Hello folks! Welcome to full on spoiler season here in Magic World! We’ve had tons of spoilers, the full set has come out, and now everyone knows the full slate of cards. And you know what that means? Way too many articles about how this one specific card may shift the metagame for this one deck matchup or other minutiae of the competitive Magic scene. You know what I want to do?

Build decks!

Because, at the end of the day, this is a game about building decks, shuffling, and then playing. Right? So while we are all talking about the new stuff, let’s also give it whirl in various shells. Let’s build some decks!

Today I made four separate deck shells, all built around four cards on the spoiler list that trigger my deck fancies. Let’s take a looksee!

The first is the awesome Emrakul’s Evangel.

Note that Emrakul’s Evangel will turn a bunch of smaller token creatures into really big 3/2 beaters. Now, it won’t turn Eldrazi into Eldrazi, so your 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn aren’t eligible. Ah well. So you can use it to turn stuff like 1/1 Saprolings, Insects, Elves, Soldiers, Goblins and Squirrels into a powerful army. And a lot of mass-token makers out there can churn out 1/1 tokens at a very mana-friendly rate. So let’s take a look at a quick Selesnya shell.

G/W Token Sack ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (20)
• 2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
• 2 Cloudgoat Ranger
• 2 Hero of Bladehold
• 2 Jade Mage
• 2 Selesnya Guildmage
• 2 Voice of Resurgence
• 4 Emrakul's Evangel
• 4 Tukatongue Thallid

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

• Spells (14)
• 1 Arachnogenesis
• 2 Fresh Meat
• 2 Rootborn Defenses
• 3 Predator's Howl
• 1 Decree of Justice
• 1 Hour of Reckoning
• 2 Beacon of Creation
• 2 Doubling Season

• Lands (24)
• 11 Plains
• 13 Forest

Buy This Deck

And there we are!

The goal of the deck is to play some creatures (and other friends) that also happen to make tokens. Take a look at a card like Beacon of Creation or Cloudgoat Ranger for ways of making fun allies! I made sure to put some token making at a variety of places on that mana curve.

And then, post-early game, you drop and sac that Evangel. Sacrifice most of your team and make a ton of 3/2 beaters. Then you can swing them with various pump-age (such as Hero of Bladehold or making more tokens with Brimaz). Smash for fun and break some folks!

We have some tricks in here too. Some creatures will sacrifice into tokens. Tukatongue Thallid and Voice of Resurgence come to mind as useful fodder for that Evangel since you’ll get both. (You could also run something like Kitchen Finks for sacrificing and staying). Meanwhile we can play Fresh Meat after sacrificing the team for a bunch 3/2 Eldrazi and get a bunch more of 3/3 Beasts! Or you can play it post removal to get your army back. You can also use Rootborn Defenses to keep your stuff from dying and to make another token.

Meanwhile we have one-of stuff like Decree of Justice, Arachnogenesis or Hour of Reckoning if they can help. Check out this trick. Play Arachnogenesis to block all attackers, and then sacrifice the Spiders for 3/2 Eldrazi. You blocked the attack, and you get bigger creatures too! I layered in a few later game cards, in case things go on too long — Jade Mage, Selesnya Guildmage, and those things above.

And there’s one deck!

(This deck also gives us a chance to run a card I’ve actually not seen outside of limited yet, Predator's Howl.)

What’s next?

Nibilis of Frost is awesome! It suggests a fun little deck around U/W to me. You can tap-lock something for a while with a single spell. And there are other layered Blue style cards in this genre, so let’s build a quick little tempo deck that seeks to keep your stuff tapped.

U/W Says ?No? ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (17)
• 1 Archon of the Triumvirate
• 2 Frost Titan
• 2 Guardian of Tazeem
• 2 Somnophore
• 2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• 4 Nibilis of Frost
• 4 Icefall Regent

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

• Spells (17)
• 2 Capsize
• 2 Cryptic Command
• 2 Dismantling Blow
• 2 Mind Games
• 2 Whispers of the Muse
• 4 Render Silent
• 1 Righteous Fury
• 2 Recurring Insight

• Lands (24)
• 12 Island
• 7 Plains
• 1 Kor Haven
• 4 Azorius Chancery

Buy This Deck

Here we go!

So the goal is to run a bunch of stuff to tap and lock stuff down. You have 17 creatures and two Tamiyos. The rest are lands and sorceries/instants.

The first place I delved was with the various tap-lock stuff like Nibilis. Take a look at Guardian of Tazeem, a guy that’ll tap stuff whenever you get that sweet landfall trigger. Don’t forget to play an Island to get the two-turn tappage. You can drop Icefall Regent to lock down a creature permanently while it’s on the battlefield and don’t forget about how powerful Somnophore will be here, swinging and locking down creature after creature without untapping until that Eater of Sleep bites it. I even have an Archon of the Triumvirate to detain stuff when it swings.

But don’t sleep on Thalia, Heretic Cathar. She’ll act as a bit of a Kismet on legs, gives you a nice early play, and can swing hard early, give you a nice board presence, and helps to keep your stuff initially tapped. After all, if you tapped someone’s stuff and swung, you don’t want them to drop some great blocker that swings things back to neutral. So now it’s tapped for a turn.

We also have some powerful buyback options. Since I wanted to trigger the Nibilis, I gave us 2 each of Capsize, Whispers of the Muse, and Mind Games. I’m sure you can see the various roles each plays in this deck, but Capsize in particular is just downright abusive with Thalia and Nibilis.

And then I layered in some counters and card drawing of various sorts. Dismantling Blow is removal and, with kicker, is also card drawing. Cryptic Command is ideal, as it can tap, bounce, counter, or draw, all of which are just downright awesome here. Shoot, you might bounce and tap instead of the usual. One final trick, check out Righteous Fury. Destroy all tapped creatures, and gain some life too. Now swing with your previously untapped crew. I only tossed in one, but I felt it was truly useful as an out.

If it tapped for colorless, Ice Floe would have made the cut here. Anyways, there are a ton of great cards you could slide too. I went tapping, but you could go with anything from Barl's Cage to Sunblast Angel to Sleep to Dissipation Field to Dungeon Geists! Tap it all!

What’s next?

I think Stromkirk Occultist is a very powerful card. Very powerful. So what leaps to my mind?

Red Doesn?t Suck ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (24)
• 2 Grim Lavamancer
• 2 Magus of the Moon
• 2 Magus of the Scroll
• 2 Prophetic Flamespeaker
• 2 Sin Prodder
• 2 Smoldering Werewolf
• 4 Flametongue Kavu
• 4 Stigma Lasher
• 4 Stromkirk Occultist

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Koth of the Hammer

• Spells (12)
• 2 Chaos Warp
• 2 Urza's Rage
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Magma Jet

• Lands (22)
• 17 Mountain
• 1 Strip Mine
• 4 Wasteland

Buy This Deck

The goal of this deck is to create a solid Red aggro deck for multiplayer and casual. It’s not running Red “I’m so fast I hurt myself” stuff like Jackal Pup or Mogg Flunkies. Instead it’s running smart cards. In fact, many of these cards have the potential to net you powerful card advantage. The Prophetic Flamespeaker and Occultist both rock the whole Red “exile the top card of your library and play it this turn” version of card drawing when they smash. I wanted this deck to swing early and often, so the damage-based triggers of this stuff really made me happy. Meanwhile you can often deal more damage with Sin Prodder, or draw a card as needed. (You hit a land, and thereby neither happens, around 35% of the time).

I also tossed in extra ways to deal damage to opposing creatures. Or players. Magus of the Scroll gives you the sometimes useful Cursed Scroll on feet to swing by. You have Grim Lavamancer, and certainly Flametongue Kavu needs no introduction. But do you know what does?

Smoldering Werewolf

I like Smoldering Werewolf enough as an interesting FTK variant that still costs 4 mana, and can hit two small dorks. It’s good to layer in multiple damage-based effects so you can stack them if needed. Obviously we have Urza's Rage, Magma Jet and Lightning Bolt here as well to layer in. You can drop Smoldering Werewolf, kill a X/1 creature your foe has, damage another, and then cast Lightning Bolt to kill the damaged one or exile some cards for Grim Lavamancer to do so. That sort of layered damage is good.

While this deck has a lot of early beats, its focus on card advantage as well as creature removal should help in the later game. And I had cards here that can be useful later, in case things drag out, and you can kick Urza's Rage or transform the Werewolf.

Anyways, I think this deck hopefully shows that Red has a lot of strong, good, early stuff that can push the table in multiplayer without punching itself in the face.

So what else is there?

Hmmm . . . 

I feel like there is a strong amount of Mono-Blue control right now in Standard, especially with Summary Dismissal hitting booster packs everywhere. So let’s see what I’d hack together if I could.

Mono-Blue Control ? Eldritch Moon Standard | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (12)
• 2 Nibilis of Frost
• 2 Sphinx of the Final Word
• 4 Docent of Perfection
• 4 Thing in the Ice

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets

• Spells (21)
• 2 Confirm Suspicions
• 2 Dragonlord's Prerogative
• 2 Epiphany at the Drownyard
• 2 Summary Dismissal
• 4 Scatter to the Winds
• 4 Void Shatter
• 1 Rise from the Tides
• 2 Engulf the Shore
• 2 Pore Over the Pages

• Lands (25)
• 25 Island

Buy This Deck

Standard is swimming in great countermagic right now. The only thing keeping it in check is the speed of the creatures and answers. If you had this many good counters in Standard back in the old days, people would be calling that the Era of the Boring Counter or something like that. Void Shatter? Scatter to the Winds? Broken Concentration? Calculated Dismissal? Powerful early stuff like Psychic Rebuttal and Negate? The 2 powerful four cost answers of Summary Dismissal and Overwhelming Denial cannot be overstated in power and flexibility while you have Confirm Suspicions as a strong 5-drop for later.

Meanwhile you have one of the best Mono-Blue control game-winning creatures in Sphinx of the Final Word mucking about. That thing makes Morphling and Rainbow Efreet shake their heads in equal measures of wonder and disgust. Then we have a bunch of creatures with spell-based triggers, especially Thing in the Ice. Can you imagine the classic Forbiddian counter-spell Blue deck from the old era with that as its 2-drop? (It played both Forbid and Ophidian) Are you kidding me?

I also added in two more triggers for our stuff, Docent of Perfection that makes 1/1 Wizards when you cast an instant/sorcery, and Niblis of Frost that’ll tap a dork down instead. We discussed Nibilis of Frost earlier, but the Docent is pretty good too.

The only thing we don’t have are great card drawing spells, so I made do with what I could. I also added some great mass-bounce, in case we can’t counter something important. We get Thing in the Ice to flip and bounce a bunch of stuff, as well as Engulf the Shore to bounce a lot of stuff.

The goal of this deck is simple. Use counters. Play engines. Use counters. Play winners. Bounce/tap any threats. Win.

Some of my last cuts included Crush of Tentacles, Talent of the Telepath and Calculated Dismissal. I maximized my Island count to get the best possible Engulf the Shore. But you could slide in stuff like Mirrorpool, Geier Reach Sanitarium- or Blighted Cataract if you want. I’d add them in that order.

Anyways, there you are! Counters and winning, all in one Mono-Blue Standard deck.

So that’s where I wound up post-spoiler. Four cool decks, all with different themes — control, tempo, aggro, and token-spewing fun times. And we tossed in a bunch of cards from Eldritch Moon as well. So what did you think? Hopefully we had a card or two that impressed you or you forgot about.

Get your Moon on!