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Main » Articles » Ten New War of the Spark Standard Brews

Ten New War of the Spark Standard Brews

Jim Davis
Posted on May 3, 2019
 Reddit

Warning!

The decks you are about to see are mostly untested first drafts! They were played live on steam this Wednesday as my first stab at the new War of the Spark Standard format. Most are brews jam packed with new War of the Spark cards, while there are a few updates to existing archetypes with new War of the Spark Twists, but it's important to note that these are 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!

With that out of the way, let's get started!

War of the Spark is here and ready to shake up an already great Standard format and it does not disappoint. War of the Spark is very high in overall power level, also containing a bunch of cards that demand to be built around in different ways. I've barely scratched the surface here and I was streaming for over sixteen hours!

Today we're going over all ten decks I played on stream Wednesday, briefly going over each list and my thoughts on how it was, giving it a letter grade, and talking about it what kind of potential it has going forward.

Let's go!

Grixis Amass

Grixis Amass | War Standard | Jim Davis

Deck Grade: B-

Deck Potential: Higher Than Expected

Grixis Amass was our first deck we played, and also one of the most fun and surprising. One of the most important things when building decks in a new format is to push the themes as hard as you can to see how they play out, and many of the amass cards over performed.

Dreadhorde Invasion
Widespread Brutality
Enter the God-Eternals

We already know how good Enter the God-Eternals is from playing it in our Grixis Midrange deck, but Dreadhorde Invasion and Widespread Brutality were also the real deal. Dreadhorde Invasion allows you repeated card advantage when it comes to building your army, helping you rebuild whenever it was destroyed, while Widespread Brutality was aptly brutal against any creature deck. In fact, the deck as a whole just seemed to wreck creature decks without any sort of countermagic. The fear is that these cards aren't as good against control and Nexus of Fate, which is certainly a concern.

Opt

Going forward it would be wise to try and add more cantrips like Opt to the deck to help make Invade the City better as it was one of the better pure token makers. This deck was a blast and something that should be explored further.

All-In Proliferate

All-In Proliferate |War Standard | Jim Davis

Deck Grade: D

Deck Potential: High (as we will see later)

This was me trying to build a Modern deck in Standard.

Memnite
Golgari Thug
Sakura-Tribe Scout

Modern decks are always deeply engrained in their theme, playing cards that would normally be underwhelming and making them good (think Sylvan Scrying, Arcbound Worker, Memnite, Golgari Thug, Sakura-Tribe Scout, etc). This usually doesn't work in Standard, as there isn't enough power in the synergy cards to overcome the generically good cards. While it's good to push themes hard, this deck went too far.

Huatli's Raptor
Evolution Sage
Ajani, the Greathearted

However the proliferate cards and Ajani, the Greathearted were very good, and as we will see a bit later we were able to make it work in a more, um, "normal" looking shell. Still, it's good to try things like this! You don't find out Curious Obsession on a Mist-Cloaked Herald is good until you push the limits.

Scary Pterry

Scary Pterry | War Standard | Jim Davis

Deck Grade: A

Deck Potential: Very High

This was one of the best decks we played and one of our two 5-0 runs.

While not as overtly powerful as a Grixis Nicol Bolas deck, straight Dimir Scary Pterry has a much smoother mana base, more velocity with its cantrips (that are easier to play without needing to shockland constantly), and better game against Nexus of Fate decks as it doesn't need to tap out nearly as much.

Pteramander
Thief of Sanity
Saheeli, Sublime Artificer

Pteramander does a great Tombstalker impression, especially shining in matchups where you bring in counterspells, Thief of Sanity is as good as ever, and Saheeli, Sublime Artificer was very effective at both gumming the board up and giving Thief of Sanity pseudo-haste. The deck is also capable of playing ball in the midgame as well with Enter the God-Eternals and Ugin, the Ineffable as well as some powerful sideboard options.

This is a great place to start in new Standard.

Izzet Wizards

Izzet Wizards | War Standard | Jim Davis

Deck Grade: B-

Deck Potential: High

Adeliz, the Cinder Wind is just an awesome Magic card, and War of the Spark brings her some pretty serious new friends to play with.

Dreadhorde Arcanist
Burning Prophet
Samut's Sprint

Dreadhorde Arcanist is going to go down as one of the best cards in the set in all formats, as it plays so well with one mana spells that there's no way it doesn't find a home in Legacy and Modern as well as Standard. It's fairly durable and a wizard, and with so many one mana cantrips it provides a constant stream of cards and prowess triggers.

Burning Prophet is also exactly what a deck like this needed, a good and durable 2-drop that can attack well and help provide flood insurance. These decks always have a problem flooding and getting to scry over and over is not to be underestimated! Samut's Sprint brings it all together, as giving Dreadhorde Arcanist or Adeliz haste is busted.

There is a chance the deck just wants to be Mono-Red, but this deck was capable of some pretty absurd starts and makes the best use of Dreadhorde Arcanist of any deck so far.

Selesnya Tokens

Selesnya Tokens | War Standard | Jim Davis

Deck Grade: B+

Deck Potential: Medium to High

Always a tier two deck floating on the outskirts of Standard, Selesnya Tokens gets a pair of huge upgrades in War of the Spark.

Ajani, the Greathearted
Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves

Ajani, the Greathearted was made for this deck and is one of the most powerful new planeswalkers in the set. Ajani Goldmane was a big deal and Ajani, the Greathearted compares very favorably and does everything that Selesnya Tokens could want. Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves is another great upgrade, providing a lot of power and a little removal at a reasonable cost.

The Nexus of Fate matchup is a little scary, but Selesnya Tokens has a lot of great tools.

Boros Heroic

Boros Heroic | War Standard | Jim Davis

Deck Grade: C+

Deck Potential: High Ceiling, Low Floor

Feather, the Redeemed was one of the most hyped cards coming into War of the Spark, and there's no doubt when she is on the battlefield she can do some crazy things.

Feather, the Redeemed
Tenth District Legionnaire

Both Feather, the Redeemed and Tenth District Legionnaire are great payoffs for targeting your creatures, but the cost of playing cards like Reckless Rage, Gird for Battle, and Sheltering Light in your Standard deck is high. If your opponent is able to remove your payoffs and keep Feather from getting going, you're left with a hand full of Limited combat tricks and a prayer.

We did some powerful things with this deck, but it felt very fragile.

Grixis Bolas

Grixis Bolas | War Standard | Jim Davis

Deck Grade: C

Deck Potential: Medium to High

An update to the deck I played on this Monday's video, this deck has been all over MTG Arena for the last few days. This has caused the metagame to react very well to it and despite crushing with it when I recorded my video last Sunday, we did not do well playing it on Wednesday. Metagames adapt fast and we were playing against opponents who were very prepared for what we were doing with cards like Nullhide Ferox.

Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God

Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God is still one of the most powerful cards in War of the Spark, and Grixis Midrange will likely be a major player in Standard going forward, but as one of the most obvious decks in the new format it's going to be very prepared for early on.

Golgari Midrange

Golgari Midrange | War Standard | Jim Davis

Deck Grade: C

Deck Potential: Low

Ah yes, the mother of all medium decks.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General

Liliana, Dreadhorde General is one of the most powerful cards in War of the Spark, and it seemed like maybe she was enough to bring us back to playing straight Golgari Midrange over Sultai, but overall this mostly just felt like your same old Golgari deck. The mana base is certainly smoother and Carnage Tyrant and Liliana were a nice top end, but you're still only fine against everything and an underdog to Nexus of Fate without counterspells in your sideboard.

Golgari is very medium and Liliana is not enough to make it a desirable deck to play.

Explore Proliferate

Explore Proliferate | War Standard | Jim Davis

Deck Grade: A

Deck Potential: High

Evolution in action!

We recognized the power of the proliferate cards from our earlier attempt and melded them with the tried and true explore engine to come up with a very nice beatdown machine.

Huatli's Raptor
Pelt Collector
Evolution Sage

Huatli's Raptor and Evolution Sage slot perfectly in alongside the explore engine, helping to beef up all your creatures very quickly, with Pelt Collector keeping the beats going. You don't get to manually evolve Pelt Collector that many times, but even just as a 1/1 with a +1/+1 counter on it for 1 mana it's a good deal as you can proliferate it early and often.

Ajani, the Greathearted is obviously amazing in this deck, and we filled out our curve with the new Prison Realm as removal and the very underrated Law-Rune Enforcer as a way to play some extra removal but also a cheap creature.

Cindervines

This deck may want to splash Red for Cindervines to improve the Nexus of Fate matchup, but this was our other 5-0 on the day and was very impressive.

Simic Nexus

Simic Nexus | War Standard | Jim Davis

Deck Grade: A+

Deck Potential: Too High

Ah yes, the enemy of the free peoples of War of the Spark Standard.

Simic Nexus was already obnoxious, but it gets some significant upgrades.

Tamiyo, Collector of Tales
Blast Zone

Tamiyo, Collector of Tales adds another piece to the Simic Nexus engine, helping it to piece together what it doesn't have while also allowing you to re-buy lost pieces. Even just re-buying Root Snare once or twice can be devastating, and Tamiyo really takes the deck to another level. Furthermore, Blaze Zone is a super easy to play answer to basically everything that plays astonishingly well with Wilderness Reclamation, giving the deck answers to potential hate cards.

Make no mistake about it, if you're playing in SCG Richmond tomorrow or in any Standard events in the near future, you need a plan to beat this deck. It feels completely broken, and if you don't have good ways to interact it feels like you are trying to play a draft deck against a Modern deck.

You've been warned!

Not Enough Hours In The Day

The amount of things I want to try in this Standard format is astronomical.

There are just so many awesome cards and ideas to try that there aren't enough hours in the day. Planeswalkers, build around me cards, updates to old decks, new combos... and that's not even considering its impact on Modern and Legacy!

It's going to be an exciting month, and I can't wait to see the results from SCG Richmond this weekend. I hope I find something sweet to play!

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, decklist, brewing, jim davis, war of the spark, #mtgwar, 05032019

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