The Gold Standard Updated

Posted on September 19, 2012

Return to Ravnica spoiler season is now in full swing and, although less than half of the set has been officially spoiled so far, we’ve already seen a fair amount of obviously powerful cards that are sure to be pillars of the new Standard format. Gold cards tend to be more powerful than mono-colored cards, and the mana in the new Standard is going to be much better than last year’s Standard as well. New Standard formats are usually defined by the cards from the older block, but with the power level of RTR being so high, it’s more likely that the format will be defined more by the new cards than the old.

Still, one old strategy that is undoubtedly going to be good in the new format is Zombies. Although the deck was not popular in Innistrad Block due to the fact that it was impossible to splash another color, the deck loses almost nothing in the rotation, and it gains quite a bit. It’s often been said that it’s good to be aggressive in a new metagame because a control deck requires the player to know what it will need to be able to answer.

Aggro decks are also generally more powerful in Standard than they are in Block formats because there is more often a critical mass of aggressive creatures and more dual lands, which are more important for aggro decks than control and midrange decks. Zombies has traditionally been a B/R deck, but with all the new B/G Zombie cards that have been spoiled, Golgari seems like the way to go. Here’s a possible decklist:

"Golgari Zombies"

Spells (10)
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Tragic Slip
4 Rancor

The best reason for Zombies to splash green over any other color is Lotleth Troll, which gives the deck the second 2-drop that it sorely needed. Slitherhead replaces Fume Spitter as the third 1-drop, and it also works very well with the Troll. Dreg Mangler gives you another powerful 3-drop, which helps the deck curve out more consistently. The deck also gains the best removal spell that has been printed in a long time in Abrupt Decay, which interestingly gives Zombies an answer to cards such as Oblivion Ring and Detention Sphere, cards that it used to have no way to deal with.

Finally, being green means that you get to play Rancor, which makes cards such as Gravecrawler and Slitherhead much scarier in the late game and helps your Geralf's Messengers push through. It’s also important to look at the cards that are no longer in the format that might have been holding Zombies back. Celestial Purge, Blade Splicer, and Timely Reinforcements, possibly the three best cards at fighting Zombies, are all going to be gone. Overall, this seems to be the most inherently powerful strategy in the new Standard, and it will probably be the deck to beat.

There is one glaring weakness that the Zombies deck has though: They are very bad at blocking. There also happens to be a very powerful creature that demands to be blocked that is not rotating. Yes, I am talking about Geist of Saint Traft, my favorite card in Standard and probably what I will be playing with in the new format. The fact that Geist has hexproof didn’t mean as much over the last year due to the abundance of Clones in the format, but in the new metagame, there will be far fewer ways to deal with him.

Zombies also loses Geth's Verdict, so they might be forced to sideboard some number of Liliana of the Veil or Tribute to Hunger to make sure that they aren’t dead to Geist. Playing Liliana in the main deck seems a bit risky due to the presence of Loxodon Smiter.

Geist is at its best in an aggressive shell, so the obvious card to play with it is Delver of Secrets. Geist’s best friend Restoration Angel is also sticking around, so that makes sense in the deck as well. Here’s what I think the Delver/Geist decks should look like in the new Standard:

"Azorius Tempo"

But Delver lost Ponder and Mana Leak, you say. It wasn’t good in Block, you say. It didn’t put up good results last weekend, you say. None of it matters. Essence Scatter actually does a pretty good job of replacing Mana Leak because the most powerful cards in this format are going to be 3-drop creatures such as Geralf's Messenger and Geist of Saint Traft. Playing more than twenty instants and sorceries is still going to allow you to transform your Delvers often enough, and you’re still going to get the oops-I-win draws with the deck. Vapor Snag being gone actually isn’t a huge deal either, thanks to Azorius Charm.

Most people I’ve heard talk about the set so far have said that Azorius Charm is the weakest of the Charms, but I strongly disagree. It seems more powerful than Selesnya Charm, and the way the format is shaping up, it might even be better positioned than Izzet Charm. Azorius Charm does everything you could ever want to do against Zombies. It puts Lotleth Trolls and Geralf's Messengers on top of their owners’ libraries, which aside from exiling them, is the best possible answer to both cards. It also gives you the option of gaining life, which is great for racing against Zombies.

Both of these abilities work perfectly with Geist, as you can clear out a blocker or gain at least 6 life. Also, it will never be a dead card, as you can always cycle it to find another threat. Feeling of Dread provides another way to remove blockers and push your Geist through. It is so efficient at doing this and at winning races that I’m a bit surprised that it hasn’t seen more play already. Finally, we also have Lyev Skyknight, which would have been pretty bad when Gut Shot was around but now seems to be among the best cards to have against Zombies. It’s basically a more expensive Delver that also pushes your Geist through and works great with Restoration Angel.

You may have noticed that I don’t have any Snapcaster Mages in this deck. As sacrilegious as it might seem to not play them in a W/U tempo deck, the fact is that we can’t play too many creatures because we need to keep the spell count high enough to make Delver good. Also, eight of the spells in the deck already have flashback, and the loss of Ponder and Vapor Snag makes Snappy much less efficient. In last year’s W/U Delver decks, Snapcaster was often a 2- or 3-drop, but in this deck, it would be a 4-drop most of the time, which is much less exciting.

Snapcaster will surely find a home, though, probably in an Izzet control deck. Certain people always like to play control, and this seems to be the most obvious way to go if you’re one of them. With the Titans gone, Niv-Mizzet is probably the best finisher for a control deck, which is an incentive to be in Izzet colors. Another big incentive is Izzet Charm, which does pretty much anything you need it to do. It’s also possible that people will splash black for removal spells such as Dreadbore and Ultimate Price. It seems that this deck would be similar to the U/B control deck from early this year, which was a draw-go deck that tried to counter or kill things on its opponent’s turn.

However, counterspells are not going to be very good in a field of aggro and midrange decks, which is what the format seems to be shaping up to be. I think that a better way to build a control deck in this format is to be more of a tap-out deck. In this case, I think Alexander Hayne’s miracles deck is actually a good starting point for a W/U control deck. Maybe something like this:

"Azorius Miracles"

I wasn’t particularly impressed with this deck at the Pro Tour, despite the fact that it took down the tournament. Hayne got there on the back of his Limited record, and the rest of his team fared much worse. However, Return to Ravnica gives the deck a lot of what it was missing. Supreme Verdict is the most important gain since the most important thing for this deck is to survive long enough to start casting miracles. Azorius Charm might not seem like a control card, but it can both buy you a turn and acts as another way to cast your miracles on your opponent’s turn.

Detention Sphere provides an answer to planeswalkers, which is sorely needed in this kind of deck. Without it, an early Liliana or even a Jace might be able to grind out the game. It’s also a great answer to cards such as Lotleth Troll, Geralf's Messenger, and even multiple Gravecrawlers. The mana is also much, much better; the Pro Tour deck had nothing but Evolving Wilds for fixing, whereas we now have three different dual lands. I think this will probably be a strong deck in the new format, especially if the metagame is as creature-centric as it appears to be. At the very least, you can be sure that Andrew Cuneo will play it.

In summary, it seems that Zombies will be the deck to beat at first, which makes a W/U Geist deck a good choice. I also expect there to be some sort of Selesnya aggro deck, a token deck revolving around Lingering Souls, and some sort of Unburial Rites reanimator deck. It’s likely that people will then react to Zombies by playing midrange decks, probably in Jund or Naya colors, with cards such as Huntmaster of the Fells, Restoration Angel, and Thragtusk. If this happens, a tap-out control deck such as W/U miracles seems like the way to go.

These decks are what I think we’re going to be most likely to see in the first few weeks of the new metagame, but this is really just scratching the surface. With this many powerful multicolored cards in the format and with such good mana, the possibilities are endless.

Chris Henderson

Twitter @chris_henders