Standard

A Brighter Day

My week after writing about Zombies was appropriately zombie-themed. Hurricane Sandy came and went, leaving me in a very “I Am Legend”-like scenario in lower Manhattan. Eerily empty streets at night, no power, no running water, no internet… I was slightly disappointed when the power came back on this weekend and there had been not a single zombie sighting anywhere in Manhattan. Nor did zombies take over the Magic world.

Are you also disappointed with the walking dead? Then try talking to the dead instead!

[Deck title= “Séance Reanimator by Dyan Brown (Grand Prix Auckland Top 8)”]
[Creatures]
*4 Avacyn’s Pilgrim
*3 Centaur Healer
*2 Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice
*4 Thragtusk
*3 Angel of Serenity
*3 Craterhoof Behemoth
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*3 Faithless Looting
*4 Grisly Salvage
*4 Mulch
*4 Seance
*3 Unburial Rites
[/Spells]
[Lands]
*2 Blood Crypt
*4 Isolated Chapel
*4 Overgrown Tomb
*4 Rootbound Crag
*1 Slayers’ Stronghold
*4 Sunpetal Grove
*4 Temple Garden
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
*1 Ray of Revelation
*2 Rolling Temblor
*3 Restoration Angel
*2 Sever the Bloodline
*1 Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice
*2 Acidic Slime
*2 Zealous Conscripts
*2 Angel of Glory’s Rise
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

Since my week involved very little Magic playing, and more trying to stay alive and somewhat hygienic, today’s article will be a tour of various cool brews that popped up over the weekend, and the above deck is certainly one of them. While it lost in the finals of Grand Prix Auckland in New Zealand, Séance is a more than interesting addition to Reanimator. Earlier in the format, I had played around with the Séance and Trostani combination, and while a bit slow, the engine is definitely powerful. Although I must admit, I combined it with [card]Thragtusk[/card]s, [card]Armada Wurm[/card]s, and [card]Rhox Faithmender[/card]s rather than [card]Craterhoof Behemoth[/card]s, [card]Angel of Serenity[/card]s, and [card]Unburial Rites[/card]. As it turns out, the latter are quite good.

This deck takes the already successful reanimation strategy one step further and raises more creatures from the dead than other [card]Unburial Rites[/card] decks. Although you only get to use each creature for a turn, Trostani lets you keep them for longer (while getting their enter the battlefield effects twice), and [card]Slayers’ Stronghold[/card] lets you attack with them on your turn. I say on your turn, because Séance also lets you have a conversation with your dead angels and centaurs on your opponent’s turn – it triggers every upkeep.

I like this deck because it has more [card]Craterhoof Behemoth[/card]s than most Reanimator decks; it can get away with them because the deck plays more creatures than the average Unburial Rites-centered deck; and they are creatures that you actually intend to cast, as opposed to seven- or eight-mana fatties that you’ll rarely ever have more than one of in play. Instead of being a 6/6 haste beater that pumps your [card]Arbor Elf[/card], the ‘Hoof regularly just kills your opponent.

If you want to get a little wilder with Séance than Brown did, how about you take the following version of the Séance deck for a spin?

[Deck title= “Séance Self Mill by Snugglie (MTGO Standard daily)”]
[Creatures]
*4 Cathedral Sanctifier
*2 Laboratory Maniac
*1 Geist-Honored Monk
*1 Mirror-Mad Phantasm
*1 Zealous Conscripts
*2 Angel of Glory’s Rise
*2 Angel of Serenity
*4 Sphinx of Uthuun
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Faithless Looting
*4 Izzet Charm
*3 Forbidden Alchemy
*4 Seance
*3 Supreme Verdict
*2 Unburial Rites
[/Spells]
[Lands]
*4 Clifftop Retreat
*3 Glacial Fortress
*4 Hallowed Fountain
*2 Isolated Chapel
*1 Mountain
*2 Plains
*1 Slayers’ Stronghold
*4 Steam Vents
*2 Sulfur Falls
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
*2 Slayers’ Stronghold
*4 Geist of Saint Traft
*1 Supreme Verdict
*3 Geist-Honored Monk
*1 Unburial Rites
*3 Zealous Conscripts
*1 Angel of Glory’s Rise
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

Snugglie took this deck to a 4-0 record in a recent daily event on Magic Online. It attacks the opponent from two rarely seen angles in today’s Standard: it has the self-mill plan that wins with [card]Laboratory Maniac[/card], but it can also reanimate [card]Angel of Glory’s Rise[/card] to return all humans from your graveyard to play, letting you overwhelm your opponent with small creatures or buying you more time to get to the [card]Laboratory Maniac[/card] win.

To mill yourself, you attempt to chain [card]Sphinx of Uthuun[/card]s with Séance, drawing cards while at the same time filling your graveyard with other juicy reanimation targets. [card]Forbidden Alchemy[/card] and [card]Izzet Charm[/card] help fill up the graveyard, and [card]Cathedral Sanctifier[/card] helps to keep you alive long enough, filling a similar role as [card]Centaur Healer[/card] in Brown’s deck.

After boarding, you can become more of a [card]Angel of Glory’s Rise[/card] deck, by bringing in more [card]Geist-Honored Monk[/card]s and [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card] (a very good card right now, with [card]Thragtusk[/card]s and other giant creatures running around) to take advantage of the “return all humans to play” effect.

If even Snugglie’s deck does not satisfy your hunger for cool and awesome things to do in this Timmy-infested format, why not make sure you are the biggest Timmy of all times, and play ALL the awesome spells?

[Deck title= “Omniscience Combo by Ari Lax (RtR Standard deck)”]
[Creatures]
*4 Thragtusk
*4 Angel of Serenity
*1 Griselbrand
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Farseek
*2 Divination
*4 Ranger’s Path
*3 Gilded Lotus
*3 Increasing Ambition
*4 Thoughtflare
*4 Temporal Mastery
*1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
*2 Omniscience
[/Spells]
[Lands]
*1 Desolate Lighthouse
*6 Forest
*4 Hallowed Fountain
*2 Island
*1 Kessig Wolf Run
*2 Overgrown Tomb
*4 Steam Vents
*4 Temple Garden
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
*4 Centaur Healer
*2 Deathrite Shaman
*4 Restoration Angel
*3 Oblivion Ring
*2 Cavern of Souls
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

For an explanation of how this deck works, check out Ari Lax’s article here: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/25104-The-Funnerest-Deck-In-Standard.html (requires a subscription to StarCityGames Premium). There is also a playtest video where Brad Nelson plays the deck against Todd Anderson. Suffice it to say you will be casting a lot more cool things than your boring Jund opponent (if you draw enough [card]Farseek[/card]s, that is).

Perhaps, though, you are not much of a Timmy. Perhaps you are more of a Johnny. You are not the type of player who tries to play “who has the biggest creature of them all,” you just like cool things and combos.

[Deck title= “Stare Down Contest by Josh Hendricks (11th place at SCG Open)”]
[Creatures]
*3 Nightshade Peddler
*2 Snapcaster Mage
*3 Izzet Staticaster
*3 Huntmaster of the Fells
*2 Zealous Conscripts
*2 Deadeye Navigator
*1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*1 Pillar of Flame
*3 Farseek
*2 Izzet Charm
*2 Mizzium Mortars
*2 Dissipate
*3 Forbidden Alchemy
*2 Jace, Architect of Thought
*2 Gilded Lotus
*1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
*2 Syncopate
[/Spells]
[Lands]
*1 Blood Crypt
*3 Forest
*4 Hinterland Harbor
*1 Island
*1 Kessig Wolf Run
*1 Mountain
*1 Overgrown Tomb
*4 Rootbound Crag
*4 Steam Vents
*4 Sulfur Falls
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
*1 Clone
*2 Deathrite Shaman
*3 Thragtusk
*2 Thundermaw Hellkite
*2 Negate
*3 Pillar of Flame
*2 Slaughter Games
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

This deck, which came in 11th at the StarCityGames Open tournament in St. Louis on November 4, has an abundance of tricks up its sleeve, not the least of which is an infinite combo that steals all your opponent’s permanents. How does that work?

Well, you need the following three permanents in play: [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card], [card]Gilded Lotus[/card], and a [card]Deadeye Navigator[/card] bonded to the [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card]. You tap the [card]Gilded Lotus[/card] for three blue mana and use two to blink the Zealous Conscripts; when it re-enters the battlefield, you gain control of your own [card]Gilded Lotus[/card], untap it, and re-bond the Conscripts with your Navigator. Repeat this process an arbitrarily large number of times, and you will have excessive amounts of blue mana, which you can then use to blink the Conscripts some more times, making other colors of mana and stealing all your opponent’s permanents.

Other cool interactions include pairing [card]Nightshade Peddler[/card] with [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card] or [card]Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius[/card], creating machine guns that can mow down opposing armies, or pairing [card]Deadeye Navigator[/card] with either [card]Huntmaster of the Fells[/card] or [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] to make a lot of wolves or flashback every spell in your graveyard, given enough time and mana (which the deck has plenty of).
One of the reasons these decks can win, even though they might be untuned or a little out of the ordinary, is not only because they are jam-packed with powerful cards (the Séance decks, Ari Lax’s [card]Omniscience[/card] combo) or infinite combos (the RUG Soulbond deck), but in part because of something all these decks share: cards that the current metagame has very few answers to. Look over them again; what small piece of technology do all these decks have that can help them win games outside of their main plan?

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Need a hint? The deck that won the Aukland GP (top 8 lists are here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpauc12/welcome#dl) had a maindeck answer to these cards, a one-of that hasn’t seen much play lately.

Found it? Surely you’ve figured out by now that the cards I was talking about were [card]Slayers’ Stronghold[/card] and [card]Kessig Wolf Run[/card].

Or maybe you didn’t. These cards have been under the radar for a while now, and not many decks have much room for them. However, especially in the case of [card]Kessig Wolf Run[/card], it might be worth making room for them, even building a deck around them. With [card]Thragtusk[/card]s trading all day, [card]Angel of Serenity[/card]s bouncing off each other, and more of these shenanigans, pushing through extra damage can go a long way toward winning you close games. Both lands also make every creature in an aggressive deck a threat, something not to be underestimated in a format filled with UWx control decks. You know you’re in trouble when you have to start removing Arbor Elves and the like with [card]Supreme Verdict[/card], lest they swing in for six.

[Deck title= “Gruul Beatdown by William Eads (Top 8 TCG player 5K)”]
[Creatures]
*4 Arbor Elf
*4 Avacyn’s Pilgrim
*4 Borderland Ranger
*2 Wolfir Avenger
*3 Huntmaster of the Fells
*4 Strangleroot Geist
*4 Thragtusk
*2 Zealous Conscripts
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*3 Garruk Relentless
*3 Bonfire of the Damned
*3 Mizzium Mortars
[/Spells]
[Lands]
*10 Forest
*4 Kessig Wolf Run
*6 Mountain
*4 Rootbound Crag
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
*2 Dryad Militant
*4 Pillar of Flame
*2 Sundering Growth
*2 Triumph of Ferocity
*1 Huntmaster of the Fells
*1 Silklash Spider
*1 Zealous Conscripts
*2 Devil’s Play
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

This deck will only get better when Gatecrash comes out, not only because there will be awesome Gruul cards to add, but because the mana base will come together better. Right now, I keep adding and removing the fourth [card]Kessig Wolf[/card] Run; I always want one, but I need enough [card]Forest[/card]s for my Arbor Elves, and I can’t cut down on [card]Mountain[/card]s and still expect to reliably cast my red spells, let alone overload [card]Mizzium Mortars[/card]. A playset of [card]Stomping Ground[/card]s would allow you to cut down to three [card]Mountain[/card]s and nine [card]Forest[/card]s, so you can keep the fourth Wolf Run alongside fourteen [card]Forest[/card]s for [card]Arbor Elf[/card] to untap.

Right now, though, the deck does more than fine (it did make the top 8 of a 5K, after all, losing in the semifinals). The metagame right now is fairly weak to [card]Kessig Wolf Run[/card]: there are almost no land destruction effects, and there is very little instant speed removal. It is also weak to [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card], since people are trying to stabilize with five drops. This deck is faster than it looks and it can push through a lot of damage, making the Conscripts perfect finishers.

I would probably change some things around in the sideboard of the above deck, and I would add the fourth [card]Borderland Ranger[/card] over the third [card]Wolfir Avenger[/card]. Having enough access to red sources is important, and this deck can always use some extra lands, be it for a big Bonfire or pumping creatures with [card]Kessig Wolf Run[/card].

I must say, after a week of living in darkness, re-entering the light and seeing all these cool decks pop up in the span of a few days has me very excited about Standard. While [card]Thragtusk[/card] might be everywhere, feel free to take advantage of that fact by going over the top or by stealing them and hitting your opponent for 5+ ([card]Mark of Mutiny[/card] in BR Zombies, anyone? Maybe some [card]Bloodthrone Vampire[/card]s to go with them?)!

Today is a brighter day in the world of Standard, and I for one can’t wait to see what the next week brings. Until then, may the wolves run with you!

Jay Lansdaal
@iLansdaal on Twitter
iLansdaal on mtgo

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