Grand Prix Utrecht saw a bold new contender for best deck in Standard bust onto the scene, and the MOCS (Magic Online Championship Series) finals secured its place as the deck to beat. With it taking down Grand Prix Shizuoka and losing in the Finals of Grand Prix Porto Alegre, one thing is for certain: this ain’t yo mama’s Mardu.
At first glance, Mardu Ballista looks only slightly different from the Mardu Vehicles decks that dominated the Pro Tour. Inventor’s Apprentice, Veteran Motorist, and Aethersphere Harvester have been shaved for Archangel Avacyn and Walking Ballista. But this switch means that the stringent mana requirements that come with running a red one-drop and a red-white two-drop are also thrown out the window. This opens the door for a significantly heavier black splash, and enables the deck to run the best uncommon in the format: Fatal Push. A couple swamps and the maindeck is good to go!
Mardu Vehicles–Lucas Esper Berthoud, Pro Tour Aether Revolt Champion
Mardu Ballista—Ryohei Kirino, Grand Prix Shizuoka Champion
Veteran Motorist was a card that was notably bad against the Black-Green counters decks, where an opposing Ballista could go on a killing spree against your X/1 creatures. The shift away from Motorists in turn meant that it was much less important to have red on turn one. Inventor’s Apprentice was largely viewed as one of the most underwhelming cards in Mardu Vehicles, so it was easily cut for bigger and better things.
While it’s harder to three +1/+1 counters on a Walking Ballista to crew your Heart of Kiran, this card is a powerhouse in its ability to even the board against larger threats so that you can trade up—Ballista plus Scrapheap Scrounger can take down Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet—and can singlehandedly even the score against an opposing planeswalker or force Four Color Saheeli Combo players to take awkward lines.
The combo of Walking Ballista and Avacyn has also made her inclusion in top-placing decks increasingly common. The synergy of these two cards, taking the counters off Walking Ballista to trigger your Avacyn and wipe the board while leaving you with a 6/5 flyer (and maybe a Gideon) has seen Avacyn go up to three copies in the maindeck, where she started with two copies in most sideboards.
Overall, however, this deck looks and functions pretty similarly to Mardu Vehicles lists of old. That is, until you turn your attention to the sideboard. The traditional Mardu Vehicles board ran some number of Chandra, as well as an assortment of removal and Selfless Spirit, and the ability to go slightly above your opponent in the mirror match with extra copies of Gideon, an extra land, and a Skysovereign or two.
The Mardu Ballista deck takes this strategy and throws it out the window. Instead the deck comes at the metagame from a completely different direction: planeswalkers. In addition to the Gideons in the main, we find our old friend Nahiri, the Harbinger; and occasionally Ob Nixilis Reignited; Chandra, Torch of Defiance; and even Sorin, Grim Nemesis waiting for a turn in Mardu Ballista sideboards. This deck also runs a suite of oaths to compliment the Planeswalker package–namely Oath of Chandra and Oath of Liliana. These cards are both removal and punishment as the planeswalker-control deck you’ve boarded into plays walker after walker against unsuspecting opponents.
The newest addition to the board, as seen at Grand Prix Shizuoka, is Linvala, the Preserver. I believe Linvala is there to help shore up the Mardu Ballista mirror match, giving you a much better chance to come back when you’re behind than many other sideboard options. Stasis Snare is another recent addition that feels like a card that is a must to board in when you’re playing the Mardu Ballista mirror match.
This new list and sideboard plan do wonders to shore up your Black Green Counters matchup, to the point where the deck has been almost completely pushed from the previous rock-paper-scissors format, leaving Standard spellslingers in a two-deck format with Four Color Saheeli now acting as Mardu’s nemesis. The slower starts that Mardu has evolved into with the removal of Inventor’s Apprentice and Veteran Motorist (and the addition of Avacyns and larger mana bases) means that it is0 harder to flat-out race a Four Color Saheeli deck. As well, while switching out Shock for Fatal Push is better against the field at large, shocks ability to kill Saheeli Rai with the combo on the stack is incredibly important.
While pros like Marcio Carvalho are still putting up results with the more traditional Mardu Vehicles builds, the majority of players have “gone ballistic” by switching to the larger black splash and welcoming the more midrangy game that Mardu Ballista is looking to play. So far, it does not look like there is any definitive strategy that can consistently but up numbers against this powerhouse of a deck, and until players better than me can figure that out, I’ll be polishing up my mirror match strategies.
Chantelle Campbell hails from Edmonton, Alberta. She writes about the competitive Magic life.