Here we go!

20. Apostle of Purifying Light

Apostle of Purifying Light gives more mid-range creature based strategies a way to combat the over the top busted things that Grixis and Command the Dreadhorde are doing. Proactively eating cards from graveyards early will limit the targets and in the late game you wait to respond to the recursion target to eat the card they are trying to get back. Plus protection from black means the main removal and wraths of the format can’t deal with this.

19. Rotting Regisaur

Rotting Regisaur introduces some very interesting design space.  A 3-mana 7/6 is some huge stats that landing on the board on turn 2 (assuming you are ramping with Llanowar Elves or Arboreal Grazer) means the game could possibly be over by turn 4 if your opponent has taken any Shock damage from their lands.  The upkeep discard effect is a real drawback, so it is yet to be seen if the big body stats are going to be enough to overcome.

18. Steel Overseer

Steel Overseer is a very powerful card in Modern because of the synergies it plays with Artifact creatures, specifically for the Affinity deck.  There are several artifact engine cards that exist in current Standard, like Karn, Scion of Urza or Saheeli, Sublime Artificer that a card like Steel Overseer could be the type of synergy that puts them over the top.

17. Rienne, Angel of Rebirth

Rienne, Angel of Rebirth comes with two very good abilities.  Her static +1/+0 for other multi-colored creatures makes the race turn in your favor extremely quickly.  And getting your creatures back whenever they die mean that your opponent is really never able to get rid of them.  I imagine a completely new multi-color creature aggro archetype to spawn from Rienne.

16. Cavalier of Gales

An evasive 5/5 flying body for 5 Mana that “brainstorms” on entering the battlefield is a great way for controlling decks to stabilize the board and refuel their plan of action.  And if you’re in the late game and those cards are useless, you can work out a way to shuffle them away and act like you’re playing Legacy in Standard! Initial thoughts for that role would be Evolving Wilds, Mausoleum Secrets, Prime Speaker Vannifar, or Traveler’s Amulet. On top of this, she shuffles herself back in and gives you an incremental scry to ensure you are able to keep rolling.

15. Tale’s End

Tale’s End is a Stifle effect with a counterspell for legendary spells tacked on. This could be exactly the release valve that the format needs to keep things in check. You can counter an enters the battlefield trigger. You can counter a Planeswalker loyalty ability activation. You can counter a PLANESWALKER entirely! This will probably find itself as a 1- or 2-of in control decks with another copy or 2 in the sideboard for mirrors.

14. Grafdigger’s Cage

Grafdigger’s Cage is a definitely a plant for Modern.  The great part is that it will be extremely useful for Standard as well.  This card provides great utility in shutting down one of the major strategies in current Standard in Command the Dreadhorde.  Stopping them from recurring the creatures that gain back all the life they lost is key to shutting down the deck.  There are also other less frequent uses like stopping a Grixis player from getting back a creature with their Bolas.

13. Kaalia, Zenith Seeker

Kaalia, Zenith Seeker is the kind of card that, if unanswered, will completely take over a game. When you build around her enters-the-battlefield trigger (and why wouldn’t you), you can potentially draw 3 cards of pure gas. Typically, angels, demons, and dragons are very powerful beings and refilling your hand with 3 of them will make things VERY hard for your opponent to keep up with. The biggest drawback is the deckbuilding restriction that is inherent with these creature types, as they are also typically very mana intensive. I’m expecting most builds to resolve around Boros style aggro decks featuring Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice but could also see some 5-color shenanigans (no not the card, that’s not legal) with Niv-Mizzet Reborn.

12. Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer

Magic’s newest potentially broken 3-mana planeswalker Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer is a very tempo-oriented card that can present several angles of attack that will make life very difficult for the opponent.  On turn 3, the +2 ability renders most early game creatures powerless, thus protecting her so next turn you have your choice of advancing towards the ultimate, or dropping a 4/4 flyer for “free”. Her ultimate at a whopping -8 turns all of your Islands, both current and future, into 1-Mana draw effects. And at this stage in the game you’ve probably got 6 or 7 of them. That’s A LOT of card advantage.

11. Kykar, Wind’s Fury

Kykar, Wind’s Fury is an insane engine.  In a Jeskai spells deck she threatens to go off in a hurry.  Being an evasive 3/3 flyer for 4 mana is just icing on the cake.  I see Kykar slotting into a Feather, the Redeemed or Arclight Phoenix deck or even generating her own deck utilizing cards like Finale of Promise and Heroic Reinforcements.

10. Sephara, Sky’s Blade

Cost reduction is always broken. A 7/7 flying lifelink creature for a single mana sounds extremely unfair…for your opponent! Sephara, Sky’s Blade also gives your other flying creatures indestructible, so you will probably be closing it the game in quick order. This could be what puts an Afterlife based deck on the map.

9. Lotus Field

Lotus Field creates such a huge mana advantage that you can’t ignore it despite the underwhelming “enters the battlefield tapped” clause, and the fact that on its face, you are really only at parity on mana compared to having any three lands.  But with three ways to untap it that see heavy play in tier-1 decks in the current standard meta, you start to realize the broken nature of getting “more mana than you should” for any card.  Wilderness Reclamation, Nissa, Who Shakes the World, and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria all want to do broken things, and adding a broken effect like “add three mana (to your mana pool)” means that they will be doing BIG broken things.

8. Leyline of the Void

Leyline of the Void single-handedly shuts down the Arclight Phoenix AND the Command the Dreadhorde decks. Not only can this card give you the auto win against some opponents, it also happens to randomly hose any “dies” triggers by exiling as a replacement effect. I fully expect to see some copies of this in both main deck and sideboards.

7. Cavalier of Thorns

What a card like Cavalier of Thorns does to a game of Magic: the Gathering cannot be dismissed.  A 5-mana 5/6 with reach is a great set of stats, but he also comes with TWO other very relevant abilities.  On entering the battlefield you are all but guaranteed to ramp from 5 to 6 mana ensuring you can make your next bomb play of the game (most likely a Command the Dreadhorde).  Then when he dies, you get to put any card from your graveyard on top of your library to draw next turn and keep the hits rolling (again, most likely a Command the Dreadhorde).

6. Vivien, Arkbow Ranger

Vivien, Arkbow Ranger comes with removal for a creature or Planeswalker the turn she comes down, or can pump your team with some real stats should that be what the situation calls for.  Her ability to go into your sideboard to get ANY creature that will answer ANY situation you find yourself in is very powerful and will prove itself to be even more so once people start playing with it.

5. Leyline of Sanctity

Leyline of Sanctity is a direct throw in the face of most of the top archetypes going into Core 2020 Standard. It shuts off Thought Erasure from the various Esper, Dimir Control, and Grixis Control decks. It also shuts off Mono-Red’s ability to close out games with targeted damage spells. With London Mulligan debuting alongside this set and proper play and deck building strategies not agreed upon, I will go it on a limb and say this should be a mainboard consideration for any deck running white, and even some that aren’t!

4. Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord

Sorin is back with a vengeance! A 3-mana Walker that isn’t burdened by two colored Mana requirements that lets you put ANY Vampire into play (permanently…there’s no drawback here) but also has two relevant +1 abilities deserves some serious respect. I can see Vampires becoming a tier 1 strategy on the back of Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord but I believe he will provide a boon to the mono-White and Rakdos decks too.

3. Chandra, Awakened Inferno

Chandra, Awakened Inferno is a 6-Mana play that is guaranteed to resolve, has a +2 ability that gets her to 8 (yes EIGHT) loyalty the turn she comes down and will end up providing 6-to-10 points of damage on average over the course of a game. You can +2 her repeatedly because the emblems will stack meaning it can often be correct to play her on turn 6, give your opponent an emblem, then on turn 7 +2 again and drop a second Chandra give the opponent 3 damage per turn. In a pinch you can use her as a sweeper or spot removal if the game dictates that.  I am very high on Chandra slotting into several existing archetypes, but also creating her own fiery control builds.

2. The Temples (Temple of Epiphany)

It may be cheating to lump 5 cards into one slot, but they all provide the same effect in tapping for two colors of Mana while giving you a scry 1 on entering the battlefield (so I guess that technically makes this a Top-24 list… but that’s not as catchy). When these lands were first introduced back in Theros, they were also paired with the Shock lands from the Return to Ravnica block. Decks slowed down, and more controlling strategies were able to take a stranglehold on the meta. Considering that control is already the top deck, I don’t foresee that changing this time around.

1. Drawn from Dreams

Dig Through Time was a broken magic card, and not just because of the Mana reduction that Delve allowed. The pure card advantage coupled with selection that this effect provides is the exact thing that locks down games. Getting to look at 14% of your deck (assuming you run this out on turn 4 and have had no other card draw in the game) and pick THE BEST TWO means you will never be left wondering where your answers are. You have them right in your hand now.  That is what makes Drawn from Dreams the most powerful card in Magic Core Set 2020!

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this run down of the most powerful and important additions to Standard from #MTG2020. Did I miss something? Perhaps your favorite per card? Leave a comment and let me know!

Eric Wendorf

Eric has been an avid Magic fan and player since re-discovering the game in 2012. He is a Red mage at heart but likes to confuse himself with the varying decision trees presented by mid-range and control decks from time to time.
Eric plays mostly casually with his 9-year-old daughter, but manages to get out for every prerelease and a few FNM’s and GP’s every year.

Please reach out to me on twitter @edubious

Watch my Twitch stream at twitch.tv/edubious

The basis of the Esper Hero deck is the very powerful shell of Esper Control that came out of Ravnica Allegiance Standard and also surfaced early in the WAR format.  It’s hard to argue with an early game plan of Thought Erasure, Tyrant’s Scorn and Mortify.  What glues these powerful answers together is the fact they are all multi-colored.  What card cares about casting multi-colored spells? Our friend Hero of Precinct One, of course!

The namesake card of the deck, Hero of Precinct One gives the slower control shell a little more sticking power against the hyper aggro mono-White and mono-Red decks while allowing your non-stop barrage of multi-colored answers to clean up and lock down the game.

The Deck

How the deck works

The ideal opening hand has 3 lands, but would be happy with 4. You want all 3 colors by turn 3 as well, considering you might need to cast a Blue-Black spell on turn 2 into a Blue-White or White-Black spell on turn 3.  Your gameplan will 100% depend on how your opponent starts their game. Ideally your turn 2 play would be Hero of Precinct One so that you can snowball the “cast multi-color spell” effect straight away. However, if you get Mountain into Ghitu Lavarunner on turn 1 from your opponent, you’re probably going to want to fire off that Tyrant’s Scorn early to preserve your life total and prevent the early chip damage, which also keeps them off the Spectacle cost of Light up the Stage.  On the other hand, if the opponent plays a tapped Watery Grave on turn 1, you’re probably going to want to hit them with your Thought Erasure before they can get you with theirs! Sequencing is the name of the game with this deck, but with the amount of extra card draw effects, you always have a fighting chance going into the late game.  The winning strategy here is to out-resource your opponent by landing your Teferi’s (both the 3-mana tempo play of Teferi, Time Raveler and the 5-mana house Teferi, Hero of Dominaria) and managing a board-state to the point where you can blink Oath of Kaya to get in that last bit of damage or to clear the way to swing with Hero of Precinct One and his army of token friends.  Once you’ve established a soft-lock on the board with Teferi and friends, it’s just a matter of inevitability for the win.

Matchup and Sideboarding Strategy

Esper Hero (The Mirror)

Esper is very much the largest share of the meta in this format, so you’ll want to have a solid game plan against this deck as you can expect to see it at least 4 times during the course of a 16-round Grand Prix main event. Assuming you’ve kept a hand with 3 lands, a Hero of Precinct One and something to do on turn 3, your strategy will differ greatly depending on play vs draw. On the play is almost always correct to Thought Erasure on turn 2 if you have it.  The only time I will lead with my Hero on 2 is if I see a turn 1 basic Swamp or Isolated Chapel. It’s worth the tempo advantage to me to gamble that they don’t have the untapped Blue source to get you with their own turn 2 Thought Erasure. This is an attrition matchup and comes down to tight and proper gameplay. If you stick Teferi, Time Raveler on turn 3 and immediately minus against an empty board to draw a card, you could lose the ability to bounce their blocker the next turn out, leaving him vulnerable to getting removed by an Oath of Kaya on your opponent’s turn 3, so it’s usually right to plus him to no avail and see what you’re left with when your turn rolls back around. However on the draw your turn 3 Teferi will almost always be minusing to bounce the opposing Hero and slow them down a bit. This puts you up in terms of card advantage, but does leave you vulnerable.

When Sideboarding, the most important cards to bring in are the 2nd copy of Dovin’s Veto and the 2nd copy of Command the Dreadhorde.  I also like to bring in the 2 copies of Duress for more early hand disruption and The Elderspell for the mid-to-late game release valve.  I like to take out the 2 Basilica Bell-haunts because it really proves too little too late and the incidental life-gain isn’t relevant. I also tend to cut the 4x namesake cards of the deck Hero of Precinct One in this matchup because it packs too little punch late game and tends to eat a Tyrant’s Scorn or Oath of Kaya and proves quite ineffective early as well.  Leaning heavier on the lockout control strategy of your planeswalkers is the name of this game.

Grixis Control

The Grixis Control matchup is one of pure attrition where the play vs draw status really matters.  The Grixis deck wants to shred your resources as fast and hard as possible using a combination of discard effects on turns 1, 2, 3, and 4!  If they are on the play, battling against Duress into Thought Erasure into Disinformation Campaign into Nicol Bolas, the Ravager is nigh on impossible, but luckily we have some disruption of our own to stay the early battery of resource denial.  And if their mix of spells happen to not line up with our game-plan, we have a pretty solid early game that can get underneath their top end quick.

When sideboarding, I like to think of this matchup in terms of lining up a one-for-one slogfest. If you let their resources denial strategy snowball you’ve got no chance. I bring in the extra Dovin’s Veto and both copies of Duress to try to match their early disruption. I’m also bringing in Sorcerous Spyglass, and The Elderspell to deal with their Planeswalkers, and the second Command the Dreadhorde to take advantage of their powerful creatures and Planeswalkers.  The other card I like to bring in for this matchup is both copies of Enter the God-Eternals. The 4 damage lines up perfectly to pick off a Nicol Bolas, the Ravager, while also leaving behind a body to attack with.  The cuts are pretty straight forward too. I’m definitely taking out all 4 of the Hero of Precinct One‘s to minimize the effectiveness of their sweepers.  Both Basilica Bell-haunt‘s also get cut because the discard is trivial once turn 4 rolls around and the incidental life-gain isn’t imperative.  My other cut is 2 of the 3 copies of Tyrant’s Scorn.  They typically don’t run any 3CMC or less creatures and the last thing you want to be doing is making them pick Bolas back up. This is one of the tougher matchups for Esper Hero but not unwinnable if you can sequence your plays right and keep your play tight.

4-Color Dreadhorde

Dreadhorde is one of those decks that slowly gains incremental edges, never getting too far ahead or behind until it’s time to go off.  Once they do though, it’s usually lights out. With their main early game plan to clog up the board with Wildgrowth Walkers, and Jadelight Rangers, we aren’t going to be getting through with our Hero and his army without some help from our other support cards. Using Oath of Kaya to pick off a Wildgrowth Walker before he gets counters is always a good idea. Thought Erasure can be a great way to slow down their early game, but beware you’re just feeding their long term gameplan. I always take the Command the Dreadhorde or Tamiyo, Collector of Tales over an explore creature, even when there’s a Wildgrowth Walker on the battlefield. Tamiyo is their best card by far, so you should do anything necessary to get rid of it.

Sideboarding for this matchup is pretty straight forward. My secret weapon is Narset’s Reversal. Being able to “counter” their big dreadhorde play but also getting access to a copy of it yourself for 2 Mana is the kind of backbreaking tempo play you need to pull away. I also bring in my 2nd copy of Command the Dreadhorde to take advantage of them filling their graveyard with juicy targets. I also bring in the 2nd copy of Dovin’s Veto to answer their Planeswalkers or Dreadhordes and The Elderspell to clean things up if they get out of hand. I also like to bring in my 2 copies of Duress to give me more access to slowing down their mid-game engines.  I am definitely siding out the 2 copies of Basilica Bell-haunt because you don’t want to be fueling their massive Dreadhorde turn. I also like to side out 2 copies of Hero of Precinct One because a 2/2 won’t be able to get through their wall of ground creatures and 2 copies of Teferi, Hero of Dominaria because tapping out on turn 5 and leaving them an opening to cast Dreadhorde is never correct. If you can keep the pressure on, this should be a winnable matchup.

Simic Ramp

The Simic Ramp deck is a very polarizing matchup. Either you have the answers on time or you lose. And this is true whether they are playing the Nexus of Fate version or the Mass Manipulation version. Nissa, Who Shakes the World is the best card in the deck with Tamiyo, Collector of Tales and Narset, Parter of Veils very close behind. With Planeswalkers being so vital to this strategy, it’s important to either get out of the gates with a fast start and keep them on the back foot so they aren’t able to proactively progress their gameplan, or to play a hard resource denial strategy.

I usually keep sideboarding pretty light in this matchup. I definitely want my Sorcerous Spyglass to shut off Tamiyo, Collector of Tales.  I’m also bringing in the 2nd copy of Dovin’s Veto for a clean answer to Wilderness Reclamation, Tamiyo or Nexus of Fate. Beyond those two cards, you might consider bringing in The Elderspell to clean up messy board-states, and the two copies of Duress to add add to your early disruption gameplan. For cuts, you definitely want to take out the 3 copies of Tyrant’s Scorn because you most likely won’t see any good targets on the other side of the board. Depending how far you go with the sideboarding the next cuts I would make are the 2 copies of Basilica Bell-haunt because the life-gain isn’t important to this matchup and the discard won’t have much of an impact with the amount of cards they can draw.  Landing your own early Narset, Parter of Veils can be what wins you the game here as the Simic Ramp deck relies very heavily on drawing so many extra cards per game that they can out-resource their opponents. Tight play is greatly rewarded in this matchup.

Gruul Stompy

Gruul Stompy is another negative matchup for Esper Hero. Their creatures are too big and come down too fast for you to effectively keep up. Whether it is a turn two or three 4/4 Gruul Spellbreaker, or a turn four Skarrgan Hellkite thanks to ramping off Domri, Anarch of Bolas, the Riot mechanic gives the Gruul player the freedom to choose the best path of victory (but let’s be honest, it’s usually “Haste” that they’re choosing).

It’s an uphill battle the whole way for Esper in this matchup. Despark is your best friend, and you will need to rely heavily on multiple Oath of Kaya drops to stand a chance in game 1.

When sideboarding, I try to bring in anything that will deal with their big beefy threats, so I’m definitely bringing in Lyra Dawnbringer and her 5/5 First-Striking body. Also in are the two copies of Enter the God-Eternals to level up the damage-based removal to 4 points while also leaving behind a 4 power blocker that can kill most of their threats. An argument for bringing in the two copies of Deputy of Detention can also be made as it acts as a speed bump for Gruul, buying you a turn or 2. I typically don’t bring them in because they are to easily removed and the Gruul threats will hit the ground running. I am definitely bringing out the Command the Dreadhorde because the damage it represents is too dangerous when Gruul had nothing but hasty threats ready to alpha strike.  I’m also cutting two of the Narset, Parter of Veils because we need our multi-color spell density up enough to reliably trigger Hero and she doesn’t impact the board in a meaningful way to slow down the Gruul onslaught. Depending if you also decided to bring in the Deputy’s, you’ll want to take out the 3rd Narset and the Search for Azcanta so as to keep all of your spells as high-impact as possible the turn you okay then. While not an impossible feat, it definitely takes some great play and a little bit of luck for Esper Hero to stand a fighting chance against Gruul.

Mono-Red

The mono red matchup can be quite easy for some Esper builds, especially the ones that are loaded up on incidental life-gain. However if they get of to one of their blistering starts, no deck can keep up. It comes down to drawing a timely Oath of Kaya to both remove an attacker and gain you back some precious life points and give you another turn to draw your outs.

The mono-red deck will be sideboarding in life-gain hate in the form of Tibalt, Rakish Instigator. For Esper Hero, the name of the game is to slow down their turbo starts with early removal. I compliment the main deck Tyrant’s Scorns and Oath of Kaya‘s with the 2 copies of Cry of the Carnarium out of the side. This will stall the game long enough for you to land your other sideboard life-gaining bombs in Lyra Dawnbringer and the 2 copies of Enter the God-Eternals. I also bring in the Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord to add the extra life-gain source with an option to recur whichever creature you need at the moment. You definitely want to take out the one Main deck copy of Command the Dreadhorde because any amount of extra unnecessary damage should be avoided. I also take out the high cost spells that might end up stranded in your hand as you reel to answer the barrage of damage, so all 3 copies of Teferi, Hero of Dominaria get cut. I also cut 2 copies of Narset, Parter of Veils because the “can’t draw” effect is useless in this matchup and a “do-nothing” turn 3 play will most certainly cost you the game. It all comes down to whether you can draw the right answers, and in the right quantities.

Mono-White

The mono-white matchup is a very tough one. Their ability to swarm the board with tons of creatures and make them huge gives this version of Esper that lacks main deck sweepers some serious trouble. Our only hope is that they don’t land a turn two Adanto Vanguard AND we can land a turn two Hero of Precinct One with several multi-colored spells to follow it up to build up an army of chump blockers.

For sideboarding, I am bringing in both copies of Deputy of Detention and both copies of Cry of the Carnarium to help stall the early swarm of x/1 creatures.  I am also bringing in both copies of Enter the God-Eternals to have a way to deal with the high toughness creatures like Venerated Loxodon or Snubhorn Sentry while also leaving behind a sizeable blocker. First thing I am bringing out is the Command the Dreadhorde because there probably won’t be much life left in the tank on turn 6 to get much use out of it. I am also taking out the copy of Dovin’s Veto because their main strategy is to swarm the board with creatures and we can’t take a turn off hoping they fall into the trap with History of Benalia. I’m also taking out 2 copies of Narset, Parter of Veils because the “can’t draw” effect is useless in this matchup and a turn 3 play that doesn’t do something to disrupt their swarm will most certainly cost you the game. The final 2 cuts for me are usually Teferi, Hero of Dominaria because it won’t come down early enough to impact the game, but an argument for cutting Search for Azcanta can also be made as it is most effective as a turn 2 or 3 play, and the tempo loss for not impacting the board is too much to overcome. Making it to turn 7 is pretty much your ticket to victory here as the mono-white deck will have probably played it all of their spells and will be in top-deck mode. If you are able to stabilize at this point, Esper should have no problem out-resourcing them for the rest of the game.

Conclusion

With Esper Hero marrying the early game pressure of an aggro deck with an ability able to play the control role, it’s easy to see why it emerged as the tier-1 deck to beat this Standard season. I have enjoyed playing the deck, and even rode this horse to Mythic on Arena. I have no doubt that Hero of Precinct One and company will continue to be a major force until rotation in September.

Eric Wendorf

Eric has been an avid Magic fan and player since re-discovering the game in 2012. He is a Red mage at heart but likes to confuse himself with the varying decision trees presented by mid-range and control decks from time to time.
Eric plays mostly casually with his 9-year-old daughter, but manages to get out for every prerelease and a few FNM’s and GP’s every year.

Please reach out to me on twitter @edubious

Watch my Twitch stream at twitch.tv/edubious

Curses is an Enchantment, Aura/Curse, prison deck whose goal is to create a soft lock on creature and planeswalker-based decks by cheating Overwhelming Splendor and Curse of Death’s Hold into play using Curse of Misfortunes. Following this, the deck uses Cruel Reality and Curse of Thirst as finishers. The deck uses hand disruptions such as Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize to disrupt combo decks as well as protect its hand from potential answers, such as counter spells. The deck also uses mana acceleration in the form of Lotus Bloom, Pentad Prism, and Hero of Iroas in order to cast Misfortunes as fast as possible. Lastly, the deck runs Open the Armory as Misfortunes numbers 5-8 and as a quick tutor for Curse of Exhaustion if our opponent is on Storm/Phoenix.

Theoretically, some of the biggest counters to this deck include faster combo decks, such as Dredge, or decks that run hand-hate, like Abzan/Jund Midrange. Thus, we have Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, and Leyline of Sanctity post-board. We also have four copies of Fragmentize in case our opponent has Sanctities of their own, and Thoughtseize to further rip apart combo decks’ hands.

Furthermore, Hall of Heliod’s Generosity acts as utility in case our enchantments are destroyed or pulled out of our hand. Here is the list below:

WB Curses

Creatures (4) 4 Hero of Iroas Artifacts (8) 4 Pentad Prism 4 Lotus Bloom Spells (21) 4 Path to Exile 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Fatal Push 4 Open the Armory 3 Surgical Extraction 2 Thoughtseize Enchantments (9) 4 Curse of Misfortunes 1 Curse of Exhaustion 1 Curse of Death’s Hold 1 Curse of Thirst 1 Cruel Reality 1 Overwhelming Splendor

Lands (19) 4 Concealed Courtyard 4 Marsh Flats 4 Silent Clearing 3 Hall of Heliod’s Generosity 2 Godless Shrine 1 Plains 1 Swamp Sideboard (15) 4 Fragmentize 3 Leyline of Sanctity 3 Leyline of the Void 3 Rest in Peace 2 Thoughtseize

An example of a strong gameplan looks like this:
T1 – Land, Inquisition of Kozilek, Suspend Lotus Bloom
T2 – Land, Open the Armory, or Hero of Iroas, or Pentad Prism, or hand-hate/removal spells.
T3 – If you cast Pentad Prism last turn, you can cast Curse of Misfortunes here assuming you have a land.
T4 – Lotus Bloom being popped here for Curse of Misfortunes + Path/hand-hate is strong here.
Find Overwhelming Splendor or Curse of Death’s Hold, depending on the deck. A lot of X/1 decks will fall over to just Curse of Death’s Hold. Follow up with whichever of the two you didn’t get on your next turn, then Cruel Reality, then Curse of Thirst. Assuming your opponent can’t play creatures, they should die slowly to the upkeep damage.

Some weaknesses for this deck include spells that deal direct damage and decks that run significant hand-hate and counter magic. While this is fixed with Sanctity post board, it’s possible that you may never see it in a hand with strong opening spells. Moreover, Creeping Chill completely circumvents Sanctity‘s ability. Counter spells, such as Cryptic Command, become problematic when they bounce cards, such as Overwhelming Splendor, back to the player’s hand, as a efficient way to cast this spell or shuffle it back into the library does not exist.

Thank you for reading my article of Curses for competitive Modern gameplay. Feel free to leave comments on the deck below. If you wish to support me, my articles, and my deck brews/theorycrafting, my patreon is here.

Sky Hochberg

My name is Sky. I am 23 years old and am agender; meaning I prefer that you refer to me using they/them/their pronouns. I am a SUNY Oswego graduate with a BA in Creative Writing with a minor is Psychology. I am a Modern player, with my favorite deck being Dredge. I began playing Magic during Scars of Mirrodin; however, I did not play competitively until a few years ago. In my spare time, I enjoy writing poetry, studying/practicing Psychology, and composing music.

This week we will be discussing one of the most important aspects of any Commander deck: mana rocks. A loose definition of a mana rock is a colorless artifact that provides consistent mana. While there are a host of artifacts that provide mana at the cost of sacrificing them, I am focusing on those which do not need to be sacrificed. It is very rare you will find a Commander deck without any mana rocks.

Mana rocks like Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond act as huge accelerants to pull ahead in the early game while also providing our colors early on. Other rocks like Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Sol Ring, and Grim Monolith are looking to push our mana ahead 2-3 turns. All of these cards are way out of our price range, with the lone exception of Sol Ring. We want to be as competitive as possible, while still retaining some of the raw power level of the non-budget options. This will usually take some concessions such as increases in mana cost, slightly decreased effects, or sometimes even a creature that mimics a mana rock. Let’s take a look see what kind of options we can come up with to trim the cost off some of our favorite non budget options.

Here is a list of the rocks that I spend most of my time using in my budget decks.

Storage

These are not your typical mana rocks. They are not designed to accelerate your mana through the turns. They are designed to do something with your mana when you are not playing on curve. You can find yourself playing a 3 drop on turn 5 and investing mana into one of these rocks to enable an explosive turn later on.

Colorless

Mana rocks that do not provide color are a risky but sometimes very rewarding inclusion to your deck. These rocks tend to either have an additional ability tacked on like Mind Stone or give you more mana at a discounted rate like Thran Dynamo. Hedron Archive and Dreamstone Hedron give card draw to any colored deck. Including these in your 3-color deck is not advised due to the need for specific colors. 2-color decks can usually get by with these, but beware as you sculpt your deck. If you find yourself with lots of difficult mana in your early drops then drawing one of these could mean being behind.

Standouts: Sol Ring, Mind Stone, Basalt Monolith, Hedron Archive, Thran Dynamo

Conditional Color

Conditional mana rocks are usually aggressively costed, at but with some kind of stipulation attached. Pillar of Origins of an all-star in a tribal deck but a liability in most other decks. Star Compass is an all-star at fixing the most difficult mana bases provided you are running basics. Prismatic Geoscope is a staple for 4-5 color decks but hitting all those colors is difficult for budget builds.

Standouts: Coldsteel Heart, Fellwar Stone, Star Compass

Any Color

Mana rocks that give you access to any color are invaluable to 3+ color decks. One of the biggest drawbacks to deck building on a budget is that mana bases tend to built on either slow or single colored lands. Getting all 3 colors in an opening hard can be difficult, so packing your deck full of these rocks is a must. Chromatic Lantern is the king of Any Color rocks. Giving you the luxury of not worrying about how to tap your mana makes your turns infinitely easier to navigate. Coalition Relic‘s recent print in Masters 25 bumped this once-expensive rock into more budget territory. It doubles as a storage rock and an any colored mana producer.

Standouts: Chromatic Lantern, Coalition Relic, Commander’s Sphere, Darksteel Ingot

Single Color

Not much to say when talking about single color rocks. Oftentimes these rocks are paired with Paradox Engine combos in order to provide floating colored mana without paying some kind of life loss. Khalni Gem can be an interesting include if you have some valuable lands with enter the battlefield effects that you don’t mind picking up for a later turn. The Myr cycle can give a huge boost to mana pools when paired with abilities that un-tap creatures. More mana for the storage rocks mentioned earlier!

Standouts: Diamond cycle, Gilded Lotus

Guild Colors / Wedges / Shards

These are the rocks that I start with a majority of the time when I am building my 2-3 color decks. I can not even think of the last time I did not include one of the signets in my decks. Most of these rocks do something besides provide mana at the price of being slightly over-costed. Using the ramp in the early turn and cashing it in for a card later on is exactly what you want to be doing once you are deep in the late game.

Standouts: Signet cycle, Locket cycle, Talisman cycle

Wrapping Up

Even though we can not use the best of the best, we can still smooth out our mana with the best of them. Did I miss any of your favorite mana rocks? Sharing ideas and giving advice is the spirit of EDH and why Magic: the Gathering is such a wonderful community to be a part of. Until next time!

Chris Johnson

Chris Johnson, better known as Destructo, has been in the game for over 20 years. A simple man with tastes spanning every format but who’s true love is Commander. He has always focused on the “gathering” aspect of Magic: the Gathering. You can always find him knee deep in a multiplayer game, brainstorming some fresh budget brews, or just talking shop about the game he loves.

Today we are going to review the top performing aggro deck from Magic Arena and Start City Games Open winner Will Pulliam’s Mono-Red list. Mono-Red has been a pillar of the Arena metagame since back in the days of the closed Beta.  This deck has been around forever, and it keeps getting new, powerful, cheap tools to prop it up.  Especially in the best-of-1 format.

This deck operates on the same axis as the mono red list from last season. The big change is swapping out the 4-Mana card advantage engine, replacing Experimental Frenzy with Chandra, Fire Artisan. Chandra doesn’t provide quite the “out of nowhere” flurry that Experimental Frenzy does, but she does provide a level of consistency that the deck needs to push forward in this new Standard full of powerful new Planeswalker spells.

Taking a peek into the sideboard, the only other addition to the deck is 2 copies of Tibalt, Rakish Instigator. Being a mono-red player from Ixalan Standard, I was definitely missing the protection against life-gain strategies that Rampaging Ferocidon provided. That card died for the sins of Hazoret the Fervent and one of my hopes for the Amonkhet block rotating was that they would list the ban list, but alas, this dino stayed sidelined. Now with Tibalt, we get that option back in our toolbox.

Mono Red did a great beginners strategy because it provides new players with a consistent and powerful strategy of dealing damage and turning creatures sideways without the worry of dealing with complicated decision trees or getting color screwed that is inherent with the greedy Mana bases in the 3-color decks. I think this deck has staying power to remain viable in WAR Standard, especially in Arena best of 1. Please comment below and let me know what you think of the new tech and join me next time as we dive into the greater meta of WAR Standard.

Eric Wendorf

Eric has been an avid Magic fan and player since re-discovering the game in 2012. He is a Red mage at heart but likes to confuse himself with the varying decision trees presented by mid-range and control decks from time to time.
Eric plays mostly casually with his 9-year-old daughter, but manages to get out for every prerelease and a few FNM’s and GP’s every year.

Please reach out to me on twitter @edubious

Watch my Twitch stream at twitch.tv/edubious

Commander Introduction

When you think of an aggro deck, a couple of colors that come to mind are definitely NOT blue and black. They have been fine complementary colors to an aggro strategy before, but not as the only 2 colors featured in the deck. Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow offers an unique take on aggro strategy while still maintaining the trickery Dimir has to offer.

Yuriko has a creature type that is not really all that supported in the current card database. Ninjas were featured during the Betrayers of Kamigawa block and have not really made an appearance since. They have popped up in a couple special sets including Planechase and Commander 2017.

One unique aspect of this commander is the very cheap cost to enter play. Commander ninjitsu gets around the commander tax which makes Yuriko accessible all game.

Pros:

• Always costs 2 as long as you have an unblocked attacker
• Generates a ton of card advantage
• Always threatening large life loss to all opponents

Cons:

• Ninjitsu is inherently negative tempo
• Creatures must attack to get full value
• Will be open to counter attacks

Strategy and Decklist

The ninjutsu mechanic cares about having an unblocked creature, and replacing the attacker with the Ninja in its place. The advantage to this is most of the Ninjas have combat damage triggers, and it gets them into play whilst dodging counter magic. We need to pack the deck with evasive creatures in order have consistent ninjutsu opportunities, the cheaper the better.

Yuriko’s triggered ability says, “Whenever a Ninja you control deals combat damage to a player, reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. Each opponent loses life equal to that card’s converted mana cost.” We can go about this two different ways. One way is that we can build the deck normally, be happy with the card advantage, and have the opponents lose whatever life they lose. Another way to approach this is put over costed spells in the deck for HUGE life loss. So yeah, definitely doing that.

Since there are very few Ninjas to choose from (none of which we are using) we need a way to manipulate creatures types. We could have turns were we flip 5+ cards if we can manage to turn everything into Ninjas.

Well we are $.42 over. Close enough! There are opportunities to trim a few bucks here and there. You could rebuild non creatures spells to more resemble a tempo deck. A few of the cards are clocking in are 6+ dollars but offer a huge advantage to your strategy.

Wait a minute! No ninja in a deck that cares about ninjas doing combat damage?!?! Let’s see how a ninjaless ninja deck works.

Evasive Creatures

The hands down best way to make sure we can ensure ninjitsu early and often is unblockable creatures. We are aiming to keep hands with at least 1 creatures to get Yuriko’s engine going ASAP. Besides just unblockable we can also use value evasive creatures that we can bounce later for added value or get some chip damage.

A perceived downside to all these little creatures is they have very little power. While this is largely irrelevant to our strategy, it can be an issue with facing down much larger creatures. None of our creatures trade particularly well in combat, so picking your spots of when to attack or defend will be fun little exercise in board evaluation.

High CMC

Since Yuriko’s ability cares about the converted mana cost of the revealed cards, we are including high CMC but also very functional spells. Some of these spells are split cards, the Delve mechanic, and hybrid casting cost cards.

Split cards are multi functional spells that usually have 2 modes you can choose from. The rule now states that split cards CMC are the total of both spells. This means that Commit / Memory is now a 10 CMC spell. See the rules text below regarding split cards CMC.

Cards with Delve usually have a very high casting cost. This mechanic allows you to help pay the cost of the spell by exiling cards from your graveyard. Hybrid mana spells like Beseech the Queen let you pay either a single B or 2 of any color 3 different times. For example you can pay (B)(B)(2) or (2)(2)(2). No matter how you intend to cast the card, the printed CMC is 6.

Creature Type Manipulation

Now that we have the army of evasive creatures and high cost spells to flip, we need to address the elephant in the room. We have no ninjas besides Yuriko. In order to make our army ninjas we are including a suite of enchantments that change the creature type of our creature into ninjas. It’s important to never run 2 of these out at a time, and try to have another ready when the first one gets destroyed.

Transmute

Transmute is a mechanic from Ravnica: City of Guilds that allows you to pay an alternate mana cost and search for a card in your library for a card same CMC. This allows us to tutor on the cheap for the creature altering enchantments or whatever answer we need at the time. Muddle the Mixture and Dimir Infiltrator gives us a 2nd and 3rd copy of Unnatural Selection while Perplex gives us a 2nd copy of Arcane Adaptation. Having redundancy for these important enchantments is key to winning, and being able to fish them right out of the deck is back breaking for your opponent. Sometimes we even just get to cast for card for added versatility.

Notable Non Budget Upgrades

The overall power of Cyclonic Rift is hard to ignore. That single Rift can win the game out of nowhere, regardless of the board state. Any tutor that put the card on the top of the library can be great response to a Yuriko trigger. Jace, the Mind Sculptor‘s brainstorm ability can give you the ability to keep flipping high CMC cards getting stuck in your hand. Extra turns and Yuriko go together like peanut butter and jelly. Temporal Mastery and Temporal Trespass can get you there without always having to pay the huge mana cost. If you can manage to string a few turns together then it is not very likely your opponents will survive to take another turn themselves. Any sort of tutors that put the card on top of your library is invaluable since you can respond to Yuriko’s trigger. Cards like Mystical Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, or Long-Term Plans can help you out there.

Tips and Tricks

• Cast Insidious Dream in response to a large amount of Yuriko triggers. Fishing out your highest cost spells could be 25+ damage to all opponents.
• Sometimes Inkfathom Witch kills are the best way to go. Turning all your creatures into 4/1 is large chunks of combat damage on top of potential triggers.
• You only need to hit 1 person in order to start firing off Yuriko triggers. Do not spread your attention. Focus on keeping 1 board as clear as possible for your creatures to connect.

Wrap Up

Identifying and understanding your role from game to game is important. Sometimes you are aggro and sometimes you are a combo deck. You strike when and where it is least expected, just like a ninja.  I highly encourage you to take the deck for a spin and tell me what you think. Sharing ideas and giving advice is the spirit of EDH and why Magic: the Gathering is such a wonderful community to be a part of. Until next time!

Chris Johnson

Chris Johnson, better known as Destructo, has been in the game for over 20 years. A simple man with tastes spanning every format but who’s true love is Commander. He has always focused on the “gathering” aspect of Magic: the Gathering. You can always find him knee deep in a multiplayer game, brainstorming some fresh budget brews, or just talking shop about the game he loves.

This Orzhov Knights deck offers an aggressive strategy with some mid-range elements. The deck features creatures such as Adanto Vanguard, Knight of Grace, and Knight of Malice for some early aggression. These creatures are not only aggressive two drops but are also resilient threats. Following this, the deck looks to close the games out with explosive cards like History of Benalia and powerful planeswalkers such as Gideon Blackblade and Liliana, Dreadhorde General.

Orzhov Knights

War of the Spark has not let me down. Casting new planeswalkers like Gideon Blackblade and Liliana, Dreadhorde General was easily the most fun I have had on arena so far. Our opponents, to no ones surprise, were also rocking some planeswalkers both new and old. This deck didn’t give us the results we were hoping for, but it did leave me itching for more.

Overall, I think we had some good games against G/B Mid-Range and Grixis Control, but our deck struggled with closing out the game efficiently. I suggested some tweaks in the video, but generally speaking I think the deck is a bit confused about what it’s doing. Should we be more aggressive? or should we lean more towards a mid-range control type list with more bombs? Let me know which version you would like to see and leave suggestions here or come visit me at twitch.tv/DCMDame. As always, if you mention my article I will be more than happy to pull up the deck and showcase some matches for you.

Happy Gaming!

David Dame

My name is Dave and I’ve been playing magic regularly since 2000. Magic the Gathering has been such a huge part of my life and I am excited to have the opportunity to give back to the community.

 

twitch.tv/dcmdame. Come hang out ~ !

Nicol Bolas has been a fan favorite bad-guy since 1994, when he was introduced in Legends.  This time around he is destroying the plane of Ravnica in his quest to become the most powerful Planeswalker in the multiverse, and he is consuming the Spark of other ‘Walkers to do so!  Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God is an extremely powerful card that will own games if not answered immediately.  With the Grixis archetype lacking closing power against the Esper Control and lacking speed against the aggro creature strategies, it makes sense that this would become an interesting starting point to brew by adding a multi-utility bomb.

For War of the Spark Standard, my week 1 deck will absolutely revolve around this new Planeswalker-God.  Adding in the versatile power of the Amass spells that came with War of the Spark can really propel this archetype into the folds of the Tier 1 meta.  My list looks a little like this:

You will notice that I am only running 2 copies of this “central” card.  The restrictive mana cost of 5 colored pips, including 3 black mana, on Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God makes it a little too difficult to cast reliably on turn 5, so keeping the number down means we have room for spells we can actually cast in the early game while we maneuver the board state to allow us to slam him or one of our other major win-con’s in Niv-Mizzet, Parun or Liliana, Dreadhorde General.

Grixis plays a very tap-out style of control, needing to leverage the game’s most powerful early sorcery spells and sorcery-speed finishers in Planeswalkers and creatures.  Building towards this end game, you will need to disrupt your opponent early and keep them reeling, unable to answer your onslaught of early resource advantage spells.  Discard in Duress and Thought Erasure along with turn 1 or 2 interaction in Spell Pierce and Carnival//Carnage make sure the opponent’s early game plan does not play out, and removal for the threats that do happen to land on the other side of the battlefield in Angrath’s Rampage, Bedevil, or Carnival//Carnage.

Furthering the gameplan, once you get to 4 or 5 mana, you will want to start dropping bombs that proactively manipulate the gamestate in your favor.  Nicol Bolas, the Ravager and Carnival//Carnage do a pretty nice job of running your opponent out of resources with their 2-for-1 capabilities.  Then all that’s left to do is clean up the mess.  The remaining cards give you plenty of options late game once it becomes a battle of attrition.  You can refill your hand with a nice Expansion//Explosion for X=3 or 4. If you think a Counterspell may be lurking in your opponent’s hand, use Commence the Endgame. If there are just too many sticky pests left on your opponent’s board, you can use a Vraska’s Contempt, Ritual of Soot, or Enter the God-Eternals to press your advantage.

Sideboarding is tricky, especially in the early developing stages of a format.  I expect plenty of Grixis and Esper Control mirror matches, which is why I loaded up on uncounterable options.  Banefire is the tried and true finisher against control. Nezahal, the Primal Tide give us the best sticky closer against any sort of removal, and Lightning Mare gives you a dual purpose card that is guaranteed to land (and probably eat a removal spell) against control while also providing an early chump blocker against the aggro decks.  Negate is a nice card to have for the matchups where you need a way to stop your opponent from resolving their removal or landing a difficult-to-deal-with non-creature permanent type.  There are a couple narrow options included, but I like things that can cleanly answer a major problem.  The Elderspell is good against Planeswalker-heavy control decks, Syncopate is solely there for the Nexus of Fate matchup, and Angrath, the Flame-Chained dominates small creature aggro decks.  Rounding out the sideboard, there are some general catch-all options in Dire Fleet Daredevil, Moment of Craving, and Thief of Sanity.  Each of these can be brought in against a wide variety of decks and provide you with the extra resources you will need to turn the game in your favor, whether that be access to more cards or more life points.

All said, this deck has been extremely fun to play in the early stages of this format and I hope you like the tech that I have chosen to include.  If you have any suggestions for inclusions to this archetype or questions about play patterns, please feel free to leave a comment!

Eric Wendorf

Eric has been an avid Magic fan and player since re-discovering the game in 2012. He is a Red mage at heart but likes to confuse himself with the varying decision trees presented by mid-range and control decks from time to time.
Eric plays mostly casually with his 9-year-old daughter, but manages to get out for every prerelease and a few FNM’s and GP’s every year.

Please reach out to me on twitter @edubious

Watch my Twitch stream at twitch.tv/edubious

Commander Introduction

I have very fond memories of every trip I have taken to Ravnica: the City of Guilds. Each set has brought us amazing cards that are used in nearly every deck today. Signets, bounce lands, shock lands, a ton of sweet legendary creatures, a vast assortment of really versatile mechanics, and even (grumble) Cyclonic Rift. Between the 10 guilds, I am drawn to the Golgari swarm the most. The colors really bring everything a mid-range player like myself wants in a game. Ramp, all types of removal, big threats, and graveyard shenanigans is exactly what I want to be doing and I have just the commander you want doing it with…

Pros:

• Can be a huge threat personally. Winning with commander damage is a real possibility.
• Sacrificing a huge creature could kill the entire board at once
• Already has built in recursion
• Can win without attacking

Cons:

• Requires an active graveyard. Some timely hate will make your life difficult
• GGBB casting cost is somewhat restrictive for a budget mana base.
• Strongly relies on self mill.

Strategy and Deck list

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord jumps out as a deck that really wants a graveyard full of creatures. Jarad also wants to sacrifice larger creatures for large amounts of life loss to ALL opponents. Self milling effects seems to be the best way to go, which feeds both of his abilities. With such a large number of creatures intended to fill the graveyard, it is only natural to aim for a sub-theme of reanimation.

The mechanics from his guild colors really lend to the strategy. Dredge, Scavenge, and Overgrowth are all real possibilities that directly impact Jarad’s P/T. Without further ado here is the deck list…

We squeaked in a few bucks shy of the intended goal: $96.89. There are quite a few cards hovering around the $2.50-$5.00 marks that can easily be swapped out for bulk, making this build even more budget friendly.

Self Milling

One of the best ways we can fill our own graveyard quickly is with self mill. Most of the included cards fill your own yard while also replacing itself with something you just milled. Dredge is graveyard filling cranked to 11. Let’s look at some of the rulings regarding Dredge…

Replacing your card draws with milling 4+ cards is usually worth it and highly recommended. If you can mill early and often, then thriving in the late game will be a no brainer. If you can manage to hit an early Dredge creature, then having 10-15 cards in the yard by the time Jarad is ready to hit the board is a real possibility.

Graveyard Matters

Now that our graveyards are getting nice and full, we need some payoffs. These payoff cards check creatures on your graveyard, overall cards in a player’s graveyard, and some even check ALL cards in ALL graveyards. Lord of Extinction checks all cards and in graveyards and will be a giant creature even when your own milling is on the slow side. If you happen to find yourself in a game with another graveyard based deck, then cards like Lord of Extinction can grow to potential one turn kill range. Spider Spawning and Kessig Cagebreakers is a great card to go extremely wide late game. There is a good chance you will mill many of these creatures. This is the sole reason we have a reanimator sub-theme and a fair amount of recursion.

Ramp

Nothing too shocking here. We are always going to prefer creature versions of ramp when possible, due to the synergy with our commander. We even have a way to get value off milled lands with Ramunap Excavator, World Shaper, and Splendid Reclamation. Since we manage to filter through so many cards we should be hitting land drops pretty consistently all game.

Removal

We have quite the arsenal of answers. The power of Golgari comes with ways to deal with a large variety of problems. If the removal can be stapled to a creature than that is preferred, much like the ramp. Our single target removal can be somewhat of a combo piece, since we have some reanimation that targets opponents graveyards as well. Board wipes overall are mostly avoided, as we should have a healthy board most of the time. Sometimes just fending off the opponents threats long enough for Jarad to fling a giant creatures for the win is the way to go.

Reanimation

Since our primary objectives each turn will be to fill our own graveyard, we will most likely pitch some of our favorites. Included in the deck is a healthy suite of reanimation effects that are cast from hand, as well as ETBs on creatures. Pay attention to the wordings on each card; some cards such as Animate Dead allow you to reanimate from an opponent’s graveyard as well as your own. Similar things can be said for Journey to Eternity. Slap this enchantment on a creature with a huge body or just a valuable ETB effect. If that creature were to be killed, it will come back and also flip the enchantment into a repeatable reanimator effect. Living Death can be a breath of fresh air from a cluttered board. Just make sure you have something in play so your */* creatures do not die as soon as they enter!

Card Advantage

Card advantage comes to us in a non traditional way with this commander. Most of our self mill cards replace themselves with resources (creatures or lands) that we want anyways, acting almost like a cantrip. Skullclamp is an all star, providing insane amounts of card draw. It will kill off x/1s that have served our purposes already, which helps our graveyard strategy directly. Corpse Augur and Disciple of Bolas can get us huge rips of cards, which we do not mind discarding to hand size. Eternal Witness, Golgari Findbroker, and Greenwarden of Murasa help us get back our most powerful cards while still providing a body to chump or fuel our graveyard later.

Notable Non Budget Upgrades

One of the biggest ways you can upgrade the deck as your budget increases lies in consistency. Life from the Loam can help you fill the yard and fix your mana through tough draws. Increasing the overall card draw power and tutors with cards like Sylvan Library and Demonic Tutor will give you the ability to shape your hand with powerful turns. High power / low cost reanimator  spells like Reanimate and Necromancy can help you dig back from the games where you were behind, or reanimating a giant creature in the early game for a huge increase in pressure. Finally, nothing helps a deck more than consistent mana. Bayou, Overgrown Tomb, and Ancient Tomb are a few high end lands that can really power your plan out

Tips and Tricks

• Sometimes flinging a target creature with Jarad, reanimating them, then flinging again could be a one turn kill even with life totals near 40.
• Remember to Dredge when you can. You can put a die on top of your library to remind you to Dredge your draw step.
• Be aware of everyone’s graveyard at all times. Don’t always check when you have a play in hand. Sometimes asking for a graveyard is a tell that you have a reanimator spell in hand.
• You can use a life counter to keep track of the number of creatures in your graveyard.
• Control yourself when you have a healthy sized graveyard. Graveyard hate is very real and can be a total blowout if unprepared.

Wrap Up

Golgari is a guild notorious for being hard to kill and Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord is no exception. This deck / strategy is highly customizable, which is great news for budget players. I highly encourage you to take the deck for a spin and tell me what you think. Sharing ideas and giving advice is the spirit of EDH and why Magic: the Gathering is such a wonderful community to be a part of. Until next time!

Chris Johnson

Chris Johnson, better known as Destructo, has been in the game for over 20 years. A simple man with tastes spanning every format but who’s true love is Commander. He has always focused on the “gathering” aspect of Magic: the Gathering. You can always find him knee deep in a multiplayer game, brainstorming some fresh budget brews, or just talking shop about the game he loves.

With that said, I wanted to briefly touch on what we’ve missed. Autumn Burchett won the inaugural Mythic Championship in Cleveland, Ohio with Mono Blue Tempo. A phenomenal victory, not only for Autumn, but for the LGBTQ community as well. Magic’s first ever non-male “Pro Tour” (or equivalent) champion. All of the congratulations goes to Autumn for this monumental achievement.  Autumn has also been invited to join the MPL, a curated group of streamers and content producers. And in unconfirmed but seemingly related news (at least the timing of things would corroborate), Owen Turtenwald has completely disappeared from the face of the Earth… Also, The Mythic Invitational at PAX East crowned Andrea Mengucci as the winner of the largest single prize in Magic history. Even though the “best-of-3-with-two-potentially-different-decks-selected-at-random” format wasn’t a huge success, the promotion behind the tournament and the subsequent record smashing peak of approximately 149,000 viewers would suggest that Arena is a massive success.

Moving to the meat of this article, I would like to kick off the rebranding of the Strictly Standard series with a Top-10 countdown of the cards I predict will impact Standard over the next 3 months.

But what is a top-10 list without an honorable mention section? Nothing!

Honorable Mention:

There are many cards that demand attention, but I’ll give the honor to a card that brings with it a turn 3 combo kill!  Meet Dreadhorde Butcher. Drop this guy on turn 2, swing for 1 and get a +1/+1 counter. Untap on turn 3, cast Collision // Colossus giving him +4/+2, then swing in for 6 damage and get another counter. Then cast Thud sacrificing the Butcher, dealing 7 damage from Thud plus another 7 from the Dreadhorde Butcher‘s death trigger.

10: God-Eternal Oketra

Possibly beginning a completely new archetype, God-Eternal Oketra has the potential to fuel an unstoppable value engine of snowballing tokens. This deck will operate differently than the current Selesnya builds in that you probably don’t want to be casting many March of the Multitude‘s or History of Benalia‘s, but who’s gonna argue with a free 4/4 coming along for the ride with your mana dorks?

9: Ral, Storm Conduit

Ral, Storm Conduit slots right in to an existing deck. And he brings along with him an infinite damage loop with cards that are already being played in that deck (I’m looking at you, Expansion). This fact alone is what propelled an otherwise underwhelming although reasonably costed Planeswalker into the #9 slot.

8: Finale of Promise

It doesn’t take much for Finale of Promise to start gaining rate. At X=3 you’re spending 5 Mana to get 6 Mana worth of effect. Getting a second use from Bedevil/Mortify + Beacon Bolt/Unmoored Ego (or first use if you happened to discard/mill them) in a control deck seems like the exact thing you want to be doing.

7: Chandra, Fire Artisan

Chandra, Fire Artisan screams auto-include in the Mono-Red deck. But where I think she will really shine is as a card draw and inevitability engine for tap-out style Jeskai Control decks. The ability to draw extra cards each turn while also building a clock that’s just waiting to explode means this version of everyone’s favorite Torch Mage is one of the strongest yet.

6: Commence the Endgame

Uncounterable card draw plus an instant speed threat to close out the game mean that classic control decks like UW and Esper now have the finisher that they lacked.

5: Teferi, Time Raveler

Teferi is in a weird place. There’s already a 5-mana version of him that is the lynchpin of an existing archetype. Now we get a 3-mana version that can break the timing rules of the game TWO DIFFERENT WAYS. The abilities here are kind of at odds with each other, but in the most beautiful way possible. Thanks to the new focus on modal design for Arena Bo1 formats, his static ability is great in control matchups, the +1 is good in aggro/midrange matchups and the -3 is just there in case you don’t have anything else to do. I think both Jeskai and Esper want this card, and there’s potential for a new Bant deck to pop up with this as the centerpiece.

4: Angrath’s Rampage

Modality is also the name of the game here. Angrath’s Rampage provides options to which permanent type you need answered. And it comes at a price that is a clean early answer to a threat as your opponent begins building their board state, or in the late game as a way of whittling down their resources so you can use precision to pick off their remaining threats with your more powerful (and more expensive) removal suite.

3: Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God

Probably single handedly reviving an archetype that has struggled to find it’s identity, Nicol Bolas, Dragon God will make Grixis Control the absolute deck to beat this Standard season. So why the #3 spot? Because of the restrictive mana cost, I don’t think it will be a 4-of in it’s own deck. That’s it, really. I mean this card says “win the game” on it (technically it’s “opponent loses the game” but we’ve only got one opponent, so…)

2: Mobilized District

If Celestial Colonnade has taught us anything, it’s never underestimate the power of a man-land. Especially in a control deck. And especially one with vigilance. And this one is potentially FREE TO ACTIVATE??? Sign. Me. Up.

And the #1 most impactful card is…

Narset, Parter of Veils.

This is a control deck’s dream card. It restricts the opponent’s access to cards while also providing you with access to extra cards. This seems like a narrow sideboard-style card; however once you think of it in terms of known quantities, you realize it provides effects that control decks have mained since the beginning. It slows down two of the top strategies from RNA standard in Esper Control and Hydroid Krasis-based decks with its static ability, while also providing multiple Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin activations a few turns earlier than you would normally have access to flipping a Search for Azcanta. I think Narset will be an auto-include in any deck that plays Blue, and will be the ubiquitous top performing card once the dust has settled on this new WAR Standard format.

Please join me in the next article as I  break down three archetypes that I think are going to come out on top this Standard season (hint: it’s not Mono-Red).

Eric Wendorf

Eric has been an avid Magic fan and player since re-discovering the game in 2012. He is a Red mage at heart but likes to confuse himself with the varying decision trees presented by mid-range and control decks from time to time.
Eric plays mostly casually with his 9-year-old daughter, but manages to get out for every prerelease and a few FNM’s and GP’s every year.

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