Hello everyone. With all of the excitement in the air regarding the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth expansion releasing soon, I need to keep reminding myself that this expansion isn't for Standard. Even though I'm anxious to play with such cards as There and Back Again and Delighted Halfling, they aren't Standard legal. So, while they'll be relegated to casual play for me, I'll focus my efforts to find cool and exciting Standard decks that you and I can utilize. Let's see what I've found for this week.

Mono-Blue Tempo

We'll get started with a Mono-Blue deck that features cards that offer a lot of interaction with your opponent. Let's take a look at it.

Mono-Blue Tempo | MAT Standard | MTGA-Assistant-Meta, aetherhub.com user

• Creatures (9)
• 2 Ledger Shredder
• 3 Tolarian Terror
• 4 Haughty Djinn

• Instants (28)
• 1 Ertai's Scorn
• 1 Slip Out the Back
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 2 Flow of Knowledge
• 2 Negate
• 3 Essence Scatter
• 3 Impulse
• 3 Make Disappear
• 4 Consider
• 4 Fading Hope
• 4 Thirst for Discovery

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 Blue Sun's Twilight

• Lands (22)
• 22 Island

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Tolarian Terror
• 2 Ledger Shredder
• 1 Flow of Knowledge
• 2 Negate
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 2 Invoke the Winds
• 4 Witness Protection
• 1 Pithing Needle

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The creatures in this deck can all help you achieve victory very quickly. Ledger Shredder has the ability to grow quite large as the game goes on, thanks to its connive ability. The +1/+1 counters you gain can help this flying creature soar over many opposing potential blockers. Similarly, Haughty Djinn, who also has flying, has the potential to have a huge amount of power, due to the number of instant spells that are in this deck.

If you find that your opponent has successfully cast a large creature that you're unable to deal with efficiently, you can cast this deck's only sorcery spell, Blue Sun's Twilight. This spell allows you to gain control of any creature, provided you have enough mana. You might even be able to create a token copy of that creature, if you have enough mana to use. By taking away an opponent's major threat, you might get them to concede on the spot.

Orzhov Aggro

Next, we'll take a look at an aggressive deck that also features a lifegain subtheme. Let's take a look at it.

Orzhov Aggro | MAT Standard | SwayzeMTG, aetherhub.com user

• Creatures (24)
• 2 Serra Paragon
• 3 Adeline, Resplendent Cathar
• 3 Steel Seraph
• 4 Ayara's Oathsworn
• 4 Concealing Curtains // Revealing Eye
• 4 Skrelv, Defector Mite
• 4 Urborg Scavengers

• Instants (4)
• 4 Infernal Grasp

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Life of Toshiro Umezawa // Memory of Toshiro

• Battles (4)
• 4 Invasion of Gobakhan // Lightshield Array

• Lands (24)
• 6 Plains
• 6 Swamp
• 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1 The Dross Pits
• 1 The Fair Basilica
• 2 Raffine's Tower
• 2 Shattered Sanctum
• 4 Caves of Koilos

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One great finisher for this deck is Serra Paragon. When you have this Angel on the battlefield, you not only have a 3/4 flying creature, but you also have a recurring way to return either a land or a permanent spell with a mana value of three or less to the battlefield. This can be a great way to get an additional use from Invasion of Gobakhan // Lightshield Array.

Urborg Scavengers is a new card that has been seeing a bit of play lately. When it enters the battlefield, you will exile a card from a graveyard. You'll also give Urborg Scavengers a +1/+1 counter. From that point forward, Urborg Scavengers will have a variety of keyword abilities, based on the cards that have been exiled with it. This can make for a dangerous attacker, indeed.

Temur Tokens

The final deck I have for you this week is a Temur deck focusing on token creation. Let's check it out.

Temur Tokens | MAT Standard | JdoubleR2, aetherhub.com user

• Creatures (8)
• 4 Aether Channeler
• 4 Twinshot Sniper

• Planeswalkers (11)
• 3 Tamiyo, Compleated Sage
• 4 Arlinn, the Pack's Hope // Arlinn, the Moon's Fury
• 4 Saheeli, Filigree Master

• Sorceries (5)
• 2 Storm the Festival
• 3 Burn Down the House

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Tribute to the World Tree

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Courier's Briefcase

• Battles (7)
• 3 Invasion of Ravnica // Guildpact Paragon
• 4 Invasion of Tarkir // Defiant Thundermaw

• Lands (25)
• 1 Forest
• 2 Rugged Highlands
• 2 Thornwood Falls
• 4 Copperline Gorge
• 4 Dreamroot Cascade
• 4 Karplusan Forest
• 4 Rockfall Vale
• 4 Yavimaya Coast

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Those +1/+1 counters are placed on all creatures that you have enter the battlefield, regardless of whether they are actual spell cards or whether they are creature tokens. That makes the 1/1 Devil creature tokens from Burn Down the House much more threatening, even if they don't deal additional damage when they die. It also makes the Thopter tokens and Wolf tokens created by Saheeli and Arlinn even better.

This deck also features one of my favorite cards currently in Standard, Storm the Festival. Normally, when you decide to use all of your mana on a single spell, tapping out can leave you vulnerable, but that's usually not the case with Storm the Festival. Since every other permanent in this deck has a mana value of five or less, you'll be likely to find at least one card that you can cast for free, and much of the time you'll find two. Often, you'll get 10 mana value from this six-mana spell, which can be game changing.

Wrapping Up

Even though I'm excited for the new LotR cards, Standard is still a lot of fun. The three decks I've shown you today all have exciting aspects in them that make me want to build and play them. They each have unique play patterns that allow me to explore different styles of play.

What do you think of these decks? Feel free to share this article with your friends anywhere on social media. And be sure to join me here again next week as I continue my search for innovative decks in Standard. I'll see you then!

- Mike Likes