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Right now, Standard is all about efficient interaction. Efficient aggressive decks featuring Hazoret the Fervent, Winding Constrictor, or Heart of Kiran are all over the place, and that means that it's necessary for midrange and control decks to fill their lists with spot removal to keep pace. When the format shifts to account for these decks, perhaps it's time to find a way to go wider and punish the decks that are trying to overload on spot removal. Mahlerh may have found a great way to do just that:
Blue-White Monument - Rivals of Ixalan Standard Mahlerh, 5-0 Standard League
- Creatures (24)
- 2 Azor, the Lawbringer
- 3 Cloudblazer
- 3 Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle
- 4 Adanto Vanguard
- 4 Legion Conquistador
- 4 Martyr of Dusk
- 4 Skymarcher Aspirant
- Instants (2)
- 1 Negate
- 1 Pride of Conquerors
- Enchantments (6)
- 1 Legion's Landing
- 2 Thopter Arrest
- 3 Ixalan's Binding
- Artifacts (3)
- 3 Oketra's Monument
- Lands (25)
- 4 Island
- 8 Plains
- 1 Arch of Orazca
- 4 Glacial Fortress
- 4 Irrigated Farmland
- 4 Shefet Dunes
- Sideboard (15)
- 4 Bishop's Soldier
- 2 Fragmentize
- 3 Negate
- 1 River's Rebuke
- 2 Silent Gravestone
- 2 Spell Pierce
- 1 Thopter Arrest
Monument decks that we saw last Standard season. The key difference is that you don't have access to Bygone Bishop as an engine. Instead, this deck leans on Cloudblazer, Legion Conquistador, and Azor, the Lawbringer as card advantage mechanisms.
Outside of that, the key to this deck is that you're looking to get aggressive early on in the game. You have Skymarcher Aspirant and Adanto Vanguard early on, which are especially powerful when backed up with Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle to ensure you have a steady stream of lifelinking tokens. It's a little surprising to see so few Ascend cards in this deck, particularly Radiant Destiny, since you're so good at flooding the board and Glorious Anthems are usually exactly what this style of deck is looking for.
If you're looking for a way to start aggressive and then go wide with tokens, this seems like a good time to do it. The Scarab God and Ravenous Chupacabra are great when people are relying on singularly powerful creatures, but when you have the ability to chain together Legion Conquistadors and generate tons of tokens, you can put your opponents in some tough spots unless they've opted to bring sweepers along with them.
