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Main » Articles » 5 Decks You Can't Miss This Week

5 Decks You Can't Miss This Week

Carlos Gutierrez
Posted on April 17, 2015
 Reddit

This is an exciting week for Standard. We have a Pro Tour's worth of results behind us, with exciting cards and strategies breaking out to form the baseline for the new metagame cycle. Last week we saw all kinds of craziness, from the return of Green-based devotion strategies to Hornet Nest putting up a very solid performance. What does the new face of Standard look like, and where is it headed next? Let's take a look at what Dragons of Tarkir has to offer Standard and Modern:

The deck of the tournament, and perhaps the deck to beat in the new Standard, is Team ChannelFireball's Esper Dragons deck, which took Josh Utter-Leyton and Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa to 11th and 13th place finishes respectively. This week, Paulo discusses how they came to exactly this list. Let's take a look at Esper Dragons:

Esper Dragons ? Dragons of Tarkir Standard | Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, 13th Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir

This is, for most purposes, a fairly straightforward Blue-Black control deck with a few exciting new inclusions. Anticipate is an incredible tool for these decks, giving you something else to do when you leave up mana for removal or countermagic on early turns. The big change here is the addition of the Dragon component to the deck. Dragonlord Ojutai. Silumgar, the Drifting Death. Foul-Tongue Invocation. Silumgar's Scorn.

This package of cards is awesome because of Dragonlord Ojutai. In this deck, Ojutai is a powerful, resilient blocker that can go toe-to-toe with most of the creatures in the format. In addition, he's a fast clock that requires an immediate answer, since getting a free Anticipate with every hit buries your opponent pretty quickly. Opposing copies of Dragonlord Ojutai and the presence of aggressive red decks make Foul-Tongue invocation a particularly powerful inclusion as an edict that gains a substantial amount of life.

Lastly, the inclusion of five Dragons means that Silumgar's Scorn becomes actual Counterspell a startling high proportion of the time. In the early game, you don't mind snagging a Courser or Kruphix or Siege Rhino with the Force Spike mode. Once you start resolving Anticipates and Dig Through Times though, it's pretty easy to ensure that you have a Dragon in hand to make Silumgar's Scorn a hard counterspell. If that Dragon has hexproof, it's unlikely your opponent will be able to do much to remove it. And if they happen to have a sweeper or edict? That's what your Silumgar's Scorns and Dissolves are for.

This past weekend, we saw quite a bit of Deathmist Raptor at the top tables. Particularly, we saw decks combining this powerful, attrition-y threat with Den Protector to grind out even the most controlling decks in the room. Patrick Chapin had an interesting take on this style of deck that he almost played at the Pro Tour. Let's take a look:

Glue-Green Morph ? Dragons of Tarkir Standard | Patrick Chapin

Secret Plans? In Standard? Where do I sign up? This deck does a lot of really interesting things, and is one that I really hope sees play in Standard sometime while Khans of Tarkir is legal. I love the idea of using Elvish Mystic plus Obscuring Aether to ramp out Morphs. I like it even better when your midgame plan is to grind out your opponent with Secret Plans and Trail of Mystery.

The best part about this deck is that there are so many good Morphs to keep your opponent guessing. Should they try to kill your Den Protector before you can flip it up and generate a bunch of value? Or are they going to be Negated off of Status Dancer? Maybe it's Icefeather Aven to rebuy another one of your Morphs or get their Tasigur out of the way so you can keep bringing the beats.

I'm afraid that this deck is too slow and grindy. After all, a deck that's only playing Grey Ogres for a few turns before really getting into gear is going to be regularly trying to fight through Dragonlord Ojutai and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. Still, I look at this list and have dreams of turning a random morph face up, drawing a card, and rebuying one or two Deathmist Raptors. That's not that farfetched, and I don't know if I can resist that can of value.

Jeskai Tokens isn't the only aggressive take on Blue in this new Standard format. One of the biggest question marks in Dragons of Tarkir is Myth Realized. The card is obviously super efficient and potentially very powerful if there is an appropriate shell for it. A few people have tried fitting it into control shells; the problem being that it's slow to get started unless you play it on turn one and that it's vulnerable to Dromoka's Command and traditional removal. HASP has tried to fix this by getting more aggressive with his in realizing his myths:

[Cardlist Title= Esper Tempo ? Dragons of Tarkir Standard | HASP, 3-1 Standard Daily Event]

I love what this deck is trying to do. You have two super efficient threats that love when you cast cheap spells in Myth Realized and Monastery Mentor. On top of those, you have a pile of cheap cantrips and efficient interactive spells. Your plan is to stick a cheap threat and then use your protection, Thoughtseizes, and removal spells to stay ahead on the board while you bring the beats. This is especially powerful when your plan is Myth Realized, as it is immune to most removal unless you're ready to pick a fight with Stratus Dancer or you've grown it out of range of Stoke the Flames and company.

My biggest question mark about this deck is whether Monastery Mentor and Myth Realized are enough. It's possible that this deck wants something like Seeker of the Way to fill in the two-drop slot, since right now the deck doesn't really have any twos besides Stratus Dancer.

One of the most exciting cards in this deck is Narset Transcendant, who can give any of your spells rebound to trigger Myth Realized and Monastery Mentor two times. I can't help but imagine rebounding Dig Through Time or Utter End to grow Myth Realized to truly monstrous proportions and clear the way at the same time. This is a unique and interesting take on a powerful card that doesn't yet have a home, and I can't wait to see if it catches on.

One of the biggest questions coming out of Dragons of Tarkir was whether the Dragons printed would be powerful enough to have an impact in eternal formats like Modern and Legacy. This week, Caleb Durward unleashed a new take on Dragon Tribal in Modern, but with an unexpected twist - there's only one Dragon. Let's take a look:

[Cardlist title=Blue-Black Dragonfolk ? Modern | Caleb Durward]

That's right, Merfolk plus the "reveal a Dragon" cards from Dragons of Tarkir. Silumgar's Scorn and Foul-Tonge Invocation are reasonable cards in their own right, if not as efficient as we might like. However, with Mutavault and Nameless Inversion providing a full eight Dragons, these cards become more powerful than other options in the format, such as Deprive, Tribute to Hunger, and Devour Flesh.

The thing is, this isn't actually warping this deck especially much. Sure, we've added black, but Nameless Inversion isn't that much worse than the Dismembers that it's replacing. You miss out on killing Siege Rhino, Deceiver Exarch, and Restoration Angel, but still gain the ability to kill most of the creatures that are getting in the way of your Merfolk. Whether the upside of Silumgar's Scorn and Foul-Tongue Invocation is worth jumping through these kinds of hoops in deckbuilding is a different question, but it's certainly interesting.

Additionally, the inclusion of Nameless Inversion gives you access to Haakon, Stromgald Scourge, which is an incredible engine against the creature decks of the format. Suddenly Nameless Inversion can mow down creatures and keep the board clear turn after turn while you build up your board presence and hold up countermagic.

This loses some of the raw aggression and efficiency of other Merfolk lists, but gains access to an efficient hard counter and interesting removal engine in attrition-based matchups. I don't know if this is a particularly powerful build of this deck, but it's certainly interesting and exciting, and I can't wait to see if this style of deck featuring Mutavault plus Dragon tribal cards catches on.

If this caught your attention, be sure to check out the list in action in Caleb's video series

Our last deck for the week is an interesting hybrid. Burn has been a popular choice in Modern since the printing of Treasure Cruise, and hasn't really seen a decline even with the its banning. We've seen various iterations featuring cards like Young Pyromancer[/card, [card]Mutagenic Growth, and Geist of Saint Traft. We've also seen a number of interesting takes on Zoo featuring Become Immense and Boros Charm as a way to combo kill opponents out of nowhere. In this Modern Daily Event, MasterSplinter combines both of these strategies in an exciting way, reminiscent of Gerry Thompson's Nivmagus Elemental deck from Pro Tour Return to Ravnica.

[Cardlist title= Battle Rage Burn - Modern | MasterSplinter, 3-1 Modern Daily Event]

So how exactly does this deck function? You want to get out ahead of your opponent with Goblin Guides and Monastery Swiftspears, using cheap burn and pump effects to stay ahead until they're dead. This plan on its own is completely reasonable, and is the basis for a number of successful strategies in Modern. However, this deck takes it a step further. By adding Kiln Fiend and Assault Strobe to go with its suite of cheap spells, this deck gains the ability to kill on turn three if it goes undisrupted.

When there is disruption? That's when Become Immense and Death's Shadow take over. If you can't kill your opponent in the first few turns, then what you have done is seriously taxed their ability to answer additional threats and stocked your graveyard. Between fetches, shocks, probes, and Street Wraith, it should be pretty easy to put your life total into the red to turn on Death's Shadow. Even if you can't, it's not that hard to set up a hasty creature plus Become Immense to deal the last few points.

But what about blockers? After all, this is a format that includes the like of Siege Rhino, Tarmogoyf, and Restoration Angel. That's what Rancor and card]Temur Battle Rage" href="/p/Magic+The+Gathering/Mutagenic Growth" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Young+Pyromancer%5B%2Fcard%2C+%5Bcard%5DMutagenic+Growth">Young Pyromancer[/card, [card]Mutagenic Growth, and Geist of Saint Traft. We've also seen a number of interesting takes on Zoo featuring Become Immense and Boros Charm as a way to combo kill opponents out of nowhere. In this Modern Daily Event, MasterSplinter combines both of these strategies in an exciting way, reminiscent of Gerry Thompson's Nivmagus Elemental deck from Pro Tour Return to Ravnica.

[Cardlist title= Battle Rage Burn - Modern | MasterSplinter, 3-1 Modern Daily Event]

So how exactly does this deck function? You want to get out ahead of your opponent with Goblin Guides and Monastery Swiftspears, using cheap burn and pump effects to stay ahead until they're dead. This plan on its own is completely reasonable, and is the basis for a number of successful strategies in Modern. However, this deck takes it a step further. By adding Kiln Fiend and Assault Strobe to go with its suite of cheap spells, this deck gains the ability to kill on turn three if it goes undisrupted.

When there is disruption? That's when Become Immense and Death's Shadow take over. If you can't kill your opponent in the first few turns, then what you have done is seriously taxed their ability to answer additional threats and stocked your graveyard. Between fetches, shocks, probes, and Street Wraith, it should be pretty easy to put your life total into the red to turn on Death's Shadow. Even if you can't, it's not that hard to set up a hasty creature plus Become Immense to deal the last few points.

But what about blockers? After all, this is a format that includes the like of Siege Rhino, Tarmogoyf, and Restoration Angel. That's what Rancor and card]Temur Battle Rage">Mutagenic Growth" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Young+Pyromancer%5B%2Fcard%2C+%5Bcard%5DMutagenic+Growth">Young Pyromancer[/card, [card]Mutagenic Growth, and Geist of Saint Traft. We've also seen a number of interesting takes on Zoo featuring Become Immense and Boros Charm as a way to combo kill opponents out of nowhere. In this Modern Daily Event, MasterSplinter combines both of these strategies in an exciting way, reminiscent of Gerry Thompson's Nivmagus Elemental deck from Pro Tour Return to Ravnica.

[Cardlist title= Battle Rage Burn - Modern | MasterSplinter, 3-1 Modern Daily Event]

So how exactly does this deck function? You want to get out ahead of your opponent with Goblin Guides and Monastery Swiftspears, using cheap burn and pump effects to stay ahead until they're dead. This plan on its own is completely reasonable, and is the basis for a number of successful strategies in Modern. However, this deck takes it a step further. By adding Kiln Fiend and Assault Strobe to go with its suite of cheap spells, this deck gains the ability to kill on turn three if it goes undisrupted.

When there is disruption? That's when Become Immense and Death's Shadow take over. If you can't kill your opponent in the first few turns, then what you have done is seriously taxed their ability to answer additional threats and stocked your graveyard. Between fetches, shocks, probes, and Street Wraith, it should be pretty easy to put your life total into the red to turn on Death's Shadow. Even if you can't, it's not that hard to set up a hasty creature plus Become Immense to deal the last few points.

But what about blockers? After all, this is a format that includes the like of Siege Rhino, Tarmogoyf, and Restoration Angel. That's what Rancor and card]Temur Battle Rage are for, allowing you to go way over the top of any pesky blockers and deal absurd quantities of damage. After all, a topdecked Goblin Guide plus Become Immense and Temur Battle Rage is a full sixteen damage on its own.

This deck looks fragile and inconsistent, but it has a terrifying potential to assemble kills out of nowhere given its density of hasty threats. This is not a deck for the faint of heart, but if you're willing to go all in, it seems like a blast to play.

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TAGS standard, constructed, deck lists, decks, modern, carlos gutierrez, 5 decks, dragons of tarkir

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