In my last article, I showed a deck per clan, trying to take advantage of the new Khans of Tarkir mechanics and prominent cards. However, having a new Magic: The Gathering set added to Standard is probably not even the biggest change to the format. The biggest change is the departure of Return to Ravnica block, taking away their hybrid-mana power ups for the devotion decks, and taking M14 and thus [card]Mutavault[/card] with them.

All the dominant decks in the format lose huge chunks of what made them viable. Just look at the top three decks: Mono Black loses Pack Rat and [card]Desecration Demon[/card], the two cards that took most of its games home (even though the rest of the deck-including the departing Underworld Connections-was vital in making sure they could); Mono Blue loses literally every creature but [card]Master of Waves[/card] and Thassa, the ones you were trying to support; and the control decks lose their four-mana sweeper in [card]Supreme Verdict[/card] and the card that locked up games in [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card], as well as their draw engine, [card]Jace, Architect of Thought[/card]. All of them lose [card]Mutavault[/card].

Those are some big changes, for sure. And if everyone wants to try their new three-color decks, you can expect some streamlined, mono-colored aggressive decks do well. Perhaps something like this?

[deck title= “Sample Red Aggro” by Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
3 Akroan Crusader
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Foundry Street Denizen
2 Satyr Hoplite
3 Borderland Marauder
4 War-Name Aspirant
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Dragon Mantle
3 Hammerhand
3 Titan’s Strength
1 Hall of Triumph
2 Hordeling Outburst
4 Stoke the Flames
[/Spells]
[Lands]
19 Mountain
[/Lands]
[/deck]

I am not an expert on red aggro decks, so it’s very possible the actual red decks will look nothing like this, but at the very least it’s fast and able to quickly overwhelm people with thirteen one-drops, each capable of getting through or around [card]Sylvan Caryatid[/card] in some way. A bunch of three-power two-drops follow, and the best red card in Standard tops off the curve: [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card]. To help out the Rabblemaster (and power up the [card]Foundry Street Denizen[/card] and [card]Hall of Triumph[/card]), I included two Hordeling Outbursts. All these tokens also help cast [card]Stoke the Flames[/card] more easily, letting you run a dangerously low land count, like the Boss Sligh decks of previous Standard. To support that land count and the heroic one-drops, [card]Titan’s Strength[/card] and [card]Dragon Mantle[/card] were added to smooth out your draws. Together with [card]Hammerhand[/card], these cards even help you fight larger blockers.

While I haven’t included a sideboard yet, I imagine it would have some way to take advantage of the many tokens you produce if those tend to live in the matchup (more [card]Hall of Triumph[/card], maybe even Trumpet Blast?), as well as some [card]Act of Treason[/card] effects to help against big dudes. You’d probably also want [card]Magma Spray[/card]s against similarly aggressive decks, but aside from that, I’m not really sure yet.

If the three-color decks are level one and mono colored aggressive decks are level-two (remember that the Mono Black Aggro deck from last Standard is basically completely intact, replacing Rakdos Cakler with Bloodsoaked Champion), then the next level is going a little bigger. While Mono Black and Mono Blue lost a bunch of vital cards, the bigger red deck mostly loses ways to provide devotion, but it has a lot of options left. Take a look at this build:

[deck title= “Red Devotion” by Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Generator Servant
3 Prophetic Flamespeaker
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Purphoros, God of the Forge
3 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Soul of Shandalar
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
3 Chained to the Rocks
2 Hammer of Purphoros
3 Stoke the Flames
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Battlefield Forge
1 Mana Confluence
10 Mountain
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Temple of Triumph
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
[/Lands]
[/deck]

We get [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card] to replace [card]Frostburn Weird[/card], and while [card]Generator Servant[/card] and [card]Firedrinker Satyr[/card] do not provide the devotion [card]Burning-Tree Emissary[/card] and [card]Ash Zealot[/card] provided, they do help get the fast starts that can help defeat slower decks. In the three-drop slot, we replace [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] with [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card] and add [card]Prophetic Flamespeaker[/card] to help with the devotion the Rabblemaster lacks (but which it makes up for in sheer power).

Thanks to Sarkhan, we can now play more copies of [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card], and those, together with the [card]Soul of Shandalar[/card], provide the high end that helps us get to our key card: [card]Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx[/card].

Nykthos on the whole gets better now that we lose a lot of the playable two-mana removal ([card]Devour Flesh[/card], [card]Ultimate Price[/card], and [card]Doom Blade[/card]). [card]Lightning Strike[/card] and [card]Magma Jet[/card] will still be there, but I expect the red decks to be generally less heavy on removal than black decks. Rabblemaster encourages playing with creatures and less removal, although this does not have to be the case. The slower the removal is, the more likely you are to flood the board with small permanents to take advantage of Nykthos. We might not have [card]Burning-Tree Emissary[/card] anymore, but red has a bunch of very playable RR cards still left in the format (unlike blue).

Ten Mountains might be on the low side for [card]Chained to the Rocks[/card], so maybe those should be [card]Banishing Light[/card]s. I’d like to try the cheaper removal spell first though.

There is another color that has a bunch of playable cheap spells with an XX cost, and it’s one that didn’t do much in the previous format because other Nykthos decks were just better. Now it looks like it will be one of the better Nykthos decks instead:

[deck title= “White Devotion” by Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
4 Vanguard of Brimaz
3 Nyx-Fleece Ram
4 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
4 Eidolon of Countless Battles
3 Wingmate Roc
3 Ephara, God of the Polis
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
2 Soul of Theros
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
2 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
2 Ephemeral Shields
3 Banishing Lights
1 Dictate of Heliod
[/Spells]
[Lands]
10 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Tranquil Cove
[/Lands]
[/deck]

The idea remains the same: you play a few small creatures, then you play a Nytkhos and suddenly you end up with 15+ power on the board. Our two drops of choice are [card]Vanguard of Brimaz[/card] and [card]Nyx-Fleece Ram[/card], both of which need some explaining. Vanguard, our preview card from a while ago, has WW in its cost, which is a huge plus. While we don’t have an abundance of tricks to trigger the Vanguard, the 1/1s are very useful, as they play well with [card]Eidolon of Countless Battles[/card] and [card]Ephara, God of the Polis[/card], for extra value, and with [card]Dictate of Heliod[/card] and [card]Soul of Theros[/card] for extra power.

[card]Nyx-Fleece Ram[/card] also helps build devotion early on, mostly because it’s a little more likely to stick around than most two-drops. It also lines up well against a lot of the creatures in the format, even against some of the bigger ones like Siege Rhino, so it can save you a lot of life over the course of a game. It also attacks to trigger raid for Wingmate Roc, with very little risk of dying in the process.

As for the rest of the deck, Ephara plus Heliod is a late-game draw engine that’s hard to interact with; Brimaz and Vanguard are some of the best creatures white has access to in the format; and [card]Ephemeral Shields[/card] is there to keep your devotion high and to target [card]Vanguard of Brimaz[/card]. Other than that: go big or go home!

Another deck that makes great use of [card]Nyx-Fleece Ram[/card] as an attacker for Wingmate Roc is the following deck:

[deck title= “BW Midrange” by Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
4 Nyx-Fleece Ram
3 Brimaz, King or Oreskos
1 Herald of Torment
3 Wingmate Roc
1 Necropolis Fiend
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Liliana Vess
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
1 Despise
4 Thoughtseize
3 Bile Blight
2 Banishing Light
2 Devouring Light
3 Hero’s Downfall
2 Read the Bones
1 Utter End
1 Silence the Believers
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Plains
1 Radiant Fountain
4 Scoured Barrens
7 Swamp
4 Temple of Silence
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Despise
2 Deicide
2 Last Breath
2 Suspension Field
3 Drown in Sorrow
1 Utter End
1 Stain the Mind
1 Dead Drop
1 Empty the Pits
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

You see, I know Mono Black is dead. I know I can no longer Corrupt people for whatever absurd amount Urborg would allow me to. Still, that doesn’t have to mean the strategy of “powerful threats backed up by discard spells and removal spells that don’t care about what your opponents are playing” is no longer viable. In fact, it is probably still very good. It’s just that black’s creatures are no longer of the Pack Rat and [card]Desecration Demon[/card] variety; they can’t win games all by themselves anymore.

White has those creatures, though. Brimaz gets out of hand quickly, and Wingmate Roc might cost a mana more than a [card]Desecration Demon[/card], but it also needs two removal spells to die completely.

The removal spells are a little worse. At least, the cheap ones are. But [card]Nyx-Fleece Ram[/card] helps there, buying you some time to get to your three-mana removal spells. Speaking of, Brad Nelson as usual has the hottest tech for this type of deck in [card]Devouring Light[/card], a three mana removal spell that doesn’t have to cost three because you can tap creatures like the Ram or the conveniently vigilant Brimaz and his cat buddies.

Another way to ensure the game goes long enough for this deck to start winning with its array of threats are the lands that give you life. [card]Radiant Fountain[/card] might not be as exciting as [card]Mutavault[/card], but if you have a colored slot to give up, gaining two life is a valuable reward. I would play more, but I don’t think this manabase can take it. Perhaps if we go up to 26 lands, which is a possibility. (We might not need three Sorins, though I like how he gains back some of the life we will lose casting [card]Thoughtseize[/card]s and [card]Read the Bones[/card].) The fact that I have [card]Read the Bones[/card] over [card]Sign in Blood[/card] in this deck, by the way, also has to do with the manabase: I don’t think we’ll ever cast [card]Sign in Blood[/card] on turn two, nor will we have BB to spare very often because we’d like to keep up BB for our removal spells as much as possible.

Another way to solve the “no more Pack Rat or Desecration Demon” conundrum might be to turn to green:

[deck title= “BG Midrange” by Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
2 Elvish Mystic
4 Rakshasha Deathdealer
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
1 Herald of Torment
3 Polukranos, World Eater
1 Necropolis Fiend
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
3 Nissa, Worldwaker
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Thoughtseize
1 Despise
3 Bile Blight
4 Hero’s Downfall
1 Read the Bones
1 Murderous Cut
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Darksteel Citadel
2 Evolving Wilds
4 Forest
4 Llanowar Wastes
2 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
4 Temple of Malady
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Windswept Heath
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Despise
2 Back to Nature
3 Drown in Sorrow
3 Nylea’s Disciple
1 Murderous Cut
1 Stain the Mind
1 Silence the Believers
3 Mistcutter Hydra
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Like Brimaz and Wingmate Roc, Polukranos and Nissa are two formidable threats, and they are backed up by Rakshasha Deathdealer, which is likely to deal a lot more damage than [card]Nyx-Fleece Ram[/card]. Of course, it’s not as great a blocker, but green lets us play with everyone’s favorite mana-smoothing combo of [card]Sylvan Caryatid[/card] and [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card], both of help out in the blocking department.

The Courser and the Caryatid also make the manabase more stable, which lets us play some [card]Darksteel Citadel[/card]s to combo with Nissa. Indestructible 4/4s are strong, especially because you should have enough ways to deal with any Siege Rhinos or Elspeths generating tokens that could lay in your way. Some other neat features in the manabase include fetchlands to fuel delve and help “scry” with [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card] (you’d better get used to that interaction), including the poor man’s Verdant Catacomb: [card]Evolving Wilds[/card].

Just as in the BW Midrange deck, I’ve included a single [card]Necropolis[/card] Fiend because its size lets it win fights with other flyers and it has added utility against creature decks. It matches up poorly against Elspeth because of its four power, but as a singleton it shouldn’t hurt you that often, and you can always board it out for game two if it turns out to be a liability.

Talking about liabilities, how do you like this brew?

[deck title= “UR Tokens and Artifacts” by Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
4 Ornithopter
4 Chief Engineer
4 Generator Servant
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
3 Master of Waves
2 Purphoros, God of the Forge
4 Scuttling Doom Engine
1 Soul of New Phyrexia
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Ensoul Artifact
3 Shrapnel Blast
2 Hammer of Purphoros
3 Stoke the Flames
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Island
3 Mountain
4 Shivan Reef
4 Swiftwater Cliffs
4 Temple of Epiphany
[/Lands]
[/deck]

Okay, we are getting into wilder territory now, and I admit that every UR [card]Ornithopter[/card] + [card]Ensoul Artifact[/card] deck I’ve seen so far has been awful…ly inconsistent? That doesn’t mean we should stop trying to make it work, though.

This deck combines the [card]Ornithopter[/card] plus [card]Ensoul Artifact[/card] combo with [card]Chief Engineer[/card] and [card]Generator Servant[/card] to ramp out [card]Scuttling Doom Engine[/card]s and [card]Soul of New Phyrexia[/card]. [card]Scuttling Doom Engine[/card] is another artifact that goes well with [card]Shrapnel Blast[/card], and both six-drops go well with [card]Hammer of Purphoros[/card], which in turn can also be Shrapnel Blasted or Ensouled.

One of the reasons Ensoul decks always felt inconsistent to me is because they seemed to lack power. To combat that, I’ve added [card]Master of Waves[/card] and [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card], both of which are powerful on their own and synergize with the [card]Chief Engineer[/card], giving you tokens to help ramp out big artifacts. Plus, [card]Master of Waves[/card] would really like a new home, since, you know… literally all his friends left him to play at the Modern playground-and they’re not even playing! Stupid [card]Nightveil Specter[/card] and [card]Cloudfin Raptor[/card] just sit there on the sidelines reminiscing of the time they won a Pro Tour together. That’s all right, though, it might be time to find some new friends. You know who might be the Master’s new best friend at this hour of need?

[deck title= “Mono Blue Tricks” by Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
4 Triton Shorestalker
4 Ornithopter
3 Battlefield Thaumaturge
3 Quickling
4 Illusory Angel
3 Thassa, God of the Sea
3 Wall of Frost
4 Master of Waves
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Ensoul Artifact
3 Hour of Need
1 Hall of Triumph
2 Bident of Thassa
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
17 Island
[/Lands]
[/deck]

That’s right: Battlefield Thaumaturge! And if that doesn’t work out, the Master can always talk to [card]Illusory Angel[/card]. Who needs real friends anyway? [card]Battlefield Thaumaturge[/card] also goes a long way in making [card]Hour of Need[/card] actually playable.

All kidding aside, this is the best I could do when one of my friends asked me if he could still play Mono Blue in the new Standard. It definitely looks flimsy, but so did the original Mono Blue deck. [card]Ornithopter[/card] here serves as a way to make [card]Quickling[/card] a two-mana 2/2 flyer, while helping cast [card]Illusory Angel[/card] the next turn. It can also pick up an [card]Ensoul Artifact[/card] if you haven’t drawn [card]Darksteel Citadel[/card] yet, and it becomes a mighty Dragon in times of need.

That’s all I have for today. Join me in my next article, when we look at some of the early tournament results from the only place where Khans of Tarkir is already legal in tournaments!

Have fun and keep on brewing,

Jay Lansdaal
iLansdaal on Twitter, no longer on MTGO – V4 was the end of me there