The first Pro Tour of a new Standard season is always an exciting part of the Magic year. We have a few weeks to play around with new and exciting interactions, but then the Pro teams come out of testing to break the format wide open and show off all manner of subtly powerful cards and crazy brews. This week we have five decks from across Standard, Modern, and Vintage. We’ll start in Standard with three decks you may have missed, featuring Retreat to Emeria, Nantuko Husk, and Rally the Ancestors. Next we’ll head into Modern, where we’ll find out what Bring to Light has to offer in an eternal format. Lastly, we’ll head to Vintage to find out just how busted Tolarian Academy can be. Let’s get started!

We saw all kinds of awesome decks at Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar last weekend. One of the coolest decks of the weekend was a Bant Tokens deck brewed up by Sam Black that went largely under the radar, putting up a quietly dominant performance in the Standard portion of the event. Let’s take a look:

Bant Tokens ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Sam Black, Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar

• Creatures (14)
• 3 Elvish Visionary
• 3 Wingmate Roc
• 4 Hangarback Walker
• 4 Nissa, Vastwood Seer

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

• Spells (17)
• 2 Dispel
• 1 Planar Outburst
• 3 Secure the Wastes
• 1 Quarantine Field
• 2 Stasis Snare
• 4 Retreat to Emeria
• 4 Silkwrap

• Lands (25)
• 4 Forest
• 4 Plains
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 2 Canopy Vista
• 2 Lumbering Falls
• 2 Prarie Stream
• 2 Wooded Foothills
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Windswept Heath

Buy This Deck

This deck is built around the redundancy and flexibility of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Retreat to Emeria. In typical token decks, you strive to find a perfect balance between anthems and token generators. In this Standard, you don’t have to choose, which plays heavily in this deck’s favor. At its core, this deck is trying to maximize the power of Retreat to Emeria by playing 25 lands and splashing for both Elvish Visionary and Nissa, Vastwood Seer to ensure that you can keep hitting land drops to generate tokens and pump your team turn after turn.

The density of fetchlands is a huge boon for this deck because it allows you to generate multiple tokens or give your team +2/+2. Blighted Woodland is especially fantastic for this because you can use it to cast your spells and then cash it in for two landfall triggers when you have the mana available.

Sam Black’s deck also makes a big statement on Dispel’s power level in this format. Notice that Dispel is the only Blue card in the main-deck. With Ojutai's Command, Dig Through Time, Collected Company, and a myriad of other powerful, mana intensive instants in this format, Dispel is not only a reasonable main-deck card, but a reasonable card to splash for.

Bant tokens wasn’t the only swarm strategy to take Standard by storm last weekend. At the end of Day One, the hall was abuzz with stories of an exciting Black-Blue aggressive deck, put together by Pascal Maynard, which prominently featured Nantuko Husk. Let’s take a closer look at Black Blue Aristocrats:

Black-Blue Aristocrats ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Christian Calcano and Oliver Tomajko, Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar

• Creatures (32)
• 4 Bloodsoaked Champion
• 4 Hangarback Walker
• 4 Liliana, Heretical Healer
• 4 Nantuko Husk
• 4 Sidisi's Faithful
• 4 Sultai Emissary
• 4 Whirler Rogue
• 4 Zulaport Cutthroat

• Spells (5)
• 4 Murderous Cut
• 1 Vampiric Rites

• Lands (23)
• 1 Island
• 8 Swamp
• 1 Foundry of the Consuls
• 2 Flooded Strand
• 3 Sunken Hollow
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Polluted Delta

Buy This Deck

We saw a surprising number of Black-based Nantuko Husk decks at the Pro Tour last weekend, but this was certainly the build that put up the most exciting results. The goal of this deck is to get on the board early with cards like Sultai Emissary and Bloodsoaked Champion to sneak in a few points of damage. As the game goes on, you can take to the skies with Whirler Rogue and Hangarback Walker to continue chipping in until you find a Nantuko Husk or Liliana, Heretical Healer; that’s when the engine really starts humming.

With Nantuko Husk, you have the ability to kill your opponent out of nowhere. Use a Whirler Rogue to make your Husk unblockable and then sacrifice your board to punch for an enormous chunk of damage. You can even kill your opponent outside of combat with enough Zulaport Cutthroat triggers. Alternatively, you can start grinding out value with Liliana, Heretical Healer. Sidisi's Faithful and Nantuko Husk allow you to flip Liliana at will, and she allows you to start recycling your value creatures like Sidisi's Faithful, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Sultai Emissary. You can even buy back Whirler Rogue if you spend one turn ticking up instead.

All told, this deck has the potential to just end games out of nowhere by top-decking the missing Whirler Rogue or Zulaport Cutthroat to go with Nantuko Husk. Additionally, it is very well set up to stall the board and grind out damage one point at a time with Thopter Tokens and Zulaport Cutthroat. In a format as diverse at Battle for Zendikar Standard, having the flexibility to choose your role in a given matchup seems like a spectacular place to be.

One card we haven’t seen much of in the new Standard is Rally the Ancestors. Rally decks absolutely dominated the previous Standard for a few weekends, but have since dropped off the radar. Nantuko Husk, Collected Company, and Liliana, Heretical Healer are all still legal, which forms a powerful shell with Rally the Ancestors. So what might this deck look like in Battle for Zendikar Standard? Luis Scott-Vargas has given us a great place to start:

Four-Color Rally ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Luis-Scott Vargas, Super League Championship LCQ

• Creatures (27)
• 3 Sidisi's Faithful
• 4 Catacomb Sifter
• 4 Elvish Visionary
• 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
• 4 Grim Haruspex
• 4 Nantuko Husk
• 4 Zulaport Cutthroat

• Spells (8)
• 4 Collected Company
• 4 Rally the Ancestors

• Lands (25)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Island
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Prairie Stream
• 2 Canopy Vista
• 2 Sunken Hollow
• 4 Evolving Wilds
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Jaddi Offshoot
• 4 Dispel
• 3 Murderous Cut
• 2 Silkwrap
• 1 Virulent Plague
• 1 Merciless Executioner

Buy This Deck

This is an ambitious deck, made possible by the robust fetchland and battleland mana bases in this format. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy is an incredible enabler for this style of deck, allowing you to sculpt your draws early on, flashback Collected Company to grind your opponent out, or rebuy Rally the Ancestors to win the game outright. Zulaport Cutthroat is another exciting addition, allowing you to keep your head above water against aggressive opponents, drain your opponent out without Rally the Ancestors if you can find multiples, and just win the game on the spot if you can cast Rally for a handful of creatures.

The game-plan of this deck remains largely the same as before rotation. You have a deck full of value creatures backed by Collected Company and Liliana, Heretical Healer to help you grind out value against midrange and control opponents. As the game goes longer, you’re able to stock your graveyard and set up a Rally the Ancestors that nets Zulaport Cutthroat and enough creatures to deal lethal to your opponent. Even if you can’t deal lethal, you ought to be able to generate an overwhelming amount of value and buy yourself enough time to resolve another Rally.

Our fourth deck for this week is an exciting twist on a classic Modern deck: Scapeshift. One of the biggest issues with Scapeshift was its inability to find its namesake card consistently. You would frequently find yourself in game-states where you could chain together Cryptic Commands, Remands, and other cantrips for multiple turns, only to draw into a bunch of lands and ramp spells, leaving yourself dead. Bring to Light changes everything:

Bring to Light Scapeshift ? Modern | Tjolnar3, 4-0 Modern Daily Event

• Creatures (6)
• 2 Snapcaster Mage
• 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

• Spells (28)
• 2 Peer Through Depths
• 4 Cryptic Command
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Remand
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Hunting Wilds
• 1 Pyroclasm
• 3 Scapeshift
• 4 Bring to Light
• 4 Search for Tomorrow

• Lands (26)
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Forest
• 3 Island
• 1 Flooded Grove
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Watery Grave
• 2 Breeding Pool
• 2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Steam Vents
• 4 Stomping Ground

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Anger of the Gods
• 1 Dispel
• 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1 Inferno Titan
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 2 Negate
• 3 Obstinate Baloth
• 2 Rending Volley
• 1 Shatterstorm
• 1 Slaughter Games

Buy This Deck

Bring to Light does so many things for this deck. First, it gives you the ability to play an effective eight copies of Scapeshift, which does a lot to improve the consistency of the deck. Secondly, it allows you to maximize your deck space, which is also something Scapeshift decks have had issues with. Because you have to play so many Scapeshifts and ramp spells, as well as enough lands to function as both colored sources and Mountains to actually kill your opponents, it can be hard to make space for any cards that actually allow you to tune your deck to beat an expected metagame.

Bring to Light solves that problem. The four copies of Bring to Light function as the second through fifth copies of any number of high impact singletons that you can fit into your main-deck and sideboard. In this build, Tjolnar3 has opted for Hunting Wilds to help ramp to the critical seven land threshold, as well as Damnation against aggro decks. You gain access to absurd options like Glen Elendra Archmage, Slaughter Games, and Maelstrom Pulse out of the sideboard, but you could go deeper. With just one copy of Back to Nature, Fracturing Gust, or Creeping Corrosion, you can play an effective five copies. Bring to Light gives you the ability to maximize your sideboard cards in a way that few other decks can.

For many years now, Tolarian Academy has been one of the most busted cards in Vintage. The combination of fast artifact mana, huge colorless threats, and combos to ramp into has made Tolarian Academy everything from a powerful enabler in Mishra's Workshop decks to the focal point of Mono-Blue Goblin Charbelcher variants. This week we have an exciting Vintage deck that pushes hard on Tolarian Academy in a different way:

Blue-Red Vault ? Vintage | Onkel, 3-1 Vintage Daily Event

• Creatures (3)
• 2 Goblin Welder
• 1 Myr Battlesphere

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 1 Tezzeret the Seeker
• 3 Dack Fayden

• Spells (42)
• 1 Ancestral Recall
• 1 Ponder
• 1 Time Walk
• 1 Timetwister
• 1 Tinker
• 1 Transmute Artifact
• 1 Wheel of Fortune
• 2 Time Spiral
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Thoughtcast
• 1 Black Lotus
• 1 Chrome Mox
• 1 Defense Grid
• 1 Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1 Mana Crypt
• 1 Mana Vault
• 1 Memory Jar
• 1 Mox Emerald
• 1 Mox Jet
• 1 Mox Pearl
• 1 Mox Ruby
• 1 Mox Sapphire
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Time Vault
• 1 Trinisphere
• 2 Voltaic Key
• 3 Expedition Map
• 3 Sensei's Divining Top
• 2 Mox Opal

• Lands (11)
• 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1 Tolarian Academy
• 2 Scalding Tarn
• 3 Volcanic Island
• 4 Seat of the Synod

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Grafdigger's Cage
• 4 Ingot Chewer
• 4 Mindbreak Trap
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Pyroblast
• 1 Thorn of Amethyst

Buy This Deck

This is a Blue-Red deck in the vein of the Steel City/Angel City Vault archetypes. These decks play the maximum amount of tutors, library manipulation, and fast mana in an attempt to overwhelm your opponent. If you create a huge resource disparity early in the game, you can assemble and resolve the Time Vault, Voltaic Key combo and take all of the extra turns.

This deck has opted to cut Black, losing Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, and Yawgmoth's Will. The upside is that you can focus on the artifact themes of the deck, maxing out on Seat of the Synod and Thoughtcast. These cards, in conjunction with Mox Opal, cantrips, and draw-sevens allow you to chain together draw spells and put a ton of artifact mana into play early in the game. The more mana you put into play, the easier it is to hit a critical mass of business spells that result in infinite turns.

The part of this deck that excited me the most is the combination of Expedition Map, Tolarian Academy, and Minamo, School at Water's Edge. Tolarian Academy allows this deck to go absolutely crazy, and this gives you access to many more copies of Tolarian Academy. Minamo is especially exciting because it lets you double up on Academy activations, but also generates the Blue mana you need early on in the game.