Standard Features – What’s Good Nyikkuh?!

Standard: A place where people with the ability to acquire new cards get their best 75 together and try to be top dog. Sadly, a good amount of standard becomes dominated by expensive cards that many people either can’t afford or don’t care to spend the money on. It’s the way that it goes. Professional players win with a deck and the value of cards in the deck goes up because everybody buys those cards. The idea with this article is to get an understanding of the current standard to basically just get the wheels turning on your own more budget friendly decks.

The decks you’re competing with:

Delver. This is a controlling beatdown type of deck mainly playing Delver of Secrets in conjunction with a wide variety of instants, Snapcaster Mage and Geist of Saint Traft. They pay more money to win. Most of the decks you face will probably look something like this.

Lands 4 Glacial Fortress 9 Island 3 Moorland Haunt 2 Plains 4 Seachrome Coast Creatures 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Geist of Saint Traft 3 Restoration Angel 4 Snapcaster Mage Other Spells 2 Dismember 1 Divine Offering 3 Gitaxian Probe 1 Gut Shot 4 Mana Leak 4 Ponder 2 Sword of Feast and Famine 2 Thought Scour 4 Vapor Snag Sideboard 1 Amass the Components 2 Consecrated Sphinx 1 Divine Offering 2 Ghost Quarter 1 Gut Shot 2 Phantasmal Image 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 2 Ratchet Bomb 1 Sword of War and Peace 2 Timely Reinforcements

This deck has control, cheap and efficient creatures and removal that’s reusable with Snapcaster Mage. This kind of decklist makes me really want to play Whipflare maindeck in anything that I build against it. It’s basically a 2 mana Wrath of God that only the Restoration Angel‘s can get around.

I’m not sure the technical name for the next deck. I guess it’s a new version of Wolf Run? It’s a green and red concoction that’s very midrangey with a bunch of very powerful cards. Here’s a list that’s similar to what’s going around lately.

Lands 4 Copperline Gorge 8 Forest 1 Inkmoth Nexus 2 Kessig Wolf Run 3 Mountain 4 Rootbound Crag Creatures 1 Acidic Slime 4 Birds of Paradise 1 Champion of Lambholt 1 Daybreak Ranger 4 Huntmaster of the Fells 4 Llanowar Elves 2 Phyrexian Metamorph 4 Strangleroot Geist 2 Wolfir Avenger 1 Wolfir Silverheart Other Spells 1 Bonfire of the Damned 3 Green Sun’s Zenith 2 Incinerate 4 Pillar of Flame 2 Sword of Feast and Famine 2 Sword of War and Peace Sideboard 1 Act of Aggression 2 Ancient Grudge 3 Arc Trail 2 Dismember 1 Naturalize 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Thrun, the Last Troll 1 Wolfir Silverheart 2 Zealous Conscripts

This deck seems to focus on getting a scary creature out and putting a sword on it while clearing the way for attacks. The deck has a suprising amount of utility for an aggro kind of deck. Lots of mana acceleration. This is another deck that a Whipflare can put a decent hurting to as well. Not as much as to Delver but still pretty decent. I just really friggin like Pyroclasms alright!?

Next is Birthing Pod. This deck kind of went away for a while but has started showing up a little more lately. The idea with the newer Naya Birthing Pod decks doesn’t rely so heavily on the namesake artifact, (only playing 2 of them) but still uses a bunch of cantrip creatures to get ahead. Here’s a list that made top 8 recently.

Lands 3 Cavern of Souls 4 Copperline Gorge 6 Forest 2 Gavony Township 1 Mountain 2 Plains 4 Razorverge Thicket 1 Sunpetal Grove Creatures 4 Avacyn’s Pilgrim 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Blade Splicer 2 Borderland Ranger 1 Fiend Hunter 3 Huntmaster of the Fells 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 4 Restoration Angel 3 Strangleroot Geist 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Wolfir Silverheart 1 Zealous Conscripts Other Spells 2 Birthing Pod 2 Bonfire of the Damned 2 Oblivion Ring Sideboard 1 Ancient Grudge 1 Birthing Pod 2 Combust 2 Corrosive Gale 2 Surgical Extraction 3 Sword of War and Peace 1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Wolfir Silverheart 1 Zealous Conscripts

The new addition that I’m seeing is Restoration Angel. It seems like that takes over the spots for the other missing Birthing Pods. It doesn’t make you lose a creature to get another trigger. This plays some similar cards to the midrangey RG Wolf Run. Sadly this deck isn’t as easily stopped by Whipflare. Damn it! Whipflare can only hit 22 of the creatures! What a jip! That would normally be a good but that’s only about 60% of the creatures in this beast.

The last deck I’m going to post here is Solar Flare or ‘Frites’ I think some people are calling it. Now this deck hasn’t been showing up too much, but it’s still around and it’s still scurry. The deck wants to get big guys out faster than they should with Unburial Rites. Why you play around Whipflare so hard!?

Lands 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Clifftop Retreat 3 Dragonskull Summit 4 Evolving Wilds 3 Isolated Chapel 3 Mountain 3 Plains 4 Swamp Creatures 2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 2 Grave Titan 2 Inferno Titan 2 Olivia Voldaren 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 2 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Wurmcoil Engine Other Spells 2 Day of Judgment 4 Faithless Looting 4 Lingering Souls 1 Sever the Bloodline 3 Sphere of the Suns 3 Unburial Rites 2 Whipflare Planeswalkers 4 Liliana of the Veil Sideboard 3 Ancient Grudge 1 Batterskull 1 Black Sun’s Zenith 2 Galvanic Blast 2 Go for the Throat 1 Mimic Vat 1 Oblivion Ring 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 1 Ray of Revelation 1 Shock 1 Slagstorm

You son of a bitch! Why you main decking Whipflares bruh! Why you gotta steal what was going to be my secret weapon?! So basically this deck wants to stall with Lingering Souls and then either drop a fatty or Unburial Rites a fatty. Too many Titans and too much money. This one would be pretty tough to build against keeping the other top decks in mind as well.

I know there are more decks out there, but these are the main ones that I’m seeing are winning tourneys lately. So if you’re looking to build something to take to an FNM, keep these decks in mind because you’re probably going to be facing them. I plan on going to the next FNM (haven’t been to one in a looooooong time) so I’ll let you know how my future budget home brew works against these rich people decks. If it does well I’ll post an article on it. If not….I dunno. Maybe I’ll post a cautionary article of cards that trick you into thinking they’re good. Whipflare obviously wouldn’t be in that article though. Just sayin’. As always, tell people to eat it when you tap mana in response, look them in the eye and slow roll not casting anything while they sit there confused.