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Main » Articles » The Day After Armageddon

The Day After Armageddon

Michael Flores
Posted on October 20, 2020
 Reddit

Armageddon

Well, the world didn't quite end last week.

And, I suppose, Standard would be a very different - and probably differently interesting - place if there existed an ability to blow up all the lands.

But, alas, all we have are the pieces of a metagame that has largely had its most powerful cards sundered and scattered (if not all its lands binned).

Our last long look at the format featured almost exclusively Bonecrusher Giant decks; a lone rogue manning Rogues. Then! With the aforementioned Omnath, Escape to the Wilds, and Lucky Clover all banned, it looks like Rogues might be the most popular remaining strategy.

That said, there are hundreds of other cards making up the Standard format; and with the limitations of wildly imbalance incentives removed, many of them are going to get the shot to shine.

Let's look at some soon-to-be solutions:

Azorius Blink | ZNR Standard | Terribad, 2nd PlaceMTGO Standard Challenge 10/18/2020

TERRIBAD came in second in the most recent Standard Challenge. And though TERRIBAD ultimately lost to a Dimir Rogues deck in the finals, this angle is still a pretty novel way to get around one of Dimir's signature angles of attack.

Ruin Crab

Ruin Crab is this weird card that gets the Rogue deck's party started at the one. It's a kind of crustacean of all trades... Defensively, Ruin Crab offers 3 toughness for only one mana... Great for slowing down Mono-Red's early creatures. Ruin Crab is therefore a nice defensive tool, especially for its cost. Synergistically, it can generate an amazing return for little or no incremental mana investment. Ruin Crab makes Thieves' Guild Enforcer and Drown in the Loch look good... And Into the Story fantastic in an almost unprecedented way for Standard.

And offensively?

Especially teaming up with a Fabled Passage (and even more, in multiples) Ruin Crab can actually kill!

Enter...

Yorion, Sky Nomad

There are lots of ways to build a Yorion, Sky Nomad deck, but TERRIBAD decided to go with the modern classic: uw, one copy of Yorion in the sideboard, eighty cards in the main.

This deck's primary card type constitution is quite a bit different form other uw Yorion decks - being largely creatures - but when you're eighty cards (and have Modal Double-Faced cards available) it seems like you can cram in not just more cardboard... But more plans.

TERRIBAD's list has a cool Omen / Omen thing going on, and even the maximum number of The Birth of Meletis. Of course, it carries the whole Yorion / Blink thing at another level with Charming Prince and any number of 187 payoffs.

But really? At 80 cards... That's like starting with an extra Renewed Faith in your opener against beloved Red Deck.

Selesnya Blink | ZNR Standard | An_Actual_Potato, 6th Place MTGO Standard Challenge 10/18/2020

Here's a little bit of a different take on a Yorion deck.

TERRIBAD increased the ability to hit the Sky Nomad by playing one as Companion. AN_ACTUAL_POTATO did something, if not unprecedented, quite apart from the eighty card Yorion decks we've seen up until this format.

For one thing... There are all four copies main!

With no Companion requirement, it was easy for AN _ACTUA_POTATO to drop the load down to sixty starting spells.... And yet, even in this much smaller sized Yorion deck, there is room for a sub-theme! We'll get there in a second.

Green has some awesome 187 creatures to Blink with your Yorion. The most unassuming (but still dripping with value) is the lowly Gilded Goose. Free Food! Llanowar Visionary into Yorion makes for a really sweet three-to-five combo. One flows directly into the other one, and then resets the Visionary (drawing the first second of many axtra cards). And at the top of the curve is Kogla, the Titan Ape. What a powerful card! I love that Kogla is good enough to play. But what about this one for a "Blink" target?

Trail of Crumbs

Awesome, no?

Remember: Yorion doesn't only Blink creatures.

I think it's cool at all to try a Trail of Crumbs deck with no access to Witch's Oven (or the classic, Oko, Thief of Crowns) any more. This deck tries its best with Gilded Goose and Wicked Wolf... But the real lynchpin must be resetting your Trail of Crumbs for not just more triggers, but ultimately more access to the Food you're going to be need (to be sacrificing).

Mono-Green Stompy | ZNR Standard | federusher, 5-0 MTGO Standard League

This deck goes a mite further.

While there isn't much I'd rather do than Blink an Elspeth Conquers Death with Yorion, Sky Nomad, I have to admit that this is a very nice way to go about injecting fatties into the format, as well.

FEDERUSHER's 5-0 deck showcases what should have been one of the greats for the past year or so:

Feasting Troll King

A 7/6 for 6 mana with a stack of abilities - one of which makes it nigh unkillable - Feasting Troll King found its star, consistently, too close to Oko, or now Omnath. It was invalidated by the prospect of being transformed into an Elk; or more recently, just by the existence of Omnath for comparison purposes.

There has been some controversy... Why go straight Green when there are perfectly good permanents like Elspeth Conquers Death and Embercleave in adjacent colors. I think that perhaps the dedication to a standalone engine might sway their opinions.

FEDERUSHER's build doesn't do anything fancy on its face - unless you count sending the same Feasting Troll King into danger over and over - but the redundancy combined with the above average number of fight cards helps give the deck room to develop its battlefield. The Great Henge is highly complimentary here. Not only does it help you cast enormously expensive cards like Feasting Troll King, it gives you operating mana for running the sacrifices on your Food engine.

Now speaking of The Great Henge,..

Gruul Adventures | ZNR Standard | AndyC1986, MTGO Standard League 5-0

My initial thought after the Omnath ban was that Gruul would be the best deck in Standard.

Lucky Clover got banned, but Edgewall Innkeeper remains. And of the available Edgewall Innkeeper decks, Gruul is the one that gets to play the best Adventure card: Bonecrusher Giant.

More than anything else, Gruul starts with what's good in Green and adds Embercleave.

This build plays both Embercleave and The Great Henge. What's so great about that? Like we said a second ago, Lucky Clover was just banned. Lucky Clover isn't really better or less effective than Edgewall Innkeeper. The Innkeeper can turn on Lovestruck Beast... Can attack and block itself, generally. The reason that Lucky Clover got the axe when the Innkeeper didn't is simply because artifacts are much more difficult to deal with main deck than 1/1 creatures.

Like Lucky Clover, these artifacts can often end the game, if not literally, before the opponent can get control of them. And like Lucky Clover, they are so fundamentally advantageous, if your solution is sorcery speed, you're likely taking a ton of damage (or be down a couple of cards) even if you do successfully nix one.

Finally, speaking of Gruul decks with difficult to deal with permanents... What about Ramp?

Gruul Ramp | ZNR Standard | _Batutinha_, 13th Place MTGO Standard Challenge 10/18/2020

I love the little things about this deck.

Phylath, World Sculptor likes basic lands... So, we see a deck that is a little lower on the Modal Doubkle-Faced Cards than you might initially suspect. That's okay. Basics go great with Cultivate, Fabled Passage, and Solemn Simulacrum anyway.

This is the deck - Omnath or no - that is kind of trying to pick up the broken pieces and still operate in broken fashion.

It's not just that it plays Lotus Cobra. It plays a variety of two mana accelerators to help get Solemn Simulacrum out a turn early.

But those basic lands? Carefully selected to support one Felidar Retreat; and to support the lone, but archetype defining, Red spell. And then of course, you can just side in Elder Gargaroth and drop it the first available turn. Which should be one early. That's probably good for a win or three.

LOVE

MIKE

TAGS articles, standard, metagame, constructed, analysis, decklist, michael flores, znr standard, 10202020

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