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Main » Articles » New Decks in Standard and Modern

New Decks in Standard and Modern

Jarvis Yu
Posted on March 8, 2013
 Reddit

Recently, I have been playing a lot of Modern and Standard (in preparation for Pro Tour Qualifiers and the next PTQ season).

In my matches on Magic Online, I’ve found quite a few interesting (or underappreciated decks) that might have gone under the radar.

In Modern, the vacuum left by the ban of Seething Song and Bloodbraid Elf has led people to try all sorts of interesting things.

Consider xMIMx’s Blood Moon Zoo:

"Blood Moon Zoo"

Blood Moon
Blood Moon is a very polarizing card. Either it destroys your opponent’s strategy or it is a blank (think Tron versus Merfolk). Besides that, I rather like the construction of this deck. Domri Rade and Garruk Relentless fill the void that Bloodbraid Elf left in this style of deck, and Burst Lightning and Lightning Bolt are efficient answers to Deathrite Shaman, Birds of Paradise, and Noble Hierarch.

He also has six turn-one accelerants himself to help increase the chance of landing a turn-two Blood Moon, Knight of the Reliquary, or Kitchen Finks. Knight of the Reliquary is a card that has been scorned since the printing of Deathrite Shaman, but with seven turn-one answers (as well as two Domri Rade), I don’t think it is a very big issue for this style of deck. Previous incarnations of his deck featured Equipment (which make mana guys better), Hero of Bladehold, and Thundermaw Hellkite.

Another surprising deck to spot in the 4–0 Magic Online dailies is this low-curve aggressive deck:

"Smaland’s Goblins"

Everything is a Goblin, a burn spell, or an anthem. The curve is a bit higher than I’d like (there are seven 3-drops . . . and no Goblin Guide!?). The idea is certainly very interesting, and Shared Animosity provides quite a powerful effect. Dragon Fodder and Krenko's Command seem worth trying out here. Also, with this many 3s, I could see shaving one Shared Animosity for a miser’s Teetering Peaks or Smoldering Spires or even another Mountain. I wouldn’t mind a Forked Bolt or Arc Trail in the sideboard—instead of the fourth Goblin Grenade—along with some number of Dismembers. Goblin Assault seems interesting but also costs 3 mana, which will lead to a glut of 3s in post-boarded games.

"EMTEE’s (aka Gerry Thompson) Amulet of Vigor Combo"

This deck is very strange-looking to me, and intuitively, it’s hard to tell how it actually wins. What I do know is that it is very possible to play a turn-two Primeval Titan and then proceed to win from there:

Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Explore both give you redundancy on your Summer Blooms, although they aren’t nearly as explosive. I suspect this deck is faster than most other combo decks, although a lot probably depends on an Amulet of Vigor sticking.

What’s Going in Standard?

The Standard MOCS had a surprising deck in the Top 4. It’s an interesting deck I found was designed by NicotineJones, and it was played to a Top 4 finish by cjlack92 (@revo_ on Twitter).

"NicotineJones and cjlack92’s Surgeon Generals"

This deck is in between an aggressive deck and a control deck. I suspect you choose which role to take depending on the matchup. NicotineJones describes the deck as a control deck that is forced into a beatdown role against other control decks (in a similar vein to Jund control).

Unburial Rites
Obzedat, Ghost Council, Falkenrath Aristocrat, and Aurelia, the Warleader are all huge problems for control decks, and with two Unburial Rites and two Cavern of Souls, they are easier to put it into play than it may appear on the surface. He claims there is a positive matchup against Bant and Esper, which I can easily see to be the case.

Cjlack92 lost to Zombies in the Top 4, although it was due in no small part to Pillar of Flame not exiling creatures, and I believe he is going to write an in-depth primer/article on it. The matchup against aggressive decks seems more than fine with eight brick-wall creatures (four Boros Reckoners and four Gloom Surgeons are quite good at blocking).

Three other Zombies decks cracked the Top 4 here, but I don’t see much out of the ordinary here, although maybe it gained value because Pillar of Flame didn’t work correctly.

Two Esper decks (one in the hands of Paul Rietzl), one Jund deck, and one Naya aggro deck (in Matt Griffin’s hands) also cracked the Top 8 of one of the toughest Standard tournaments around.

Yet another deck that went under the radar won the StarCityGames Classic in Louisville this past weekend:

"Andrew Shrout’s Prime Speaker Bant"

Prime Speaker Zegana
This looks like a very clean midrange deck, touching blue—instead of red—for Prime Speaker Zegana and to have access to Jace, Memory Adept and Syncopate in sideboarded games. According to Shrout, Tomoharu Saito and Gerard Fabiano were hammering out a deck similar to this on Twitter, but Shrout decided to drop the Master Biomancer aspect but leave in the Strangleroot Geists. I suspect this deck has a very rough time against Esper and Bant alike—even if you draw a bunch of cards, a sweeper drops you to square one. In addition, the Angel of Serenity endgame of looping Angels is much more difficult to push through without any Cavern of Souls.

Even a singleton Cavern would make things much easier due to how long the games against Bant and Esper go on.



To summarize, Modern and Standard have been breeding pools for innovation. As long as you find something that is exploiting an interesting angle to attack from—and it has a sufficient power level—you have a great shot of surprising everyone at your next tournament.

For those of you who are less inclined to do that, I still think Naya Pod, Jund (of some sorts), Scapeshift combo, and W/U/x variants are great choices in Modern.

In Standard, I will be pursuing Bant control for myself—unless the metagame becomes extremely hostile to it.

In Legacy, I will most likely try Shardless B/U/G again for the upcoming Legacy Open in DC, but there’s a bunch of tinkering that needs to be done.

Please leave comments here or on Twitter @jkyu06, and thanks for reading!

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, analysis, deck lists, deck list, modern, jarvis yu

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