After playing Junk Aristocrats last week to a somewhat underwhelming finish, I decided I should revisit what’s been happening on Magic Online. I still have plenty of high-value Standard tournaments I’d like to attend this summer, so it behooves me to stay current on the latest trends.

The big story to me is the explosion of Reanimator decks and the waning of Jund’s popularity. R/G aggro remains a strong contender, although there are a number of other aggressive decks looking to take home their own trophies. The format continues to lack any sort of real control deck, and blue is by far the worst-performing color despite how insane Sphinx's Revelation is. R/W/U control is the only viable deck of this type, and its numbers are infinitesimal compared to the other big players.

Let look at what the metagame looks like using Standard Premier Events from June 9 to June 15.

As I said, decks centered around Unburial Rites are a huge chunk of the metagame, but there seems to be a new player in the mix. Four-colored Reanimator decks have been growing more popular and can help explain the disappearance of Jund. These lists make it look as though someone mashed together all of the best decks in the format, but they seem to be doing well, so who am I to argue? Here’s an example:

"Four-Colored Reanimator by usokui3"

• Creatures (13)
• 4 Angel of Serenity
• 4 Boros Reckoner
• 4 Thragtusk
• 1 Olivia Voldaren

• Spells (24)
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Harvest Pyre
• 4 Grisly Salvage
• 1 Sever the Bloodline
• 2 Blasphemous Act
• 2 Lingering Souls
• 3 Mulch
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Unburial Rites

• Lands (23)
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 2 Blood Crypt
• 2 Isolated Chapel
• 2 Sunpetal Grove
• 3 Dragonskull Summit
• 3 Godless Shrine
• 3 Rootbound Crag
• 3 Temple Garden
• 4 Stomping Ground

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Assemble the Legion
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Curse of Death's Hold
• 1 Olivia Voldaren
• 2 Pillar of Flame
• 1 Purify the Grave
• 2 Ray of Revelation
• 1 Renounce the Guilds
• 2 Slaughter Games

Buy This Deck

See what I mean? This takes a perfectly reasonable Junk Reanimator deck and says, “Why not add the Boros Reckoner–plus–Blasphemous Act combo? And while we’re at it, let’s play a miser’s Olivia Voldaren.” I’ve seen other versions of this deck that also play Huntmaster of the Fells and Sire of Insanity—because why not jam a Jund deck in there, too?

All joking aside, this does seem like a pretty sweet deck. The big reason to play this in favor of traditional Junk Reanimator is Faithless Looting. I’ve had my own experiences with playing Faithless Looting in these types of decks, and the card really does everything you want it to do.

Switching gears to decks that are all about the attack step, R/G aggro continues to be extremely popular online. It’s largely unaffected by Dragon’s Maze, but the following list does use a singleton Pyrewild Shaman as a recurring source of damage.

"R/G Aggro by sidro"

• Creatures (32)
• 1 Pyrewild Shaman
• 3 Firefist Striker
• 4 Boros Reckoner
• 4 Burning-Tree Emissary
• 4 Flinthoof Boar
• 4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
• 4 Hellrider
• 4 Rakdos Cackler
• 4 Stromkirk Noble

• Spells (9)
• 2 Brimstone Volley
• 4 Searing Spear
• 3 Pillar of Flame

• Lands (19)
• 10 Mountain
• 1 Temple Garden
• 4 Rootbound Crag
• 4 Stomping Ground

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Blasphemous Act
• 2 Domri Rade
• 2 Electrickery
• 3 Frostburn Weird
• 3 Skullcrack
• 3 Volcanic Strength

Buy This Deck

This deck can come blisteringly quick out of the gates and has plenty of ways of closing out an opponent on a low life total. I’m dubious of running four Hellriders and only nineteen lands, but this is actually quite common. This deck has so much redundancy that you’ll often have a lot to do even if you do miss your fourth land drop for a couple turns. Electrickery is a great sideboard card against Lingering Souls decks, especially the ones also running Blood Artist.

The last deck I want to highlight is Naya midrange. With the sudden disappearance of Jund, Huntmaster of the Fells and friends needed somewhere to go. They found a (Sun)home with Aurelia and her Restoration Angels. Here’s a list that took down a recent Premier Event.

"Naya Midrange by kuchinawa"

• Creatures (28)
• 3 Restoration Angel
• 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 4 Boros Reckoner
• 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
• 4 Loxodon Smiter
• 4 Thundermaw Hellkite
• 4 Voice of Resurgence
• 1 Aurelia, the Warleader

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Domri Rade

• Spells (4)
• 1 Boros Charm
• 1 Warleader's Helix
• 2 Mizzium Mortars

• Lands (24)
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Gavony Township
• 2 Clifftop Retreat
• 4 Rootbound Crag
• 4 Sacred Foundry
• 4 Stomping Ground
• 4 Sunpetal Grove
• 4 Temple Garden

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Assemble the Legion
• 2 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Boros Charm
• 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 1 Mizzium Mortars
• 3 Oblivion Ring
• 2 Ray of Revelation
• 3 Rolling Temblor

Buy This Deck

I hesitate to call this a midrange deck since it doesn’t play Farseek or Thragtusk, but I’m not really sure how else to classify it. This is among the better Domri Rade decks I’ve seen, as it’s jam-packed with the best creatures in the format. Huntmaster of the Fells? Check. Voice of Resurgence? Check. Thundermaw Hellkite? Check. The list goes on.

If I had to play against this deck, I’d be living in fear of that singleton Aurelia. I died to an Aurelia while at 20 life at the Gatecrash prerelease, and I’ve been scared ever since. There are so many huge creatures here that an Aurelia is almost always going to be lethal.

I like the sideboard a lot, too. Rolling Temblor is often too slow in the matchups you need it for, but the option to play it a turn sooner off an Avacyn's Pilgrim is nice. It’s not quite as good as Pyroclasm, but you gotta do what you gotta do. The only thing I don’t like about it is its lack of an ability to interact with your opponent’s graveyard. I suspect Thundermaw Hellkite is pretty good in those matchups, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable playing against Reanimator without at least a Ground Seal or something. Then again, I haven’t played the matchup, so I could be way off base.

Another reason I like to look at Premier Events is that I am able to see what each deck is beating and losing to in Top 8. Let’s look at the win percentages for the more popular decks.

The performance of R/G aggro and Naya Blitz should immediately jump out at you, but remember that this is strictly performance in elimination rounds. One way of looking at this is that R/G aggro is a great deck for making Top 8, but it isn’t that great at actually winning tournaments. There’s nothing wrong with being happy with making Top 8, and if that’s your goal, you could certainly do worse than either of those decks.

Naya midrange had the best showing, but that number is highly skewed due to the fact I only sampled two of those decks, one of which won its tournament. It does show a lot of promise, which is why it receives my stamp of approval. If you’re unwilling to speculate, the tried and true Reanimator decks perform quite well.

I’ll close by listing the top eight Dragon’s Maze cards by number of copies played and compare with what the format looked like a month ago.

1. Voice of Resurgence (last month: 5)

I predicted that this card would explode once the format rotated, and seems that the resurgence hit a bit early. It’s in first by a huge margin and shows no sign of slowing down. The question you should be asking is not, “Why should I play Voice of Resurgence?” It is, “Why am I not playing Voice of Resurgence?”

2. Sin Collector (last month: 2)

Sin Collector is just a great creature, and I expect it will continue to see a lot of play during its run in Standard.

3. Unflinching Courage (last month: 4)

This is starting to see play outside of the Bant Hexproof decks, and with the popularity of R/G aggro, it’s easy to see why.

4. Putrefy (last month: 3)

The slight downtick is due to the decreased popularity of Jund and with the impeding reprinting of Doom Blade, Putrefy might go by the wayside.

5 (Tied). Gaze of Granite (last month: – )

Pernicious Deed this is not, but the inclusion of this card in many sideboards of late can be attributed to the brief success of Brad Nelson’s Junk Aristocrats deck, as it’s an efficient answer to a swarm of tokens. It’s also decent against other aggressive decks, if a little on the slow side.

5 (Tied). Sire of Insanity (last month: 1)

This card was the big loser from the move away from Jund. It’s still being played in the four-colored Reanimator decks, but not in the numbers we were seeing before.

7. Renounce the Guilds (last month: – )

Our second new card owes its new popularity to the blue mages out there who can’t bring themselves to hang up their Islands. It’s cheap, and it deals with pesky abilities such as regeneration. If blue decks make a comeback, expect this card to see even more play.

8. Advent of the Wurm (last month: – )

This is now the third Selesnya card on this list, which just goes to show you how crazy you’d have to be to not be playing Voice of Resurgence right now. It’s not as though there are a lot of Unsummon effects in Standard right now, so the fact that this is a token is hardly a drawback. With cards such as Intangible Virtue and the populate mechanic, it’s almost all upside.

I hope you guys found this information useful. I’ll see you again next week, and good luck in your tournaments this weekend.

Take care,

Nassim Ketita

arcticninja on Magic Online

www.youtube.com/nketita