As this is my first article on GatheringMagic.com, I would like to take a minute to introduce myself, as I hope to be a fixture on this site in the near future. My name is Harrison Greenberg, and I have been playing competitive Magic in the Florida area for the past eight years. I started my competitive play in the Junior Super Series at fourteen and won my fair share of scholarship money in that series. After that, I had a few years downswing until I found my way to winning in the PTQ scene, in which I qualified for both San Diego and San Juan in the 2010 season. Since then, I have been playing on the Star City Open circuit, and I am currently a Level 4 player. I currently live in Orlando, Florida, and when I am home, I find myself playing cards at Cool Stuff Games. Now into the meat and potatoes of the article.

With Standard seeing some major changes over the next few months, we are finding that the higher-level Magic players are scrambling trying to figure out what they are supposed to play in this new Standard format without Stoneforge Mystic or Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and then even a bit further down the line, thinking about when M12 is legal. We have a number of new game-changing cards coming into Standard, and two of the most important ones coming out, which is going to give us three to four months of a very different format than we have been used to for the past six to eight months. What is a player supposed to bring to an FNM, TCQ, Star City Open, or even PTQ? A deck without Jace and that doesn’t have to beat Jace? That is nearly unheard-of at this point in time. With a bunch of older options and possibly even a few new ones, this is what I believe Standard is going to look like in the months to come.

Control

I believe that control will not be dead, but will be a totally morphed deck. I believe that the new control decks are going to have to be Black-based denial decks using hand disruption such as Inquisition of Kozilek and Despise as well as board-sweepers such as Black Sun’s Zenith. I believe that this type of deck is most likely still going to have to play Blue for Baby Jace, Mana Leak, and Preordain. I believe that a deck list would look something like this:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Frost Titan

2 Grave Titan

[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]

3 Jace Beleren

[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]

2 Dismember

2 Doom Blade

2 Surgical Extraction

3 Go for the Throat

3 Mana Leak

1 Life's Finale

2 Black Sun's Zenith

2 Despise

4 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Preordain

2 Tumble Magnet

[/Spells]

[Lands]

10 Swamp

5 Island

4 Creeping Tar Pit

4 Darkslick Shores

4 Drowned Catacomb

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

Another option in the same genre is to play the basic Tezzeret deck, which is nearly the same list as before. While the deck is losing Jace, I believe that the deck is still going to be a formidable opponent and may even find its way from Tier 2 up to Tier 1.

While none of these decks are anywhere near the same strength as the former control powerhouse in the format, I think that control won’t die but will just become much less powerful, and we might be moving back into the aggro/midrange format of before.

Combo

While taking out a card that lets you Brainstorm may seem to kill combo, I still believe that the one true combo deck (Splinter Twin) as well as the deck that I consider combo (Valakut) are going to be two of the new Tier 1 decks.

Splinter Twin is going to have to morph a bit, as it is going to have one fewer win condition once we take out Jace, the Mind Sculptor. While the deck doesn’t have to worry as much about the control decks being in the format, I believe that it is going to have to be able to beat the aggressive deck in the format, possibly by going back to the Grixis build to be able to use its hand disruption to slow these creature decks down. Without Jace, I believe that the deck is going to have to load up on Little Jace and also some main-deck Pyroclasms. This is a rough draft of what I would like my Splinter Twin deck to look like.

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Deceiver Exarch

[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]

4 Jace Beleren

[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]

3 Mana Leak

3 Spell Pierce

2 Despise

3 Pyroclasm

4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Preordain

4 Splinter Twin

[/Spells]

[Lands]

1 Swamp

2 Island

3 Mountain

3 Evolving Wilds

4 Blackcleave Cliffs

4 Creeping Tar Pit

4 Darkslick Shores

4 Scalding Tarn

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

When we look at Valakut as a deck, most people think of a deck that died. The reason that deck died, though, was due to the dominance of Caw-Blade. If we look just a year ago, Valakut was the Caw-Blade of the format and was the deck that was at the top every single tournament. The deck has gotten even better over time, and we already know that the deck will be getting a huge new addition from M12. Rampant Growth was the card that all Valakut players had wished for, and now, with M12, they get their wish. While the deck was very good without the card, it will now be insane when you add another card that costs 2 and gives you an extra mana. Pumping out turn-four Titans is going to be easier than ever and make the deck that much more consistent. I believe that Valakut will be in the top three decks in the format and will be the most hated deck yet again.

Aggro

I think that this is going to be the most dynamic part of Standard to come. There are going to be at least three major players in this genre, which will include Vampires, Goblins, and Hawkward. While Vampires is going to be an old list that doesn’t lose anything, Goblins is a old deck that was in the Tier 2 bracket and is going to not only gain from the banning, but also gain a huge power player in M12 in the form of Goblin Grenade. With both of these bonuses, Goblins is going to be a major player in Standard for the next few months. Red currently has some of the most powerful cards in Goblin Guide and Shrine of Burning Rage, and now with the addition of Goblin Grenade, I think that this deck will be put over the top.

The interesting deck in this plan of attack is Hawkward. While most people have been overlooking this deck, I believe that this deck is quite consistent and is the deck that I am currently choosing to play in the format, even with Jace and Stoneforge Mystic. The deck has many ways to win and has many plans of attack that can overwhelm your opponent from multiple angles and allow you to go into the late game against the controlling decks as well as steal some games with random turn-three victories. This is the deck list that I brought to last weekend’s Star City Open in Baltimore, Maryland:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Glint Hawk

3 Porcelain Legionnaire

4 Memnite

4 Phyrexian Revoker

4 Signal Pest

4 Steel Overseer

4 Vault Skirge

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

3 Dispatch

4 Tempered Steel

2 Shrine of Loyal Legions

4 Glint Hawk Idol

3 Mox Opal

[/Spells]

[Lands]

11 Plains

3 Contested War Zone

3 Inkmoth Nexus

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

3 Kor Firewalker

3 Spellskite

1 Dispatch

3 Divine Offering

2 Shrine of Loyal Legions

3 Plains

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

The most talked-about part of this deck list is my choice to play three Plains in my sideboard. The concept is that you want to take out Contested War Zones in nearly every match. While you are going to be the best Game 1 deck a fair share of the time, your deck is not as good in a Game 2 or 3 after an opponent can bring in a board-sweeper. This means that you have to build up resources and not give your opponent the option to take away both your creatures and your lands. This main deck/sideboard give the deck a nice long game against control decks like Caw-Blade in the form of Shrine of Loyal Legions. There are many games where you can resolve a Shrine and just let it do all of the work, letting you overextend into a Day of Judgment and still be able to recover. You can then pop the Shrine and cast a Tempered Steel the next turn and attack for a huge number. While the main deck most likely cannot change, the sideboard has many options to change when the new format is slightly more defined. This will allow the deck to morph with the format and even for each specific metagame for where you play.

Midrange

This is one of my favorite types of deck to both build and play. The main way to play a midrange deck in the format is a creature-based deck with Fauna Shaman. Months ago, a few of the guys I test with and I came out with the Jumanji deck, which had morphed into the G/W aggro deck. As the deck got more popular, Caw-Blade had found ways to beat it, and the deck had to be ditched. Recently, I wanted to reexplore the midrange strategy, and a deck based on Birthing Pod and Fauna Shaman was made. The deck is meant to use all of the great creatures in the format to make sure that you always have the answer that you want. This is the list that I played in Indianapolis for the Star City Invitational:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Entomber Exarch

1 Grave Titan

1 Massacre Wurm

1 Trinket Mage

1 Viridian Corrupter

2 Vengevine

3 Acidic Slime

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Fauna Shaman

4 Llanowar Elves

4 Lotus Cobra

1 Memnite

1 Pilgrim's Eye

1 Spellskite

1 Wurmcoil Engine

2 Phyrexian Metamorph

1 Sheoldred, Whispering One

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

1 Voltaic Key

4 Birthing Pod

[/Spells]

[Lands]

5 Swamp

9 Forest

4 Misty Rainforest

4 Verdant Catacombs

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

2 Entomber Exarch

3 Obstinate Baloth

1 Phyrexian Revoker

3 Spellskite

1 Nature's Claim

3 Beast Within

1 Wurmcoil Engine

1 Grave Titan

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

While the deck is very solid, it is a deck that needs to change with the format and can change every week based on what the metagame is reading. In the next few weeks, I will be coming back to this deck to discuss after we see where the meta has moved to.

While all of these are interesting attacks on a new format, I think that it will be fun to see what happens now that our known powerhouse is gone. Competitive Magic is going through big changes in the weeks to come, and as a person who loves to brew, I am looking forward to each weekend of new results. Check back in the next few weeks as I follow the results and figure out where Standard is taking us with this big change to both the decks and our wallets.