Magic: The Gathering Foundations hasn't radically changed Standard; at least not yet. It has provided some redundancy and consistency to certain strategies (for example adding the mostly-inferior-but-incremental Zombify to Rite of the Moth so Black can reanimate more frequently come four mana), and some sideboard bangers (Authority of the Consuls comes to mind as the most important)... but a lot of what Foundations has provided so far is subtle.

I direct your attention to a one-mana spell that has been with Planeswalkers, Magicians, and Wizards battling for domination of Dominia since 1993:

Simic Beans | FDN Standard | NJAMTG, 5-0 MTGO Standard League 11/20/2024

• Creatures (25)
• 4 Eddymurk Crab
• 4 Tolarian Terror
• 2 Unsummon
• 3 Into the Flood Maw
• 4 Cache Grab
• 4 Seed of Hope
• 4 This Town Ain't Big Enough

• Sorceries (10)
• 2 Analyze the Pollen
• 4 Bushwhack
• 4 Sleight of Hand

• Enchantments (8)
• 4 Stormchaser's Talent
• 4 Up the Beanstalk

• Lands (17)
• 1 Forest
• 6 Island
• 2 Hedge Maze
• 4 Botanical Sanctum
• 4 Yavimaya Coast

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Ghost Vacuum
• 2 Herbology Instructor
• 1 Minor Misstep
• 2 Monstrous Emergence
• 2 Negate
• 2 Pawpatch Formation
• 2 Pick Your Poison
• 2 Unable to Scream

Buy This Deck Export text Export Arena

NJAMTG added two copies of Unsummon, which is one of the first things that drew my eyes to this strategy. The shell itself is not new: And even Tolarian Terror (a Foundations card I highlighted recently) isn't really new to Standard. The only real new card is Unsummon, but it's meaningful here.

How Does this Deck Work?

Simic Beans is kind of a gimmick deck. Well, it's actually a bunch of overlapping gimmicks that each help to strengthen the whole.

First and foremost, this is a Xerox deck. It cheats on mana, playing only 17 lands (kind of like a Limited deck)... but it sees so many more cards as a result of all its cheap card filtering, Beans plays almost like a 28* land deck.

The process of filtering through your deck [to find lands, or for any reason I suppose] necessarily fills your graveyard. All of a sudden, Eddymurk Crab consistently costs and Tolarian Terror half as much.

Functionally.

Because technically, they still cost more than five mana, so are great at triggering Up the Beanstalk. Up the Beanstalk itself is a great example of a two mana cantrip that helps a land-poor deck find its drops. Overlapping gimmicks, see?

Some games you'll start on Stormchaser's Talent, and this will feel like an offensive tempo deck. Sleight of Hand for a Green source + Analyze the Pollen to set up your third turn... All of a sudden you're attacking with a 3/3.

Or if you've already got land you might Bushwhack to fight, where Prowess will help overcome the opposing 1-drop.

A skillful Otter token can put the opponent on notice and force them to respond...but the games that really come down to tempo are relatively few and far between. If this deck is really going where it wants to, it probably has at least one Up the Beanstalk on the battlefield but is forcing the opponent to react at instant speed.

One of the key differences between this deck and a more traditional Domain is that it can respond to big sorceries with value and dictate board position at the end of the opponent's turn.

For example the danger of playing into a Sunfall is quite a bit lessened if you can save your Tolarian Terror with This Town Ain't Big Enough (which triggers Up the Beanstalk, and threatens to further trigger Up the Beanstalk)... or just tap the opponent's blockers with Eddymurk Crab at the end of their turn (again often drawing extra cards).

The addition of Unsummon is key here for a couple of reasons. While this deck does get value from the flexibility on Into the Flood Maw, a big part of its game is saving its own creatures from expensive sweepers. Into the Flood Maw can't do that (and you can only play so many This Town Ain't Big Enough). The fact that Unsummon costs only 1 mana is often relevant because of Level Two on Stormchaser's Talent. You're just tapping out a lot with this deck, in part because you have so few lands and in part because you need to commit mana to finding them. Being instead of is a real thing given that constraint.

When Simic Beans is playing into its Strengths, it's probably dominating the battlefield with hard-to-answer (or just inopportune) 5/5s while drawing tons of extra cards.

I'd recommend playing for Analyze the Pollen for Eddymurk Crab late. This is just three mana and pretty cheap to recycle with Stormchaser's Talent Level Two. Your opponent might be able to see it coming, but - especially if you're riding Up the Beanstalk - might not be able to do anything about it.

If this deck is going to trip over itself, it's likely to be in the early game. For every game against Mono-Red where they definitely can't get through one 5/5 let alone two, there are two or three games where you get run over because your land didn't come out perfectly and you didn't have the time to set up. Oh and also Seed of Hope. Missing on Seed of Hope is basically the worst ever. I guess once in a while missing means discounting Tolarian Terror by three... but my God does whiffing on land feel brutal when Seed of Hope was your only hope.

Alternately Simic can fail later in the game if its cards stop "flowing" for some reason. That Otter is an unimpressive 1/1 if it's not growing with a bunch of cantrips. Or if you get to the late game with no Up the Beanstalk, all of a sudden you're wading through mud. None of your answers are permanent, so if you're not gimmicking your way through the opponent's combat and end step... you'll just run out of material.

On balance, decks that can't really punish you for "having" to set up early end up basically without purchase themselves. If you can sneak Up the Beanstalk under a Counterspell you can basically two-for-one your way through the rest of the game in a manner impossible for the opponent to keep up with, even if they're drawing cards with Caretaker's Talent or Enduring Curiosity. It's not the tonnage of card advantage that gets them (though Simic working well often passes with seven)... it's the overlapping card draw and one-cost-ness of all your plays that the opponent actually has to answer. Few decks can contest both axes at the same time.

Even nominally more powerful decks can just get their Beasts and Angels tapped and bounced all over the place while you murder them by recycling This Town Ain't Big Enough over and over, hopefully drawing over and over while you're at it.

All that said, you're ultimately still a gimmick deck. You're Blue card draw but tempo-control, not real control. You can bounce and tap, but if you're killing, it's usually in combat; meaning, the opponent gets a vote. You can be good into a deck tapping seven for a big threat, but often because you can work around it mana efficiently, not because you're actually answering it. Stormchaser's Talent can put the opponent on a clock, but without a hand full of cantrips you lack anything resembling a scary attacker. Go wide decks can be problematic, because bounce sucks against 1-drops, especially if you're capable of running out.

This deck thrives when its gimmicks overlap but can be exposed when forced to operate on a single agenda. Cantrips not lacing together? Your 1-drops cost seven and you have less actual land than Red Aggro. Main deck Kutzil's Flanker? That kind of kiboshes your Talent, Terror, Pollen, and Crab all at the same time.

One of the reasons Unsummon is so good in this deck is because you're quite short of Counterspells. Unsummon gives you a mana efficient instant that can fight sweepers when in another universe you'd use one of your sideboard Negates.

But when everything is going great? In my experience, no other deck in Standard feels as effortlessly dominant.

Azorius Oculus | FDN Standard | poiu45, 5-0 MTGO Standard League 11/20/2024

• Creatures (15)
• 3 Kiora, the Rising Tide
• 4 Abhorrent Oculus
• 4 Haughty Djinn
• 4 Picklock Prankster

• Instants (10)
• 2 Get Lost
• 4 Into the Flood Maw
• 4 Moment of Truth

• Sorceries (10)
• 2 Recommission
• 4 Chart a Course
• 4 Helping Hand

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Founding the Third Path

• Lands (21)
• 5 Island
• 2 Plains
• 3 Adarkar Wastes
• 3 Meticulous Archive
• 4 Floodfarm Verge
• 4 Seachrome Coast

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Elspeth's Smite
• 2 Exorcise
• 3 Negate
• 3 Silent Hallcreeper
• 3 Temporary Lockdown

Buy This Deck Export text Export Arena

This here is a deck that could use an Unsummon.

Earlier builds from the World Championships used a mix of Into the Flood Maw, Get Lost, and another bounce card that poiu45 eschewed: Ephara's Dispersal.

I think I liked a mix of Ephara's Dispersal and Into the Flood Maw prior to Foundations. Into the Flood Maw is potentially important in the same way that it is in Simic Beans: Sometimes you have to answer something and that something isn't a creature.

But I don't think I'd play just Into the Flood Maw.

Ephara's Dispersal is of particular value in this strategy for four reasons:

1. All other things held equal, adding Surveil is just a great ability. Hence Our Hero can win a PTQ with Sinister Sabotage but would not deign to Cancel.
2. Controlling your top card can synergize with the Manifest Dread from Abhorrent Oculus.
3. Putting cards into your graveyard can fuel Abhorrent Oculus or sneak extra damage through with Haughty Djinn.
4. Unlike Into the Flood Maw, Ephara's Dispersal can sometimes target your own creatures.

This was a bigger deal prior to Foundations, when the Azorius deck was thinner on finishers...

(Incidentally Kiora is another reason you might want to Surveil.)

Of course, all those things put together are not enough of a reason to pay three for a card when you can pay one.

I think at a minimum I'd split Into the Flood Maw and Unsummon 2/2, assuming I kept Get Lost. Notably, of the two Founding the Third Path Worlds builds from which this deck is descended, Shouta Yasooka's main ran two copies of each of Into the Flood Maw and Ephara's Dispersal but no Get Lost.

I think Unsummon is perhaps even more important in Azorius Oculus than Simic Beans. The Worlds versions of this deck both played two copies of either Negate or Phantom Interference; this deck has no Counterspells main deck at all, so the self-saving functionality on Unsummon seems even more valuable.

No Unsummon I guess, But You Might Want an Unsummon Against It

Mono-Black | FDN Standard | fireflymylove, 5-0 MTGO Standard League 11/25/2024

• Creatures (17)
• 3 Bloodthirsty Conqueror
• 3 Enduring Tenacity
• 3 Unstoppable Slasher
• 4 Bloodletter of Aclazotz
• 4 Deep-Cavern Bat

• Instants (7)
• 3 Cut Down
• 4 Go for the Throat

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Duress

• Enchantments (7)
• 3 Virtue of Persistence
• 4 Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber

• Lands (25)
• 19 Swamp
• 2 Fountainport
• 4 Soulstone Sanctuary

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Anoint with Affliction
• 2 Cruelclaw's Heist
• 2 Ghost Vacuum
• 1 Liliana, Dreadhorde General
• 1 Outrageous Robbery
• 2 Render Inert
• 2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 3 Withering Torment

Buy This Deck Export text Export Arena

This deck is off the "upgraded via Unsummon" theme but still upgraded via Foundations.

You knew about this combo already! With Bloodletter of Aclazotz in play a single hit from Unstoppable Slasher is lethal, no matter what the opponent's life total.

But why stop at one two-card combination?

With both of these cards on the battlefield the opponent dies immediately upon losing any amount of life. Damage causes loss of life; so do some versions of Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber. Whichever. Ting! Trigger Bloodthirsty Conqueror. Gain some life. Trigger Enduring Tenacity. Rinse. Repeat.

This is a surprisingly hard combo to crack because you can block with Enduring Tenacity and win with it four-five style in enchantment form.

Plus, there's a secret third combo:

In order to make room for its second instant kill, this fireglymylove build had to cut one of the stalwarts of Mono-Black: Archfiend of the Dross. Not only does it lose a flying 6/6 for four mana, but Unholy Annex gets worse with only Bloodletter of Aclazotz at the three-four Demon curve.

But wait! Soulstone Sanctuary can fill in - and even fill in three-four if you're okay tapping out just to turn one of your lands into a 3/3 - because the land, once activated, counts as a Demon.

This deck is cool... but unlike many other decks wearing such an adjective, can absolutely manhandle Red Aggro. It has a good amount of point removal, including Lochthwain Scorn (which is so good against Heartfire Hero), Annoint with Affliction in the sideboard + life gaining Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

No room for Archfiend of your own? Don't forget the Render Inert in your sideboard, for theirs. Which, I think you'll agree, is a better answer than Unsummon.

Just this once.

LOVE

MIKE

*If you're not familiar with the classic Comer math, HoFer Alan kind of invented underplaying mana back in 1997. I'm not actually sure about the actual virtual count in this deck because Cache Grab can miss and Seed of Hope will usually miss... but Analyze the Pollen and Bushwhack are both only 1 mana AND never miss.