I am very excited to be part of this Standard Season. I know some find it stale, but I am constantly finding my knowledge about it to be lacking. There are always a ton of matchups that need to be tested; or new cards to try; or sideboard tech I haven't thought of. Recently I've been playing around with three decklists. All of them are archetypes with which you should be familiar. They all run three colors, exhibiting my general love for multicolor decks. However, I feel that to exploit the most powerful cards in the format, including the manlands from Worldwake, one simply has to resort to running at least two colors. Monocolor decks certainly hold their weight in this format, but I feel that they have some minor drawbacks.

1. "Protection" is a keyword that is all too familiar to us playing Standard today. Great Sable Stag, Brave the Elements, Kor Firewalker, Malakir Bloodwitch. All are very powerful cards that are frequently played in sideboards as well as mainboards. When playing solely one color, it is always a looming question as to how to deal with these cards when they oppose you.
2. Manlands. Unlike the manlands of old, these new ones from Worldwake have activation costs requiring two colors. In order to use these powerful lands in your deck, you need to run at least two colors. When your opponents suddenly awaken new threats from seemingly out of nowhere, you might feel behind if all you have are basic lands on your side.
3. Having a greater variety of sideboard options is always a good thing, too. The answers you may want may not be in the color your deck provides. In addition, a lot of colors exhibit enemy-color hate; so black has efficient answers to white and green; while white has efficient answers to red and black. But this means that when facing allied colors, getting an edge in those matchups is not as easy. Or they may require more subtle strategies.

On the other hand, there is currently a lot of support for mono-black, mono-green, and mono-white decks. And they can best utilize cards that multicolor decks cannot, such as Tectonic Edge as well as nonbasic lands like Sejiri Steppe and Oran-Rief, the Vastwood.

There are advantages to both kinds of decks, but overall I like the idea of playing 3-color decks. They give me, as a deckbuilder, more options, while also allowing me to utilize rather powerful spells. Particularly the ones from Shards block. I do sacrifice speed in these decks since setting up mana takes a while. But the format is full of efficient answers to faster decks. We have Lightning Bolt, Smother, Agony Warp, Terminate, Into the Roil, and Earthquake, Day of Judgment, among others. We can also accelerate ourselves out of our early dead game into the mid game with pick-me-ups like Everflowing Chalice, Explore, Knight of the White Orchid, Rampant Growth, mana dorks like Birds of Paradise, and Lotus Cobra.

In particular, Everflowing Chalice is a card that excites me because it let's non-green decks do what green decks do. One of the decks I'm going to talk about completely revolves around Everflowing Chalice. Unsurprisingly, it's a blue deck.

Let's start with everybody's favorite, though. Jund. (Hah! Got you there.) Don't worry; I'm building up to the more interesting ones.

My playtesting with this deck has generally resulted in positive win percentages; except against certain midrange/token builds, LSV's RWU Control, and the mirror, which is still a tossup. The only deck I haven't played against much at all is Grixis, which will need testing soon since it's getting a lot of press. (As far as I can tell, game one is almost as bad as fighting LSV's RWU Control, but after sideboard, it gets much better. This is generally true of the control matchups.)

I constantly change my build because I feel it is important to keep evolving your decklist and trying new things. Here is my current incarnation – that may change tomorrow. But this is what I went 4-0 with last week at FNM.

CARD CHOICES

Explore. This card has generated a lot of interesting discussion. I like it, but I don't know if I ought to like it. It certainly doesn't always get me to 4-mana on turn 4. However, when it misses, I don't always mind. This is how I use Explore – I play it on turn 2 because that is simply the best time to use it; but I do not use it as a way of jumping from 2 mana to 4 mana. I do not always want to play Bloodbraid Elf on turn 3. Sometimes I want to play Sprouting Thrinax or Blightning. (I set my curve up that way for a reason.) I use it more to ensure that I reach 5 mana (and eventually 6 mana) in a timely manner. It's a long-term investment that I simply make on turn 2 because I don't have any other time to cast the spell. And when I Cascade into it or topdeck it, I can cycle it for something a little more exciting. (Unlike Rampant Growth, which simply doesn't do the same thing in the late game.)

4 Terminate. I strongly question the decision to run less than 4 Terminate in Jund. But this might be because of the matchups I regularly face. These are the decks against which I want 4 Terminate: Bant, Knightfall, Naya, Boros, Mono-Red, Vampires, White-based Aggro. Decks against which I don't want Terminates at all: RWU Control, Jacerator, Grixis. Decks against which Terminates are mediocre but not totally dead: Jund. So in an aggro-dominated meta, 4 Terminates is a must. In a Control/Jund dominated meta, I would consider reducing the number.

2 Bituminous Blast. I oscillated between 2 and 3 for a while, but I am currently fine with running 2 in order to make room for more Siege-Gang Commanders. Bit Blast is really great against red-based aggro decks, but these are going out of style. It's also really strong in the mirror, but it's also really, really dead against certain decks. Decks that are rising in popularity: namely control decks and decks with Baneslayer Angels. I'm happier with having 4 Siege-Gang Commanders instead. They're just good against just about everything.

2 Master of the Wild Hunt. It's either this or Garruk for most people. I used Garruks for the longest time, but I am finally trying out the Masters to see how they taste. I haven't really reached a verdict yet. I may just cut them for an additional manland and an additional Broodmate Dragon.

4 Siege-Gang Commander. I kept losing to this card in the mirror until I decided to just give up on Leech. Putrid Leech just got worse and worse until I just threw it out entirely. And I'm glad I did because Commander wins games by itself. And with 4, I just keep drawing more of them. I untap with this guy surprisingly often – maybe that has simply spoiled me. But even when it is killed, I get 3 annoying Goblins to stick around. Against ground-based aggro decks, this guy just turns around games, even when you're at 1 life. It also makes life easier against Great Sable Stag and White Knight; however against Kor Firewalker, I suspect it will not satisfy.

My Sideboard is interesting. I don't recommend copying it. The only factors I'm certain of are the single Pulse and 3 Bloodwitch. These are very important. I might also find room for Duress, which is the most effective against control decks like RWU and Grixis.

Pulse for persistent but slow and steady aggro decks (midrange, mono-white) as well as control/combo decks that rely on permanents. Against Jacerator it's a must.

Bloodwitch goes in against almost any white deck because white currently doesn't have good answers to it.

In a similar vein, I love my Stags right now because people are starting to use counterspells again – slowly. As crappy as this sounds, I often have to replace my Thrinaxes with them against white decks because of a super-barrage of hate cards. A 3/3 for 3 sounds pretty bad until you realize it makes THEIR pro-bears just 2/2s for 2 (or 2/2 for 3 in the case of Devout Lightcaster). It's still not ideal, but sometimes it is the best replacement to make. Stags are still fine in the mirror, too.

Both Thought Hemorrhage and Anathemancer probably have to leave for Duress. Thought Hemorrhage is a leftover for when I had to face combo decks, particularly Jacerator – it's not bad against Sphinx of Jwar Isle either. But it's a little clunky and useless elsewhere.

Anathemancer was an experiment – I figured with manlands and exciting nonbasics like Halimar Depths, Anathemancer could be really awesome. But in the mirror it's actually a little underwhelming. It might still be really good against control decks, but I didn't see that many. I'll keep my eye on it, though, and include it when the time is ripe. People run a lot more basics than they used to because of fetchlands, also.

I really hate Goblin Ruinblaster – facing it and having it in my sideboard. Sometimes it is a complete blowout, but sometimes, it comes too late or it doesn't matter or it's totally underwhelming. I went for many weeks without it, surprising my opponents when I didn't play it. The fact is, it only works when your opponent misses a land drop at some point. Or you get them on turn 3 after accelerating. Or you play two of them in a row. If none of these conditions are fulfilled, Ruinblaster is pretty idle and can easily be countered by things like Rampant Growth, Explore, and running 26 lands. Or magically hitting all basic lands. Still, it might have too much potential to be left out, and it's good in control matchups. It just doesn't seem as unfair as it once did.

The next deck I'll talk about is one I only recently managed to build, mostly because of its cost. This deck is just a rehash of a Worlds deck that focused primarily on creating white tokens. It's designed to try to be as annoying to a Jund opponent as possible. However it has a really terrible matchup against Control. So the sideboard primarily focuses on trying to beat the Control matchup. However I have yet to actually test and tweak the sideboard, so this is just a prelimary list – say, if you wanted to test this matchup; I would start out with this.

CARD CHOICES

Steward of Valeron vs Lotus Cobra. Well, I initially had Steward of Valeron in this slot, but the more I thought about it, the more that didn't seem like a good idea. The initial reason for using Steward was a synergy with Brave the Elements. The extra toughness and Vigilance are not entirely irrelevant, either, but Cobra allows for faster starts, making Blightning worse, punishing Jund's slower starts, and giving you a better shot at keeping up with Boros. (And of course, if it dies, your curve simply proceeds at a normal pace, which is okay.)

Rhox War Monk. The only blue card maindeck. It's not super-amazing, but having 4 toughness is quite a boon in this format. Against other midrange decks, this card will win you a lot of games. It is absolutely irrelevant against Control decks. Side out all 4 for Stags post board.

Emeria Angel. I still think this is the best card in the deck hands down. Perhaps it's not quite Spectral Procession, but it's kind of a close analog. When I play Jund against this card, I lose to it a lot. It's also perfect against Control, post board wipe. Or, if they're playing some sort Wall Control, it tends to get around that as well. On top of that it's immune to Earthquake, which is a very popular Day of Judgment substitute. There's seemingly nothing it can't do. (Except chump Malakir Bloodwitch.)

Conqueror's Pledge vs Baneslayer Angel. This choice I have no misgivings about. But then again, this IS a tokens build. Still, in general, against Jund, Pledge will win you more games than the Angel. There's only one good answer to Pledge in their deck. And more often, Jund will have less copies of Pulse than Terminate. Post-board, Pledge is probably still better; you just have to tread around Jund Charms.

Eldrazi Monument. I lose to this card all the time, so I wonder why people don't run it more. I have considered Overrun as an alternative, but this card is better than Overrun. I think it is because Eldrazi Monument can be played incredibly early – much earlier than when you have lethal with Overrun. It can act defensively as well as offensively, as having indestructible blockers generally does wonderfully when stalling out. Sometimes their roles are similar, but the Monument can be much more. Control decks also have a pretty tough time dealing with permanents like this, also. Once they resolve that is.

My Sideboard. Is completely made up, to be honest. The concept is similar to how Jund transforms post-sideboard against most decks. As I keep saying, creatures with Protection are just too important in this format. They invoke chance a lot – they can have the Bolt or they might not. They might have the Pulse; they might not. Once you overload your deck with cards that can only be answered by very specific things, the more you keep invoking the statistic improbability of your opponent having the right answers. At least, that is my shaky reasoning. Great Sable Stag is the king of this plan, as it also can't be countered by cards like Flashfreeze, Essence Scatter, or whatever the control decks are using for counters these days. Also, I really like Negate. Negate is powerful against all kinds of decks; it's your answer to random combo decks, and it can deal with powerful spells like Cruel Ultimatum and Day of Judgment. While your creatures should outclass other deck's creatures without much problem; it is really the spells you have to worry about. Negate would even go in the mainboard if we didn't have a much better option in Brave the Elements.

The last deck is more experimental and tries to act as a "proactive" control deck. Instead of leaving up mana to counter spells, it just taps out and plays strong spells of its own.

CARD CHOICES

It's not completely optimal, but you see where it is going. It works very well when it has a second-turn Chalice due to a number of amazing 4-drops. You have a lot of options on turn 3 and depending on the situation you can handle just about anything the opponent has done with his or her first three turns. But without Chalice, it is a little slow, so there a lot of cheap removal spells to hold off any real damaging threats or Earthquakes for too much too fast.

That build is most effective against mono white or midrange aggro decks. However to beat Jund, I realized it was not doing enough to prevent blowouts. Not to mention maindecking Baneslayer Angel is probably not a good idea.

I thought of another idea to make white the splash color and emphasize the red spells in the deck. It would then look more like a Counter-Burn control deck. Here's an initial build:

The manabase got a little awkward, but having a lot of mountains seems kind of important if you want Siege Gang to do its magic. Siege Gang seems a little better against Jund than Baneslayer since any removal spell they use will always leave you with something. (Most likely, three chump blockers.) Against other decks, Siege-Gang is just more exciting than Sphinx of Jwar Isle. Having an unkillable flier is nice, but Siege-Gang gives you a lot of power if you untap. And it's more likely to burn out an opposing control deck. The tokens also protect planeswalkers well.

These are my current ideas for Standard. I hope these inspire you to fiddle around with the powerful spells in the format, particularly in three-color decks. I can promise the Jund deck is still very well-positioned in the format and that the Bant Tokens build plays well against Jund in particular. Although it's not exactly a guaranteed winning matchup. However it ALSO has a decent matchup against many other aggro builds in the format, like Vampires and Elves, which I assume will grow in popularity. The Control decks above are more in the experimental stage, and I will see whether they perform well or not as I test more matchups.