Battle for Zendikar previews are in full swing, but there's still plenty of exciting Magic yet to be played with Magic Origins. This week, we're bringing you two exciting Standard decks featuring a new take on Jeskai Ascendancy and Rally the Ancestors. Then we head into Modern where we look at a Trinket Mage control deck and a new approach to Tribal. Finally, we'll find out if Lantern of Insight has what it takes to compete in Legacy. Let's get started.

Andrew Cuneo's take on Blue-Red Sphinx's Tutelage went from a cool brew to a Standard sensation overnight thanks to Michael Majors incredible performance at Grand Prix San Diego. However, after that weekend the deck largely dropped off the map. Perhaps people adjusted their gameplay or sideboards to account for the presence of the mill menace in the metagame. Perhaps the metagame just shifted back towards aggressive decks that could race. Or perhaps the Tutelage deck just needs to adapt. That's exactly what Tyranodh has done with this exciting take that adds a sweet splash:

Jeskai Tutelage - Magic Origins Standard | Tyranodh, 3-1 Standard Daily Event

• Creatures (4)
• 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

• Spells (29)
• 1 Alhammarret's Archive
• 4 Anger of the Gods
• 4 Jeskai Ascendancy
• 4 Magmatic Insight
• 2 Roast
• 2 Send to Sleep
• 4 Sphinx's Tutelage
• 4 Tormenting Voice
• 4 Treasure Cruise

• Lands (27)
• 2 Battlefield Forge
• 3 Island
• 4 Mountain
• 4 Mystic Monastery
• 1 Plains
• 4 Radiant Fountain
• 3 Shivan Reef
• 4 Swiftwater Cliffs
• 2 Tranquil Cove

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Disperse
• 1 Dragon Fodder
• 1 Encase in Ice
• 2 Fiery Impulse
• 3 Hordeling Outburst
• 4 Negate
• 1 Raise the Alarm
• 1 Secure the Wastes

Buy This Deck

The core engine of the Sphinx's Tutelage deck is still here. You can still easily chain together Magmatic Insight and Tormenting Voice into Treasure Cruise and value your opponent to death. The difference is that Tyranodh has added a splash for a key card: Jeskai Ascendancy. This powerful card does a number of exciting things for this strategy that completely change the way that games play out.

Firstly, you pick up the powerful interaction between Jace and Jeskai Ascendancy. Suddenly it is much easier to flip Jace since you can get free loots and extra activations of Jace off of each non-Creature spell. Additionally, you get the ability to combo off more easily with a Tutelage in play, since you get an extra draw off of each spell. Thirdly, your opponents may make poor in-game decisions after seeing a Jeskai Ascendancy before you show them a Tutelage.

Finally, and most importantly, this gives you the ability to sideboard into a Jeskai Tokens deck in matchups that are advantaged against the Tutelage gameplan. Admittedly, your token plan is going to be a little more anemic than you might otherwise prefer, but this flexibility is certainly a boon in controlling and midrangey matchups. In these games, opponents will board out many of their sweepers, as these cards are dead against Sphinx's Tutelage. However those are exactly the cards that Jeskai Tokens has the hardest time beating.

So this deck has gained powerful sideboard options as well as the ability to power up both Jace and Sphinx's Tutelage, but what is the cost? Honestly, in a deck with this much looting and raw card advantage, the cost of a splash for Jeskai Ascendancy in the maindeck and a handful of sideboard cards is fairly minimal, unless you expect to really need the full number of Radiant Fountains. All told, this is an exciting innovation that gives this deck additional power and consistency in the more midrangey matchups, as well as flexibility in the control matchups, and seems like a great direction for this deck to be headed.

Right after the release of Magic Origins we saw the breakout of Abzan Rally the Ancestors deck featuring Liliana, Heretical Healer and Nantuko Husk as the primary engine, backed up by Collected Company to allow the deck to find its combo pieces and grind away in the midagme to set up a Rally turn. Those decks were quickly obsoleted by the metagame, but jinkster thinks it's time the bring them back. Check out his more aggressive take on the Rally archetype:

Abzan Rally - Magic Origins Standard | jinkster, Top 8 Magic Online PTQ

• Creatures (27)
• 4 Dwynen's Elite
• 4 Elvish Mystic
• 4 Elvish Visionary
• 1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 4 Satyr Wayfinder
• 4 Shaman of the Pack
• 1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 4 Siege Rhino

• Spells (11)
• 2 Abzan Charm
• 3 Chord of Calling
• 2 Murderous Cut
• 4 Rally the Ancestors

• Lands (22)
• 1 Caves of Koilos
• 3 Forest
• 4 Llanowar Wastes
• 2 Plains
• 4 Sandsteppe Citadel
• 1 Temple of Plenty
• 2 Temple of Silence
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Anafenza, the Foremost
• 4 Arashin Cleric
• 1 Hallowed Moonlight
• 1 Minister of Pain
• 3 Thoughtseize
• 1 Ultimate Price
• 2 Valorous Stance
• 1 Whip of Erebos

Buy This Deck

The power of this deck is that it is much more aggressive than the Nantuko Husk versions. Rather than trying to set up cute sequences where you flip Liliana, Heretical Healer and grind out value with Collected Company, jinksters build just tries to get opponents dead. How? By beating down with Dwynen's Elite backed up by Elvish Mystic and Elvish Visionary. You can sneak in a few early hits with your cheap threats, and then sit back on Shaman of the Pack and Siege Rhino to gum up the ground and drain your opponent out without even going into combat. This plan is supplemented by your ability to Chord of Calling up Shamans and Rhinos.

However, the real power of the deck becomes apparent when you consider how these threats interact with Rally the Ancestors. Satyr Wayfinder helps you flip Elves and Shaman of the Pack into your graveyard to set up an absurd Rally. Consider this: just one Shaman and one Dwynen's Elite is three damage to your opponent. If you were able to chord up a second Shaman and had a random Elvish Mystic around, that's already ten points of life lost. Throw any extra copies of Dwynen's Elite or Shaman of the Pack into the mix and your opponent is probably dead. Even just another Elvish Visionary will often be enough, much less any Siege Rhinos.

This is a cool new spin on a deck that took Standard by storm and quickly died off, but perhaps this more aggressive stance is what the deck needed to have a real resurgence.

Back in the old Extended formats, there was a tradition of three- and four-color Trinket Mage decks featuring Tarmogoyf, Sensei's Divining Top, and Counterbalance backed up by some efficient removal and countermagic, as well as cool singletons like Pyrite Spellbomb, Pithing Needle, and Chalice of the Void. These tempo-control decks, affectionately termed Next Level Blue, were an incredible force in Extended for a long time, and for awhile the Temur Delver decks in Modern were a great analogue. At least until they died off. ytb is trying to bring the archetype back to its roots with this exciting take on a classic Extended archetype:

Next Level Temur ? Modern | ytb, 3-1 Modern Daily Event

• Creatures (9)
• 1 Hangarback Walker
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Spellskite
• 3 Tarmogoyf
• 2 Trinket Mage
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine

• Spells (25)
• 1 Arc Trail
• 1 Chalice of the Void
• 2 Cryptic Command
• 1 Deprive
• 3 Engineered Explosives
• 1 Izzet Charm
• 1 Lightning Bolt
• 3 Mana Leak
• 1 Pithing Needle
• 2 Serum Visions
• 2 Spell Snare
• 3 Thirst for Knowledge
• 1 Tormod's Crypt
• 3 Vedalken Shackles

• Lands (26)
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 3 Breeding Pool
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Forest
• 7 Island
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 2 Scalding Tarn
• 2 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 3 Tectonic Edge

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine
• 1 Chalice of the Void
• 1 Lightning Bolt
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 2 Blood Moon
• 2 Dispel
• 1 Elixir of Immortality
• 1 Grafdigger's Cage
• 1 Nature's Claim
• 2 Obstinate Baloth
• 1 Pyroclasm
• 1 Thrun, the Last Troll

Buy This Deck

There's a lot going on here, but the critical thing to notice is the combination of Tarmogoyf, Trinket Mage, and Thirst for Knowledge. These cards in conjunction with Sensei's Divining Top gave the Next Level Blue decks that selection they needed to make sure they found the appropriate singletons and correct combination of threats and answers.

Another marquis card of this strategy is Vedalken Shackles, a card that is woefully underplayed relative to its power level in Modern. This card is much like Blood Moon in that it comes down early and just ends the game against some opponents. The trouble is that this is a card that requires a much heavier commitment to Blue, as opposed to Blood Moon which is very splashable. That said, this still just wins the game against most creature-oriented strategies and puts an enormous amount of pressure on creature-based combo decks like Splinter Twin, and is reason enough to play this style of Blue deck.

Beyond that, this deck has a lot of small, interesting interactions that come up rarely, but help generate the little bits of value that lead to wins. For example, Darksteel Citadel turns Trinket Mage into Civic Wayfinder. Miren, the Moaning Well helps you grind out long games where your life total becomes relevant by eating large Tarmogoyfs and Wurmcoil Engine. Engineered Explosives plus Academy Ruins is just unbeatable for some decks, like Bogles, Infect, and Affinity.

That's all just cute though. The most exciting new interaction? Trinket Mage for Hangarback Walker. How unfair is that? Whether you're in the early game and need to stall up the ground or have made it to the late game and need a large, resilient threat, I have to imagine that Hangarback Walker is one of the most common targets for Trinket Mage, if only for the incredible versatility. This is a really cool deck with a lot of small interactions and edges to be gained for strong players. It's biggest strength is in its flexibility within a given matchup, and the size of the Modern card pool has only helped the deck become more versatile.

We've seen a handful of attempts at Tribal decks in Modern over the last few years. Merfolk has always been the most competitive, but Goblins, Elves, and Humans have had moments. Recently, the printing of Collected Company has spurred exploration into other, more niche tribes like Allies. Last weekend, Adam Bowman decided to find out what Collected Company can do for Slivers.

Five-Color Slivers - Modern | Adam Bowman, Top 8 StarCityGames Modern Open

• Creatures (30)
• 2 Blur Sliver
• 1 Darkheart Sliver
• 3 Diffusion Sliver
• 4 Galerider Sliver
• 4 Manaweft Sliver
• 2 Necrotic Sliver
• 4 Predatory Sliver
• 3 Sedge Sliver
• 2 Sentinel Sliver
• 4 Sinew Sliver
• 1 Syphon Sliver

• Spells (10)
• 4 Aether Vial
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 4 Collected Company

• Lands (20)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 4 Cavern of Souls
• 4 Mutavault
• 2 Overgrown Tomb
• 4 Sliver Hive
• 2 Windswept Heath
• 1 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Bonescythe Sliver
• 1 Darkheart Sliver
• 3 Harmonic Sliver
• 1 Shadow Sliver
• 2 Syphon Sliver
• 2 Telekinetic Sliver
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Sliver Hivelord

Buy This Deck

The sheer number of things that this deck is capable of doing alone is enough to make it interesting. This is a deck that can use Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial to power out the Predatory Slivers, Sinew Slivers, and Sedge Slivers that act as lords, and back them up with powerful effects like haste, lifelink, evasion, and even protection that make combat a nightmare for your opponent.

The real powerhouse of this deck is Collected Company. This is the card that lets you absolutely demolish anyone who is not intimately familiar with all of the legal Slivers in Modern. If they block poorly, you can always hit double Lord. If they decide to race, you can find Syphon Sliver or Sentinel Sliver to swing the race. You can find Blur Sliver plus a lord to kill them early, or Diffusion Sliver to shut off removal. There are a lot of effects to try to play around, which means that you can always hit something your opponent is unprepared for.

Also interesting is the inclusion of Manaweft Sliver. This is a card that allows you two important abilities. The first is that it fixes your mana so that you can cast all the Slivers in your deck even in the absence of Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial. The second is that it allows you to cast spells like Collected Company, Abrupt Decay and whatever other awesome sideboard technology you decide to include without lowering the density of spells in your deck.

This deck is exciting because of the breadth of possibilities it promises. There is almost always a Sliver you can hit to swing a situation around. The inclusion of true colorless lands like Mutavault may be a little ambitious, particularly alongside double-colored, non-Sliver spells like Abrupt Decay, but these are issues that could certainly be tuned and optimized with testing. All told, this is a deck that appears to put a lot of pressure on your opponents to predict accurately what is in your deck. Not only that, but there is a lot of room for flexibility and innovation in the deck as it stands. Will Slivers be the next big Tribe in Modern? There's only one way to find out!

A few months ago we saw a Lantern of Insight prison deck put up an incredible finish in Modern at Grand Prix Charlotte. This was an innovative deck that largely ignored what its opponent was doing while trying to manipulate the top of its opponent's deck to ensure that your opponent couldn't break up the lock you were assembling. While the deck is nigh unbeatable in some matchups, there are many where you just don't have the density of ways to lock down the game and manipulate the top of your opponent's deck. In Modern at least. What hapens when you try this idea in the Legacy cardpool? You end with something like this crazy brew from bruizar:

Lantern Control - Legacy | bruizar

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

• Spells (40)
• 3 Mox Opal
• 4 Lantern of Insight
• 4 Codex Shredder
• 4 Ghoulcaller’s Bell
• 4 Ensnaring Bridge
• 2 Pithing Needle
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 2 Sensei’s Divining Top
• 3 Gitaxian Probe
• 2 Field of Dreams
• 3 Counterbalance
• 3 Punishing Fire
• 3 Red Elemental Blast
• 1 Spell Snare

• Lands (17)
• 3 Volcanic Island
• 2 Tropical Island
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 3 Scalding Tarn
• 3 Grove of the Burnwillows
• 1 Island
• 1 Academy Ruins

Buy This Deck

The gameplan is still to assemble Lantern of Insight plus various Codex Shredders and Ghoulcaller's Bells so you can make sure your opponent draws nothing but lands and blanks for the rest of the game. In the meantime, you can sit safely behind an Ensnaring Bridge. The power of this strategy is that there are so many decks that win through the combat step. Whether through Tarmogoyf, Batterskull, Griselbrand, or Craterhoof Behemoth, most Legacy decks end up relying on the combat step in some way, and Ensnaring Bridge just shuts that plan off.

The exciting part of this deck is that you gain access to Field of Dreams as another way to manipulate the top of your opponent's library, as well as Sensei's Divining Top and Counterbalance. The ability to use Sensei's Divining Top to set up the top of your library so you mill away bad cards is enormously powerful in this shell, and helps ensure you hit your key pieces more consistently.

In this deck, those key pieces are things like Red Elemental Blast to protect yourself from Blue-based combo and Planeswalkers as well as Punishing Fire to keep utility creatures, swarms, and Planeswalkers under control. The question, of course, is still whether or not this deck can deploy its soft lock quickly enough to stop the game from spiraling out of control. While that question still has yet to be answered, I'm excited to find out if this deck can hang in Legacy, and if Legacy innovations will inform the evolution of its Modern counterpart.