I've been a wrestling fan just as long as I've been a Magic player. Both are tied together in my memories of late nights with my friends, where we'd slam Craw Wurms into Krakens, dodge Royal Assassins, and settle disputes with body slams. I remember when I believed Andre the Giant really was the Eighth Wonder of the World. I remember the first time I heard someone call Prodigal Sorcerer "Tim," a joke once more relevant with the Monty Python Secret Lair! I watched Mankind get tossed off the top of Hell in a Cell and ragdoll on the concrete like he was broken in half. I watched Lightning Helix get flipped off the top to the cacophony of a thousand screaming fans.

Wrestling and Magic go together like chocolate and peanut butter. And there's one thing I've learned from my days as a wrestling fan that I think we can apply to this coming Standard season.

Everything changes once you get locked inside a cage.

Cage Match | BLB Standard | Travis Hall

• Creatures (33)
• 2 Sanguine Evangelist
• 3 Nurturing Pixie
• 4 Moonshaker Cavalry
• 4 Pawpatch Recruit
• 4 Pollen-Shield Hare
• 4 Resolute Reinforcements
• 4 Sandstorm Salvager
• 4 Tender Wildguide
• 4 Warden of the Inner Sky

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Collector's Cage

• Lands (23)
• 7 Plains
• 4 Forest
• 4 Brushland
• 4 Razorverge Thicket
• 4 Restless Prairie

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I wrote about Collector's Cage a couple of weeks ago in my "Mythics to Remember" article, and the card has tumbled around in my brain ever since. To maximize its value with Hideaway, we need to focus the deck on cards that can provide multiple bodies (bonus points if those bodies have different powers). Fortunately, the new offspring ability is fantastic for this, as it lets you play both on curve in the early game and pump out additional bodies once you get past the first couple of turns. This deck recovers well form board wipes too. The +1/+1 counter from Cage isn't anything to sneeze at, and can make combat math a nightmare for your opponent.

We also need something in the deck to act as our, "I Win" card to cheat into play with Hideaway. Wizards doesn't love us Green mages enough to reprint Craterhoof Behemoth in Standard, but they did give us something close in Moonshaker Cavalry. Just remember, that while Cavalary hitting the board will increase your creature count prior to the triggered ability pumping your team, Moonshaker Cavalry, unlike our good buddy Hoofie, does not grant haste to itself or any other creatures.

Pawpatch Recruit serves the deck as both an early aggressive beater and an additional body on later turns. The +1/+1 ability is just gravy, and Trample makes it a relevant target to stack the counters from a Cage.

Tender Wildguide can grow itself to give us a different power creature to trigger Cage, provides an additional body with Offspring, and can even help us ramp to eight mana to hard cast Moonshaker Cavalry if the game goes long. It feels like the perfect card for the deck on multiple axis.

Sandstorm Salvager may be the glue the holds the deck together. It provides two bodies for Cage, of different powers and this deck makes so many creature tokens that the activated ability pumping your tokens will force your opponent to find some way to get rid of it.

Nurturing Pixie is such a sneaky good card in this deck. It can hit the board on turn one to get the match started if needed. It can reset one of your Offspring or creatures with an Enters ability to help you go wide. It can even reset a Cage if you miss on the first Hideaway ability.

This deck should be able to hit the ground fast with eleven 1-drops, and this makes me nervous about running the full playset of Restless Prairie. But, this deck goes wide so well that the land serves as an additional wincon, and it can fulfill one of the creature requirements to trigger Cage in a longer game.

Other Cards to Consider

Delney, Streetwise Lookout was so close to making it in here. Most of the creatures have Enters abilities but for 3-drops, I'd rather have the creatures that guarantee an additional body than the one that has to survive a turn to grow my team.

Whiskervale Forerunner almost slid in under the bottom rope as the top end of the deck, and I will almost certainly build a version of this deck that focuses on Valiant in the future. But, If I went with Forerunner, I would also need to increase the land count, and I wanted this first pass to be as low to the ground as possible.

Beza, the Bounding Spring will be a sideboard all-star (and a card I would probably list in my top ten cards from Bloomburrow), but I seriously considered slipping one into the main deck here. If I do end up trying a version that has a higher top end, I would include at least one copy.

Removal of some kind. I went all in on creatures for this version, but once I get a dozen games under my belt to see which creatures fit the deck best, I'd probably shave 3-4 to fit in removal or battlefield tricks.

I hope you give this deck a chance in the early days of Bloomburrow standard. It has the power to win, and to do so in a variety of ways, while also allowing for a memorable finish off the top rope.

You can find more of my musings on twitter @travishall456.