Standard rotation is coming - and faster than you think. Bloomburrow releases on August 2 and with it comes the fall Standard rotation. While we gain Bloomburrow, we also lose four sets: Innistrad: Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and Streets of New Capenna. In my last Standard article I wrote about the biggest clusters of cards leaving Standard. Today, let's go over the most important cards staying in Standard, and what strategies you should be looking out for come Bloomburrow's release next month.

Golgari Midrange

By far the strongest cluster of cards remaining in Standard, in my opinion, is the Golgari Midrange package. Golgari Midrange saw a rise in popularity towards the end of the RC season, with one of my friends qualifying for Pro Tour Modern Horizons III with it!

Golgari Midrange | Standard | Slater Claudel

• Creatures (19)
• 1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 1 Tranquil Frillback
• 3 Glissa Sunslayer
• 3 Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton
• 3 Hostile Investigator
• 4 Caustic Bronco
• 4 Mosswood Dreadknight

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Liliana of the Veil

• Instants (8)
• 1 Long Goodbye
• 3 Cut Down
• 4 Go for the Throat

• Sorceries (5)
• 2 Gix's Command
• 3 Duress

• Lands (26)
• 1 Forest
• 4 Swamp
• 1 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 3 Cavern of Souls
• 4 Blooming Marsh
• 4 Deathcap Glade
• 4 Llanowar Wastes
• 4 Restless Cottage

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal // Temple of the Dead
• 1 Cut Down
• 1 Duress
• 1 Hostile Investigator
• 2 Liliana of the Veil
• 3 Path of Peril
• 2 Tear Asunder
• 1 The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride
• 1 Tranquil Frillback
• 2 Unlicensed Hearse

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Post-Bloomburrow Slater's deck only loses a few cards, namely Graveyard Trespasser, but the rest of the list stays compact. When testing for the Regional Championship, Flores and I had Golgari as one of our toughest matches, even though we were winning a good amount of the time. The reason why Golgari is so scary is because it can cobble together a fast snowballing advantage with Caustic Bronco and Glissa Sunslayer, while protecting said draw with Duress to break up the opponent's hand. In our testing with Azorius Control, we came to the conclusion that what made the match tough was that it was hard to mulligan any hand that had lands and spells, regardless of curve, because of how devastating a Duress and Liliana of the Veil could be to a 6-card hand.

Golgari stands out to me as the clear frontrunner of the new Standard format. It has powerful rares that can snowball a fast advantage on the play, hand disruption with cards that benefit off discard effects, and ways to undo opposing aggressive draws with cards like Gix's Command. Golgari has always been a favorite of mine in the format due to how well the deck can use its mana. With cards like Virtue of Persistence, Gix's Command, Hostile Investigator, and Restless Cottage, you'll always have ways to use mana. Plus, it doesn't hurt being one of the best shells for Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

Boros Convoke

Boros Convoke, already the premier aggro deck in Standard, loses virtually no cards going into Bloomburrow Standard. The deck's biggest loss is without a doubt Voldaren Epicure - being a way to power out an artifact for Gleeful Demolition and a creature for Knight-Errant of Eos. The loss of Voldaren Epicure definitely slows down the deck by a considerable amount. It's unknown whether the deck will even play Gleeful Demolition without the full Bloomburrow spoiler. However, it's worth noting the deck remains entirely the same, minus Epicure and the Kamigawa Channel lands.

You can still have some pretty busted starts with Novice Inspector or Warden of the Inner Sky with Resolute Reinforcements. All the deck needs is another 1-drop, either from the new set or in the form of Nurturing Pixie to take a similar role to Voldaren Epicure. Since the deck stays 56/60 cards with rotation I'm willing to bet it'll still be at the top of the food chain come rotation. One way Boros could be pretty mediocre in the new format is how bad its matchup vs any sweeper deck is. Without the velocity of Voldaren Epicure and Gleeful Demolition, I'd be curious to see how the deck favors in a format that's still chock full of Temporary Lockdowns and Sunfalls. Which leads me to my next deck...

Azorius Control

While Azorius-based Control decks definitely lose a lot of power in the forms of Memory Deluge and The Wandering Emperor, it still retains one unique aspect - the wrath and removal effects. While there might be various Convoke and other aggressive decks running around, they can still fall prey to cards like Temporary Lockdown and Sunfall. Azorius still keeps its premier counterspells, Three Steps Ahead and No More Lies, along with card draw in Deduce. Farsight Ritual is by no means an upgrade to Memory Deluge, but it's worth noting you can bargain tokens from Deduce, Sunfall, Restless Anchorage, and even Three Steps Ahead for the "Dig Through Time" effect. While you certainly don't get the same late-game value that Memory Deluge ensures, this does give you at least more card selection potential in the early game.

I think a few things will have to break Azorius' way for it to be still dominant in the metagame, but I'm hopeful Bloomburrow will give us Control mages a few new toys, to mitigate the loss of some of the staples of the deck. While The Wandering Emperor is no more, perhaps Ezrim, Agency Chief and The Eternal Wanderer might be of service. I think without The Wandering Emperor, Azorius will have to find ways to transition from the mid-to-late game without getting completely run over. I'm not sure what the exact answer is, but I wonder if you might have to rely on No Witnesses as a bridge card to get you to an Ezrim + The Eternal Wanderer lock. Although I have heard about Day of Judgment coming to Standard later this year...

Atraxa Domain

While Atraxa Domain loses a solid portion of its mana base, the main frame of the deck stays pretty compact. Domain keeps the angel package of Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Archangel of Wrath, while also keeping its "Domain" package of Herd Migration and Leyline Binding. While the New Capenna "triomes" rotate, the cycle of 10 Murders at Karlov Manor Surveil lands seem like a fine substitute, albeit not the best. I do like that this forces you to play the Surveil lands, which can be pretty useful when looking for a card to draw off of your Up the Beanstalk. With Topiary Stomper rotating Ancient Cornucopia seems like a fine swap that Domain decks have been making already.

It feels like these decks are already starting to adapt to Bloomburrow Standard, with more MTGO lists including Ancient Cornucopia, and while the deck might not look like itself pre-rotation, the main strategy of the deck stays the same post-Bloomburrow. It all depends on how fast or slow the format is for the deck to adapt to using Surveil lands over New Capenna tri-lands.

Bant Toxic

Bant Toxic is another strategy that I'm keeping my eye on in new Standard. However, with rotation this deck loses a very important combo piece: March of Swirling Mist. Bant Toxic is composed of cards pretty much from the set Phyrexia: All Will Be One (hence the "Toxic" part of the name), so if this was a deck pre-rotation it certainly has a solid chance of being one post-rotation.

The deck keeps its core creature-base, Skrelv, Defector Mite, Venerated Rotpriest, Crawling Chorus, and Jawbone Duelist, while also maintaining its signature spells like Skrelv's Hive and Serum Snare. With rotation, the deck loses the one-shot kill of March of Swirling Mist + Venerated Rotpriest, while also losing Fading Hope and Spell Pierce. While you can substitute cards like Machine Over Matter and Shore Up for these, there isn't a good replacement for March of Swirling Mist, which can target multiple creatures to net you multiple poison counters.

Overall, I think this deck is something I'd keep on the backburner. It always feels marginally playable due to the power of Toxic, but seems more like a meta call. I'd look out for any Instants that can target multiple creatures in Bloomburrow.

Without viewing the full Bloomburrow spoiler it's hard to say exactly where Standard will land next month. However, with nine base sets and two smaller expansions in the format, a lot of the pre-Bloomburrow dominant Standard strategies will still have their hold over the format. While some decks are totally obliterated by the format (see ya Slogurk!) decks like Boros Convoke and Golgari Midrange keep the majority of their decks together. We still have other powerful clusters of cards, like Azorius Control, Domain, and Bant Toxic keeping a good chunk of their base cards, but those strategies also lose multiple key cards.

There are some other strategies not featured in this article, like Mono-Red and Azorius Soldiers, and while I do think those decks have legs, we'll need a more comprehensive overview of the format with a complete spoiler before making conclusions. Mono-Red losing Play With Fire, Intrepid Adversary, and Kumano Faces Kakkazan, and Soldiers losing Wedding Announcement are a big deal. Bloomburrow, being a creature-heavy set, could definitely have more aggressive cards waiting in the wings, but again I'm going to wait until the full spoiler to put out decklists.

I hope you're just as excited to play Bloomburrow Standard as I am, and I can't wait to write more about my favorite Constructed format. While there aren't any major paper Standard events happening anytime soon, I'm definitely going to be dialed into the format so I can be prepared as soon as I get to bust out my Sunfalls and Three Steps Ahead again.

Until next time!

-Roman Fusco