Hello Reader! Since this is my first article for CoolStuffInc, let's start off with an introduction! My name is Carlo Favretto Jr., or CFavretto_Jr on the internet. I'm from South Jersey and have been playing Magic: The Gathering since 8th Edition. My favorite Constructed format to play, by far, has always been Standard. Whether you catch me playing casually at my local game store, competitively during Standard RCQ seasons and events, or live-streaming community created brews on MTGArena or Magic: The Gathering Online via my Twitch Channel.

Since Standard has freshly rotated with the release of Bloomburrow, my community has been crafting lots of sweet brews that have experienced various levels of success on the MTGArena ladder. It's no surprise that an immediate go-to for Bloomburrow brewing are the various creature types that have a ton of synergy with each other. And sure, we could use this first article to talk about Rabbits, Squirrels, or Otters - but who doesn't love Lizards? Lizards have the advantage of low-costing spells with a clear gameplan. Deal Damage Fast. This particular Rakdos Lizards brew was originally designed and submitted by Lethal66 on Twitch, with edits collectively made by me and my community.

Rakdos Lizards | BLB Standard | CFavretto_Jr

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Vraan, Executioner Thane
• 2 Fireglass Mentor
• 3 Laughing Jasper Flint
• 4 Flamecache Gecko
• 4 Gev, Scaled Scorch
• 4 Hired Claw
• 4 Iridescent Vinelasher
• 4 Valley Flamecaller
• 4 Valley Rotcaller

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil

• Instants (4)
• 1 Sheoldred's Edict
• 3 Go for the Throat

• Lands (23)
• 3 Mountain
• 3 Swamp
• 3 Cavern of Souls
• 3 Restless Vents
• 3 Sulfurous Springs
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 4 Fabled Passage

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Sheoldred's Edict
• 2 Soul-Guide Lantern
• 3 Cut Down
• 3 Duress
• 3 Glistening Deluge
• 3 Urabrask's Forge

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The other 2-drops in the deck also generate incredible value either immediately or over time. Flamecache Gecko, for example, allows for you to cast any other 2-drop creature immediately after to continue board pressure. Even if you don't cast another creature, it gives you the opportunity to draw and discard to filter your hand, follow up with a removal spell, or use the generated mana to pump your Hired Claw. Now, there are some non-Lizard creatures in the 2-drop slots that provide additional support in terms of quick incremental damage through Valley Rotcaller, or pseudo-resilience to removal through Vraan, Executioner Thane.

I would have to say that my favorite 2-drop in the deck, by far, would have to be Fireglass Mentor. It does everything that I want a 2-drop card to do in an aggressive deck like this - provides the ability to hit your land drops or curve out to your 3-drop slot. Currently this build is utilizing just two copies in the main deck, but I would not be surprised if future versions of this deck end up adding the full 4 copies for consistency. If you were to try this change, I would remove the Vraan, Executioner Thane and 1 copy of Valley Rotcaller from the deck.

To round the deck out, Liliana of the Veil fills the role of a powerful Planeswalker that answers both midrange and control decks, while proving to be a clear threat to ramp decks as well. And even though this first week of new Bloomburrow Standard has proven to be quite aggressive, I still believe Liliana of the Veil is much more of a threat in this new format than it was pre-rotation. So far, Liliana of the Veil is seeing play in Rakdos, Golgari Midrange, some Orzhov builds, and in all of the Mono-Black discard decks on MTGArena. She certainly is a force to be reckoned with, and I think we're just seeing the start of how effective Liliana of the Veil is going to be in this new Standard Metagame.

Speaking about the developing Standard Metagame, the sideboard choices for this deck are meant to answer a wide-variety of potential threats. Cards like Cut Down and Sheoldred's Edict are there to answer general aggressive strategies, whereas Glistening Deluge is a clear choice against Boros Convoke. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have cards in your sideboard for Boros Convoke - as it is already proving to be one of the top decks in new Standard considering it was relatively untouched by rotation. Interestingly enough, in the most recent Banned and Restricted announcement from Wizards, they mentioned that they were looking at potentially taking action against Knight-Errant of Eos - which would have been an extreme blow to that deck given the ability of that card to refill your hand with more threats. It's quite important to make sure this deck is playing Glistening Deluge to answer that deck, and future iterations of this build may want to consider playing cards like Malicious Eclipse if the win rate of that deck continues to increase. Urabrask's Forge is another personal favorite of mine to include here in the sideboard, as it's quite good against all of the control decks and slower ramp decks, including Domain Ramp.

As Standard continues to evolve, so will the different builds of this deck. But honestly, this is what I love about a fresh format with endless brewing opportunities. As the Standard Metagame evolves over the coming weeks, through paying attention to the MTGArena ladder results, Magic: The Gathering Online Standard Leagues and Standard Challenges & more, we'll be able to adjust these builds to fit what the Metagame presents to us. All in all, I'm so excited to see what brews my community continues to come up with to combat the evolving Standard landscape.

Thank you so much for reading. I can't wait to share many more community brews with you. I wish you all luck on your journey through Bloomburrow Standard.