by Justin Richardson
While Shawn Petsche discusses Dredgevine in his article, Justin talks about what he feels to be the initial defining pillars of the new Standard format. Planning to play at Champs, this will definitely prep you on what to look out for!
Scars of Mirrodin is here and with it comes a new Standard format and the State/Provincial Championships. To a lot of people this is an important tournament as it is the first major tournament with the new set and their first chance to try out new decks. I personally haven't had much success at Champs over the years and has made me not look forward to the tournament year after year, but this year I'm really interested to see how Scars will impact the tournament scene.
Figuring out what the best deck is for Champs is slightly difficult as it is always new and no one knows what to expect. The most obvious way to look into the new format is looking at results from previous Standard and Block Constructed events and looking at what decks translate well into the rotation. This year is a little different as we are not only losing the Alara block ( R.I.P. Jund) but we are also losing the Magic 2010 Core set. Due to the change in card pool and relatively unexpected metagame, playing Aggro is usually the best option because putting pressure on the opponent is good when they don't know what kind of answers they want in their Control deck and Combo decks are usually non existant so early as its hard to explore every combination so soon after a set comes out.
As Champs is right around the corner I'm going to talk about what I think are the defining pillars of the new format based more on the previous format with Zendikar and M11, as Scars is more of a wildcard set to me and I feel the cards will probably act as more of a filler for the cards that are rotating out and not spawn new individual archetypes, at least this early on in the format. In no particular order:
1. Goblin Guide
Red Deck Wins and Boros are going to the default beatdown decks of the format going into Champs and for good reason. These decks are fast and explosive and can burn you out of nowhere. These decks rely heavily on their early creatures to force through damage before you can set up a good board position and then fry you to a crisp with their burn spells. These decks gain one of the best cards in Scars of Mirrodin in the form of the new red planeswalker, Koth. This card is extremely good in RDW which lost most of their haste creatures that made the deck so powerful. Depending on how popular Ratchet Bomb becomes I think the Goblin Bushwacker-Devastating Summons package is going to become a staple in RDW as it helps replace the lose of haste creatures like Hellspark Elemental and Ball Lightning. Scars also gives Red players a great answer to Kor Firewalker in the form of Molten-Tail Masticore. Here's a quick idea of what RDW will look like.
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Arid Mesa
4 Teetering Peaks
12 Mountain
4 Goblin Guide
4 Goblin Bushwacker
4 Plated Geopede
4 Kargan Dragonlord
4 Devastating Summons
4 Koth of the Hammer
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Searing Blaze
4 Burst Lightning
For the sideboard I think you should probably have 3-4 Masticores and some other options include Leyline of Punishment for Kor Firewalker, Dragon's Claw for the mirror match, Tunnel Ingus agaisnt Ramp decks and probably some Manic Vandals to deal with annoying artifacts.
When Zendikar came out, Boros Bushwacker became a surprise deck that came out of nowhere to be one of the best decks early on in the format. While it got lost in the shadow of Jund and lost its surprise factor it has had a small resurgence lately. The newest iterations of the deck have been based around Stoneforge Mystic and the landfall mechanic. Steppe Lynx, Plated Geopede and Adventuring Gear can all deal a lot of damage very quickly in this deck because the deck has 12+ fetchlands to abuse landfall with. Boros does lose a lot of its better late game cards in the rotation like Ranger of Eos, Ajani Vengeant and Elspeth, Knight Errant. I think Koth will do a nice job of filling the void left by these cards. Some newer additions can also include Sword of Vengeance, Sword of Body and Mind, Galvanic Blast depending on how much equipment you plan on running, and possibly some of the metalcraft Aurioks. Here's a rough list of how Boros will probably look.
4 Goblin Guide
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Plated Geopede
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Kor Skyfisher
3 Kor Duelist
3 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Adventuring Gear
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Sword of Vengeance
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Koth of the Hammer
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Marsh Flats
1 Evolving Wilds
7 Plains
5 Mountain
SB
1 Sword of Body and Mind
4 Kor Firewalker
3 Journery to Nowhere
1 Elspeth Tirel
1 Gideon Jura
1 Koth of the Hammer
4 Tunnel Ingus
The Maindeck is pretty much a stock list from block constructed with some Lightning Bolts replacing other burn spells. The sideboard has some planeswalkers to give it another angle of attack agaisnt control, Tunnel Ingus for ramp decks, Kor Firewalker for RDW and Journey of Nowhere to deal with Baneslayers and Titans. The Sword of Body and Mind might not be needed as I haven't tested it much but it seems decent agaisnt green based Aggro, which brings us to the next card.
2. Vengevine
Green based aggro is going to be the other aggresive style deck in the format. Vengevine has proven itself to be an amazing card in T2, it's one of the few ways to kill planeswalkers out of nowhere, and its a very annoying and powerful threat agaisnt control that keeps coming back now that the best cards agaisnt Vengevine like Path to Exile and Oblivion Ring have rotated out. One obvious inclusion with Vengevine is going to be Fauna Shaman, which is great with Vengevine as we have seen, the ability to dump and chain Vengevines in the graveyard is pretty awesome. I think most Vengevine decks are going to be Gx Monument style type of decks as seen at Pro Tour San Juan with Fauna Shamans mixed in. I'm not sure if they would want to splash any colours right now but I think Mono Green is a good way to start.
4 Khalni Garden
2 Dread Statuary
12 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 vengevine
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Wolfbriar Elemental
4 Kozileks Predator
4 Nest Invader
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Lannowar Elf
4 Joraga Treespeaker
3 Eldrazi Monument
2 Beastmasters Ascension
With this deck you have plenty of sideboard options like Naturalize/Nature's Claim, Tajuru Preserver to help fight All is Dust from the Eldrazi deck, River Boas to fight Blue decks, or maybe some Obstinate Baloths to gain life agaisnt other aggro decks like RDW.
Another idea that has seen a little play in Block and T2 is to splash blue for some cheap counterspells into a UG Monument shell with some Mana Leaks or Unified Will as well as getting access to bounce spells to clear the path for your Vengevines. I have also seem some lists playing Shared Discovery with a lot of tokens to draw into even more gas. Blue in this deck also gives you access to the next card on my list.
3. Jace the Mind Sculptor
Jace is best card printed in quite a long time. It's so good that it sees play in almost every format it is legal in, even Vintage. The most obvious Jace deck in T2 is UW Control where you get to use not only the Mind Sculptor, but also baby Jace Beleren. Jace Beleren has great synergy with a new addition from M11, Sun Titan which is one of possible finishers of the deck. Losing Oblivion Ring is quite annoying as a resolved planeswalker is hard to deal with as you no longer have Elspeth, Knight Errant to be able to attack planeswalker in the early game. Speaking of Elspeth I don't think the newest version of her will see much play in UW as more than a 1 of, because I find the abilities to be a bit underwhelming, the old Elspeth was good because it increased in loyalty no matter what you did while the new one gets decreases when you make tokens and only increases when you use the gain life ability which is mediocre in this deck due to how few creatures this deck is likely to have in play at one time. I think Baneslayer Angel is going to have a return as one of the major finishers in the deck due to the fact that all the best removal in the format has rotated out and the format looks very aggresive. Scars adds some interesting options like Ratchet Bomb, Sunblast Angel and Seachrome Coast. It also gets a good sideboard card agaisnt Ramp in the form of Leonin Arbiter. Another interesting interaction from Scars is proliferate with planeswalkers and cards like Ratchet Bomb and Everflowing Chalice, not sure if it's good enough but just thought it was cool enough to bring up. Here's a list to start off if you plan on playing UW.
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Tectonic Edge
3 Plains
4 Island
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
4 Seachrome Coast
2 Sun Titan
4 Wall of Omens
3 Baneslayer Angel
4 Mana Leak
2 Jace Beleren
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Gideon Jura
2 Jace's Ingenuity
2 Deprive
2 Day of Judgment
3 Journey to Nowhere
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Condemn
Like I said before Leonin Arbiter is a great sideboard card to fight the ramp decks, and you have great sideboard options like more planeswalkers, Negates and Luminarch Ascension for the mirror, Flashfreeze to deal with Primeval Titan decks and Red Deck Wins as well as Celestial Purge for some extra removal vs RDW.
Brad Nelson wrote about another direction to take Jace the Mind Sculptor, in a RUG ramp shell similar to what PV and Josh Utter-Leyton played at Pro Tour San Juan. The deck focuses on the interaction between Jace and Oracle of Mul Daya. I won't talk about the deck much as he described the deck much better than I could have, but the main thing is, this is a Jace deck, Jace is how you will win most of the games, it plays the maximum amount of Mind Sculptors allowed, plays cheap cantrips and draw spells like Jace's Ingenuity to find them and ramp spells to play them earlier, and cheap removal to protect Jace. For reference here is the list he suggests.
4 Preordain
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Burst Lightning
4 Lotus Cobra
2 Mana Leak
4 Explore
1 Cultivate
3 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Jace the Mind Sculptor
1 Chandra Nalaar
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Jaces Ingenuity
2 Copperline Gorge
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Halimar Depths
3 Mountain
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Evolving Wilds
3 Forest
4 Island
4 Raging Ravine
SB
1 Pyroclasm
1 Avenger of Zendikar
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Mana Leak
3 Lodestone Golem
3 Rachet Bomb
1 Volition Reins
4. Primeval Titan
The final card I want to talk about is Primeval Titan. This card single handedly makes ramp not only viable but an extremely good choice right now as the only card they lose from the rotation is Rampant Growth. The first ramp deck was popular in Block and just recently started seeing play in t2 is Mono Green Eldrazi Ramp.
4 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Overgrown Battlement
4 Primeval Titan
2 Ulamog
1 Kozilek
1 Emrakul
3 Everflowing Chalice
4 Explore
4 Cultivate
4 Summoning Trap
2 Ratchet Bomb
14 Forest
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Eye of Ugin
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Tectonic Edge
4 Khalni Garden
Sideboard can include some All is Dust, Obstinate Baloths, Molten-Tail Masticore, Pelakka Wurm and maybe some Terastodon or Acidic Slimes to go in a land destruction direction.
This deck is deceptively powerful as it can explode Titans and Eldrazi into play extremely quickly with all the acceleration the deck plays, as well as sneaking a big dork in with a Summoning Trap. The only problem with this deck is that sometimes you don`t draw enough gas if they answer your threat as so much of the deck is either lands or mana accel and sometimes you draw dead too often. Other than that the deck is very consistent as it is only 1 colour and you will almost always hit your land drops, and the deck has a near unbeatable late game if it gets to that point.
The last deck I`m going to talk about is a little less consistent but it has the most powerful Titans in the format, I am talking about Valakut Ramp.
4 Primeval Titan
4 Inferno Titan
4 Oracle of Mul Daya
2 Avenger of Zendikar
2 Summoning Trap
4 Explore
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Cultivate
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
12 Mountain
3 Evolving Wilds
3 Terramorphic Expanse
5 Forest
1 Raging Ravine
4 Valakit the Molten Pinnacle
Sideboard options include Obstinate Baloths, Pyroclasm, Burst Lightning and Ratchet Bomb agaisnt Aggro, Summoning and Ricochet Traps agaisnt blue control and Back to Nature to deal with Leyline of Sanctity and Spreading Seas.
I think this is the best Titan deck as it is almost a guaranteed win if you untap with Primeval in play and even if it dies it still gets you up to 2 Valakuts into play which will soon leave a smoking crater where your opponent used to be. Oracle of Mul Daya seems very powerful this format as there is not a lot of removal to kill it and vs. red decks you can just sideboard them out for Obstinate Baloths anwyays. Some tools to beating the ramp decks include some new bears in the form of Leonin Arbiter and Tunnel Ingus so I think it's good to include some removal in the sideboard so you always have an answer to those 2 cards.
These are the decks that I think are going to define the format, at least until people come up with some crazy decks featuring Scars of Mirrodin cards. Scars is a very interesting set and I think that some cards like Koth and Ratchet Bomb are going to be great role players in the months to come. Thanks for reading if you have any questions let me know in the comments.
JRich
Kar Yung Tom (KYT) is the Digital Content Manager for Face to Face Games. He oversees the F2FTour.com and Magic F2F websites. He is also the lead host of the First Strike podcast.