[SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE ARTICLE!]

Become a StarCityGames.com Premium Member and receive exclusive access to top-level strategies, new decklists and entertaining reports from many of the best players and writers that the game has to offer! This includes "The Innovator" & Worlds finalist Patrick Chapin, 2010 Player of the Year Brad Nelson, Classic Theorist Mike Flores, Hall of Famer Brian Kibler, GP and SCG Invitational Champion Gerry Thompson, StarCityGames.com Director of Sales Ben Bleiweiss ...and many, many more!

PLUS! StarCityGames.com Premium members now have an EXCLUSIVE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER sent just to them with the latest tech, exclusive content and exclusive deals along with unprecedented access into America's largest Magic: the Gathering sales database, and can view lists of StarCityGames.com's top-selling items - broken down by category, format legality, and rarity - in real time! When it comes to trading, increased knowledge equals increased profits - and increased knowledge is just one click away for our Premium members!

A StarCityGames.com Premium Membership gives you exclusive access to the best Magic: the Gathering content available and is an amazing bargain for just pennies a day! When you're ready to start getting more out of this game, click here to join StarCityGames.com Premium today!

If you are a valid StarCityGames.com Premium member and still cannot view the article, please consult this FAQ.

Regionals are upon us. I’ve made it my mission to test for Grand Prix: Seattle for at least an hour each day, which gives me a pretty good grasp on what kind of decks are going to be successful at Regionals. The decks I shared last week are what I intend to beat this weekend, of which I believe Jund Aggro, Five-Color Control, and BW Tokens to be the top players in this format. Jund is the weak link amongst those decks, with BW being the best deck, and Five-Color Control being everyone’s fail-safe fallback plan. Jund still plays a big role at keeping the Faerie flock befuddled, so all you greasy Jund boys out there better represent in the later rounds because everyone aiming to beat you loses to Faeries.

If I don’t find a unique way to attack the format, I know I’m going to be playing Five-Color Control or BW Tokens, and I’m sure a lot of other deckbuilding mages feel the same way.

Here are some of the interesting brews I’ve concocted that I feel have a legitimate shot at earning their pilots a Nationals invite.

GG Green Featured by Kyle Sanchez on 2009-05-17 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/17471_Down_And_Dirty_Standard_Reborn_My_Regionals_Choices.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Deus of Calamity 4 Devoted Druid 1 Llanowar Elves 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Primalcrux 2 Vigor 4 Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers 1 Woodfall Primus Enchantments 1 Fertile Ground 4 Overgrowth Planeswalkers 4 Garruk Wildspeaker	Sorceries 3 Primal Command 4 Tower Above Basic Lands 12 Forest Lands 4 Mosswort Bridge 4 Treetop Village	Sideboard: 3 Avatar of Might 4 Cloudthresher 3 Wheel of Sun and Moon 4 Guttural Response 1 Primal Command
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

This deck looks funky as hell, but it packs a wallop and is really fun to play. Primalcrux is the centerpiece for this deck, but one of my main reasons for going down this route was how enticing Avatar of Might is opposite BW Tokens and Boat Brew.

GG for an 8/8 TRAMPLER?! Sign me up! Got Path to Exile/Terror? Okay, I guess you lose.

This deck is very resilient to the Jund decks out there that look to kill creatures by burning them, and each creature requires either a Cryptic Command, Wrath of God, or Path to Exile from the Five-Color Control menace, giving me an all-round good game against the expected metagame. The weakness is the Five-Color Control decks that play Broken Ambitions and Remove Soul, since big monsters always lose the fight to cheap countermagic. This makes Swans, Sanity Grinding, and Faerie decks particularly impossible to beat, so Guttural Response is my weapon of choice post board.

The real problem with the Faerie matchup is Sower of Temptation. If they land one of those I’m all but dead, and I don’t have a good defense to Mistbind Clique other than a turn 3 Deus of Calamity / Vigor / Primalcrux.

Tower Above is an extremely useful spell right now, whether the wither is wilting a Kitchen Finks, the trample is trouncing a token, or the “provoke” is punting a problem creature. It really is one of the best proactive removal spells we have to play with right now, whereas Runed Halo is probably the best reactive.

Woodfall Primus and Vigor are also quite the beating, especially Vigor, since there are so many trample monsters in here, and they just keep getting bigger and bigger the more damage they try and absorb. It also makes Volcanic Fallout pretty useless (although the deck was designed to get around the popular Wrath variant anyway).

For a long time I had Kitchen Finks and Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers both as three-ofs, but Kitchen Finks just doesn’t feel like it does what it used to, so Primal Command is my substitute life gain. Goblin Outlander, Magma Spray, Fallout, Path, stupid First Strikers… they all have a way of making me wish I had a better creature in play. I also like having Cavaliers to bluff G/W Little Kid, to get them to use their Path/Terror/Terminate before I drop a Deus on their chest or Primalcrux their face off.

Did I mention how explosive Overgrowth is with Garruk? No? It feels a lot like having Lebron James on your team. He’s so explosive, he creates plays for his teammates out of nowhere, and he leaves your opponent with their jaw dangling and pants moisturized.

Turn 1 – Hierarch/Elf
Turn 2 – Overgrowth
Turn 3 – Garruk, Primalcrux/Deus/Vigor. It doesn’t matter which, they aren’t winning this game.
Turn 4 – Overrun / more fatties / explode all over their unsuspecting faces.

GG Green.

GWB Tokens Featured by Kyle Sanchez on 2009-05-17 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/17471_Down_And_Dirty_Standard_Reborn_My_Regionals_Choices.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifact Creatures 4 Tidehollow Sculler Creatures 2 Cloudgoat Ranger 4 Dauntless Escort 4 Noble Hierarch Legendary Creatures 3 Doran, the Siege Tower Planeswalkers 3 Ajani Goldmane 2 Garruk Wildspeaker Sorceries 3 Maelstrom Pulse 4 Spectral Procession	Tribal Enchantments 4 Bitterblossom Tribal Instants 3 Nameless Inversion Basic Lands 1 Forest 1 Plains Lands 4 Brushland 3 Fetid Heath 4 Murmuring Bosk 4 Reflecting Pool 1 Vivid Grove 1 Vivid Marsh 3 Vivid Meadow 2 Windbrisk Heights	Sideboard: 3 Cloudthresher 3 Wheel of Sun and Moon 3 Zealous Persecution 1 Garruk Wildspeaker 3 Banefire 2 Primal Command
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

I can’t put into words how disappointed I was when I found out Dauntless Escort isn’t a Treefolk. I tested this deck for two days solid, thinking I had broken the token mirror while only strengthening the Five-Color Control game. I mean really, who reads the creature type on a 3/3 for 3 that sacrifices to make your team indestructible? I sure didn’t, but at least my time wasn’t wasted.

This deck is very good when the mana is just right, but unfortunately the lack of Trees leaves too many comes-into-play-tapped lands, leaving this deck in the molasses pile.

I think a GWB token deck is very possible, but casting Spectral Procession with Noble Hierarch, and turn 2 Bitterblossom/Sculler is pretty difficult. Noble Hierarch is one of the keys to winning the BW Token matchup. Whoever attacks with tokens first and lands Ajani is going to win that matchup, and Noble Hierarch acts as a Time Walk to put you ahead no matter if you played first or not.

It’s also very important if you have Maelstrom Pulse to play the control deck in the mirrorish matches, since Maelstrom doesn’t care if you control the same name permanents as the Spirit Tokens, Bitterblossom, Faeries, Kithkins, or Cloudgoat Ranger on their side. Nameless Inversion, surprisingly, hasn’t been too bad. I felt bad about downgrading in removal from Path to Exile, but Nameless kills the Boggart Ram-Gang, Figure of Destiny, Dauntless Escort, Tidehollow Sculler, and Sower of Temptations with which I’m having trouble.

UW Featured by Kyle Sanchez on 2009-05-17 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/17471_Down_And_Dirty_Standard_Reborn_My_Regionals_Choices.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Mind Stone 4 Scepter of Dominance Creatures 4 Kitchen Finks Instants 4 Cryptic Command 3 Negate 3 Path to Exile 3 Remove Soul Sorceries 2 Hallowed Burial 3 Martial Coup 3 Tidings 3 Wrath of God	Basic Lands 8 Island 4 Plains Lands 4 Esper Panorama 4 Forbidding Watchtower 4 Mystic Gate	Sideboard: 3 Burrenton Forge-Tender 2 Runed Halo 1 Path to Exile 3 Vendilion Clique 3 Austere Command 3 Faerie Trickery
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

This has been my stock UW list for awhile, and I really love the nature of these kinds of decks, but I’m just not sure if this is the format where a generic UW control deck can win. The best part of this deck is the new dimension Scepter brings to control decks. With only a White mana up, you can feel pretty safe tapping low for Tidings since you’ll be able to tap down their Bloodbraid, Ram-Gang, or Demigod, while still attempting to lock up their Blue mana for their Cryptic Commands.

The basic nature of this deck also halts any Anathemancer advancements they’re looking to push on you. My only issue is that there isn’t enough card draw in here to keep up with Swans and Five-Color Control, so the Faerie Trickery and Clique come in post board to win the inevitable counter wars.

Still, this isn’t the deck I want to play at Regionals, but it’s a serious option I’m examining for Seattle. The problem with building these kind of slow control decks right now lies with the lack of definition in the format; once I know specifically what problem cards I’m going to have to beat outside Maelstrom Pulse, Anathemancer, Spectral Procession, and opposing Cryptic Commands, I’ll be able to better sculpt the deck to do what I want.

Not to mention Kitchen Finks and Martial Coup make up one of the slowest kill conditions I’ve ever seen. I played around with Oona for awhile, but being Shriekmaw/Terror proof doesn’t mean much nowadays, with Terminate/Path running rampant.

Five-Color Cascade Featured by Kyle Sanchez on 2009-05-17 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/17471_Down_And_Dirty_Standard_Reborn_My_Regionals_Choices.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 3 Scepter of Dominance Creatures 3 Bloodbraid Elf 3 Enlisted Wurm 4 Kitchen Finks Enchantments 3 Runed Halo	Instants 3 Bituminous Blast Sorceries 4 Captured Sunlight 4 Deny Reality 4 Maelstrom Pulse 4 Wrath of God Basic Lands 2 Plains Lands 2 Exotic Orchard 3 Forbidding Watchtower 4 Reflecting Pool 2 Twilight Mire 2 Vivid Grove 3 Vivid Marsh 4 Vivid Meadow 2 Wooded Bastion	Sideboard: 4 Burrenton Forge-Tender 3 Cloudthresher 3 Oversoul of Dusk 3 Vendilion Clique 2 Hallowed Burial
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

A Five-Color deck of a different variety...

Man, I’m so angry right now. I perfected this deck a couple of days ago and saved it on MWS, but all of a sudden MWS is telling me that mw.base can’t initialize and I need to install it again, and I’ve got far too much on my plate to go through all that crazy process again, so I’m not exactly sure that this is the right version.

Anyway, this deck is the nutter butters, and if you haven’t fully experienced the power of Cascade, you need to play with this.

Basically, you play with a bunch of mediocre Cascade cards hoping to chain into one another to give you card advantage on every spell you play. Once you get to five mana, the deck goes crazy, enabling Instant speed Wraths, Finks, and Runed Halos. I just can’t put into words how insane Bituminous Blast and Deny Reality are. This is one of the decks I can explain until my face turns blue and you’ll still think it’s a random pile of Cascade crappiness.

This is probably going to be my Regionals deck, or something very close to it, so if you’re still looking for a sleeper deck to play, give this one a go. One of the more subtle features of the Cascade deck is that you get to skew your numbers down to three-ofs to fit more power with little consequence, since you really only need to worry about number of spells in that casting cost range. For instance, Bloodbraid and Captured Sunlight will always yield a defensive card: Maelstrom Pulse, Runed Halo, Scepter of Dominance, or Kitchen Finks.

I had Shriekmaw in here for awhile to fill the two-slot without cluttering my Cascades, but Maw just isn’t what he used to be in this format, so he may make a return in the sideboard depending on how badly I need to kill a turn 1 Figure.

The sideboard is the main part I can’t remember. I know I had Oversoul for sure, and some number of Burrenton, but the Cliques feel a bit off. I tested against the blue permission decks postboard and the Clique was extremely handy, but for the life of me I can’t remember my totals and deadline is right around the corner. I’ll hit you guys up in the forums a little later with the final list.

Good luck at Regionals!

Kyle