Now that Alara Reborn is out and we’ve all had a chance to digest it, it’s time to once again turn our attention towards Standard. It’s a huge summer for Standard, starting with Regionals in a couple of weeks, and going through the Standard qualifier season all summer long, up to (and through) the release of Magic 2010 in July.

Regionals always fascinates me. It’s essentially a blank slate. Sure, we have a handful of established decks, but there’s a whole new set to absorb into them, and with as powerful a set as Alara Reborn, there’s bound to be new twists to the decks we know, and more than likely a few decks we’ve never seen before.

Alara Reborn has a real shot at mixing things up. Will Jenara, Asura of War rules the skies? How many decks will sport Maelstrom Pulse? Does Lord of Extinction belong somewhere - maybe in the Dramatic Entrance deck? Is Double Negative a decent sideboard card for Five-Color against what will likely be a slew of Cascade decks?

I’m looking forward to finding out. I love every time the format changes, and I love seeing what people come up with. Terribly exciting.

Speaking of Cascade …

Recascade

When last we left our intrepid Alara Reborn mechanic, we were looking at possible ways to maximize the effectiveness of Cascade in two different ways. This week, I’d like to look more at a single specific Cascade card that I think is the most likely to see play as we come up on Regionals.

Nope, not Bloodbraid Elf - although that’s a good guess.

Ardent Plea? Now you’re just being silly.

No, I’m talking about Bituminous Blast. There’s a lot to like about the Bit-Blast. I mean, it’s removal, but it could be any number of things on top of that. Its instant speed, which means that you can drop in a creature or a game-changing sorcery at a time you couldn’t normally.

And Bit-Blast plays well in both of the ways you can maximize Cascade, which makes it the most likely Cascade card to see play on May 16th. At least, in my mind. Take that for what it’s worth.

Bit-Blightning

If you remember from last week’s column, one of the ways you can maximize your Cascades is by oversaturating your deck with cards that do, essentially, the same thing. Blightning as a deck is a good example of this: take Justin Warbington’s winning deck from the StarCityGames.com $1000 Open:

Blightning Aggro A Standard deck, by Justin Warbington 1st place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Roanoke, Virginia, United States on 2009-04-12 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Boggart Ram-Gang 4 Figure of Destiny 3 Goblin Outlander 4 Hellspark Elemental 4 Mogg Fanatic 2 Shambling Remains Instants 4 Flame Javelin 3 Terror 3 Volcanic Fallout Sorceries 1 Banefire 4 Blightning	Basic Lands 9 Mountain Lands 4 Auntie's Hovel 3 Ghitu Encampment 4 Graven Cairns 4 Sulfurous Springs	Sideboard: 3 Dragon's Claw 1 Shambling Remains 2 Everlasting Torment 2 Chaotic Backlash 2 Wild Ricochet 1 Banefire 4 Deathmark
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The Blightning Aggro deck relies on redundancy to make sure it keeps up the pressure and utilizes all of its mana on every turn. Eight one-drops, seven two-drops, and six three-drops in the creature base make sure you curve out. The spells all fall into the same casting-cost curve, meaning that you will likely always have SOME play on turns 1 through 3. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you play Fanatic into Hellspark into Ram-Gang or Figure into Outlander into Blightning, so long as you are playing threats consistently and dealing damage to your opponent.

Bit-Blast fits into this style of deck as a top-of-the-curve way to ensure that your creatures get through - and gives you, in almost every case, a secondary source of extra damage that might even go straight into the hole you just blew in your opponent’s defenses. There are eight hasty guys to blast directly into combat, and there are enough direct-damage spells that you can make up for the fact that this one had to hit a creature.

Obviously you can’t just cookie-cutter Bit-Blast into the deck. What would you replace? The logical choice is Flame Javelin, which is the only spell in the deck that CAN’T come off of a Bit-Blast. But honestly, Flame Javelin does so much for this deck that skipping over One Single Card in a Cascade isn’t enough to remove it. The best option, in my opinion, is to replace Terror with it. It serves the same purpose: removing creatures. Sure, now you’re doing it with damage, and for three more mana, and it’s hard to look at those sexy new Terminates and NOT think “obvious replacement for Terror.” But when you do the math, the extra three mana is getting you an extra three-mana spell. Three-mana-ish.

From a budget standpoint, those twenty-dollar Figures pump the cost of this deck way out of the water. The deck can support a different one-drop for that slot, like Tattermunge Maniac, or possibly even Jund Hackblade, as at that point, more than half of your creatures are multicolored.

Budget Bit-Blightning Featured by Dave Meeson on 2009-05-10 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/17438_Tribal_Thriftiness_67_Bituminous.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Boggart Ram-Gang 3 Goblin Outlander 4 Hellspark Elemental 4 Mogg Fanatic 3 Shambling Remains 4 Tattermunge Maniac Instants 4 Bituminous Blast 4 Flame Javelin 3 Volcanic Fallout	Sorceries 4 Blightning Basic Lands 12 Mountain Lands 3 Ghitu Encampment 4 Graven Cairns 4 Savage Lands	Stats: Average mana: 1.80 Average creature mana cost: 1.95 Average creature power: 2.45 Average creature toughness: 1.77 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 20.00% Instants: 18.33% Creatures: 36.67% Lands: 18.33% Sorceries: 6.67%
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Rare Cost Summary:
Graven Cairns ($5.00 x 4 = $20.00)

Graven Cairns are really the only critical piece of the manabase, especially in a world possibly influenced by Anathemancer. I don’t think Anathemancer is quite hot enough to be maindeck yet - I mean, you wouldn’t replace the Ram-Gangs certainly, and I think I’m much more likely to do chunks of damage with Shambling Remains (and more likely to pay the Unearth cost).

Rares You Could Add, If You Had ‘Em: Figures, obviously. I like Hell’s Thunder in this deck - it’s another card that comes off of a Bit-Blast, another hasty attacker, and another reusable threat out of the graveyard.

I really like the Blightning Aggro deck as an archetype. It seems like it can dish out a lot of damage quickly, and packs just enough disruption to keep your opponent off their big spells. And it’s chock-full of commons and uncommons to start with, which means it’s a great choice for players with budgetary concerns.

Bit-Control

The other way to use Bit-Blast is in a more control-style deck. Having a Bit-Blast on turn 5 to mop up after a good mass-removal spell is fine in the grand mana curve scope of things, especially since you’re getting a free spell on top of it.

Last year I played Mono-Black Control in Regionals, and so this is a deck idea after my own heart. I keep thinking about it and thinking about how nice it would be to have Korlash this year, since he’s playable off of a Bit-Blast. Could you imagine? End of turn, Bit-Blast your Plumeveil, flip a 5/5 or 6/6 Korlash into play. Insane.

This year, Bit-Blast (among other things) is enough to go (at least) two colors. There’s also Terminate, Volcanic Fallout, and Thought Hemorrhage.

Budget Bit-Control Featured by Dave Meeson on 2009-05-10 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/17438_Tribal_Thriftiness_67_Bituminous.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 1 Loxodon Warhammer Creatures 4 Anathemancer 4 Murderous Redcap Instants 4 Bituminous Blast 4 Flame Javelin 2 Incinerate 4 Terminate 4 Volcanic Fallout	Planeswalkers 1 Chandra Nalaar Sorceries 4 Blightning 4 Diabolic Tutor 2 Infest Basic Lands 5 Mountain 5 Swamp Lands 4 Ghitu Encampment 4 Graven Cairns 4 Savage Lands	Stats: Average mana: 2.30 Average creature mana cost: 3.50 Average creature power: 2.00 Average creature toughness: 2.00 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 16.67% Creatures: 13.33% Instants: 30.00% Lands: 20.00% Planeswalkers: 1.67% Artifacts: 1.67% Sorceries: 16.67%
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Rare Cost Summary:
Graven Cairns ($5.00 x 4 = $20.00)
Chandra Nalaar ($5.00 x 1 = $5.00)

Plenty of targeted removal. Plenty of mass removal. Maybe a bit light on win conditions, but Anathemancer certainly makes up for a lot of it, since you can hold them up until turns six through eight and they don’t have to attack But At All to do a good portion of the necessary damage. Diabolic Tutor’s not fabulous, but you can Cascade into it and turn it into exactly what you need in any given situation.

Rare You Could Add, If You Had ‘Em: Liliana Vess is nuts with Bit-Blast; you can actually FIX the top card of your deck into the specific game-wrecking card you need. She probably takes the place of the Tutors. You almost never are going to use her +1 ability until you need to refuel the tutoring ability. The aforementioned Thought Hemorrhage is a great weapon against numerous decks that rely on late-game powerhouses, like Reveillark in any of the token decks, or possible Cryptic Command or Broodmate against Five-Color Control.

This is my style. I hate that there’s no Damnation - that we have to rely on two-damage or two-toughness sweepers rather than just outright sending them to heck. And I have the feeling that, with all this talk of Terminate, perhaps Chameleon Colossus may come out of retirement, so figuring out a way to deal with them may be paramount. Would suck to be forced to rely on something like Cruel Edict, but I can’t honestly think of any other way to stop them short of the four Flame Javelin.

Regional Bits

Like I said at the beginning of this column, it’s an exciting time. I’m getting ready to test a ton of stuff in preparation for Regionals, but I’m also excited for the time period right after Regionals to see what every one else comes up with. I’m starting with the Bit-Blast Control deck you see above, so expect a short update next week before we dig in to the actual topic for the week. And if you’re planning on playing a Cascade deck at Regionals, feel free to post it up in the forums. I love this mechanic, and I think it’s got a huge potential to shape the format as we know it now.

I hope everyone that’s prepping for Regionals is making good progress.

Until next week…

Dave

dave dot massive at gmail and facebook and twitter