Welcome everyone!

I plan to start writing more frequently, so you can look forward to this becoming a regular series from me, though I don’t like the article title, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments. My articles are mainly going to be geared towards Constructed and to help players get the most value out of their 75 cards.

I realize that I had never introduced myself in any of my previous articles so here seems like a good place to start.

For those of you who don’t already know me, my name is Justin Richardson and I live in Montreal. I have been playing competitively since the original Mirrodin block but only started actively trying to qualify for the Pro Tour since 2008. My magic resume is nothing earth staggering; I’ve had some decent results at the local/amateur level, qualified for Nationals 3 times, made Day 2 of GP Providence and a few PTQ Top 8s including a recent win to qualify for PT Philadelphia. I almost exclusively prefer playing Constructed over Limited, which has earned me a reputation as a Constructed specialist and has inspired me to write and help others in the 60 card field.

With that out of the way let us continue to the topic at hand!

To me, deck building is a lost art in Magic that many people need to take more seriously. Most people just throw in cards without any consideration to what the card actually does for them or the synergy with the rest of their deck, just because it is a “good card”. I cringe everytime I see people running sub-optimal cards in their lists and have no idea how people actually go into a tournament playing bad decks that clearly have no chance to win at the end of the day.

With M12 Standard in full effect, today’s focus is going to be on the top 8 cards that see play that I feel are overrated and should be avoided when sleeving up your deck for any Standard event you plan on attending. Here we go!

#8 – [Card]Venser, the Sojourner[/Card]

Venser is a card that always seems to start off in decks, then as the time progresses, seems to slowly vanish from people’s memory as a playable card.

To put it bluntly, Venser is just a bad planeswalker. The ultimate if activated will win 99% of the time and is so powerful that people fall into the trap of playing him in their decks. The unblockable effect is so seldom used that players even forget he has a -1 ability. There is no inherent ability that allows him to protect himself from any creatures as the +2 does not affect the board in any way on its own, and is pretty much only used to draw a card with the help of [Card]Wall of Omens[/Card] and [Card]Spreading Seas[/Card], which, while not a bad thing, it forces you to play cards that you don’t need to play in your deck.

To me the nail in the coffin is the mana cost. 5 mana is not worth the effects this card gives. It is basically an overcosted [Card]Jace Beleren[/Card] with an ultimate that never actually gets online.

#7 – [Card]Wall of Omens[/Card]

Get out of the past. This is not 1998, [Card]Wall of Blossoms[/Card] this card is not.

More importantly, cards are so much better now-a-days, that the Wall is nowhere near as effective as Blossoms was. Today it just jumps in front of a creature and will immediately hit the bin, not counting the fact that it is miserable in so many matchups.

Sure you have the argument that it “buys” you a turn and that it is a “free” card, but in reality you are wasting your turn and a spot in your deck that is not worth the value you think you are getting by playing it. There are just so many better options that get you more value and that you could be playing that it should be illegal to sleeve up Wall of Omens in Standard right now.

While it is getting less and less played, for those of you still clinging on, please do yourself a favour and cut your Walls for [Card]Squadron Hawk[/Card]s, you will be better off.

#6 – [Card]Spreading Seas[/Card]

When Jace and Stoneforge were banned a lot of players thought Valakut was going to be nigh unbeatable and all the blue mages thought the answer was Spreading Seas, some of them still continue to think that to this day, though their numbers are dwindling.

They failed to realize that the loss of Jace hurts Spreading Seas more than it helps it. In the good old days, you could reliably lock them out of the game with Seas on a Forest and Jace to fateseal any green sources to the bottom; effectively winning the game. Now there is no Jace to let you do that and all the Valakut players are playing a lot more green sources than they used to, not to mention Valakut players can just play [Card]Solemn Simulacrum[/Card] with no green anyways. Seas is not a reliable card at the moment.

Yes, there is the “free” card argument and the synergy with Venser, but you cannot afford to waste any slots in your deck with “free” cards, you need your cards to do something and do it efficiently, and Seas is not that card.

#5 – [Card]Leyline of Sanctity[/Card]

Leyline is a card that players always love and jam in. They assume that if Leyline is in their opening hand their deck cannot lose to decks like RDW and Valakut whereas that is far from the truth. Yes sometimes you will get free wins against bad players because they do not know how to play against Leyline, but that does not mean you should be playing it.

On paper it looks as if Leyline blanks a lot of cards in RDW and stops Valakut triggers from blowing you up. But what about that Goblin Guide and Koth dealing you damage? Or that Primeval Titan looming in play? Red decks will usually board out a bunch of their burn spells against white anyways and Valakut actually does not care about it in the slightest.

What about if you don’t have it right away? All the “dead” cards become live until you find a Leyline and you have to spend a turn and 4 mana hard casting it from your hand when another card would be much better in that situation. Not to mention that if you ever draw multiple copies it is just the worst feeling in the world.

I am not saying Leyline is a bad card, it just does not actually accomplish what it has the appearance of doing and is easy to fight past. If you are searching for dedicated hate cards there are many options you should look into over this upgraded [Card]Ivory Mask[/Card].

#4 – [Card]Black Sun’s Zenith[/Card]

Nearly every UB deck I see plays BSZ and I have no idea why you would ever want it in your deck. If there were only Kuldotha Red decks in the metagame then maybe I would consider playing this card but until that is the case it is just plain wrong to run it.

UB Control is all about whittling them down, trading 1 for 1 with all your removal and counterspells, getting ahead with a Jace and then slamming down a Titan to clean up. UB already plays so much removal that it makes mass removal so much weaker as you keep killing their threats one at a time meaning there will be very few chances where there are going to be multiple creatures in play that you can Zenith away.

There are also very few decks that you can reliably kill all their creatures with BSZ and tapping out can lead to key spells resolving when you have counter magic rotting in your hand. [Card]Tempered Steel[/Card] is one of the few swarm style aggresive decks that Zenith looks good against but is really awful at fighting the key cards. If they resolve Tempered Steel what are you going to realistically kill with it? What about if they have [card]Glint Hawk Idol[/card] or [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card]?

There is a considerably better option that people have forgotten about in the form of [Card]Consume the Meek[/Card]. This card does everything you want BSZ to do and at instant speed.

#3 and #2 – [Card]Harrow[/Card] and [Card]Khalni Heart Expedition[/Card]

I group these two cards together because they are virtually always played in conjunction with one another.

[card]Harrow[/card], I can see being good in certain metagames and I have played it and have been happy about it in Valakut in the past but right now is not the time to play it. Caw Blade and Splinter Twin being popular means that Harrow is rarely going to resolve when facing [Card]Spell Pierce[/Card] from Caw, [Card]Dispel[/Card] from Twin and [Card]Mana Leak[/Card] from every Blue Control deck. There are ways to play around counterspells with [card]Harrow[/card] but why go through all the trouble of doing so when you can avoid all the hassle by just not having [card]Harrow[/card] to begin with.

[card]Khalni Heart Expedition[/card] on the other hand is an entirely different matter. Playing this card is living in fantasy land every round. Valakut pilots defend it by giving the nut draw claim and never consider the downside. KHE is the absolute worst card to top deck, every time I draw this card past turn 2 it makes me want to punch a wall for including it in my deck. I cannot count the number of games where any ramp spell would win the game and I drew Khalni Heart off the top.

When you draw the nuts, yes Khalni can be very good, but if you have the nuts why do you need the KHE in the first place? Just takes up space when you could be playing other cards that are good when Khalni would be terrible, though the cards may be slightly worse than in the situations where the Expedition would be insane, I am willing to take that trade off to be more consistent in the long run and you should be also.

#1 – [Card]Solemn Simulacrum[/Card]

Solemn falls victim to being a card that people remember as being amazing, but gets reprinted and turns out to be mediocre. Players want to run him in any deck they can, primarily due to the nostalgia of playing with Sadbot and as much as I love the card, everytime I lay my eyes on a Control or Valakut deck running Solemns I want to vomit. There is just no need to run it right now.

In control decks the ramp effect you get is just not worth the 4 mana, especially when you can easily just die from tapping out to a [Card]Deceiver Exarch[/Card] or a [Card]Primeval Titan[/Card]. Playing a card whose goal is to chump for me is not what I yearn for in a Magic card as a Control player.

Valakut appears to be the perfect home for Solemn but [card]Oracle of Mul Daya[/card] is just insanely better in that deck, the only argument is that Solemn is better if it dies because it draws you a card and the “free” card argument rears its ugly head again. If it lives Oracle is so far ahead of Solemn that it is worth playing over the invitational card.

The only deck that Solemn is played in that I feel deserves its spot is [Card]Birthing Pod[/Card] variants as it holds a key slot in the Pod chain at 4 mana and gets value when it comes in and leaves play.

Solemn is not a bad card by any means, it is just poorly positioned right now in Standard. Combo is too popular and aggro decks have more removal so it rarely trades with any creature and there are just better options in the decks that you want to play him in.

That ends my Top 8 cards to avoid in Standard.

Leave any feedback or let me know if there are any cards you feel should have been on the list and that I omitted in the comments and thanks for reading! Also feel free to post anything constructed related you want me to talk about.