Rise of the Eldrazi has been released into the wild, on paper at least, and already people are throwing around new deck ideas. Unlike Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi is a large set with its own distinct themes, and as such it is expected to not only shake up the familiar archetypes but also generate a slew of new, mediocre deck types. Rise of the Eldrazi is - quite deliberately - drastically different from what has gone before, with a whole range of expensive new bombs and tools for ramping into them. We have a SCG $5k this weekend that will be the first high-level event showing off the new cards, but the first chance most of us will have to sling them beyond FNM will be at the various Nationals Qualifiers – what used to be Regionals. May 15th is the date, giving us a little over two weeks to get cards together and do some testing.

So, will the new decks make an impact, will it be the same old standbys like Jund, Mythic and UW, or will a second tier strategy like Red aggro or Vampires make a comeback? Today I'll be taking a look at the decks I'm going to be looking at in the lead up to my own National Qualifiers, with the intention of following up in the next couple of weeks with my testing results. Let me know in the comments if you want me to focus on a particular deck first, this will influence what I write about next week!

UG Polymorph

So, after looking at all those ways to generate tons of mana a couple of weeks ago, how am I going to generate 15 mana to play the two Emrakuls I picked up at the prerelease? Answer – I'm not. Getting to 4 mana for Polymorph is so much more sensible, and the only minor deckbuilding inconvenience you have to endure to make it work is not playing any other creatures in your deck. Simple, really!

[cardlist]2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Polymorph

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Garruk Wildspeaker

4 Awakening Zone

4 See Beyond

4 Ponder

4 Explore

4 Deprive

3 Into the Roil

4 Halimar Depths

4 Khalni Garden

4 Misty Rainforest

3 Gargoyle Castle

6 Island

3 Forest[/cardlist]

So, how does the list work? Well, the namesake card should give us some clues – it lets you destroy a target creature, and it's controller reveals cards from the top of their library until they flip up a creature card, and they put that creature into play for free. Rather than base the deck around using Polymorph as a ghetto removal spell, we're intending to Polymorph one of our own creatures in order to get out Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.

By playing no other creatures, we guarantee that a successful Polymorph will reach Emrakul, but we do need creatures to target and so we play a number of creature token generators. Since our entire strategy is dependent on these tokens, we play a variety of different card types that make tokens, meaning our opponents will need diverse answers to them – or a grip full of Maelstrom Pulse. Khalni Garden, Awakening Zone, Garruk and Gargoyle Castle can all make tokens ready for Polymorphing and we have a variety of ways to find them.

Ponder is a given for a combo deck like this, and we have a couple of cantrips that can stall our opponent or accelerate our mana while digging us deeper. Jace and new boy See Beyond are particularly useful as drawing an Emrakul is a disaster – not only is it a dead card, but if we don't have one in our deck we can't Polymorph into anything useful! Deprive will be used only to protect our combo and our Emrakul once it's landed. The lands are pretty self explanatory as they produce blue and green mana, but Halimar Depths is especially nice with Deprive as it can be re-used to find whatever we are missing from our combo at the time.

While it's not worth throwing out a precise sideboard before doing any testing, there are a few cards I think will certainly find a place in the precious 15:

Fog -- One problem the deck will face is the speed of the pre-RoE aggro decks. Fog can buy you a whole turn for just one green mana, and it's especially good against Red as many of their creatures die at the end of the turn or shrink, like Plated Geopede.

Nature's Claim -- One thing that can stop a resolved Emrakul is Oblivion Ring, as it doesn't target while it is a spell on the stack. It's triggered ability to remove another permanent happens when Oblivion Ring is already in play, so removing Emrakul is A-OK. Claim is the cheapest way to get our fatty back and it can be done at instant speed, plus when we have a 15/15 annihilator 6 giving the opponent 4 life is not a major issue.

Negate -- Another counterspell will certainly come in handy against UW with its many Wraths and any deck that is likely to bring in their own counterspells, like UW or Mythic. Dispel is another option for this slot, though stopping opposing Jaces is extremely important as he is even better against Emrakul than Oblivion Ring is.

Spreading Seas -- Mike Flores calls this card the main reason to play blue these days. While I think it'll be too wonky against too many of the experimental new decks at Nats Qualifiers, it is certainly a beating against Jund and could buy us enough time to Emrakul them out.

Broodwarden, Eldrazi Monument, Overrun, Time Warp -- I love dreaming up crazy transformational sideboards to throw the opponent off for game 2, and these are some possibilities I've come up with so far.

Barely Boros

One of my favorite decks from before Worldwake came out, this has taken a severe popularity hit with the arrival of Kor Firewalker, and his insertion into every sideboard. There are a number of tasty new red cards to consider from Rise of the Eldrazi, though I want to keep the white in to deal with the annoying prot-bear.

[cardlist]4 Goblin Guide

4 Goblin Bushwhacker

4 Plated Geopede

3 Hell's Thunder

4 Devastating Summons

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Searing Blaze

4 Staggershock

2 Path to Exile

2 Ajani Vengeant

4 Arid Mesa

4 Scalding Tarn

4 Teetering Peaks

10 Mountain

2 Plains

Sideboard

4 Flame Slash

4 Earthquake

4 Manabarbs

2 Path to Exile

1 Ajani Vengeant[/cardlist]

This deck list should be familiar to keen followers of standard as it is a revision of some earlier lists. First, the obvious omission of Kargan Dragonlord - this is purely an availability choice. None of my local buddies has any of these, and ordering them online brings no guarantee they'll arrive in time, so I am working with what I have or can easily get.

The game plan is very straightforward - drop little red men and turn them sideways, quickly. I'm sad to be dropping my elemental tag team of Ball Lightning and Hellspark Elemental, but I expect to see a lot of Wall of Omens going around in a couple of weeks time and both cards are pretty miserable against that. Fortunately, Rise of the Eldrazi is more than ready to step into the breach. Pat Chapin has publicised the insanity that is Devastating Summons and the deck is capable of hulking out extremely quickly. First turn Goblin Guide, second turn Searing Blaze, third turn Devastating Summons for your 3 lands & kicked Bushwhacker is precisely 20 damage.

The rest of the deck is basically a selection of the best burn cards available and a small white splash in deference to the aforementioned Firewalker. Ajani Vengeant is also extremely powerful and versatile, and I can't wait to see whether he can rumble with the new enemies as well as he could the old. The sideboard is one of those 1 problem - 1 slot affairs that will develop based on what is causing the deck problems, currently it is Flame Slash - Wall of Omens, Rhox War Monk, Malakir Bloodwitch; Earthquake - Spawn/Elves/tokens; Manabarbs against control decks - I love this card; Path against Firewalker and problematic fatties like Baneslayer; and AjaniV because I had a spare slot. It may be that the white goes out entirely after sideboarding in some matches so 1 or 2 slots may become Mountains!

Green-Red Land Destruction

Wanting to exploit the new mana-ramp tools while simultaneously punish everyone else doing the same thing has led me to create this deck, riffing on Conley Woods' Worlds standard deck that ramped into land destruction spells and culminated in Violent Ultimatum. Since that time, fortunately, we've had a mono-green Ultimatum printed and I'm looking forward to getting my elephant on.

[cardlist]4 Birds of Paradise

4 Joraga Treespeaker

4 Overgrown Battlement

4 Awakening Zone

3 Growth Spasm

4 Acidic Slime

4 Mold Shambler

3 Roiling Terrain

4 Terastodon

2 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

4 Raging Ravine

4 Rootbound Crag

14 Forest

2 Mountain[/cardlist]

I've been wrestling with a couple of choices in here, though I am pretty settled with most of the list. Growth Spasm vs Garruk is one choice I've been considering, and Roiling Terrain vs Goblin Ruinblaster as the third land destruction spell. As discussed in previous articles I'm excited by the mana-ramping possibilities of Joraga Treespeaker, and Overgrown Battlement reminds me of another old favourite - Wall of Roots. The possibility of going nuts with two Battlements is pretty exciting as well.

The plan is to get to 5 mana by turn 3 and hit them with some sort of land destruction spell, which, being on the play, will put them back to 1 land. We follow up with another land destroyer on the 4th turn, keeping them so far behind that they don't notice that our most threatening creature is a 2/2 deathtouch or a 3/3 vanilla. After a couple more turns of locking the opponent in their manascrewed early game, we have enough mana for one of our Ultimatums - Terastodon or Ulamog.

Both of these giant monsters help with the land destruction plan immediately and each has their own additional benefits. Terastodon can turn our now-expendable mana dorks into beefy 3/3 elephants as well as blowing blow up their lands, and is a hefty 9/9 himself. Clocking in at a massive 10/10 indestructible is Ulamog, who also comes with Annihilator 4 - with an opponent so short on lands and plays already, they will most likely be forced to scoop to either one of these.

Of course, the game plan relies entirely on getting ahead of the opponent on mana. If they manage to get set up first and start casting Blightnings or hitting us with Behemoth Sledged Knights of the Reliquary, there is very little our deck can do to get back in it with such a dearth of creature removal or card advantage. Learning to mulligan correctly will be vital with this deck, and I look forward to the challenge.

To Be Continued

So there you have it, three new decks to choose from! Let me know in the comments which you'd most like to see tested and developed for next week, and what you're working on for your own Nationals Qualifiers. I'm hoping Rise will have a big impact on the standard format, and while we might not see it in this weekend's SCG tournament, National Qs is a perfect opportunity to break the next big rogue deck!