A new standard season means we have a new Standard brew. I may not be much into Standard but spoiler season always intrigues me and makes me wonder, “What I would play if I began playing Standard again?” When Wizards began releasing spoilers of Shadows over Innistrad I immediately fell in love with the Planeswalkers; Sorin, Grim Nemesis and Nahiri, the Harbinger. On that note, who else was excited to get a reprint of Fiery Temper with Madness returning in this set? Without any further ado here is the deck:
Mardu Control
Mana
With the rotation of fetchlands mana bases become more honest. As you can see here we have the pain land Caves of Koilos as well as the tap land Cinder Barrens. We also have the creature lands Shambling Vent and Needle Spires. To top it off we have the new Foreboding Ruins joined by Smoldering Marsh to help fix our mana. The benefit of our mana base is that we have a lot of “dual” lands which makes mana a bit easier without fetchlands, but since we have all the creature lands we also have the ability to send our mana on the offensive if we are on a stale board or flooding out.
Creatures
Since we are a heavy control deck we don’t have a lot going on here. The pair of Archangel Avacyn are here for her ability to possibly flip and be a board wipe in the right situation as well as her ability to save some of the other creatures in a pinch. At the very least she is an evasive attacker that can come in at end of my opponents turn.
The Dragonlord Kolaghan is there as another large evasive threat, granting haste to my other creatures and discouraging my opponent from playing additional copies of cards that I have killed is a great bonus to help manage the board state in my favor.
The pair of Goblin Dark-Dwellers is there as a means to rebuy some of my removal and be a strong body with menace for some amount of evasion since we are running a deck very heavy in removal. Overall the creatures aren’t entirely necessary, but give us some actual action while we are trying to control the board with Planeswalkers.
Spells—Spot Removal
This section is the largest and most important part of the deck as it helps to ensure that we make it into the later stages of the game and stop the oncoming onslaught from our opponent.
Declaration in Stone is a way to answer large creatures without having to worry about color, converted mana cost, power/toughness or indestructibility. It does replace that creature with a Clue, but sometimes we have to give our opponents a Clue (wink) that we aren’t going to lose to creatures.
The next piece of removal we have is Fiery Temper. If we have to discard it we can still cast it for its madness which makes it a Lightning Bolt. It not only answers creatures but could potentially allow us to gain some reach to kill our opponent later in the game.
Grasp of Darkness likely shouldn’t surprise anyone. For two mana answering a 4/4 or smaller is a decent deal. If we had access to Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, or something along those lines we would certainly run them, but Grasp is a decent removal spell for early threats.
Roast is the next removal spell that we will discuss. For two mana, easy to splash and getting to answer a creature with toughness of five or less is another great exchange rate. The downside of not being able to target a creature with flying is fine since it answers most any creature on the ground.
Sinister Concoction is interesting as an enchantment for one black. We can sit on it and wait to use it when we need it, which is extremely handy and the fact that it requires us to discard, mill and sacrifice it means that it is a great enabler for delirium while also not caring about the creatures attributes similar to Declaration in Stone without the draw back of giving our opponent clues and helping us achieve delirium.
To the Slaughter is the last piece of removal we will be discussing in this section. The fact that it gets around hexproof, power, toughness etc. is quite nice. With delirium it answers not only a creature but a Planeswalker. Naturally worse against weenie strategies that tend to go wide as well as token strategies for the same reason, the fact that it can answer a Creature and Planeswalker is quite nice as well.
I have left out Lightning Axe as I do not want the card disadvantage although it is a possible addition for a larger madness theme that possibly includes Asylum Visitor to make up for the card disadvantage.
Spells—Sweepers
Languish starts off the two sweeper spells that we are running. Giving the board -4/-4 answers most any threat that will be around post rotation with Siege Rhino, Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler rotating out.
Radiant Flames works as an early sweeper to makes things easier on our spot removal later. The converge allows us to decide the amount of damage we have to do in the event that we want to avoid taking damage off Caves of Koilos and only need a Pyroclasm.
Spells—Planeswalkers
Chandra, Flamecaller the first of our Planeswalkers and one of the ones I have been excited about for a while, but didn’t ever have a reason to run. Her +1 ability can make for a quick clock. On an empty board six damage coming through combat can be a quick an easy clock to maintain. Her 0 ability is a great way to refresh a hand of lands or just draw an extra card or two digging deep into the deck. Her -X ability can act as an additional board sweeper if the need arises later in the game and we have already used a sweeper or two. She represents a great clock for us and I am excited to have finally found a possible home for her.
Nahiri, the Harbinger gives us the ability to cycle through our deck and puts her at six early so she is harder to remove through damage. Her -2 is a great answer to many problematic enchantments, artifacts with abilities or larger creatures. Her -8 can be an easy way to help us find a creature to close out a game quickly and easily if we need it. If/when Emrakul does become a new card in the next set, she will be a great target to dig for with this ultimate ability.
Ob Nixilis, Reignited +1 works out alongside Painful Truths to give us some card draw and help us dig for all the removal that we may need as well as the threats to get there. His -3 is another removal spell for our opponents creatures. His -8 allows us to at the very least take four life from our enemy over a single turn series. Combined with his +1 we can easily hit for six life in that time.
Sorin, Grim Nemesis is likely my favorite card to be spoiled in a long time. His +1 not only gives us an extra card while hitting our opponent with life loss. Since quite a bit of our curve is high, it is likely he can be a quick clock with this ability alone. His -X is a great way for us to gain back some life while answering an opposing creature or Planeswalker. The -9 ability is great for a final blow to close out a game if either player has a high life total. It can potentially put us directly into a winning position depending on what the board state looks like.
Initial Thoughts
I believe that this deck should be able to compete with most anything that may evolve from this new Standard format. A few suggestions that I can make if any one wanted to try this out but wasn’t quite comfortable with where the decklist stands would be to try a bigger madness theme. This deck as suggested earlier could support a few Lightning Axe alongside a few Asylum Visitor to help keep up the flow of cards, likely in place the two Radiant Flames and a Languish or two. That is a possible direction to go. Sin Prodder is another option that could certainly find its way into the deck, perhaps in place of Painful Truths or Goblin Dark-Dwellers. If not for the sweepers which I believe early in the new format will be necessary, I would have likely included Sin Prodder. I hope someone tries this deck out and can start out the new season in a “fun” manner.
Happy brewing to each and every one of you. If anyone has an idea for a brew that they would like to see, I will gladly take requests and challenges in the comments. 🙂
Aaron Gazzaniga manages a restaurant and in his off time has been an avid magic player/brewer since 2003. Having begun in Odyssey Standard Block and always favoring control and prison style decks, we come to this moment in time where Aaron finally gets to talk about and share his ideas.