Friday Standard
This article is the first of our regular content. Christian Shelton will be doing regular articles on different standard brews. Enjoy.
With Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch come and gone last weekend, all everyone is talking about the eldrazi decks in modern. Game day however is coming up this weekend and most shops will be holding standard events so lets prepare to win that play mat. Standard is a pretty healthy format at the moment allowing anyone to pretty much play whatever they want. Having access to nearly perfect mana with fetch lands and battle lands being able to support the powerful khans block cards still in the format, siege rhino this means you, allows some wild creations of 4 and 5 color decks. We even have a new color essentially in colorless symbols being a cost in oath of the Gatewatch. So what do we do with having access to all of the cards in any combination we can think of... we brew of course. We need to understand the decks that are doing well in order to find out what will be competitive in the current standard. This isn't the easiest of tasks because of the diverse formats but here's the main things to prep for: 4-color rally abzan/abzan-blue mardu-green atarka red u/r prowess jeskai-black dragons non rally collected company decks With a meta established we can do one of 2 things; we either pick up one of these decks for ourselves or we brew something to beat at least a majority of these decks. The new eldrazi spells are very powerful as they sure showed in modern at the pro-tour but what about in standard. The eldrazi cards in a siege rhino deck seem like a fine combination to compete with this weekend. colorless abzan creatures 3x warden of the first tree 4x sylvan advocate 3x anafenza the foremost 4x matter reshaper 4x siege rhino 4x thought-knot seer 4x reality smasher noncreatures 3x silkwrap 4x abzan charm 2x murderous cut lands 4x sandstep citadel 3x shambling vent 2x hissing quagmire 4x llanowar wastes 4x caves of koilos 2x yavimaya coasts 2x windswept heath 1x canopy vista 1x plains 1x forest 1x swamp sideboard 2x hallowed moonlight 4x duress 2x arashin cleric 3x flaying tendrils 3x self inflicting wound 1x utter end The nice thing about this deck is it's relatively cheap as far as this standard goes (way more expensive than standard should be). Thought-knot seer and windswept heath are the more expensive cards of the deck, but there’s only those 6 cards so estimating this decks should come out to just over 200. Thats not too bad considering jeskai black is over 600. It's very aggressive and opposing planeswalkers are a way to get behind so be careful as to not get put in those situations. The curve of warden of the first tree or sylvan advocate into an anfenza or matter reshaper into a siege rhino or thought-knot seer into reality smasher equals a miserable time for your opponent. Back it up with silkwraps, abzan charms, and murderous cuts and we have a fierce aggro deck. Although the deck is aggressive it can hold its own in longer games with matter reshaper and abzan charm essentially drawing cards, also your 1 and 2 drops do not get worse when the game goes long. With a sideboard for the decks weaknesses and the current meta this is an excellent choice for upcoming events. Well that’s it for today, have fun with your own deck ideas and remember mtg is a game so have fun with it. Christian Shelton
