Hello everyone! If you've read my columns before, you'll likely know that I love looking for innovative decks to play in Standard. I enjoy finding decks that feature underused cards in Standard and sharing those decks with you. This week is no exception. I have for you three decks this week that all attack Standard in different and interesting ways. Let's get started.

Boros Historic

The first deck I have for you this week recently went 5-0 in a Magic Online (MTGO) League. Let's take a look at Boros Historic.

Boros Historic | Guilds Standard | MANWITHPLANE251, (5-0) MTGO

• Creatures (18)
• 1 Squee, the Immortal
• 3 Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
• 3 Captain Lannery Storm
• 3 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
• 4 Lyra Dawnbringer
• 4 Resplendent Angel

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 1 Huatli, Warrior Poet
• 3 Karn, Scion of Urza

• Instants (2)
• 2 Justice Strike

• Sorceries (8)
• 2 Deafening Clarion
• 2 Urza's Ruinous Blast
• 4 Lava Coil

• Artifacts (3)
• 3 Treasure Map

• Lands (25)
• 7 Mountain
• 7 Plains
• 1 Arch of Orazca
• 2 Boros Guildgate
• 4 Clifftop Retreat
• 4 Sacred Foundry

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Huatli, Warrior Poet
• 1 Squee, the Immortal
• 3 Tocatli Honor Guard
• 1 Invoke the Divine
• 1 Justice Strike
• 1 Deafening Clarion
• 1 Urza's Ruinous Blast
• 1 Ixalan's Binding
• 1 Treasure Map
• 2 Sorcerous Spyglass
• 2 The Immortal Sun

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There aren't many decks that play Urza's Ruinous Blast due to the potential difficulty of casting it. It can be difficult for some decks to ensure that they have a Legendary permanent in play at nearly all times, as without one this spell simply cannot be cast. But not this deck. With a whopping 18 Legendary permanents, it's pretty certain that you'll have at least one in play the majority of the time. Poor Resplendent Angel is your only non-Legendary creature, and if you have her in play and still need to cast Urza's Ruinous Blast, you must certainly be very far behind.

This deck features a host of powerful Angels that I simply adore. Resplendent Angel is a great early Angel to play. She will certainly act as a lightning rod for your opponent's removal spells the closer you get to having six lands in play since it can be hard to remain in the game once Resplendent Angel begins to produce 4/4 Angel tokens.

Once you have Resplendent Angel in play, you'll want to give her (and the rest of your team) hexproof as soon as possible by casting Shalai, Voice of Plenty. While that hexproof is usually the main benefit Shalai will provide you, there is the chance that you can activate her ability to put a +1/+1 counter on each of your creatures thanks to the Treasure tokens that Treasure Map and Captain Lannery Storm can provide.

The next Angel that I want to talk about is Lyra Dawnbringer. Not only is she a powerhouse in and of herself, but she also gives all of your other Angels +1/+1 and lifelink. Since there are four copies of Lyra Dawnbringer in the deck, if you happen to be holding onto a copy while you also have one on the battlefield, don't be afraid to attack with her in the face of other bigger fliers. Lyra has first strike, so if your opponent blocks you can usually pick of one or two smaller flying creatures before Lyra dies. You'll also gain life from her thanks to her lifelink ability. In this way, she can act as a pseudo creature removal spell.

Finally, this deck also includes Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice. Thanks to Aurelia's ability to give a target creature potentially +2/+0 and vigilance during your combat, by targeting herself you also gain the ability to use her mentor ability on almost any other attacking creature on your team. Once you're no longer able to mentor, you can begin choosing a different target to provide the combat bonus to or keep targeting Aurelia and keep her untapped for use on defense as well.

Selesnya Bogles

The next deck I have for you this week takes a popular strategy in Modern for a spin in Standard. Let's take a look at Selesnya Bogles.

Selesnya Bogles | Guilds Standard | mikaelvoncarstein, deckstats.net

• Creatures (20)
• 2 Carnage Tyrant
• 2 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
• 4 Adanto Vanguard
• 4 Knight of Grace
• 4 Satyr Enchanter
• 4 Vine Mare

• Enchantments (16)
• 2 Conclave Tribunal
• 2 On Serra's Wings
• 2 Prodigious Growth
• 2 Seal Away
• 4 Oakenform
• 4 Squire's Devotion

• Lands (24)
• 8 Forest
• 8 Plains
• 4 Sunpetal Grove
• 4 Temple Garden

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants
• 1 Arboretum Elemental
• 1 Carnage Tyrant
• 1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
• 4 Tocatli Honor Guard
• 2 Conclave Tribunal
• 2 Ixalan's Binding
• 2 Seal Away

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If you're familiar with how the Bogles deck in Modern works, you'll be able to play this deck easily. The goal is to load up on Enchantments that provide some sort of bonus to the creature they're attached to. That creature should have hexproof if at all possible or otherwise be difficult to kill. Your best choices will be Carnage Tyrant, Vine Mare, or Adanto Vanguard.

One card I'm excited to see in this deck is Prodigious Growth. Whenever I play against a Green deck on Magic Arena I dread seeing this card. Giving a +7/+7 bonus plus trample to a creature with hexproof amounts to a lot of dead blockers if your opponent has any hope at all of killing the creature Prodigious Growth is attached to. The alternative is to simply chump block, but this can't be done too often thanks to trample damage.

One other thing I'd like to touch on is the importance of Satyr Enchanter in this deck. While there are a good amount of creatures in this deck, Satyr Enchanter allows you to continue drawing cards as you play them so you can keep a steady stream of threats available. This will also provide you with some creatures to block with if needed. Satyr Enchanter also helps you find other Enchantments so you can win the game quickly and efficiently.

The Antiquities War

The final deck I have for you this week also comes from deckstats.net. It's centered on the card The Antiquities War. Let's take a look at it.

The Antiquities War | Guilds Standard | dante77, deckstats.net

• Creatures (9)
• 3 Sai, Master Thopterist
• 3 Skilled Animator
• 3 Traxos, Scourge of Kroog

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 2 Tezzeret, Artifice Master
• 3 Karn, Scion of Urza

• Instants (7)
• 2 Blink of an Eye
• 2 Disdainful Stroke
• 3 Negate

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 The Antiquities War

• Artifacts (15)
• 3 Treasure Map
• 4 Fountain of Renewal
• 4 Orazca Relic
• 4 Traveler's Amulet

• Lands (20)
• 10 Island
• 2 Arch of Orazca
• 2 Field of Ruin
• 3 Memorial to Genius
• 3 Zhalfirin Void

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Diamond Mare
• 1 Blink of an Eye
• 2 Sinister Sabotage
• 2 River's Rebuke
• 3 Selective Snare
• 3 Sentinel Totem

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The main gameplan with this deck is to play out a few artifacts and then to play The Antiquities War. As long as it stays in play, you should be able to find a couple more artifacts to get onto the battlefield before placing the third lore counter to it. Once that lore counter gets placed and you sacrifice this saga, your machines rise up and can attempt to defeat your opponent.

If that plan should fail, there is a back-up plan. Sai, Master Thopterist once was a cornerstone in one of the best Standard decks. But then rotation happened and Sai fell out of favor. This deck gives him a place to shine once again as it has 15 artifacts that all have a converted mana cost (CMC) of 3 or less. Sai also teams up rather nicely with Tezzeret, Artifice Master to be able to produce a formidable Thopter threat.

The deck also includes Karn, Scion of Urza who has the capability of creating massive Construct tokens that can stop an attacking opponent dead in their tracks. Both Karn and Tezzeret are good ways to draw extra cards each turn as well. With a massive threat like Traxos, Scourge of Kroog, it's important to be able to find a historic spell to cast so that you can untap this Legendary Construct whenever you need to.

Wrapping Up

Right now is such a great time to be a Standard player. There are so many options available to be played, and there are simply tons of competitive decks.

What do you think of these decks? Do you have any suggestions for improvements? Let me know by leaving a comment below or you can reply to me directly on Twitter (@mikelikesmtg), or email me directly at mikelikesmtg@gmail.com. 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