Prereleases have arrived, and boy does that have a different feel when you are qualified for the Pro Tour where the new set is being showcased. Suddenly, every card is a potential breakout deck that might shake up the fictional meta you have in your head. Every card could be the one that the pros all decide is the new top tier, and if you don’t figure out which ones, you might be fighting the wrong decks entirely. On top of that, all the “limited chaff” is extremely interesting. Do all these new high toughness creatures mean that the format slows down?

When the spoiler season started, I was caught off guard. Already? With how fast this new set is coming out after the last one, I feel like I haven’t played any Fate Reforged Standard at all. Then again, judging from GP Miami’s breakout deck (GW Devotion, or the Miracles of Standard when it comes to acquiring unintentional draws), maybe I should be happy I missed it.

Why did I miss it, you ask? Well, despite living in Palm Beach (a mere hour away from Miami), I didn’t really have an option. On the Friday before GP Miami, I had a wedding to attend, and this was one I really couldn’t skip (I was the groom). I could’ve tried to get a sleep-in special and head out Saturday morning, but because I am kind of fond of the idea of having some offspring in the future, I figured I wouldn’t want to risk the damage my wife would do to the crown jewels if I seriously entertained that idea.

All kidding aside, the wedding was well worth missing out on a Grand Prix. I suggest you try it one day.

Back to Magic, though. The set is out and I’m going to look over it to get some first ideas for where to start testing for the new Standard format. This will be complicated by the fact that I am not intimately familiar with Fate Reforged yet, so if I miss something obvious, please let me know in the comments!

Let’s start with what we know about current Standard. We have the earlier mentioned Green Devotion decks (splashing either white for [card]Mastery of the Unseen[/card], or red for [card]Crater’s Claws[/card]); we have a variety of [card]Siege Rhino[/card] decks, from aggro with a bunch of two-drops to control with a ton of removal and planeswalkers; we have RW and RG Aggro decks; we have Jeskai Token decks and UW Heroic decks as other linear threats in the format; we have GBx “Reanimator” decks; and we have UB(x) Control and Mono Red Aggro at the outer ends of the control-aggro spectrum.

That’s already quite a diverse field. Is there something that most of these decks have in common? Most play creatures, but the “best” creature removal isn’t great against all of them (Jeskai Tokens and Mono Red laugh at [card]Hero’s Downfall[/card] and [card]Abzan Charm[/card]). Almost every deck plays some removal, as there are too many great threats that win games if they go unchecked (think [card]Whisperwood Elemental[/card], [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card], etc). You have to have a plan against decks that flood the board and decks that play “protect the queen” or “the last threat will get you.” You can’t be too slow or Mono Red will eat your legs from underneath you, and if you want to go long, you’d better be prepared to beat opponents with 70 creatures on the field and a gazillion life.

Alright then.

Other than that, there are a few “almost there” options, for which we can be on the lookout. MonoU and MonoB Devotion decks were format defining when the hybrid cards were still in Standard, so it might be worthwhile to keep an eye out for cards with double and triple costs. The “Warriors” deck is close to being playable, so perhaps another card here or there might push that to be able to hang with the big boys. There are also a few combo pieces in Standard, so something that breaks those are also great finds.

Taking a look at the set overall, I notice a couple of things. First off, there are a bunch of dragons, and even cards that care about having a dragon in your hand. That’s probably better than cards that care about dragons on the field, because if you have those, you are already winning. More likely, you are stuck with the things in your hand, and then your other cards might get powered up. Still, I’d assume that in constructed, we’re not looking to build six-drop.dec, so let’s evaluate the “dragon bonus” as something that might happen here and there, but the card itself has to be good to be worth playing. So, yes to [card]Dragonlord’s Perogative[/card], probably no to [card]Silumgar’s Scorn[/card] (unless you think you’re going to Daze a bunch of people).

There are a couple of Dragon cycles, including the mythic Elder Dragons, which I think are all playable to some degree. They are fairly expensive and specific, though, so you’ll need the right deck to play them. One does not simply jam Dragonlord Dromoka into Gw Devotion, although I do think it would be a great sideboard option against control decks. Kolaghan I don’t really see a deck for yet, and Silumgar suffers from the amount of great removal that hits it (basically everything but [card]Ultimate Price[/card], really). Ojutai seems very good to me, as it can hold the fort until you have enough protection to start swinging in, and when you do, he feeds you more protection and answers. Atarka might seem like the “Timmy” option, but I think it’s one of the better ones. An 8/8 is huge, it gives you value even if they immediately kill it, and seven mana is a fairly sweet spot for current standard. Imagine a deck like this:

Kibler’s Wet Dream by Jay Lansdaal

[deck]
[Lands]
8 Forest
2 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
2 Mountain
4 Rugged Highlands
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Wooded Foothills
[/Lands]
[Spells]
3 Draconic Roar
4 Explosive Vegetation
3 Frontier Siege
3 Crater’s Claws
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Rattleclaw Mystic
3 Scaleguard Sentinels
4 Thunderbreak Regent
4 Dragonlord Atarka
4 Foe Razer Regent
[/Creatures]
[/deck]

Sylvan Caryatid or [card]Rattleclaw Mystic[/card] into [card]Explosive Vegetation[/card] or [card]Frontier Siege[/card] gets you to seven mana on turn four, which then lets you ram a giant dragon into play. With [card]Voyaging Satyr[/card] and Shaman of the Forgotten Ways in the mix, you can have up to twelve of each card that ramps you to seven, but I don’t think you need that many. You also have some smaller Dragons and Dragon aficionados to hold the ground if things don’t go exactly as planned (and some burn to help out), so no need to go too all-in.

One interesting to note is that it would be very easy to splash blue in this deck. Adding a set of [card]Frontier Bivouac[/card]s and a single Island to fetch with [card]Explosive Vegetation[/card] gives you 17 ways to get blue in the deck, which is a ton for a splash. Perhaps we can even play Sarkhan and make this a bit more of a midrange deck?

Sarkhan’s Playground by Jay Lansdaal

[deck]
[Lands]
3 Forest
1 Evolving Wilds
4 Frontier Bivouac
1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
1 Island
1 Mana Confluence
1 Mountain
1 Temple of Epiphany
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Yavimaya Coast
[/Lands]
[Spells]
3 Sarkhan Unbroken
3 Draconic Roar
2 Explosive Vegetation
3 Crater’s Claws
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
1 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Savage Knuckleblade
3 Surrak, the Hunt Caller
4 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Dragonlord Atarka
[/Creatures]
[/deck]

Ramping into Sarkhan also gets you up to seven the next turn. It might not be as explosive, but basically all the cards in this deck are great.

The other cycle of rare multicolored dragons isn’t as interesting, although Pristine Skywise might be better at staying alive than Ojutai himself, which is interesting. Of the mono-colored Dragons, I think most of them could be roleplayers, and the red and blue ones (Thunderbreak Regent and Icefall Regent) are actually good, I think. The blue one feels like it might be able to fit in the blue deck that everyone has been thinking about ever since we saw Shorecrasher [card]Elemental[/card] spoiled:

Mono U Devotion by Jay Lansdaal

[deck]
[Lands]
21 Island
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
[/Lands]
[Spells]
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Disdainful Stroke
2 Reality Shift
3 Bident of Thassa
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
4 Gudul Lurker
3 Hypnotic Siren
4 Frostwalker
3 Stratus Dancer
4 Shorecrasher Elemental
2 Silumgar Sorcerer
4 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Master of Waves
1 Icefall Regent
[/Creatures]
[/deck]

I am not completely convinced the Ferocious Mr. Frosty is the man for the job in the two-drop slot (not exactly a combo with Thassa), and maybe Icefall Regent is more of a sideboard card, but we’re fairly close to what Mono U used to look like, now with some different tricks. Keeping mana open can be very tough on your opponent, with Silumgar Sorcerer, Stratus Dancer, [card]Disdainful Stroke[/card], [card]Stubborn Denial[/card], and [card]Reality Shift[/card] all punishing different lines.

The payoff for this deck is the same as it used to be: Thassa and [card]Master of Waves[/card]. Master is still very good, dodging a lot of removal because it’s small and has protection from Red, letting basically only [card]Hero’s Downfall[/card] hit it. Thassa, however, isn’t as great now, with [card]Abzan Charm[/card] dealing with her fairly easily.

I think the biggest hole with this deck is that we do not have [card]Mutavault[/card] anymore. More Nykthos is nice, and it does make [card]Hypnotic Siren[/card] a lot better, but we’re leaning pretty hard on Bident for fuel in a world full of enchantment removal. Whereas normally Bident and Thassa almost always stuck around, and any UU costing card would turn Thassa active, now we can’t count on that anymore. [card]Stubborn Denial[/card]s might have to do some serious work to keep Thassa and her Weapon around.

Other things I notice while looking at the set overall, is that a lot of the exciting, good cards cost XX instead of XYZ in Khans. This means to me that people will either spread their mana even thinner, or we can start busting out the one- and two-color decks again. Cards like Ojutai’s Exemplars, the new Anafenza, and Arashin Foremost in white; the blue cards we already discussed; the new Sidisi, Blood-Chin Fanatic, and Damnable Pact in black; Thunderbreak Regent, Dragon Whisperer and Commune with Lava in red; Surrak, Hunt Caller, Avatar of the Resolute, and Deathmist Raptor ([card]Whisperwood Elemental[/card]’s newest friend) in green… just about every exciting card seems to be harder to cast for three color decks.

To me, the question then becomes: power or consistency? Do we want to play Ojutai’s Exemplars as extra [card]Siege Rhino[/card]s in Abzan, or as a bigger [card]Seeker of the Way[/card]s in RW? Are we the ones trying to make our mana work, or the ones punishing our opponent for stumbling? If we go the second route, it almost looks like any color can be the basis for a deck. Black has a whole Warrior deck laid out with a ton of one-drops and Blood-Chin Rager and [card]Mogis’s Marauder[/card] to push them through; red has about three complete aggro decks it can build without overlapping cards now; and green has the sweet, sweet curve of Servant of the Scale into Avatar of the Resolute, followed by something like Yasova and crashing in for a million with Surrak. White might be the worst of them all, because it doesn’t seem to have as strong of a plan (or I don’t see it yet), but it also has a pile of one drops and the new Anafenza, and still has cards like Brimaz and [card]Eidolon of Countless Battles[/card] just hanging out, waiting for a real home.

Let’s take a look at a black Warrior deck:

Warriors by Jay Lansdaal

[deck]
[Lands]
21 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Spells]
2 Boon of Erebos
4 Thoughtseize
2 Bile Blight
2 Ultimate Price
1 Hall of Triumph
2 Hero’s Downfall
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
4 Tormented Hero
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Gnarled Scarhide
4 Blood-Chin Rager
3 Mardu Skullhunter
2 Blood-Chin Warrior
2 Herald of Torment
3 Mogis’s Marauder
[/Creatures]
[/deck]

Something like this should be able to get through blockers a lot easier thanks to the addition of Blood-Chin Rager. That makes the dreaded “Caryatid into Courser” opening not *as* scary, and that was, in my opinion, one of the major reasons this deck wasn’t good.

Then, as last exercise, we’ll take a look at mono Red. Let’s look at the list of playable one-drops in red currently in Standard:

[card]Akroan Crusader[/card]
[card]Firedrinker Satyr[/card]
[card]Foundry Street Denizen[/card]
[card]Frenzied Goblin[/card]
[card]Monastery Swiftspear[/card]
[card]Satyr Hoplite[/card]

To which Dragons of Tarkir will add:

[card]Lightning Berserker[/card]
[card]Zurgo Bellstriker[/card]

That’s eight (8!) playable one drops… and that’s probably not even the most exciting part. We also got two excellent two-drops in Dragon Whisperer and Ire Shaman, both cards with some staying power, so we can actually afford to try and play a deck that doesn’t just scoop up the cards when your opponent isn’t dead on turn five or six. We also got a great removal spell in Roast, permanently getting rid of [card]Siege Rhino[/card]s and Coursers if those get in the way.

How does something like this look?

Mono Red Aggro by Jay Lansdaal

[deck]
[Lands]
23 Mountain
[/Lands]
[Spells]
1 Searing Blood
4 Lightning Strike
1 Roast
4 Stoke the Flames
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
4 Firedrinker Satyr
1 Lightning Berserker
4 Zurgo Bellstriker
4 Dragon Whisperer
4 Ire Shaman
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Flamewake Phoenix
4 Thunderbreak Regent
[/Creatures]
[/deck]

Or maybe something like this?

Mono Red Swarm by Jay Lansdaal

[deck]
[Lands]
22 Mountain
[/Lands]
[Spells]
4 Dragon Fodder
2 Lightning Strike
2 Hall of Triumph
4 Hordeling Outburst
4 Stoke the Flames
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
3 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Zurgo Bellstriker
4 Dragon Whisperer
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Kolaghan Forerunners
[/Creatures]
[/deck]

Two fairly different ways of approaching the mono Red deck, but both have their own merit. The first one makes sure every creature can punch through for a fair amount of damage on its own; the second one is more of a swarm strategy, getting around big guys because of sheer numbers instead of through evasion. Depending on what the format will look like, both could be the correct approach.

These are just the first ideas I have when looking over the new set. There are more cards that pique my interest (like Ojutai Exemplars, Atarka’s Command, Narset Transcendent and Damnable Pact) but those I need some more time to figure out how to use. I’m sure we’ll start seeing some of the ideas the pros have in the coming weeks too.

I’ll try to log my progress in the weeks leading up to the Pro Tour, which is April 10 through 12. I’d love to see you all follow along!

Jay Lansdaal
iLansdaal on Twitter