When this series was started last year, "play" was chosen ambiguously. You might play the decks yourself this weekend, or you might play against them. With Pro Tour Kaladesh this weekend, you might be doing a lot more watching this weekend than playing. Kaladesh is a sprawling, exciting world encouraging innovation. That sounds like a perfect analog to hosting a Pro Tour in Honolulu. So what might we expect to see?

Hawaiian Helicopters

The relationship between Hawaii and helicopters will be on full display at the Pro Tour. As omnipresent as Smuggler's Copter has been in the early Kaladesh Standard metagame, there's been concern that the Pro Tour results will just be the top 37 Hawaiian helicopter decks. The Magic Online League metagame, which started Wednesday when Kaladesh showed up in the program, initially showed loads of Smuggler's Copter decks, but the format's been evolving enough to give hope that it isn't the must-own card this autumn.

Here are the 5-0 decks from October 6 to 10:

Several of the other decks use the same key cards as the more prominent decks. So while optimal shells are still unknown, a lot of the major players in Standard are asserting themselves. So what are some of them?

B/R Aggro ? Kaladesh Standard | Kazaner3000

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Bomat Courier
• 4 Inventor's Apprentice
• 4 Pia Nalaar
• 4 Scrapheap Scrounger

• Spells (21)
• 4 Fiery Temper
• 4 Incendiary Flow
• 4 Unlicensed Disintegration
• 2 Key to the City
• 3 Fleetwheel Cruiser
• 4 Smuggler's Copter

• Lands (23)
• 11 Mountain
• 4 Swamp
• 4 Aether Hub
• 4 Foreboding Ruins

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Collective Brutality
• 4 Galvanic Bombardment
• 2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 2 Lightning Axe
• 2 Reckless Bushwhacker
• 3 Weaver of Lightning

Buy This Deck

While this deck is one of the best for Smuggler's Copter, it's also one of the best against Smuggler's Copter thanks to Unlicensed Disintegration, a removal spell so good it's worth going into Black by itself. Since the Copter has prioritized instant-speed removal in every deck, Fiery Temper is here as well; its madness can be enabled by the Copter's looting or by Key to the City (what's the over/under on a deck tech this weekend noting it as a key to the deck?).

The sideboard is in development at this point. One card I like from another 5-0 list is Bloodhall Priest. Maybe it's only good when the deck has Lupine Prototype as that list did, but in any deck where it's a curve-topper or close to it Bloodhall Priest can burn a lot of things while presenting a bigger ground body than what other aggro decks can provide. As is so often true with large events, whoever creates the best sideboard will probably go a long way.

R/W Vehicles ? Kaladesh Standard| Cornswallow

• Creatures (21)
• 2 Pia Nalaar
• 3 Depala, Pilot Exemplar
• 4 Selfless Spirit
• 4 Thraben Inspector
• 4 Toolcraft Exemplar
• 4 Veteran Motorist

• Spells (15)
• 2 Harnessed Lightning
• 4 Declaration in Stone
• 2 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
• 3 Fleetwheel Cruiser
• 4 Smuggler's Copter

• Lands (24)
• 10 Plains
• 6 Mountain
• 4 Inspiring Vantage
• 4 Needle Spires

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Fragmentize
• 4 Galvanic Bombardment
• 4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• 2 Skywhaler's Shot
• 3 Weaver of Lightning

Buy This Deck

Although this deck is obviously reminiscent of last Standard's R/W Humans list in terms of aggressive creatures and Thraben Inspectors, the archetype has a split much like Bant did for awhile; do you build more around Thalia's Lieutenant and other Humans, or do you build more with Vehicle-centric creatures, most of whom are Dwarves? Put the builds together, and you have one of the most popular archetypes in the metagame, albeit one that had most of its success early last week.

As such, this week's homework for the archetype is deciding between Humans and Dwarves on the one hand and figuring out the removal suite on the other hand. Declaration in Stone exiles Scrapheap Scrounger and various Zombies (good!) but gives the opponent card draw and an artifact (bad!), and while Harnessed Lightning is fine here, it doesn't have any synergy with the rest of the deck. If it can gain synergy, or if there's a better removal suite available, then R/W Vehicles, no matter which race pilots them, should be a major player this weekend.

Speaking of Harnessed Lightning, its more natural home thrived in Standard, but not with the expected set of cards:

R/G Energy ? Kaladesh Standard | vorg7

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Longtusk Cub
• 4 Bristling Hydra
• 4 Electrostatic Pummeler
• 4 Servant of the Conduit
• 4 Voltaic Brawler

• Spells (22)
• 2 Harnessed Lightning
• 4 Blossoming Defense
• 4 Built to Smash
• 4 Uncaged Fury
• 4 Attune with Aether
• 4 Larger Than Life

• Lands (20)
• 3 Mountain
• 7 Forest
• 3 Cinder Glade
• 3 Game Trail
• 4 Aether Hub

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Harnessed Lightning
• 3 Arlinn Kord
• 4 Galvanic Bombardment
• 4 Lathnu Hellion
• 2 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar

Buy This Deck

This deck doesn't mind if Voltaic Brawler is only its worst-case scenario, because it can use that energy when curving into Electrostatic Pummeler. The Pummeler looks terrible on paper, but its activated ability has combo potential — and with as many pump spells as are in the format, it combos with them as Standard's new Temur Battle Rage/Become Immense combo. If something is pumping the Pummeler before paying energy, it doesn't take much energy to make it a lethal attacker, and Built to Smash and Larger than Life both give the trample necessary to make it lethal to a player instead of a creature. Blossoming Defense ties the deck together, taking the Vines of Vastwood role in ensuring the combo's success.

While the deck can go all-in on Electrostatic Pummeler, it can go all-in on Bristling Hydra to similar effect, thanks to the Hydra's mana-free ability to gain hexproof. (Seriously, if you haven't played around with these energy cards, having so many no-mana tricks is an amazing feeling.) Until the Pummeler or the Hydra are ready to crash in, Attune with Aether and Aether Hub give the deck near-perfect mana and Harnessed Lightning is a burn spell that can take down huge threats later in the game. The ability to switch from okay aggro deck to damage-combo on a dime makes this deck more than the sum of its parts, and it has major potential for memorable on-camera wins this weekend.

Memorable in a completely different way is a deck that has to be seen to be believed:

U/B Colossus ? Kaladesh Standard | Jaberwocki

• Creatures (15)
• 1 Matter Reshaper
• 2 Elder Deep-Fiend
• 4 Foundry Inspector
• 4 Glint-Nest Crane
• 4 Metalwork Colossus

• Spells (22)
• 4 Spatial Contortion
• 2 Hedron Archive
• 2 Panharmonicon
• 3 Metalspinner's Puzzleknot
• 3 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
• 4 Cultivator's Caravan
• 4 Prophetic Prism

• Lands (23)
• 7 Island
• 1 Sea Gate Wreckage
• 2 Inventors' Fair
• 2 Spawning Bed
• 3 Spirebluff Canal
• 4 Aether Hub
• 4 Sanctum of Ugin

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Panharmonicon
• 3 Ceremonious Rejection
• 2 Harnessed Lightning
• 3 Incendiary Sabotage
• 1 Lashweed Lurker
• 3 Negate
• 2 Thought-Knot Seer

Buy This Deck

One of the most important things to understand about this deck is what to kill; if a player hasn't gotten their reps against this deck, it might not be obvious. Many of the creatures exist to crew Vehicles; if they're not doing that, they're emerging an Elder Deep-Fiend out of them. So early removal, particularly mass removal, works better against this deck than it looks like it would. That doesn't mean it's stellar, just that opponents saving their removal for when it's "more important" might find that they don't live to cast it.

One Spicy Metaball

It's weird when control is spicy. Jeskai Control with Radiant Flames showed up once in the Leagues this past week; if the mana works, it seems to be a well-positioned card. But the spiciest control that also put up good results is White-Blue Flash, an archetype with many builds and exciting plays:

U/W Flash ? Kaladesh Standard | JRaffe

• Creatures (11)
• 3 Archangel Avacyn
• 4 Spell Queller
• 4 Torrential Gearhulk

• Spells (24)
• 1 Negate
• 2 Revolutionary Rebuff
• 2 Skywhaler's Shot
• 3 Anticipate
• 3 Blessed Alliance
• 3 Immolating Glare
• 4 Glimmer of Genius
• 4 Void Shatter
• 2 Stasis Snare

• Lands (25)
• 5 Plains
• 6 Island
• 2 Westvale Abbey
• 4 Meandering River
• 4 Port Town
• 4 Prairie Stream

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Blessed Alliance
• 3 Negate
• 3 Fragmentize
• 2 Fumigate
• 4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• 2 Summary Dismissal

Buy This Deck

But what I like most about this list is that it shows off Torrential Gearhulk, a high-quality card considered to be held back by the lack of good instants. Here, the Gearhulk has primarily a mix of kill spells and counterspells, both of which are nice to have on a 5/6 with flash. With as much overlap as there is in the instants, there's no need to fuel the Gearhulk with Thought Scour variants; there will be likely at least one piece of removal and one counterspell in the graveyard by the time it arrives.

The sideboard looks like it's well-tuned, with Fragmentize and Negate both fantastic against Vehicles, Fumigate at the ready against the few decks where it's good right now, and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar a classic transformational card with a long resume. This deck might not have the raw card draw power that control decks of old had, but it has all instant-speed cards and efficiently-costed finishers with upside. I wouldn't bet it against it this weekend, especially in the hands of a good control player.

Conclusion

As ubiquitous as Smuggler's Copter has been, the format is developing both answers to it and decks that don't want it. There are enough results in from online Leagues that the Pro Tour probably will be healthier than the first few events implied. There are lots of new decks and lots of new Kaladesh cards in them. What are you hoping to see?