New Standard and New Ideas

[John Galli]

Hey All,

Just curious for those of you who might have an inkling to play standard coming up what you were looking at or possibly thinking might be an interesting deck to play.

I'll obviously be playing some kind of R/x deck, I'm not sure though what level of white will be in mine. Craig Wescoe had an interesting article last week about Boros Humans and U/W/R Aggro-

magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10969

I'm not sure if I like the path he's taking or not. On the one hand, I tried a R/W manabase for standard Boros Aggro (non-humans) and it's next to impossible. I think the two choices are basically Mono Red with hybrid cards (excluding Boros Charm, Spark Trooper, and anything requiring a hard white source) or a Human theme where you can use Cavern of Souls to make the mana work. Even with Cavern in a humans list, boros charm is typically not a turn 2/turn3 play unless you for sure get one of your 8 white producing lands.

I played a little against a guy online running a lot of three and four drops, Boros Reckoner/Pyreheart Wolf/Spark Trooper and found that the deck had some interesting game to it. He lost to me probably 5 out of 6 games but I think against the rest of the field his deck might have been better.

Played against a lot of RUG Control too, they all mopped me up. One list in particular looked good to me, running maindeck rolling thunder, magmaquake, electrickery, huntmaster, etc. Very strong versus aggro, not sure how it would do against other decks.

Thoughts?

[Travis Lannoye]

There are now 12 lands available for each color combination (4 Innistrad, 4 shocks, and 4 Gates), plus Evolving Wilds. If that isn't enough to make the mana work, I don't know what else would. What was your Boros list?

[John Galli]

The issue is the gates are not playable in any aggressive aggro strategy. You need to be able to make your turn 1 drop, and having only 8 sources (shocks and innistrad) are not enough for a consistent white splash. With only 8, you get hands where you don't have access to white, and with the gates you get awkward hands where you have a gate, some one drops, and a clifftop retreat. The sequence that plays out is just not happenin.

I haven't finalized a list yet, I've tried some rough early boros builds, I'm going to try wescoe's human list out abit (although he has the same issue casting boros charm on paper), and I have an updated version of my mono red list that doesn't use any white.

Can't remember what my updated list was for mono red but I think it's something like-

4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Legion Loyalist
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Lightning Mauler
4 Ash Zealot
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Hellrider

4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
2 Flames of the Firebrand OR Traitorous Blood

22/23 Mountain (depending on cuts)

That list above works fine in the sense of mana, but it's not refined yet. My old mono red list ran 23 lands with x3 cathedral of war which you can't run with reckoner in the deck. I also miss Pyreheart Wolf a bit from that above list, as he is really instrumental in some matchups and the undying gives the deck some extra legs against mass and spot removal. Also, Legion Loyalist hasn't tested well so far

[Travis Lannoye]

@legion Loyalist: I'm surprised at that...would have thought that card would be awesome for you with all the cheap guys you run.

Assuming Skullcrack is a board card?

[JediCheese]

Another card for R/W is Boros Reckoner.

[John Galli]

Yeah Chris I've got it referenced above. It's actually the card I was most excited about when I saw the full set. It's also another one that makes your mana hell but oh well (at least I can run it in mono red with no splash)

@travis - I was excited for this guy too, but the issue I've been seeing so far is that his small 1/1 body becomes largely irrelevant fast. The other one drops all have some "game" to them, from stromkirk growing bigger making him harder to sweep, block, and kill (not to mention his can't be blocked by humans clause), to rakdos cackler being a 2/2, to stonewright pumping up your other guys including ash zealot which is a beast on steroids when pumped.

I'm not done testing Loyalist, but so far he looks like a bust or something that requires an extremely focused build. He does have one HUGE positive in that he allows your team to not get chumped by lingering souls, but that ability is fringe.

Skullcrack is probably a board, I have 3-4 there right now, but haven't decided yet. I think it's going to come down to meta how relevant it is to maindeck it. If everyone keeps playing x4 tusk and x4 revelation, then I'll probably move some number of them main but likely not more than x3.

Spark Trooper is really intriguing. I want to see if he's worth it. One thing the format previously had a low amount of was instant speed removal. A lot of people had problems with my Archwing Dragons, it's one of the big reasons I made top 8 at that tournament. Spark Trooper is pretty nuts if you can carefully play around your opponents stuff, especially if they tap out and give you an opportunity. In the mirror, if you keep him in and they tap out, you basically won on the spot with the life swing your getting (because of the lifelink).

Assemble the legion might be a standard card IMO. I saw it played against me in the prerelease and that thing is nuts. Even in standard where people have bigtime cards, Assemble could be extremely difficult to deal with and being an enchantment narrows the amount of removal that your opponent has for it. A deck only has so many detention spheres, thus Assemble essentially becomes a planeswalker at that rate in a color scheme that often doesn't have many of those that are good. 5 mana also isn't out of the realm of possibility for a R/X aggro deck these days; everyone was just playing thundermaw hellkite on 23-24 lands. Personally I'd rather have Assemble most of the time.

[John Galli]

so I've been doing some digging online and came across some ideas that were pretty insane.

Boros Reckoner and/or Stuffy Doll + Blasphemous Act.

Boros Reckoner + Inquisitors Flail or deathtouch or fight card.

I really hope playsets aren't ten dollars by the time I get paid on Friday. . .

Great article about some other new ideas too-

magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10982

[abeckett]

Boros Reckoner is already at $20+ for playsets.

[John Galli]

I meant $10 per card

[Travis Lannoye]

Jan 29, 2013 10:40:00 GMT -5 John Galli said:

I meant $10 per card

Ya RECKON?!?

Want me to see if I could find something on eBay?

[John Galli]

I thought about that but figured I'd wait since I want to try to play it Friday night

[John Galli]

ANNNNNNND I'm an IDIOT.

Boros Reckoner is up to $40 a playset

[John Galli]

Been playtesting all week. Observations so far on Gatecrash-

- I've seen a variety of decks. Ones that looked like they had legs and were most intriguing were - RUG Control, 4CC Control, using lots of sweepers. Naya Zoo using 20 lands and almost exclusively 2 drops along with Madcap Skills (and using the "free" 2 mana guy). Naya Midrange using bloodrush 4/4, boros charm, celesnya charm, loxodon elephant dude, rancor, etc for insane damage.

- The cards I've been most impressed with in testing on both sides are easily Obzedat and Boros Reckoner. Both of these cards have been absurd. Beckon Apparition has been surprising as well. High Priest of Penance and Orzhov Charm aren't terrible. Overall, B/W has a lot of strong plays. Boros Charm is nuts. Skullcrack has been solid as a RDW board card against control, but it's really not playable against midrange tusk decks as you're sacrificing a slot that you need for either creatures or steal effects.

- Saw some interesting Simic and Bant decks, nothing that looked polished yet but stuff that could be powerful.

- Control decks have tons of options, I'm fairly worried for stuff like Esper Control (the one on starcity) that runs Obzedat and sphinx's revelation.

- Aurelia's Fury seems incredibly overrated, I expect it's value to plummet unless it finds a home quickly.

Overall, I've seen a ton of variety in testing this week and Gatecrash looks pretty damn awesome / game changing. Curious what others thoughts are, contribute if you have a few minutes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Been testing my own B/W Tokens list a lot too, wanted to see what you guys think-

B/W Tokens:

4 Doomed Traveler
4 Angel of Jubilation
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council

3 Dead Weight
4 Intangible Virtue
3 Oblivion Ring

3 Beckon Apparition
2 Midnight Haunting
3 Orzhov Charm

4 Gather the Townsfolk
4 Lingering Souls

4 Godless Shrine
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Orzhov Guildgate
6 Plains
4 Swamp
2 Vault of the Archangel

[Travis Lannoye]

Hopefully Aurelia's Fury won't start losing value until AFTER mine gets sold...

[Travis Lannoye]

Oh noes, your boy Owen is playing Mono-red! www.channelfireball.com/articles/channel-owen-monored-standard-8-man/