We all know what you’re here for, so let’s get to it. Standard looks like it’s shaping up to be:
Various flavors of Reanimator.
Various flavors of Birthing Pod.
Mentor of the Meek decks.
Blade decks.
Assorted WW/RDW aggro.
This is a very broad look at what Standard will likely become, or is capable of becoming. In addition to those decks, there’s Dungrove Elder—he hasn’t had a chance to shine yet!—as well as Heartless Summoning and Past in Flames, both of which seem way too powerful to not spawn something broken. Lastly, we still have Tempered Steel, the defining deck of the Scars block format.
I’m going to begin with the deck I’m most excited about, just because it looks sweet.
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (21)
Spells (26)
The idea here is to chain Dream Twists in order to set up awesome Sun Titans, an idea credited to Michael Jacob. Whether or not Dream Twist ends up being the real deal, one thing is for certain—Sun Titan is the reanimation target of choice. If you’ve been milling yourself, you have plenty of options.
- Oblivion Ring for that pesky permanent.
- A utility land such as Nephalia Drownyard or Moorland Haunt (which we couldn’t really fit because of the mana issues) as a mana source or another engine.
- Phantasmal Image to provide several threats in one turn.
- Liliana of the Veil to pressure control decks or harass creatures.
Some players want to go all out with Reanimator, utilizing things like Merfolk Looter and Jace’s Archivist, but that doesn’t seem right to me. There aren’t enough reanimation spells in Standard to warrant that type of dedication.
MJ’s deck can play a control role relatively well, and for the most part he has a lot of cards that interact well with each other. Liliana is great with all the flashback cards, Sun Titan is good when you’re milling yourself, flashback has synergy with milling, etc. While you aren’t doing one thing incredibly well, you are building to an end game that your opponent won’t reasonably be able to stop.
Because MJ’s deck functions well enough on its own, I was initially skeptical of Dream Twist. The deck is capable of doing its own thing without adding an enabler that did nothing but enable. However, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to fit. If you Twist into a Twist, that’s a lot of milling. What about if you Forbidden Alchemy into another Twist? It seems like you could mill your deck very fast and have some super-charged Sun Titans. If Liliana is pecking their hand apart, they likely won’t have any good answers.
As of now, Forbidden Alchemy and Dream Twist seem like the sketchiest cards, and that’s because they mostly just mill things. Running those makes it feel like the deck doesn’t have room to do much of anything else, such as casting (a probably necessary) Day of Judgment. Snapcaster Mage also seemed weak, despite all the self-milling, just because there wasn’t much I wanted to flashback with him.
Snapcaster’s value lies mainly in acquiring a two-for-one here or there, but (like my Sun Titan) I’d like to have options. We can’t fit a lot of removal spells, and there are only so many Visions of Beyond to go around, so I cut a couple of them for now.
It’s a shame that Inquisition of Kozilek and Duress both rotated at the same time, as either would be a welcome addition. Despise doesn’t hit what you need it to, and if I were going to play Distress I would probably just play Mana Leak instead. While some cheap spot discard to force through key spells and protect Sun Titan would have been awesome, it’s possible that Mana Leak could be what I want anyway. The mana base already isn’t pretty, and I’m sure it could be improved—I never knew how much I’d miss Terramorphic Expanse.
The singleton Elesh Norn is probably a necessity, as I can imagine plenty of game states that wind up going long, and a deck like G/W will be able to grind you out despite multiple Sun Titans. You need something to build to, something to grant inevitability, and Elesh Norn does exactly that. In the post-board games, a second or third Norn will give you the ability to KO them early.
Visions of Beyond is a very interesting card now. Before, it had a niche place in a couple Hedron Crab or Pyromancer Ascension decks, but now it seems like maindeck material. Even if you aren’t milling yourself, don’t you think that some number of opponents will be on the Reanimator train? Maybe the new Coffin Purge is a better sideboard option, but Visions is certainly respectable now, even “just” as a cantrip. If you’re blue already, you’re probably casting Snapcaster Mage, and more targets for that guy are always welcome.
I’ll be the first to admit that Pod is not my forte. I haven’t played a single sanctioned game with a Birthing Pod in my seventy-five, but I have been paying attention to the decklists and they show that this one is a contender.
Creatures (27)
- 1 Llanowar Elves
- 1 Solemn Simulacrum
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Archon of Justice
- 2 Acidic Slime
- 1 Sun Titan
- 1 Wurmcoil Engine
- 3 Viridian Emissary
- 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
- 1 Spellskite
- 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
- 1 Blade Splicer
- 1 Stonehorn Dignitary
- 2 Phantasmal Image
- 2 Fiend Hunter
- 1 Skaab Ruinator
- 2 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 1 Tree of Redemption
Lands (12)
Spells (20)
- 6 Forest
- 2 Plains
- 2 Island
- 4 Ponder
- 4 Birthing Pod
- 2 Beast Within
This seems like a perfectly reasonable starting point. Cards I didn’t include:
Podding your two-drop into a four-drop is a very potent way to kick-start your engine. Finding Phyrexian Metamorph and copying Birthing Pod protects your investment against nearly everything except for Ancient Grudge. I wasn’t sure if this guy was worth it, as MJ and Chapin cut it from their RUG deck, but we’ll see.
Right now it’s unclear how many burn decks will be in the format. Bant is already good at locking out the combat step with Stonehorn Dignitary, so gaining a few life to trade with their combat step is redundant. The Tree of Redemption made the cut simply because it’s a cool card, but it’s possible that with Dignitary you don’t need it. Maybe a second Dignitary is just better.
There are some mirror matches and some Tempered Steel out there, but I’d rather not draw this guy against most decks. After boarding it’s pretty easy to chain artifact-killing creatures, so Tempered Steel doesn’t often beat an active Birthing Pod anyway. If I were to play something like this maindeck because I needed to, it would probably be a Sylvok Replica.
This is just another one of those cards that I’d rather have in my sideboard. Most people can’t kill your Birthing Pods in game 1, so why do you need something that brings them back?
The rest of the sideboard could consist of Creeping Corrosion, Celestial Purge, Timely Reinforcements, Surgical Extraction, or Purify the Grave.
Moving on, Mentor of the Meek seems awesome. I hate playing a sweet creature only to have it die. If I’m out of gas, I probably lose, but it’s hard to keep up when the other guy is casting card drawing spells too. However, when I’m the guy with the Mulldrifters fighting the guy with the Doom Blades, life is pretty good. Mentor gives a few Standard decks a secondary engine which will likely put them into the Tier 1 category. The three that I can think of right now are Puresteel Paladin, various Blade decks, and Bant Birthing Pod.
With the Pod decks, you can max out on twelve one-drops, which are great with both Pod and Mentor. The games where you don’t draw Birthing Pod aren’t pretty and having another engine makes you more consistent, which was exactly what Pod decks needed.
Most of the games I lost against the Puresteel Paladin deck were when my Caw-Blade deck, chocked full of Dismembers, Oblivion Rings, and Day of Judgments, would be able to kill the turn 2 Paladin but lose to the next one they played.
Mentor gives you more Paladins. Yeah, they aren’t as pretty as real Paladins—but I’ll take what I can get. There are plenty of other writers who have more experience with this deck than me, but we’re here, aren’t we? Let’s put all these little decklists in one convenient place.
Creatures (17)
Lands (12)
Spells (31)
Invisible Stalker is going to be annoying. Silhana Ledgewalker was a pain to deal with, and Stalker is much better and in a better color. Additionally, we have better equipment than we used to. Thankfully, Liliana gives you a way to interact, otherwise I’m not sure what I’d do with myself. It would probably involve dying to plenty of 1/1 unblockables.
My main gripe with Puresteel was always how mopey the deck felt without Paladin. “Flayer Husk, go,” doesn’t quite strike fear into your opponent. With Mentor turning on the Husks and Mortarpods, suddenly they seem a little less unplayable. Unfortunately we lost Basilisk Collar, which was the other main draw to the deck thanks to its combination with Mortarpod. Now we’re working strictly manual, but that might not be the worst thing depending on how the format shakes up.
The miser’s Swiftfoot Boots is because you have dudes worth protecting, but I didn’t want to draw multiples.
Geist of Saint Traft is a potent threat, kind of like a backwards Invisible Stalker. He’s not unblockable, so combat could end up awkward, but it’s like he’s pre-equipped with a 4/4. I’d expect any “Blade” deck to feature him at least a little bit.
The mana base has gotten worse, but that’s fine. Adding a land is always cool with me, and Mentor certainly doesn’t care. We need more Islands for Stalkers and Geists anyway, and are less reliant on Paladin. The sideboard could have some combination of Oblivion Ring, Dismember, Snapcaster Mage, Timely Reinforcements, Mana Leak, Flashfreeze, Nihil Spellbomb, or Purge the Grave.
I’d definitely look out for the Paladin decks in the near future. It’s one of the few decks that escaped the rotation nearly unscathed, so it’s actually well-tuned at this point.
Hero-Blade
Aaaaaah man. Is this real?
Creatures (16)
- 1 Sun Titan
- 2 Hero of Bladehold
- 3 Blade Splicer
- 1 Phantasmal Image
- 3 Invisible Stalker
- 4 Snapcaster Mage
- 2 Geist of Saint Traft
Lands (13)
Spells (31)
This list might be a little on the looser side. I wanted to try some stuff, such as:
- Hero of Bladehold: She fails the Dismember test miserably, but if you untap with her, you typically win. Is that worth the slot? I’m unsure, but I do know it makes the mana a lot worse.
- Pushing Snapcaster Mage: This one is worth it. Being able to play Visions against Reanimator decks is awesome as well. As I said earlier, you want some options with this guy, otherwise it’s just a 1UU dude that draws a card. Granted, that’s fine, but it has so much more potential.
- Geist/Stalker: I ported these guys over from the Puresteel deck, but maybe that’s not right. There are less Swords, so predictably these guys will be a lot worse. Should I just be playing Solemn Simulacrum and Azure Mage over these and Hero of Bladehold?
- Mini Sun Titan package: I never minded playing one six-drop in these types of decks, but Consecrated Sphinx may be better.
This type of list has put up impressive numbers on the Open circuit, so if players want to try it again I’m sure they’d be successful. Aren’t we all just sick of it by now, though?
I’m excited for the StarCityGames.com Open Weekend in Indianapolis. My buddy is getting married that Saturday, so I won’t be able to play the entire tournament. Hopefully I’ll be able to drop in for a few rounds, though.
GerryT