This week we've got five decks across Standard, Modern, Legacy, and Commander. We'll start in Standard with a pair of awesome decks from Grand Prix Shizuoka, then head into Modern and Legacy with interesting takes on Momentary Blink and Standstill. We'll wrap things up by heading to Commander for a fair take on Magic's most degenerate mechanic.

For the last few weeks, Standard has been all about Nykthos, Master of Waves, Pack Rat, and Sphinx's Revelation. That made it especially awesome to see Shota Takao put up an incredible performance at Grand Prix Shizuoka with his Esper Humans deck which runs zero copies of any of these cards. Let's take a look:

Esper Humans - Standard | Shota Takao, 2nd Grand Prix Shizuoka

• Lands (25)
• 4 Godless Shrine
• 4 Hallowed Fountain
• 2 Mutavault
• 3 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 3 Temple of Deceit
• 4 Temple of Silence
• 4 Watery Grave

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Cartel Aristocrat
• 3 Daring Skyjek
• 3 Desecration Demon
• 2 Imposing Sovereign
• 4 Lyev Skyknight
• 3 Obzedat, Ghost Council
• 4 Soldier of the Pantheon
• 4 Xathrid Necromancer

• Spells (11)
• 4 Detention Sphere
• 1 Doom Blade
• 1 Far // Away
• 2 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Ultimate Price
• 2 Whip of Erebos

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
• 3 Doom Blade
• 1 Far // Away
• 1 Glare of Heresy
• 2 Negate
• 1 Pay No Heed
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 3 Thoughtseize
• 2 Underworld Connections

Buy This Deck

This deck has a lot of very interesting interactions and really manages to walk the line between aggro and midrange. Against aggressive decks you have early blockers, all manner of Xathrid Necromancer tricks to pull, and can lock up the game with Supreme Verdict and Obzedat, Ghost Council. Against more controlling decks, you can curve out with aggressive bodies backed by Xathrid Necromancer for resiliency to Supreme Verdict and top out with the Obzedat/Whip of Erebos interaction to shut off your opponent's removal.

The cool thing about this deck is that you get to splash for Lyev Skynight and Detention Sphere, which are incredibly good in this format. These give you answers to Pack Rat and Jace, Architect of Thought, and can also buy you time against other gods and Planeswalkers.

This deck has the tools it needs to play an aggressive tempo game or to slow things down and play a more midrangey and controlling game. The flexible gameplan was a huge boon to the deck at Grand Prix Shizuoka, but now that this is a known quantity, it may become necessary to really focus on the aggro or control plan rather than trying to allow for both plans.

Our next deck is also from Grand Prix Shizuoka, but this time comes from master deck builder Shota Yasooka. Shota has made a name for himself by building ambitious control decks that no one else has been able to find, and this tournament was no different. While everyone else is playing Esper and Blue-White, Shota Yasooka put up a Top Four performance with an interesting take on Blue-Black Control:

[Cardlist Title= UB Control - Standard | Shota Yasooka, Top 4 Grand Prix Shizuoka]

• Lands (26)
• 2 Dimir Guildgate
• 7 Island
• 4 Mutavault
• 5 Swamp
• 4 Temple of Deceit
• 4 Watery Grave

• Creatures (4)
• 2 Master of Waves
• 2 Prognostic Sphinx

• Spells (24)
• 1 Devour Flesh
• 3 Dissolve
• 2 Domestication
• 1 Doom Blade
• 1 Essence Scatter
• 3 Hero's Downfall
• 2 Opportunity
• 3 Ratchet Bomb
• 3 Syncopate
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 1 Ultimate Price
• 2 Warped Physique

• Planeswalkers (6)
• 2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
• 4 Jace, Architect of Thought

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Doom Blade
• 3 Duress
• 2 Gainsay
• 1 Negate
• 3 Pack Rat
• 1 Pithing Needle
• 4 Tidebinder Mage

Buy This Deck

This deck does a number of interesting things, and stakes out an interesting position in the current Standard metagame. Perhaps the most exciting cards to see are Ratchet Bomb and Ashiok. Ratchet Bomb is awesome against two of the best cards in the format: Master of Waves and Pack Rat, and give Blue-Black answers to permanents like Underworld Connections and Planeswalkers. Ashiok gives you a huge edge in control mirrors, and can easily steal key creatures from decks like Mono-Black and White-Black.

This deck is slightly more permanent based than Esper, but that gives you access to Master of Waves as a way to control the board or apply pressure against control decks. Similarly, you have Prognostic Sphinx rather than Aetherling. Prognostic Sphinx may not give you the same inevitability, but it comes down sooner and helps to ensure that you don't run out of gas, or can dig towards the answers you need to keep the game under wraps.

Momentary Blink. This card has been doing insane things with Reveillark ever since it was first printed, and has been a popular casual card for just as long. It protects your guys from removal, rebuys your Enters the Battlefield effects, and resets things like persist and evoke. More recently we've had Restoration Angel fulfilling many of the same roles. What happens when these two cards team up in Modern? Jerax built this Bant Blink deck to find out:

Bant Blink - Modern | jerax, 3-1 Modern Daily Event

• Lands (24)
• 4 Breeding Pool
• 2 Celestial Colonnade
• 1 Forest
• 3 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Horizon Canopy
• 1 Island
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Plains
• 3 Razorverge Thicket
• 1 Seachrome Coast
• 1 Stirring Wildwood
• 2 Temple Garden

• Creatures (23)
• 3 Kitchen Finks
• 4 Mulldrifter
• 4 Mystic Snake
• 4 Noble Hierarch
• 4 Restoration Angel
• 1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
• 1 Snapcaster Mage
• 2 Vendilion Clique

• Spells (13)
• 1 Bant Charm
• 2 Finest Hour
• 3 Mana Leak
• 3 Momentary Blink
• 4 Path to Exile

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Aven Mindcensor
• 1 Cloudthresher
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Fracturing Gust
• 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1 Knight-Captain of Eos
• 2 Krosan Grip
• 2 Runed Halo
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 1 Stony Silence
• 2 Supreme Verdict

Buy This Deck

So this deck does just a few things, all of them involving Blinking shenanigans. You can gain life and maintain board presence with Kitchen Finks. You can draw all the cards with Mulldrifter or disrupt your opponent's hand with Vendilion Clique. You can counter spells with Mystic Snake. You can fog people forever with Knight-Captain of Eos or soft-lock control players with Glen Elendra Archmage. There are few things this deck can't do; that's part of why Blink decks are so sweet.

This deck occupies an interesting position in the current Modern format. You don't have a ton of game against the unfair decks of the format, but you're very well set up against the aggressive and midrange decks. The value-engine of this deck is just very powerful, and scales well over the course of the game. Almost every creature is a two-for-one, and turns each of your Momentary Blinks into two-for-ones as well. It's hard for cards like Liliana of the Veil to keep up with that.

The problem is that your engine is pretty slow. If you're squaring off against something like Affinity or Storm, you might not get a chance to start casting Momentary Blinks before you die. But if you expect to play against more Jund, Junk, and Blue-White-Red decks, then this seems like a great choice to go just a little bit bigger.

Legacy has been all about True-Name Nemesis mirrors recently, but how do you ensure that you have the edge in True-Name mirrors? Some people are pushing Batterskull and Umezawa's Jitte as the answer to this question, but heggie023 has gone in a different direction: countermagic and Standstill. Let's take a look at this take on Blue-Red Landstill:

[Cardlist Title=UR Landstill- Legacy | heggie023, 3-1 Legacy Daily Event]

• Lands (23)
• 4 Mishra's Factory
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Mutavault
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Snow-Covered Island
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Underground Sea
• 4 Volcanic Island

• Creatures (6)
• 3 Snapcaster Mage
• 2 True-Name Nemesis
• 1 Vendilion Clique

• Spells (31)
• 3 Brainstorm
• 4 Burst Lightning
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Cryptic Command
• 2 Engineered Explosives
• 2 Fire // Ice
• 2 Flusterstorm
• 4 Force of Will
• 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Spell Snare
• 2 Standstill
• 1 Teferi's Response

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 1 Phantasmal Image
• 1 Phyrexian Revoker
• 2 Pyroblast
• 1 Pyroclasm
• 1 Red Elemental Blast
• 2 Relic of Progenitus
• 2 Smash to Smithereens
• 1 Sower of Temptation
• 1 Submerge
• 1 Sulfur Elemental

Buy This Deck

So how does this deck gain the edge against opposing True-Name Nemesis? Well, you start with a ton of cheap countermagic, including hard counters like Counterspell and Cryptic Command. Then you get to back that up with Standstill, which helps to ensure that you win the ensuing counterwar over True-Name Nemesis. Even if your opponent does resolve their Merfolk Rogue, you have access to Engineered Explosives in the maindeck to sweep the board clear.

In other matchups, you can play a more traditional Blue-Red tempo plan. You have resilient creatures, burn, disruption, and even five manlands to pressure opposing Wastelands and life totals. This deck seems poorly positioned against the White creature decks of Legacy, since they have so many creatures which absolutely must be answered, but in return you get to be preboarded against True-Name Nemesis and spell-based combo decks, which seems like a good place to be in the current metagame.

Our last deck is an interesting take on Magic's most degenerate mechanic: dredge. Dredge is been a bogeyman of Legacy and Vintage for many years, but what changes when you try to build around dredge in a singleton format when there are only thirteen dredge cards? Let's take a look at Aggro_zombies' Damia Dredge deck to find out:

[Cardlist title=Damia Dredge - Commander | Aggro_zombies]

• Commander (1)
• 1 Damia, Sage of Stone

• Lands (38)
• 5 Forest
• 2 Island
• 4 Swamp
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Underground Sea
• 1 Bayou
• 1 Tropical Island
• 1 Watery Grave
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Drowned Catacombs
• 1 Woodland Cemetery
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 1 Barren Moor
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 1 Cephalid Coliseum
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Bazaar of Baghdad
• 1 Dust Bowl
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold

• Ramp (0)

• Recursion and Value (18)
• 1 Drowned Rusalka
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Fauna Shaman
• 1 Trinket Mage
• 1 Entomb
• 1 Vampiric Tutor
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Survival of the Fittest
• 1 Birthing Pod
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Archaeomancer
• 1 Genesis
• 1 Havengul Lich
• 1 Tortured Existence
• 1 Oversold Cemetery
• 1 Regrowth
• 1 Victimize

• Dredge (4)
• 1 Dakmor Salvage
• 1 Life from the Loam
• 1 Stinkweed Imp
• 1 Golgari Grave-Troll

• Removal (12)
• 1 Bone Shredder
• 1 Sylvok Replica
• 1 Wickerbough Elder
• 1 Shriekmaw
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Attrition
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 1 Black Sun's Zenith
• 1 Toxic Deluge
• 1 Pernicious Deed
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Grave Pact

• Utility (11)
• 1 Deathrite Shaman
• 1 Rootwater Thief
• 1 Disciple of Griselbrand
• 1 Riftsweeper
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
• 1 Wonder
• 1 Prophet of Kruphix
• 1 Elixir of Immortality
• 1 Sadistic Hypnotist
• 1 Mind Slash

• Win Conditions (8)
• 1 Phantasmal Image
• 1 Nighthowler
• 1 Splinterfright
• 1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1 Triskelion
• 1 Worm Harvest

Buy This Deck

This deck does a ton of really cool things. My favorite Commander decks are the ones that do interesting things with the Graveyard, and this certainly qualifies. We've only got four dredge cards in the entire deck, but with tons of Entomb effects and various tutors, it's not too hard to find a dredger. Once you do, you can use the various Eternal Witness and Archaeomancer effects to play out of your graveyard. Just keep rebuying the best creatures and spells for the current board state and cast them over and over until you pull ahead.

The problem with this style of deck is always that you're very vulnerable to graveyard hate. I like that Aggro_zombies has decreased his reliance on the dredge mechanic in favor of a few more generic, powerful cards so that he isn't quite as soft to random Bojuka Bogs. You even have Elixir of Immortality to protect your entire graveyard and give you some inevitability against other decks that are looking to play long games.

What I really like about this deck is that you don't just have a ton of answers, you also have a few ways to actually end the game. Splinterfright and Jarad are both on-theme and get very large very fast. You also have Worm Harvest, which is very difficult to fight through in combination with Life from the Loam. Lastly, Aggro_zombies has the Mikaeus, the Unhallowed/Triskelion combo for infinite damage which he can try to assemble using the dredge engine to dig through his deck.

All in all, I think this is a very fair, interesting take on the dredge mechanic, and I'd love to see what other kinds of decks can be built using this style of engine.