burn helps shore up matchups against aggressive decks as well as provides removal for mana creatures and Voice of Resurgence and takes the place of the early aggressive creatures. Here, Ral is less of a way to punch through with your creatures and more of a hybrid ramp/removal spell. It’s possible that this deck doesn’t have enough tools to fight through opposing Thragtusks and Angels, which can make racing with Aetherling much more difficult than it was in Block, but I think it’s a direction worth exploring and feel like it’s the natural extension of the previous builds I attempted.
Creatures (18)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (19)
Spells (19)
Sideboard
Next on the list of decks I tried is G/B Varolz. Varolz was the card that impressed me the most as an overachiever in Block Constructed. As I mentioned in my report on the tournament, it was the realization of the impact of Varolz on deck construction that really allowed me to find a build of G/B/W that I liked for the field. Varolz as a card allows you to construct your deck with a much lower curve while retaining mid and late-game power thanks to his ability to grant all of your creatures scavenge. Basically, Varolz lets you build your deck as an aggro deck but have the effective power of a midrange deck once things start dying.
The first build I made with Varolz tried to put two of my great graveyard loves together:
Creatures (28)
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 4 Splinterfright
- 4 Strangleroot Geist
- 4 Dreg Mangler
- 4 Lotleth Troll
- 2 Deathrite Shaman
- 2 Experiment One
- 4 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (14)
Spells (17)
- 10 Forest
- 4 Putrefy
- 3 Grisly Salvage
This deck was probably a little overzealous on the graveyard elements. The idea was that Splinterfright is very powerful with Varolz, whether he’s in play or in the graveyard. A milled Splinterfright can scavenge for a truly huge amount if your graveyard gets big, a Splinterfright in play can help give you food for both itself and Mr. Scar-Striped, and Grisly Salvage helps fuel up both.
The biggest problem with this deck was that it has too many cards that require support to get going and there really isn’t enough of that support. Even if there were more of the support, the payoff isn’t really big enough to justify the hoops you’re jumping through to get there. It’s possible that you could try to really go deep with stuff like Rot-Farm Zombie for more self-mill, but when you compare what you’re doing to decks like G/B/W Reanimator, it’s just too much work for not nearly a big enough impact.
I tried going more in the direction of my original Predator Ooze deck—just a resilient G/B aggro/midrange deck without the cute combo elements. I was excited by the idea of playing Vampire Nighthawk alongside Varolz because you can build a serious lifelinking monster that can be virtually impossible for aggressive decks to beat.
Creatures (27)
- 4 Vampire Nighthawk
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 4 Strangleroot Geist
- 2 Ulvenwald Tracker
- 4 Dreg Mangler
- 1 Deadbridge Goliath
- 4 Lotleth Troll
- 4 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (12)
This deck is much more straightforwardly aggressive than the Splinterfright version but still has quite a bit of power going on. Varolz plus Lotleth Troll or Rancor can build seriously big monsters that are very difficult to stop, and if those monsters are Vampire Nighthawks, it’s very difficult for opposing aggressive decks to keep up.
Varolz isn’t quite as unstoppable as Predator Ooze in previous versions of the deck, but he can survive much of the same removal as his predecessor while also being a far more powerful draw in the mid to late game. Ulvenwald Tracker doesn’t get the Ooze to fight alongside, but being able to pick off opposing creatures with deathtouching Vampire Nighthawks that can grow huge and are easier to cast now that the deck doesn’t have to play all green sources for Ooze seems like a reasonable trade-off.
I haven’t really played much with this version of the deck, but I think it’s a reasonable place to start. I largely gave up on the Ooze deck in part because Tragic Slip became so popular for fighting the Falkenrath Aristocrats of the world, but it might be time for the basic shell of the deck—if not the Oozes themselves—to make a comeback.
The other card from my Block Constructed deck that I definitely want to try to build around is Voice of Resurgence. Voice has obviously already made its presence felt, not only in Standard but on people’s bank accounts. I’m pretty happy that I picked up my copies at Grand Prix Portland to play in that event before the price exploded.
While I’ve seen the various Naya and G/B/W decks sporting Voice, I kind of want to go back to the deck that I was playing all the way at the beginning of the Standard format with Return to Ravnica: G/W Aggro.
Creatures (23)
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 3 Silverblade Paladin
- 2 Wolfir Silverheart
- 2 Sublime Archangel
- 4 Loxodon Smiter
- 4 Experiment One
- 4 Voice of Resurgence
Lands (9)
Spells (28)
I haven’t really played with this deck, but it feels like it has to have some potential. I think Faith’s Shield is one of the most underappreciated cards in the format as a tool to protect your creatures from removal, create favorable combats, and force through damage—all for just one mana. And when you actually hit faithful hour? The card is downright unfair, enabling unblockable alpha strikes as well as keeping you alive.
I really like the idea of Silverblade Paladin and Sublime Archangel alongside Rancor and Advent of the Wurm. Against opponents who are trying to protect themselves with Thragtusks and the like, you can readily punch through with huge tramplers and double strikers. I wasn’t a huge fan of Silverblade Paladin in these kinds of decks back when I was playing them before, but the addition of Advent of the Wurm makes double strike dramatically more threatening. Your opponent can’t just chump block your massive attacker.
I played Rootborn Defenses as an anti Supreme Verdict card in this kind of deck way back when, and it’s clearly gotten dramatically better now. The combination of Voice and Advent of the Wurm tokens—not to mention the ability to actually deploy a significant threat on your opponent’s turn when you leave up mana—makes Rootborn Defenses far better than it was before, as we clearly saw in Craig Wescoe victory at Pro Tour Dragon’s Maze.
This deck definitely has the tools to stack up against both aggressive and control decks, as Craig’s win showed us. Obviously the format was different, but a lot of the major players were there. The big question in my mind is whether this deck can compete against midrange decks like Reanimator and Jund. I’m not sure, to be honest, but if it can it’s almost certain to be a major contender in the Standard format moving forward.
What do you think? Which of these decks do you think have potential, and which of them do you think are trash? As I said at the beginning of the article, I haven’t been playing as much Standard lately as I would be if I were testing for an upcoming event myself, so these decks certainly haven’t been through the playtesting wringer. What changes would you make and why?
Until next time,
bmk