So I’ve spent some time testing and trying to satisfy the demands of certain readers and their need to have testing results. I will NOT be posting decklists, as I believe that might be something that requires some work on your behalf. This article is intended to be about results and NOT a deck clinic. Nor do I want to be like some folks and post facades or “ghost” decks to get you on the wrong track and waste your time. At least I’m honest!

What I will say is that the gauntlet includes decks currently in the metagame including, what I believe, are logical choices for Shadowmoor inclusions. Let’s start with the deck types:

1. Faeries – THE best deck in current type 2 (without Shadowmoor). Many speculate that Shadowmoor’s green cards are too much for the little flying dudes to handle. I am one of those who agree.
2. Doran – or any G/B based deck that basically runs good cards like a “Rock” deck
3. Warriors – my version is Green/Red
4. Kithkin – 'nuff said
5. Merfolk – One of the up and comers of current Standard.
6. B/G good stuff – This is more or less a Mannequin deck that I feel lost some gas after Morningtide was released.
7. G/W – Wilt Leaf goodness
8. G/W – Enchantment Control (Jokulhaups)
9. B/R – Goblins

These 25 games are presented PRE-Sideboard and played with alternating first turns:

What you’ll see here is that Game 1 are dominated by the typical 2 Doran/Faeries. Both utilizing Bitterblossom and “Bomb” cards like Cryptic Command or Profane Commands really take the player over the line in advantage. Faeries being more disruptive and similar to your traditional “Control” decks of old. Doran, the Siege Tower, as you may know, uses it’s versatility to control the game also dropping a big beat for the victory.

I was very impressed by the G/W Wilt Leaf build as it came out very fast and very hard. My build had a couple of things that could stop cards like Bitterblossom, but also included Bitterblossom as it’s a huge noogie! Getting a 2/2 into a 4/4 on Turn 3 was pretty darn good and hard to deal with if it became a 6/6 on turn four.

The Mannequin build was more of a 5 cg build with basically anything good that I could find. Mulldrifter was one of the key cards in this, as it provided a very consistent source of card advantage. Reveillark was “splashed in this to allow for some recur tricks. Here’s a glimpse:

4 Thoughtseize

4 Bitterblossom

4 Kitchen Finks

3 Mulldrifter

4 Shriekmaw

4 Reveillark

That’s about half of the deck, and as you can see, it’s got some high quality cards. The versatility is huge in this one too. Something I want to share also is that there are some 1-ofs as silver bullets for specific cases. I liked this deck, but it obviously could use some help to be truly competitive.

Many of the Tribe decks just couldn’t keep up with the card advantage or the versatility of the other decks. Faeries, obviously, being the tribal deck that was the exception and could withstand most battles.

The things common in 3 of the top 4 performing decks were Bitterblossom. For both Doran and Mannequin, Kitchen Finks were a HUGE boost in supporting the blossom machine. Which requires me to mention that Finks were also common in 3 of the top 4. Considering both cards, I find that it’s the card advantage that really makes them so big.

This represents 25 games where we added 5 sideboard cards:

The sideboard is HUGE here!!! Raking Canopy wrecks Faeries and is used very often as most of the decks in this block format will contain Green. This card effected the Mannequin deck as well as it contains a few flyers - This did NOT however, keep Faeries from being effective as you can counter the spell or bounce it with Cryptic Command.

Needless to say, enchantment hate is helpful in your sideboard if you have flyers as your threat of choice.

Wilt Leaf still performed very well as did Mannequin. Warriors were a bit better and could probably be built better than the version I used. However, the Haste created by Obsidian Battle Axe reminds me a lot of Fires of Yavimaya as a 6/5 Chameleon Colossus can really be huge.

It’s still really early, but right now is the time to take testing very seriously. Look at what cards are currently being played by the “top tier” decks and look further with Shadowmoor. It’s wide open, however, green looks like the right direction.

The Enchantment/Jokulhaups deck seems very interesting albeit not very hard to beat, in theory.

I’ve also built a reanimator deck that is moving up on my ladder of tier 1 or tier 2 decks. Basically using cards such as Oona’s Prowler to get BIG guys into the yard and reanimating them somehow.

Hopefully, you’ll find this article to be of some help and the basis for your testing. I’d love to share more insight with whomever might be testing as well. Someone on the Forums asked what a person would want to expect from an article referring to deck testing. For me, it’s all about numbers. For the most part, a smart player can put together any given deck or theme with very few differences in card choices. What someone may NOT know, is the result of 50 games between 9 different decks. Whew I’m sick of playing right now.

I may decide to do a part 2 of this article, but if it’s not very productive for you I won’t. Please let me know what you think on the forums!

--Lee