The last time I played a Standard event was July of 2017. Both Kaladesh and hard to kill threats like Hazoret the Fervent and The Scarab God thoroughly soured the format for me and I cannot express in words here today how happy I am to see them rotating out.

The sets we have remaining when rotation happens are all full of pretty awesome cards and themes. Ixalan and Rivals have sweet tribes like Vampires, Pirates, and Dinosaurs. Dominaria and Core 2019 have some sweet throwbacks such as Llanowar Elves. Finally, Guilds of Ravnica is taking us back to one of the most iconic places in Magic that is almost always a fan favorite in both power level and flavor.

Testing for a new Standard format is challenging for a variety of reasons, but also a good deal of fun. One of the things that can make it especially difficult is that predicting what you are going to play against, and thus should test against, can be tough. This uncertainty generally means playing a proactive strategy makes the most sense. It is better to be the one asking the questions if you are uncertain what answers you want against most opponents.

The first thing you need to be doing when testing for a new Standard format is figuring out some of the "default" or "level zero" decks that exist. These tend to have aggressive slants and are full of fairly obvious inclusions most people will play if they pick up the archetype. In this newly rotated Standard format, two of the go-to aggro decks will likely be Red Aggro and Green stompy decks.

While I think both Mono-Red and Mono-Green are viable without splash colors in them, I also think access to shock and buddy dual lands in these decks will enable some fairly easy splashes at low costs.

Up first is my starting point for a Green Stompy deck with a small White splash:

Green-White Stompy | Guilds Standard | Jeff Hoogland

• Creatures (34)
• 3 Druid of the Cowl
• 3 Vine Mare
• 4 Knight of Autumn
• 4 Llanowar Elves
• 4 Merfolk Branchwalker
• 4 Nullhide Ferox
• 4 Pelt Collector
• 4 Steel Leaf Champion
• 4 Thorn Lieutenant

• Instants (3)
• 3 Assure // Assemble

• Lands (23)
• 13 Forest
• 2 Plains
• 4 Sunpetal Grove
• 4 Temple Garden

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Before we dive into the White splash, I would like to highlight the reasonable things the Green core gives us on its own. First, we have a strong curve. This deck gets to play not just one, but two reasonable 1-drops:

While Llanowar Elves allows us to jump from one, straight to three, this archetype also gets to play a selection of reasonable 2-drops, such as Thorn Lieutenant and Merfolk Branchwalker, that lets us curve out naturally 1-2-3-4 when we start with Pelt Collector on one.

Speaking of curving out to four, this deck has some of the more difficult 4-drops to interact with left in Standard:

Finally, the White splash gives us access to a couple of very reasonable main deck cards:

Knight of Autumn is exactly the kind of card I want access to in an unknown format. It has the ability to beat down in our aggressive deck, but it also allows us to be flexible if our opponent is trying to get under us or plays a troublesome card we need to remove.

Assure // Assemble feels like it could solve some of the issues this archetype can sometimes have. Assure can protect you from a removal spell or sweeper, while Assemble can provide us with a new board presence if we draw it after a sweeper has resolved. Assure feels especially powerful when used to protect one of our threats that are already difficult to kill, like Nullhide Ferox and Vine Mare.

Up next we have what almost looks a Standard iteration of the Tempo deck I've been playing in Modern:

Izzet Wizards | Guilds Standard | Martypunker

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Adeliz, the Cinder Wind
• 4 Ghitu Lavarunner
• 4 Viashino Pyromancer
• 4 Wee Dragonauts

• Instants (18)
• 2 Ionize
• 4 Lightning Strike
• 4 Opt
• 4 Shock
• 4 Wizard's Lightning

• Sorceries (6)
• 2 Crash Through
• 4 Chart a Course

• Lands (20)
• 5 Island
• 7 Mountain
• 4 Steam Vents
• 4 Sulfur Falls

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This list came from one of my wonderful Twitch subs, and after pouring over the cards legal in Standard I really like it as a jumping off point. Mostly four-ofs, low curve, low land count, and reasonable selection to give us some consistency. While four copies of Adeliz might look like too many at a glance, I think it is the appropriate number. Adeliz is a must answer threat that I want an additional copy to play out as soon as one is removed.

Now I have what I am sure many of you opened this article looking for - some actual brews. This first one is something I am very interested in pulling off a few times on stream even if it ends up not being very competitive:

Abzan Armageddon | Guilds Standard | Jeff Hoogland

• Creatures (24)
• 4 Druid of the Cowl
• 4 Glowspore Shaman
• 4 Jadelight Ranger
• 4 Llanowar Elves
• 4 Remorseful Cleric
• 4 Thorn Lieutenant

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Vraska, Golgari Queen

• Instants (4)
• 4 Assassin's Trophy

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Fall of the Thran

• Lands (24)
• 4 Forest
• 4 Isolated Chapel
• 4 Overgrown Tomb
• 4 Sunpetal Grove
• 4 Temple Garden
• 4 Woodland Cemetery

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For those of you who do not see what is going on here at a glance, let me highlight our build our own Armageddon:

Fall of the Thran destroys all lands when it comes into play. Then Remorseful Cleric can exile their graveyard before they get their lands back, or Vraska, Golgari Queen can sacrifice Fall of the Thran before the later parts of the saga get triggered. This deck can leverage Assassin's Trophy nicely as well since it will be wiping away the land you give to your opponent.

Finally, we have the first of what will likely be many iterations of my favorite archetype to play in Standard. I lovingly refer to as a "kill all the things" deck:

Grixis Super Dragons | Guilds Standard | Jeff Hoogland

• Creatures (8)
• 2 Niv-Mizzet, Parun
• 2 Verix Bladewing
• 4 Nicol Bolas, the Ravager

• Planeswalkers (7)
• 1 Jaya Ballard
• 2 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
• 4 Sarkhan, Fireblood

• Instants (16)
• 1 Cast Down
• 1 Essence Scatter
• 2 Fiery Cannonade
• 2 Negate
• 3 Ionize
• 3 Shock
• 4 Lightning Strike

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Dragon's Hoard

• Lands (25)
• 2 Island
• 9 Mountain
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Unclaimed Territory
• 4 Steam Vents
• 4 Sulfur Falls
• 4 Watery Grave

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Cheap interaction such as Shock, Lightning Strike, and Fiery Cannonade can hopefully help keep us alive. Then our dragons, such as Nicol Bolas, the Ravager, can help us stabilize the board or apply pressure. While this deck has Grixis in the title, this is really more of an Izzet Dragons deck with a small splash for Nicol Bolas off of Sarkhan, Fireblood, Dragon's Hoard, and a few dual lands.

Speaking of Sarkhan, Fireblood - him and Jaya Ballard help solve one of the biggest issues this archetype faces - drawing the wrong mix of cards. Being able to filter through cards that are not good in a given moment for something new can help, ensuring we can interact with what our opponent has going on more consistently.

While I did not dive into building specific sideboards for the lists here, this last list almost certainly will want tools to improve against control decks post board where its removal will come up short. These will likely include additional threats and more counter spells.

Wrapping Up

What are you most excited to get building with now that Standard is finally rotating? Do you like how Green and Red aggressive decks look to be shaping up? Are you working a bit more off the beaten path like my last two lists here? Let me know in a comment below!

Cheers,

-Jeff Hoogland