Standard

Exact 75 – It Begins Here!

Howdy y’all,

Exact 75 is the name of my new column, I plan on presenting you an article every Monday that will deal with the Standard metagame, possible deck ideas, videos, tournament prep, etc. At the end of every article, I will discuss the Canadian Magic Player of the Week, a Canadian magic player who has either: a) had success in the magic community, or b) has inspired other up-and-coming magic players to grow to their full potential. I would first like to thank KYT for motivating me to start writing again and to Andy Peters for helping me come up with the deck concepts as I continue to write these articles.

Well I’ve wiped away my tears, taken a deep breath and moved into the next stage of my magic existence, one without [card]Vengevine[/card] in Standard. With the disappearance of [card]Vengevine[/card], I now have to prove that I am not a one-trick pony, a feat I am more than ready to prove. Now without further ado, let’s delve into a new Standard metagame!

For as long as I’ve been playing competitive magic, there has never been a period in time where standard was an open format: from the long reign of Jund to the sinful streak of Caw-blade, magic has seemingly been about beating the best deck over the last few years. Occasionally there are fluctuations in the format (UB Control, [card]Splinter Twin[/card], etc.) but overall standard has been dominated by one deck for a very long time. Because of this, I absolutely love the concept of change in our format in order to open up the runway to innovation and a wide variety of competitive decks. After going over the format a decent amount, the format seems to revolve around a few decks that will shape the format and they are:

1) Birthing Pod Decks

This should come to no surprise as by the end of pre-Innistrad Standard, Birthing Pod decks were consistently finishing well in tournament play. While the Pod decks have lost a huge tool in the [card]Splinter Twin[/card]/[card]Deceiver Exarch[/card] Combo, they do gain a lot of interesting cards; many of which are useful thanks to the new Morbid Mechanic. Cards like [card]Morkrut Banshee[/card] and [card]Woodland Sleuth[/card] allow for users to reap the rewards of the [card]Birthing Pod[/card] chain immediately after use; we even get a better lifegain target to Pod into with [card]Hollowhenge Scavenger[/card] replacing [card]Obstinate Baloth[/card]! With all these amazing new tools that seem to benefit [card]Birthing Pod[/card] decks, we could see a format that definitely shifts towards these types of decks (most likely in the vicinity of Bant Pod as it loses few key elements and gains important pieces). With [card]Tempered Steel[/card] decks also continuing to be around, artifact removal will be more important than it ever has been!

After some tinkering, here’s the current list I’m on, I know a case could be made for [card]Skaab Ruinator[/card] but it just seems like it doesn’t interact with the deck super well. I find [card]Sun Titan[/card] is the main catalyst in this deck so playing a card that gets rid of creatures from a graveyard seems counterproductive. Anywho, here’s the list:

[deck title=Bant Pod by Jake Meszaros]
[Lands]
5 Forest
2 Island
4 Hinterland Harbor
1 Plains
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Ghost Quarter
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
2 Blade Splicer
1 Deceiver Exarch
3 Viridian Emissary
1 Kessig Cagebreakers
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Hollowhenge Scavenger
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Birthing Pod
2 Venser, the Sojourner
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Acidic Slime
3 Llanowar Elves
3 Phantasmal Image
1 Stonehorn Dignitary
1 Sun Titan
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Ponder
[/Spells]
[/deck]

Now that we’ve tackled one giant, time to move onto the next giant that will be defining decks for a very long time…

2) Snapcaster Mage Decks

When Wizards of the Coast released this card, they must have had a little fear that the next broken two drop to hit Standard had been printed. With a plethora of great Instant and Sorcery cards in Standard, Mage has the potential to allow players to run insane amounts of the same card. Snapcaster will most likely see play in UB decks in order to gain additional removal out of [card]Go for the Throat[/card] and [card]Doom Blade[/card] and additional counters out of [card]Mana Leak[/card] and [card]Dissipate[/card]. However, one of the potentially interesting interactions I immediately thought of was [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] and [card]Fog[/card] and the potential of Turbofog making a comeback in Standard. With cards like [card]Rites of Flourishing[/card] and Jace 3.0, there very well may be a viable deck to come out of Turbofog. Here’s a potential Turbofog list:

[deck title=Turbofog by Jake Meszaros]
[Lands]
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Hinterland Harbor
2 Inkmoth Nexus
8 Forest
8 Island
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Snapcaster Mage
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Blue Sun’s Zenith
4 Forbidden Alchemy
4 Ponder
4 Mana Leak
4 Fog
4 Rites of Flourishing
4 Jace, Memory Adept
2 Blunt the Assault
2 Elixir of Immortality
[/Spells]
[/deck]

While this list may be rough adn undefined, the only reason this is even close to being anything near a viable deck is because of [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]; it just makes everything around it gain infinite value. In short, [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] is nuts and Wizards will probably regret printing it when Channelfireball/Jake Meszaros breaks the format with said card.

3) Blade Decks

As much as people hated Caw-Blade when it was around, decks with multiple copies are very likely to remain a force in post Innistrad standard; UW blade included. While Caw-Go was a deck before Mirroden Besieged, it was nowhere near as good as it was when [card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card] was released, Sword became the reason Caw-BLADE had the results it did. When [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] and [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] were banned in Standard, Caw-Blade remained a force due to [card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card] being an absolute house. Now with the birds migrating South towards the unseen land of Extended, new creatures will have to step up and claim the Sword for themselves. The current frontrunner for the position is [card]Invisible Stalker[/card], a card that quite simply cannot be dealt with if it is allowed to be equipped with a Sword of any sorts. However, since Stalker cannot search for more Stalkers (a nightmare in the card game and in real life), UW Blade decks will be required to run a higher creature count in order to ensure that there will be targets for the Swords, which is where cards like [card]Geist of Saint Taft[/card], [card]Phantasmal Image[/card] (although it can’t be equipped), and [card]Sun Titan[/card] come into play. With a newly equipped army of dudes that are hard to deal with, UW Blade decks can live again, possibly in a build like this one:

[deck title=UW Blade by Jake Meszaros]
[Lands]
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Seachrome Coast
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Inkmoth Nexus
6 Island
7 Plains
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Invisible Stalker
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Sun Titan
3 Geist of Saint Traft
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Dismember
2 Day of Judgment
3 Think Twice
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Mana Leak
2 Gideon Jura
4 Sword of Feast and Famine
[/Spells]
[/deck]

While there are definitely other decks that have the potential to prosper in this format, I currently think that decks that are build around [card]Birthing Pod[/card], [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card], and [card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card] are by far the most fool-proof ways to go in this wide open format. I know our good friend and editor of Mana Deprived William Blondon wants to bring back White Weenie, but he is (to be honest) a Weenie, which is why he is not this week’s…

Canadian Player of the Week

While it would be easy to give the Canadian Player of the Week award to Alexander Hayne for his tremendous performance at GP Montreal where he placed second, I want to begin with a player that is not well known among the Canadian Magic scene but has done his best to aid in the growth of the Magic community. As you all surely know, I am a player with severe flaws in my mental game; I am easily put on tilt. Getting over these mental roadblocks is a daunting task to say the least, and I’m happy I do not have to tackle these hurdles without a mentor who will tell me exactly what he feels even if I don’t want to hear it. Barry Hum is a player at my local store on the South Shore of Montreal and he is by far the most deserving player for this week’s CPW honours. Barry is a player that avidly promotes the growth of the Magic community and acts as a mentor, a playtesting partner, and as a friend to those that know him. It may not be much, but this is the least I can do to say thanks to Barry for his contributions to the Magic community of the South Shore of Montreal.

Well this concludes my short introductory article for this week, my future articles will be longer and more in-depth than the basic overview I gave here. Next week I will be presenting a few videos of Post-Innistrad testing using one of these three decklists. If there are any people who are interested in participating in these videos, please feel free to contact me via email at jake [dot] meszaros [at] manadeprived [dot] com or via Facebook. In addition, those of you who have nominees for future Canadian Players of the Week should email me their nominations at the same email.

Until next week,
Jake “Kid Hyper” Meszaros
@kidhyper75

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