The Pro Tour has passed and we’ve had a couple of Opens and Grand Prixs since. Felidar Guardian was banned and the dust is starting to settle from the release of Amonkhet. We now have a good idea on what the decks to beat are and what the best decks are doing. The finals of Grand Prix Santiago this past weekend was a Temur Aetherworks Mirror match. The finals of Grand Prix Montreal this past weekend was also Temur Aetherworks. The Day two breakdown for the SCC open had thirteen Temur Aetherworks in Day two and the next most played deck was Zombies which only had three pilots. The SCG Standard Classic was won by . . .  You guessed it, Temur Aetherworks where it beat its “bad matchup” in Temur Control that had ten hard counterspells main deck not counting Torrential Gearhulks. So, you could say this past weekend was absolutely dominated by Aetherworks Marvel and it’s not looking to change.

Why?

• Temur Aetherworks has one of the best mana bases for a three-control deck and never really has a problem with mana. It has access to both enemy colored fast lands and creature lands if it wants them. Aether Hub is also the best land in Standard and it really proves it here doing a bit of everything by fueling all your spells and fixing all your mana while coming into play untapped.
• It has some of the best creatures that provide energy in Rogue Refiner, Servant of the Conduit, and Whirler Virtuoso. Whirler being an excellent energy sink as well.
• It also has access to the best non-creature energy spells in things like Glimmer of Genius, Woodweaver's Puzzleknot, and Harnessed Lightning.
• Aetherworks Marvel provides free spells every turn or every other turn. Even if you aren’t hitting things like Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or Chandra, Flamecaller it’s okay. It’s okay because you’re still gaining a lot of card advantage off things like Rogue Refiner or Glimmer of Genius on top of whatever else you’re casting for that turn. Therefore, something as simple as Negate isn’t a quick answer.
• Like previously mentioned the deck attacks from a combo angle with Aetherworks Marvel or can just outgrind you with value. They can choose to battle you with countermagic since they are Blue, play things like Tireless Tracker to out value you, or do a little of both.
• Even things like Lost Legacy and Dispossess aren’t great since Aetherworks Marvel costs four and can get under Dispossess or they can still just easily out value you with Aetherworks Marvel. On top of that if you’re an aggro deck like Zombies, you are taking valuable time off to cast these spells instead of progressing your board and applying more pressure to them. This gives them time to stabilize and just cast their other spells that grant a ton of value.

That’s a plethora of reasons for why the deck is great. Anytime a deck that can attack you from many different angles and isn’t streamlined becomes Tier One, it’s scary. These are decks like Caw-Blade, Faeries, Affinity, and Four-Color Saheeli. These types of decks tend to attack from a lot of different angles and have free wins from a certain curve or because of a powerful card or interaction among a couple of cards. They’ve always dominated formats and not allowed other decks to break into the light. As a brewer, I tend to find decks like these overall a little oppressive because they are so hard, if not impossible, to stop effectively.

So, going into my Standard tournament on Sunday I knew what the best deck was and I also knew why it was so good. I decided to play Ramp and tune the deck with Aetherworks Marvel in mind. Now I couldn’t just have everything in the deck tuned to beat Marvel, but I needed some key cards main that would be good against Aetherworks Marvel and hopefully be useful elsewhere as well. This was the Ramp deck I settled on for the event.

U/G Ramp ? Amonkhet Standard | Ali Aintrazi, 22nd Place SCG Standard Classic

• Creatures (7)
• 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 2 Ulvenwald Captive
• 4 Druid of the Cowl

• Instants (17)
• 1 Commencement of Festivities
• 1 Dissenter's Deliverance
• 1 Negate
• 1 Pull from Tomorrow
• 2 Glimmer of Genius
• 3 Censor
• 4 Commit // Memory
• 4 Haze of Pollen

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Coax From the Blind Eternities
• 1 Crush of Tentacles
• 4 Nissa's Renewal

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Hedron Archive

• Lands (26)
• 8 Island
• 9 Forest
• 1 Blighted Cataract
• 4 Botanical Sanctum
• 4 Lumbering Falls

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Crush of Tentacles
• 1 Manglehorn
• 2 Sphinx of the Final Word
• 1 World Breaker
• 1 Oblivion Sower
• 1 Void Winnower
• 1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
• 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 1 Commencement of Festivities
• 2 Negate
• 1 Pull from Tomorrow
• 1 Walking Ballista
• 1 Summary Dismissal

Buy This Deck

Not too much different from my last list but it did have some key card changes, these were the cards I decided to play to help with Marvel.

Negate: What better way to stop Aetherworks Marvel the to just counter it? Negate is great against Marvel and is fine everywhere else. Against Mardu you can hit a Gideon or Heart of Kiran and even against Zombies you can Negate a Liliana's Mastery. I originally tried just 3 Negates and no Censors but it hinders you when you’re going off. Drawing Negates late in the game and not being able to cycle it can really bite you.

Dissenter's Deliverance: Deliverance was a terrific addition since we can easily cycle it anytime, and if Temur Marvel misses we can then destroy the Marvel. Like Negate, Dissenter's Deliverance also has other applications like hitting a Torrential Gearhulk, Dynavolt Tower, Metallic Mimic, or a Heart of Kiran.

Coax from the Blind Eternities: This one might seem a bit odd but Aetherworks Marvel was the reason I ended up playing it. I didn’t want to play Void Winnower main deck and still wanted access to two Ulamogs in the main. Coax from the Blind Eternities allowed for this. If you’ve played this deck you know that late game you have access to a bunch of mana so Coaxing and then casting Void Winnower or Ulamog in the same turn is very feasible. Coax allowed us to have an Eldrazi Sideboard. There were a couple of times where I Coaxed a World Breaker, Oblivion Sower, and of course Void Winnower that all won me games. What’s great about Coax is that mid to late game you can start making your deck extremely threat dense as time goes on so your Memory becomes extremely powerful because not only are most of the lands out of your deck, but you now have a bunch of Eldrazi in it too. Keep in mind that if your Ulamog has been exiled by an opposing Ulamog, Void Shatter, or even Cast Out you can Coax it back into your hand since Coax allows you to get Eldrazi from your sideboard or ones that have been exiled.

I ended up playing Marvel 5 out of 9 times. So, over half my matches were against Aetherworks Marvel. My record against it was 3-2 and those wins were hard fought wins. Void Winnower did a ton of work against Aetherworks Marvel by not allowing them to cast Harnessed Lightning, Torrential Gearhulk, Aetherworks Marvel, Glimmer of Genius, and even Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. I love this deck and after playing in the tournament I can say very confidently that Aetherworks Marvel is favored against Ramp, not by a huge margin mind you, but they are still favored.

So Why Play U/G Ramp Over Marvel?

Well for me, I tend to do better at events where I am playing a deck I enjoy. This ramp deck has a favorable matchup against Control where I’ve heard Marvel can be hit or miss depending on the pilots, build, or sideboards. To be frank with you though, if you just care about winning and nothing else, then I’d recommend that you just learn Aetherworks Marvel inside and out until it rotates out of Standard. It is a very powerful deck that is extremely hard to shut down. I just can’t turn down a good ramp deck and playing with Coax from the Blind Eternities was extremely fun for me.

Combating Aetherworks Marvel

The best way to beat Aetherworks Marvel seems to be a hyper aggressive deck so that you can kill them before Aetherworks Marvel matters, a control deck that can stop them from going off, or a tempo deck that can apply pressure and have some countermagic to stop Aetherworks Marvel. Just don’t get in the trap of playing a Control deck and then not being able to close out the game quick enough. If you do play a control deck you should be fine early game but you still will lose to their card advantage and them just hard casting Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger if you don’t kill them fast enough.

This is where I’m going with my Control deck.

U/R Eldrazi ? Amonkhet Standard | Ali Aintrazi

• Creatures (5)
• 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 4 Torrential Gearhulk

• Instants (22)
• 1 Commit // Memory
• 2 Anticipate
• 2 Pull from Tomorrow
• 3 Disallow
• 3 Magma Spray
• 3 Negate
• 4 Glimmer of Genius
• 4 Harnessed Lightning

• Sorceries (3)
• 1 Coax from the Blind Eternities
• 2 Sweltering Suns

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Hedron Archive

• Lands (26)
• 4 Mountain
• 9 Island
• 1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
• 4 Aether Hub
• 4 Spirebluff Canal
• 4 Wandering Fumarole

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Essence Scatter
• 1 Negate
• 1 Void Winnower
• 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 1 Release the Gremlins
• 1 Summary Dismissal
• 1 Overwhelming Denial
• 1 Dispel
• 1 Sweltering Suns
• 1 Dragonmaster Outcast
• 1 Sphinx of the Final Word
• 1 Commit // Memory
• 1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
• 1 Magma Spray
• 1 Oblivion Sower

Buy This Deck

Very much like a traditional U/R control deck except we have the big finish in Ulamog and we also have Coax. It honestly might be right to just play Void Winnower main over Ulamog since it’s so good against Aetherworks Marvel and just have move another Ulamog to the board as a Coax target. I can’t tell you just yet how good/bad this deck is, just that I’m going to be testing it for some of my future events. I will get back to you hopefully next week and let you know how it’s going.

Hopefully I’ve given you some insight on how to combat Aetherworks Marvel. If you have a sweet deck that is doing well against it then feel free to share your deck list in the comments.

As always thank you so much for reading.

Much love,

Ali Aintrazi

@AliEldrazi on Twitter