Greetings again everybody! Stephen here, taking a short break from Cheerios to bring you a standard decklist that I would definitely take to a large event that I have had some success with so far. Granted, I don't normally play the most aggressive standard lists, but I do enjoy standard. However, I got tired of people sitting being Icefall Regents and Ojutai's all day, so I decided to play an even slower game than they are, which is exactly how I like to play Magic.
So, let's not waste any more time and get right down to it, the decklist:
4 Color Control // aka Not Green: -Stephen D.
4 Dissolve
4 Hero's Downfall
3 Crackling Doom
2 Ultimate Price
2 Bile Blight
2 Utter End
2 Crux of Fate
3 Dig Through Time
2 Treasure Cruise
3 Jace, the Living Guildpact
3 Narset Transcendent
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Enlightenment
2 Temple of Silence
1 Temple of Malice
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Mana Confluence
1 Nomad Outpost
3 Mystic Monastery
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
3 Island
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Plains
SB:
1 Dragonlord Kologhan
1 Dragonlord Silumgar
2 Haunted Plate Mail
2 Negate
3 Rending Volley
2 Drown in Sorrow
2 Disdainful Stroke'
2 Bile Blighht
Yes. Yes! YES! This deck DOESN'T DO ANYTHING. You sit back and kill creature after creature, regarding of whether you play your instants at sorcery speed or not. You just keep killing everything they throw at you. The pinnacle turn is turns 4-5. Typically you sequence your many many different lands to cast a removal spell and jam a 4 mana walker on turns 4 or 5, and then you basically never slow down. How most of my games go, (and this is normally the case with a whooping 27 lands with only 3 fetches), is that you play scry land into scry land into untapped land, removal spell, scry land, removal spell, tapped land planeswalker. That's right. On turn three you either counter or kill something, then do the same thing on turn 4, and typically jam Jace on turn 5. Then you essentially sculpt your draws for the rest of the game and take over.
Some notes and thoughts. First off, I have no idea why people aren't playing Jace right now. He does everything a control deck needs right now. No one wants to be drawing Bile Blight against another control deck, and no one wants to brick 4 turns in a row because of the all the additional lands we end up playing as control mages. Jace easily solves both of those problems by sifting through the top cards of your deck and dumping the chaff into the graveyard to be delved away by our draw spells. And yes, this deck flies through cards. Jace and Narset make and undeniable combination of drawing cards. Simply put the card you don't want into the yard and reveal the spell off of Narset. Once you've dumped enough garbage, feel free to start giving Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, or if you need your opponent to do nothing on their turn, Crux of Fate with rebound. Having the two together with the near unlimited amount of removal makes sure that any midrange deck is going to have a lot of trouble getting through you.
Aggro decks do pose a threat, but that is the reason for all of this removal in the first place. We don't want to lose matchups simply because we can't interact, so I've made sure the removal is as close to the ground as possible without straining the manabase much harder than it already is. So far, I've been able to best Reanimator strategies, opposing Control decks in both Esper and Blue/Black flavors, Abzan decks, Heroic strategies, BUG Walls (which is a very real deck mind you), among others. Most other plays cannot sit back for too long, and considering how many times you will cast a one mana Treasure Cruise with Rebound, you will find that you hardly ever run out of cards without quickly filling back up.
To be fair, you need to be able to sequence your cards properly and be prepared to sacrifice a walker for the greater good. Fog is a real magic card, and even though we sometimes pay 4 to 6 mana for a fog now-a-days, winning the game is still better than losing. Jace also has the unique ability to Boomerang almost anything. Don't be afraid to Boomerand that Siege Rhino so that you can counter it on the way back down. That is an effective Time Walk, so take advantage of it.
Hope you guys are able to try that list out if you have the cards to do so. It's a blast: just try not to go to time, haha.
As for modern, while I did take a 3rd place finish with Cheerios, I will likely be setting it down for a little while. I will still be searching for more cards to change the overall weaknesses of the deck, but as it stands, there is very little wiggle room, and the populace seems to agree that Monastery Mentor was the correct call to up the threat level of the deck. I want to go more in on the Paladin, but that doesn't seem to be the case, and until another set gets printed, I don't know if there truly is any more innovation that can come to that list, but I may be wrong, and if I find something I will surely let you all know.
That doesn't mean I won't be playing Modern though. Currently, there is another list that I am beginning to do my research, theory-crafting, and will be testing soon enough. This next list is also just as non-interactive as the cereal in some respects, but I have other minds with me on this one. This list is going to be a blast as well, and once I have a good theory as to my starting 60, I will surely post it here for you guys to see.
Sadly, I will not be jamming game this coming weekend. I will be off to visit my father, so I won't have much to put here regarding Modern from this weekend. I'll most assuredly be playing Modern next monday, so I'll have some modern news for you guys then.
Until next time my friends. May the dice rolls be ever in your favor! (totally inspired by Hunger Games... totally like that phrase now)
-Stephen
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