It’s another week, and we have five more decks from across your favorite formats featuring the newest technology and coolest ideas we could find. This week, we’ll start in Standard with a new take on Mardu and a ramp deck whose endgame is taking all the turns. Then we’ll head into Modern where we have a R/W Blood Moon midrange deck as well as an exciting take on Esper built by Shaheen Soorani. Last, we’ll head into Legacy to find out what a deck dedicated to Monastery Mentor can do. Let’s get started.

The Hordes of Mardu Midrange

The powerful three-color cards from Khans of Tarkir have defined Standard since their introduction to the format, but one wedge has been less represented in the Standard metagame than the others: Mardu. KelMasterP has set out to change that with a powerful combination of Planeswalkers, removal, and midrange threats. Let’s take a look at Mardu Midrange:

Mardu Midrange ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | KelMasterP, 5-0 Standard League

• Creatures (9)
• 2 Soulfire Grand Master
• 3 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
• 4 Hangarback Walker

• Planeswalkers (8)
• 1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
• 1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
• 2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
• 4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

• Spells (17)
• 2 Murderous Cut
• 2 Utter End
• 3 Mardu Charm
• 4 Crackling Doom
• 4 Fiery Impulse
• 2 Despise

• Lands (26)
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Plains
• 3 Mountain
• 1 Caves of Koilos
• 1 Canopy Vista
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 2 Wooded Foothills
• 3 Battlefield Forge
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Nomad Outpost
• 4 Shambling Vent

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Duress
• 2 End Hostilities
• 2 Kolaghan's Command
• 2 Outpost Siege
• 2 Radiant Flames
• 2 Read the Bones
• 1 Surge of Righteousness
• 2 Transgress the Mind

Buy This Deck

There are a couple of cool things going on here: the removal is efficient, the creatures are among the best in the format, and the Planeswalkers do a great job of allowing you to manage the board, generate card advantage, and kill your opponents.

This deck is able to push the token angle of attack better than most other midrange decks, which is one of its most interesting qualities. The combination of Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Hangarback Walker, and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is enormously powerful in a number of matchups. Pia and Kiran function as a pseudo Lingering Souls which also allows you to lock up the board and win outside of combat. This is especially true when Hangarback Walker gives you bonus Thopters while Gideon and Sorin, Solemn Visitor pump your whole team.

This deck doesn’t really have the ability to go bigger than the other midrange decks, but it can certainly go much, much wider.

Ramp Decks Awaken

In recent weeks, we’ve seen a surge in ramp strategies, but they’ve all been variants on the same theme. The plan has always been ramp into Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger with various splashes allowing for the addition of Dragonlord Atarka, Planar Outburst, or Kiora, Master of the Depths. Loki_Domine has a different idea about what we could be ramping into, and it is something I am enormously excited about:

U/G Ramp ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Loki_Domine, 3-1 Standard Daily Event

• Creatures (5)
• 1 Embodiment of Spring
• 4 Rattleclaw Mystic

• Spells (31)
• 2 Anticipate
• 3 Dig Through Time
• 4 Explosive Vegetation
• 4 Nissa's Renewal
• 4 Part the Waterveil
• 4 Planar Outburst
• 4 Temporal Trespass
• 1 Monastery Siege
• 1 Quarantine Field
• 4 Hedron Archive

• Lands (24)
• 3 Plains
• 6 Forest
• 8 Island
• 3 Lumbering Falls
• 4 Blighted Woodland

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Embodiment of Spring
• 2 Disdainful Stroke
• 2 Dispel
• 2 Feed the Clan
• 2 Gaea's Revenge
• 1 Horribly Awry
• 1 Naturalize
• 2 Negate
• 2 Stasis Snare

Buy This Deck

It’s hard to go much bigger than this deck. Some decks play one or two copies of Nissa's Renewal to help go from six mana straight to ten for Ulamog. This deck commits to the full four copies. Why? Because you’re trying to start casting spells like Part the Waterveil and Planar Outburst with awaken.

The awaken spells are the real power of this deck, and are one of the things which give this deck the potential for a more powerful late-game than the Ulamog ramp decks. If you manage to cast a Part the Waterveil with awaken, you can start chaining together Time Walks while beating your opponent down with your land. Subsequent awaken spells can either let more lands rumble into the red zone, or pump the first land out of reach of blockers and burn spells.

The deck’s heavier reliance on Blue means you can play some combination of Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise as a means of alleviating the most prominent issue with Ramp decks: inconsistency. This is a major strength of this deck. When you can use Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time to ensure you have the proper combination of ramp and finishers, it’s much easier to make sure you can reliably find and cast your game-ending spells.

Getting Big with Red

Between Lightning Bolt, Splinter Twin, and Blood Moon, Red is one of the most powerful colors in Modern. Unfortunately, Red tends to be more of a splash color in the format, as there aren’t any decks besides Burn that really focus on Red as a primary color. Moesis is looking to change that with a different take on Red midrange.

R/W Midrange ? Modern | Moesis, 3-1 Modern Daily Event

• Creatures (5)
• 1 Stormbreath Dragon
• 2 Solemn Simulacrum
• 2 Wurmcoil Engine

• Planeswalkers (8)
• 1 Chandra, Pyromaster
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
• 2 Ajani Vengeant
• 4 Koth of the Hammer

• Spells (25)
• 2 Lightning Helix
• 2 Volcanic Fallout
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Skred
• 2 Pyroclasm
• 4 Blood Moon
• 1 Batterskull
• 3 Mind Stone
• 3 Relic of Progenitus

• Lands (22)
• 2 Sacred Foundry
• 4 Arid Mesa
• 1 Snow-Covered Plains
• 15 Snow-Covered Mountain

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Anger of the Gods
• 1 Boil
• 1 Crumble to Dust
• 3 Dragon's Claw
• 2 Molten Rain
• 2 Rending Volley
• 1 Roast
• 1 Shattering Spree
• 1 Shatterstorm
• 2 Spellskite

Buy This Deck

That is four maindeck Blood Moons, which is an awesome place to be in Modern. Every deck, from Boggles and Infect to Jund and Scapeshift, cares about non-basic lands. While Blood Moon may not be a hard lock against every deck in the format, it does give you a substantial number of free wins and buys a lot of time to piece together a winning board position. This is particularly true in conjunction with Ajani Vengeant, who can lock down the basic land your opponent was able to fetch up before you could cast Blood Moon.

The general game-plan is to use efficient removal like Skred and Lightning Bolt to help create an opening to resolve Blood Moon or one of your powerful Planeswalkers. Alternatively, you can use Mind Stone and Solemn Simulacrum to ramp into powerful threats like Batterskull and Wurmcoil Engine.

This deck doesn’t have the same raw power as other decks in Modern, but Blood Moon will generate an inordinate number of free wins. It may not have the same efficiency or synergy as many of the other decks in Modern, but the power is here.

The Gift of Value

Gifts Ungiven has always been one of my favorite cards and, much to my chagrin, it has never been a dominating presence in Modern. More than that, the Gifts decks that do exist are largely focused on the Unburial Rites to Reanimate a monster plan rather than any kind of value-oriented control strategy. Patron mage of Esper enthusiast’s everywhere, Shaheen Soorani, has a new take on Esper that prominently features Gifts as a mechanism of turning the corner:

Esper Gifts ? Modern | Shaheen Soorani

• Creatures (8)
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
• 2 Snapcaster Mage
• 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil

• Spells (26)
• 4 Gifts Ungiven
• 4 Mana Leak
• 4 Path to Exile
• 1 Lingering Souls
• 1 Unburial Rites
• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 4 Serum Visions
• 4 Thoughtseize

• Lands (23)
• 1 Island
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Isolated Chapel
• 2 Marsh Flats
• 2 Watery Grave
• 3 Flooded Strand
• 4 Creeping Tar Pit
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 1 Snow-Covered Island
• 1 Snow-Covered Swamp

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Fulminator Mage
• 2 Stony Silence
• 2 Celestial Purge
• 1 Disenchant
• 1 Dispel
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Bribery
• 1 Damnation
• 3 Timely Reinforcements

Buy This Deck

This deck is another take on the new breed of control strategies, featuring Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Liliana of the Veil. This combination allows you to focus exclusively on proactive disruption rather than reactive disruption, which is a powerful place to be. Suddenly, you have even more ways to curve out with disruption spells before using a powerful 4-drop to break open the game.

Between Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek on turn one, backed by Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Snapcaster Mage which allow you to further shred your opponent’s hand, it will be hard for your opponent to assemble a real plan. Liliana pushes this further by preventing them from assembling a critical mass of resources. Once you’ve cleared the way of disruption or combo kills, you can resolve Gifts and cheat in Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Iona, Shield of Emeria, or some other monster to end the game.

Pushing the Boundaries with Monastery Mentor

The last few weeks we’ve seen the power of Monastery Mentor in Legacy in the absence of Dig Through Time. Without Dig, the midrangey Blue decks have had to resort to playing cards that can actually close out games in a relatively quick fashion. For decks like Miracles, Monastery Mentor has filled that role, allowing you to generate an enormous board presence and a quick clock. But how much more powerful can Mentor be if you build a deck around it rather than slotting it into an existing archetype? Phazonmutant set out to find the answer:

Four-Color Mentor ? Legacy | Phazonmutant

• Creatures (8)
• 1 Baleful Strix
• 1 Snapcaster Mage
• 2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
• 4 Monastery Mentor

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

• Spells (28)
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 3 Intuition
• 4 Accumulated Knowledge
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Life from the Loam
• 3 Cabal Therapy
• 1 Engineered Explosives
• 2 Mox Diamond

• Lands (23)
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Island
• 1 Bayou
• 1 Tropical Island
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold
• 1 Wasteland
• 2 Marsh Flats
• 2 Underground Sea
• 3 Tundra
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Polluted Delta

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Containment Priest
• 1 Darkblast
• 1 Ethersworn Canonist
• 2 Meddling Mage
• 1 Null Rod
• 1 Pithing Needle
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 1 Zealous Persecution

Buy This Deck

The idea here is to use Cabal Therapy to tear your opponent’s hands to pieces. Once that’s done, you can resolve a Monastery Mentor and use Accumulated Knowledge to pull further ahead, particularly in conjunction with Intuition to dig up multiple copies of Accumulated Knowledge and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy to allow you to start flashing back copies for full value.

Since you’re already playing Intuition, this deck can also play a small Life from the Loam package to help grind out other midrange decks. This gives you access to recursive Wastelands, as well as Volrath's Stronghold to ensure you have consistent access to Mentors.

This deck gives up some of the efficiency of Stoneforge Mystic and Delver of Secrets strategies in favor of the increased power of Monastery Mentor and Intuition. While this means that you are less favored against the faster, unfair decks in the format, it means that you have more game against the fair decks due to the card advantage engines and powerful threats.