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Main » Articles » Ten New Ikoria Lair Of Behemoths Standard Brews

Ten New Ikoria Lair Of Behemoths Standard Brews

Jim Davis
Posted on April 17, 2020
 Reddit

Warning!

The decks you are about to see are mostly untested first drafts! They were played live on stream during the special Early Access event on MTG Arena this Wednesday and are my first stabs at the Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths Standard format. Most are brews jam packed with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths cards, while there are also a few updates to previously established archetypes, but it's important to note that these are the first steps and not finished products! Use them as stepping stones for your own deck brewing process, but play them card for card at your own risk!

Godzilla walks the Earth!

Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths is here to shake up Standard, as it is one of the most complicated and ambitious sets of all time. Mutate is a wild mechanic that we're still trying to understand fully, while Companion completely changes the rules of the game in a way tournament Magic has never seen before. Trying to not only figure out how these cards work, but also slot them into an already dynamic and powerful Standard format is going to be quite the challenge.

Today we are going to go over all ten decks I built and played on my stream Wednesday, briefly going over each list and my thoughts on how it was, giving it a letter grade, and talking about what kind of potential it has going forward. I played four to six games with each deck in best of one so the deck's record will also be included.

Let's go!

Turtle Control | IKO Standard | Jim Davis

Deck's Record: 3-2

Deck's Grade: C+

Deck Potential: Very High

Starting off with two decks in one!

Yidaro, Wandering Monster
Rielle, the Everwise

My initial thought with this deck was to build a draw-go style control deck based around Yidaro, Wandering Monster. The opportunity cost of Yidaro is so low and easy as you're playing your control game that you'll eventually just end up with a two mana cantrip 8/8 trample haste. Yidaro is a cheap, painless, and never ending win condition. I added Rielle, the Everwise almost as an afterthought because it played well with cycling and was a secondary win condition.

Holy cow was Rielle good though.

The problem was this was essentially two decks, a Rielle deck and a draw-go control deck, at the same time. I also made a few mistakes during this set, which led to the 3-2 record. However, both Yidaro and Rielle over performed, as well as a card that I called one of my "loves" for the set:

Blitz of the Thunder-Raptor

Blitz of the Thunder-Raptor is everything Izzet has ever wanted in a removal spell, as it's basically a two-mana Vraska's Contempt in a deck desperate for that effect. Blitz is the card that glued both decks together and will be a major staple for the duration of Standard.

This deck isn't that good, but it contains a bunch of great new cards that are good as well as a few good ideas that just need to be worked out. There is major potential here for two distinct archetypes.

Sultai Mutate | IKO Standard | Jim Davis

Deck's Record: 2-3

Deck's Grade: B-

Deck Potential: Medium

Mutate is a very bizarre mechanic. Like a weird mixture of Bestow and Emerge, it offers card advantage at the same time as "putting all your eggs in one basket" risk and is very hard to parse at first glance. This deck was built as an experiment to push the mechanic as far as possible and see how it all pans out.

Pollywog Symbiote
Paradise Druid
Arboreal Grazer

The deck is only possible because of its enablers, with the new Pollywog Symbiote flying under the radar as a phenomenal enabler for the deck. Pollywog Symbiote reduces the cost both just casting your mutate creatures, as well as for when you mutate them, and even lets you loot on top of all that! Paradise Druid's hexproof makes it the perfect target for a big mutate stack as well as a good mana creature, while Arboreal Grazer also wears mutations well.

Sea-Dasher Octopus
Dirge Bat
Trumpeting Gnarr

The payoffs are certainly there, with Sea-Dasher Octopus being one of the best cards in the set and Dirge Bat being excellent, but don't discount the uncommon and common mutate cards as well. Trumpteting Gnarr and Parcelbeast continue the trend of great Simic cards, while Migratory Greathorn was awesome.

It's very possible this deck wants Umori, The Collector as its companion which wouldn't come at much cost and needs more tuning, but it performed much better than I expected it to.

Keruga Fires | IKO Standard | Jim Davis

Deck's Record: 4-1

Deck's Grade: A

Deck Potential: Very High

Our only real update to an established archetype I played in this group of decks, Keruga, the Macrosage slots freely into Jeskai Fires to amazing results.

Keruga, the Macrosage

It's hard to properly explain how powerful having an extra 8th card in your hand is at the start of the game and Jeskai Fires has to jump through almost zero hoops to get there. Bonecrusher Giant is there to cheat a 2-drop into your curve and you're just playing all the cards you want to play anyway; so much for a "deck-building restriction."

The payoff is always having an excellent 5-drop available to you whenever you need a threat or to draw some cards. Any game you are resource light and have a Fires of Invention but nothing to do yet Keruga is there for you, just waiting safely in your sideboard where your opponent can't even Thought Erasure it. Companion is insane.

Our only loss was to a Flash deck, typically a difficult matchup for Jeksai Fires. Otherwise I expect this deck to be one of the best in the format at the beginning of the format.

Dimir Flash | IKO Standard | Jim Davis

Deck's Record: 2-3

Deck's Grade: C

Deck Potential: Medium

What a buzzkill this was. I called Slitherwisp the best multicolored card in the set in my Ikoria Set Review, making this the deck I was most excited about playing.

Slitherwisp

Unfortunately it was anything but smooth sailing.

Two color mana bases in Standard are baaaaad. With a need for double Blue and double Black fairly early as well as a mana curve that wants to play an untapped land almost every turn, we stumbled quite a bit across these five games. Our counterspells didn't always line up great, and we found ourselves overpowered a number of times.

Slitherwisp felt like a sweet card, so maybe if this deck gets smoothed out it could be good, but there's some definitely tension here. My kingdom for a Darkslick Shores!

Lurrus Auras | IKO Standard | Jim Davis

Deck's Record: 4-1

Deck's Grade: B+

Deck Potential: Medium to High

Holy heck is Lurrus of the Dream-Den good.

Lurrus of the Dream-Den

One of the most powerful effects of companion seems to be how the magical "8th" card in hand can give an additional boost to low power/high synergy decks. This deck is a perfect example of this, as while Mire's Grasp and All That Glitters aren't world busting cards, they get very good once you get critical mass of them.

Hateful Eidolon
Alseid of Life's Bounty
Aphemia, the Cacophony

We've seen a lot of these cards before, and they come together to form a nice synergy aggro deck that was always just a little short on raw power. There's tons of cool synergy between Dead Weight and Hateful Eidolon, All That Glitters protected by Karametra's Blessing and Alseid of Life's Bounty, and Aphemia giving you some late game, but sometimes things just wouldn't come together.

Lurrus of the Dream-Den is the extra piece this deck as missing.

Call of the Death-Dweller

As a quick aside we played against someone playing a deck similar to this one and they were playing Call of the Death-Dweller, which is a very clever way to get to play multiple Lurrus if yours gets killed. Because you always have access to Lurrus you never need to worry about drawing Call of the Death-Dweller without drawing Lurrus first, and Call is of course fine to bring back other creatures in the deck.

Boros Cycling Aggro | IKO Standard | Jim Davis

Deck's Record: 3-2

Deck's Grade: C+

Deck Potential: Medium

Boros Cycling decks have a long pedigree that dates way back to Astral Slide and Lightning Rift, although those decks we certainly much different than this one. They also had access to cycling lands, which gave them an extra half a dozen cycling cards built right into their mana base. However, what we have now is a much more aggressive take on a cycling deck and some very friendly cycling costs.

Savai Thundermane
Reptilian Reflection
Zenith Flare

Our payoffs for cycling are certainly numerous, but none as powerful as Lightning Rift or Astral Slide. Savai Thundermane underperformed, as while it looks phenomenal only being able to target creatures was a huge restriction for a fairly high mana investment. As a 3/2 for 2 mana it wasn't bad but wasn't the wrecking ball I expected it to be. Both Reptilian Reflection and Zenith Flare were reasonable, but nothing outstanding.

Glint-Horn Buccaneer

Forgotten rare Glint-Horn Buccaneer was a nice surprise, as being able to chip shot in damage off of it and Drannith Stinger was a nice path to victory. Flourishing Fox and Valiant Rescuer were nice little payoffs as well.

Rielle, the Everwise

With the deck feeling a little short on playables and three color mana bases almost better than two color ones, perhaps a splash for something like Rielle, the Everwise is in order. Rielle would provide another clean threat as well as another bonus for cycling, as you'll draw twice off of each cycle.

Umori Stompy | IKO Standard | Jim Davis

Deck's Record: 3-2

Deck's Grade: C

Deck Potential: Low

In the same vein as Lurrus being the magic 8th card to prop up the Auras synergy deck, I wanted to see if having an 8th card would push stompy big green creatures over the top as well with Umori, the Collector.

Umori, the Collector

Playing all creatures for Umori wasn't too hard, but the deck was extremely one-dimensional. We played big idiots and hoped it was good enough. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. Questing Beast is still a great card and our three and 4-drops were all reasonable, but we didn't do much by way of interaction which was certainly an issue.

Castle Garenbrig
Kogla, the Titan Ape

Part of this was not drawing Kolga, the Titan Ape enough, which was the other half of the inspiration for this deck given how Castle Garenbrig makes it into a 5-drop. Playing all creatures is a tough stipulation and this deck might need to splash a color to be reasonable.

Winota's Agents | IKO Standard | Jim Davis

Deck's Record: 3-2

Deck's Grade: B-

Deck Potential: Medium (High if you're unnaturally lucky)

The most memey of our ten brews, Winota, Joiner of Forces fared surprisingly well.

Winota, Joiner of Forces
Agent of Treachery

The plan is simple - attack with non-human creatures and find Agent of Treachery off of your Winota. The issue is that this is not super probable, so you'll want multiple triggers and a few backup creatures if you can swing it. Kennrith, the Returned King and Elite Guardmage were reasonable plan Bs, but you'd probably want at least two more humans in the deck to have more hits, probably the third and fourth copies of Elite Guardmage.

Legion Warboss
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame

Both Legion Warboss and Chandra, Acolyte of Flame are able to make multiple non-human attackers at once, while also just being very solid cards in their own right. Throw in a bunch of good removal spells and some Teferi, Time Ravelers and you've got a pretty odd but exciting deck.

Playing things for free is always going to be good, and Winota's fail state of being a 4/4 for 4 mana that gets to try again next turn isn't too bad. As long as Agent of Treachery is legal this is something to look in to.

Skycat One | IKO Standard | Jim Davis

Deck's Record: 3-2

Deck's Grade: C+

Deck Potential: Low to Medium

Bad two color mana bases strike again sadly. Taplands are always bad news for aggressive decks, making it so hard to curve out well on the first few turns.

Skycat Sovereign
Empyrean Eagle
Sea-Dasher Octopus

Still, Skycat Sovereign is a pretty nice card that slots right in with Empyrean Eagle and other existing fliers in the format. Sea-Dasher Octopus is also a perfect fit in the deck, giving you a nice card draw engine as early as turn two. Throw in some Healer's Hawks and Tomiks and the deck mostly builds itself.

Sky Tether
Gust of Wind
Teferi, Time Raveler

The problem is figuring what pieces of interaction you want. Every Sky Tether or Gust of Wind improves your matchup against other aggro and midrange decks, but risks being dead against control decks or not a threat when you need it. The same goes for Teferi, Time Ravler, who may not be fast enough or do what you want him to. There's a ton of tension in aggressive decks that are playing 1/1s for one mana to have enough threats, making picking the correct interactive cards in the correct numbers very important. There's also the question of if we want maindeck counterspells or not.

The mana base is the biggest issue, but Skycat Sovereign was pretty sweet. Still, this deck feels a big card short (say Spectral Procession) of being a contender.

Human Sacrifice | IKO Standard | Jim Davis

Deck's Record: 3-3

Deck's Grade: B-

Deck Potential: Medium to High

While our final record wasn't great, this deck really impressed me. Melding together the new human synergies with already existing humans and aristocrats-style sacrifice elements felt great.

General Kudro of Drannith
Dire Tactics
Sanctuary Lockdown

Dire Tactics was obviously great, with General Kudro and Sanctuary Lockdown providing a bit of beef, but more importantly utility. Being able to use our various 1/1s to kill and tap things down was great, as the deck is really about a bunch of small material coming together to do good things together.

Priest of Forgotten Gods
Plaguecrafter
Rankle, Master of Pranks

The human theme is really mostly fodder for the fantastic sacrifice effects we already have in the format. Priest of Forgotten Gods is phenomenal, especially with cards like Hunted Witness and Tithe Taker, with Plaguecrafter offering more of the same. Rankle topping the curve brings even more of those elements in a high power package.

Whisper Squad

The real surprise was Whisper Squad, who played like an outstanding Squadron Hawk. Being able to activate it at instant speed was great, as was sinking Priest of Forgotten Gods mana into it. The deck is full of fodder creatures and Whisper Squad filled that role perfectly.

With some tuning I think this one could be very good.

Cards I Didn't Try But Should Have

Obviously with only ten decks I couldn't get to every card in the set, but here are some cards that really overperformed against us:

Eerie Ultimatum
Gyruda, Doom of Depths
Yorion, Sky Nomad

Eerie Ultimatum resolved twice against us and won the game on the spot, while companions Gyruda, Doom of Depths and Yorion, Sky Nomad both combined with Spark Double to do some absurd things.

I can't wait to try these out as well!

If you'd like to see me playing any of these decks the videos will be going up on my YouTube over the next few days, but it's safe to say we're just getting started. There's a lot to unpack in Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths: two crazy new mechanics to try and understand and an already packed Standard format to fit them in to. I can't wait to see how it all turns out!

TAGS articles, constructed, analysis, standard, decklist, new standard, brews, jim davis, ikoria lair of behemoths, #mtgiko, iko standard, 04172020, ten decks

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