The first SCG Open tournament after the release of Dragon’s Maze (SCG Open: Somerset) almost went into the books as a tournament that was “kinda meh.” If you were paying attention, you already knew BBD (Brian Braun-Duin) and CVM (Chris VanMeter) were using Fiend Hunters in Junk Reanimator (thanks GerryT), which is basically what made the deck even more awesome than it already was; thus, it rightfully stayed on top.

Sire of Insanity in Jund was also to be expected, and nobody will be surprised that Owen Turtenwald and Reid Duke did well with the deck. Jund’s popularity at the tournament can also easily be explained by a lot of writers repeating the mantra that the opening weekend will be full of aggression leading up to the Dragon’s Maze release, and Jund has a good matchup against those decks thanks to the plethora of removal in the deck.

Matt Costa’s 12th place Bant Flash list was a new deck at least, unless you have SCG Premium, as Gerry Thompson posted almost the exact list Costa used the week before the tournament.

Like I said, kinda meh…

Until I saw a Lobber Crew…

Say what?

[Deck title=”Staticaster-Jund by Adam Ezegelian SCG Open 24th place”]

[Creatures]
*4 Nightshade Peddler
*4 Izzet Staticaster
*2 Lobber Crew
*4 Huntmaster of the Fells
*3 Olivia Voldaren
*3 Thragtusk
*2 Thundermaw Hellkite
*2 Sire of Insanity
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Farseek
*3 Ral Zarek
*4 Turn // Burn
[/Spells]
[Land]
*2 Blood Crypt
*1 Breeding Pool
*2 Hinterland Harbor
*2 Kessig Wolf Run
*3 Overgrown Tomb
*4 Rootbound Crag
*2 Steam Vents
*3 Stomping Ground
*2 Sulfur Falls
*1 Watery Grave
*4 Woodland Cemetery
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*1 Appetite for Brains
*3 Deathrite Shaman
*3 Pillar of Flame
*2 Snapcaster Mage
*2 Evil Twin
*2 Slaughter Games
*1 Sire of Insanity
*1 Rakdos’s Return
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

Lobber Crew! I like it! This deck is basically an upgrade to the Peddle to the Medal deck that debuted when Izzet Staticaster first came out. Unlike the original deck, this deck is not as dependant on drawing the right cards together. The previous versions always had the Staticaster-Nightshade Peddler combo and a bunch of Tracker’s Instincts to find the missing pieces, and they played Olivia and Huntmaster of the Fells so that Nightshade Peddler wasn’t completely embarrassing when you didn’t have Izzet Staticaster. However, Staticaster itself was pretty bad in many matchups if you didn’t draw the Peddler, meaning it was very much a metagame deck. If Staticaster was good on its own, the deck would be good; if it wasn’t, the deck would be half as good, and thus not good enough.

This deck tries to remedy that problem by being filled to the brim with all kinds of little synergies: Nightshade Peddler or Turn and all the creatures that deal damage to creatures (Staticaster, Olivia, Huntmaster of the Fells, and Thundermaw); Ral Zarek and creatures you’d like some extra use out of (Staticaster, Lobber Crew); or simply Ral and a land to cast an early Sire of Insanity (as early as turn four with a Farseek!). A lot of the pieces interact with each other favorably, making a deck that truly is more than the sum of its parts.

Out of all the synergies, I like Ral + Lobber Crew/Staticaster the most, and it makes me wonder if we’ll see a RUG deck at the upcoming Pro Tour that uses these cards, probably in conjunction with Zhur-Taa Druids and some fatties to ramp into. Perhaps something like this?

[Deck title=”Twiddle-dee Twiddle-dum” by Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
*4 Gyre Sage
*4 Zhur-Taa Druid
*4 Izzet Staticaster
*3 Lobber Crew
*2 Ghor-Clan Rampager
*4 Master Biomancer
*3 Niv Mizzet, Dracogenius
*1 Prime-Speaker Zegana
*2 Progenitor Mimic
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Turn // Burn
*4 Ral Zarek
*1 Clan Defiance
[/Spells]
[Land]
*4 Breeding Pool
*1 Forest
*2 Island
*2 Mountain
*3 Gruul Guildgate
*1 Izzet Guildgate
*3 Simic Guildgate
*4 Steam Vents
*4 Stomping Ground
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*3 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
*1 Aetherling
*3 Mizzium Mortars
*3 Plasm Capture
*3 Domri Rade
*2 Izzet Charm
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

This deck is completely untested. Don’t try this at home kids! But, if it wins the Pro Tour, make sure to tell your friends you saw it here first!

The idea here is to make the most out of Ral Zarek’s untap ability by either abusing Zhur-Taa Druid, Staticaster and Lobber Crew or by ramping into awesome creatures that’ll win you the game if they stay in play for a while. Getting two activations out of Zhur-Taa Druid every turn propels you forward in the game while being a personal Sulfuric Vortex for your opponent. Lobber Crew doesn’t advance your game, but it slows down your opponent’s, while also eating away two or three life points every turn with a Ral Zarek in play. That’s a lot of incremental damage. Maybe we should try to add some Druids to Staticaster-Jund as well?

As for the block deck, Prime Speaker Zegana is a little awkward because so many of your creatures have low power, but you really want awesome six-drops to ramp into. It is very good with Progenitor Mimic though, which is a pretty awesome card overall.

Similarly, Ghor-Clan Rampager is a little more aggressive than this deck is, but you need some creatures that help Gyre Sage evolve and are good to ramp into when you don’t have a Ral Zarek on four.

Now that we’re brewing anyway, let’s get back to Standard with the following list:

[Deck title=”Sacrificial Lambs” by Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
*4 Doomed Traveler
*3 Young Wolf
*4 Blood Artist
*4 Cartel Aristocrat
*4 Voice of Resurgence
*3 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*2 Rancor
*3 Tragic Slip
*3 Orzhov Charm
*2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
*4 Lingering Souls
[/Spells]
[Land]
*2 Gavony Township
*4 Godless Shrine
*4 Isolated Chapel
*4 Overgrown Tomb
*2 Plains
*4 Sunpetal Grove
*4 Temple Garden
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*3 Deathrite Shaman
*3 Duress
*2 Desecration Demon
*4 Skirsdag High Priest
*2 Sin Collector
*1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

Inspired by the Aristocrats, this deck utilizes the power of sacrificing creatures for gain. Like the Aristocrats, you have two hard-to-kill creatures that sacrifice other creatures, but unlike the original deck, you now have two one-drops that benefit from being sacrificed: Doomed Traveler and Young Wolf. If you think Young Wolf is janky, try to think back to what you thought about Doomed Traveler before it was first played in the Aristocrats.

This deck seems like it’s better than the Aristocrats against aggressive decks because of its low curve, but it’s much worse against midrange decks. Most of the cards in this deck are just 1/1s or 2/2s, making you really reliant on your tricks or Varolz to have some game against a deck like Naya midrange. That’s why we have the Skirsdag High Priests and Desecration Demons in the sideboard: you really need something powerful in matchups where you face bigger monsters than your own. Especially in the Reanimator matchup you can use the flyers, as you don’t have Falkenrath Aristocrats to fly over Thragtusks.

The Desecration Demons are a little piece of technology stolen from the BG Midrange deck that has been cashing online dailies recently:

[Deck title=”BG Midrange”]

[Creatures]
*4 Geralf’s Messenger
*4 Desecration Demon
*2 Disciple of Bolas
*4 Thragtusk
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*3 Cremate
*3 Tragic Slip
*2 Abrupt Decay
*4 Sign in Blood
*1 Victim of the Night
*4 Liliana of the Veil
*2 Putrefy
*3 Mutilate
[/Spells]
[Land]
*3 Golgari Guildgate
*4 Overgrown Tomb
*13 Swamp
*4 Woodland Cemetery
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*3 Appetite for Brains
*1 Cremate
*4 Duress
*1 Mutilate
*2 Curse of Death’s Hold
*2 Vraska the Unseen
*2 Deadbridge Chant
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

Desecration Demon becomes better and better if your opponent doesn’t have creatures to sacrifice. Mutilate makes sure they don’t, and most of your creatures conveniently survive that spell in one form or another: Desecration Demon is big enough, Thragtusk leaves a friend, Geralf’s Messenger comes back to deliver another message, and Disciple of Bolas already did its work if it was in play. The Disciple also plays very nicely with the other creatures in the deck.

All right, I think those were enough decklists to fill my article-quota, so let’s look at Dragon’s Maze Standard in a more general way, shall we?

The first SCG Open after the release was all about two decks: Reanimator and Jund. Reanimator won and thus kept the gigantic bull’s-eye that it’s had for weeks now right there on it’s forehead. This week, we see the following top 8:

1 Red Aggro (with a small splash of green)
2 Naya Blitz
1 Bant Hexproof
1 BR Zombies
2 Jund
1 Bant Flash

Five aggressive decks came out of seemingly nowhere to present the Reanimator players with a difficult task: stay alive long enough to get to Angel of Serenity – because without it, you’re not winning. A single Thragtusk is just not enough anymore, especially if you never get the chance to cast it.

Then, we have two Jund decks cracking the top eight. While having a poor Reanimator matchup, Jund is generally very good against aggressive strategies, thanks to the amount of removal it packs. With the aggressive decks keeping the unfavorable matchup in check, the few Jund decks that happened to dodge Reanimator in the early rounds were free to pick apart some of the aggro decks on their way to a top-eight finish (or at least that’s what I imagine happened).

As for the lone Bant Flash deck: this is the kind of deck that has game against everything and that, with a little bit of luck, does well in the hands of a good player. In that way, it’s kind of like a Jund deck. Almost no 80/20 matchups, but also no 20/80 matchups. It almost made top eight in the hands of Matt Costa in week 1, and it performed again this week. Considering that it’s a new deck, that seems pretty impressive.

Personally, I’m looking forward to playing and tuning Bant Flash in the next couple of weeks, starting with looking closely at the piece of retro-technology Zachery Byrd (who made top eight with the deck at this week’s SCG Open) added to the sideboard: Runechanter’s Pike. That card seems like a much better card in control matchups than the Psychic Spiral Costa had in his sideboard. Byrd also had a Simic Charm main, and while Unsummon is probably the most used mode of the signature Simic spell (and Unsummon is legal and costs half the mana), I could see the hexproof mode being very useful against Reanimator’s plan of Sliming you to death.

Looking at next week, if people use these results for their deck choices at local tournaments (and they probably will), you’ll see a lot of different aggro decks duking it out, so make sure you have trumps like Volcanic Strength in your Mono-Red deck, or Unflinching Courage in your Blitz sideboard. RB Zombies seems like a bad aggro deck to play, as it’s usually weak to other aggro decks.

The people who think a step ahead might play decks like Jund or a variant of Flash (not necessarily Bant – burn spells seem good right now too), and those people should do well, so make sure you know how to beat those decks. Voice of Resurgence is a reasonable start.

Reanimator might drop off a little bit because of the amount of aggro that could pop-up, but if that’s the only deck you like or own or have available to you, make sure you play the full set of Angel of Serenity, have as many mana dorks as you can fit (at least seven), and play about three Fiend Hunters, just so you have some game against beats. I know everybody plays only three Angels, but believe me, you want to have it as soon as possible against aggro decks. Otherwise you have no chance anyway.

The last thing I’d like to point out is the lack of Aristocrats decks in the first two weeks of Dragon’s Maze Standard. Is it no longer any good? Or are people just not playing it? If you have an idea, let me know in the comments!

Have fun tapping and untapping Lobber Crew at FNM this week, and see you next time!

Jay Lansdaal
iLansdaal on Twitter and MTGO