Deck building is a key part of Magic: the Gathering, with deck builders being incredibly valuable resources for teams. You hear many stories from pro teams that “[Pro Player X] built the deck, told me it was good so I just played it,” such is the blind faith and trust in their team mates to build a solid deck.
Every deck builder dreams about winning a tournament, success at a Grand Prix, or even turning up to the Pro Tour with their own deck—one that they designed to crush the field. It’s something I dream of, having come close before, and would love to do in the future. I’ve won local PPTQs with decks of my own creation (Demonlord Belzenlok giveth and taketh away at times) and had team-mates have success with my creations at team events, but the Grand Prix top 8 with a rogue deck still eludes me.
Rogue decks have the power to throw an opponent’s well-practised game plan out of the window and force them to think on their feet, react to what you are bringing and adjust where necessary. This can give you such a significant edge in a game of Magic, you’ve done all of the practice already. You know that this deck will drop History of Benalia on turn three or that you need to interact with control on turn four so they cannot cast Glimmer of Genius in peace. Knowing the match up gives you an automatic advantage against someone who would have never seen your deck before.
Let’s say that in testing, you have a 45/55 (slightly unfavored) matchup vs Mono Blue Tempo. That, however, is a 45/55 against someone who knows what your deck is and how to play against it. In reality, the intimate knowledge of your deck and unknown tech choices may actually make the matchup favourable until the opponent can figure it out.
Let’s take a look at the decks which are looking to disrupt the harmony of standard currently by going rogue!
Big Boros, Zyrnak (6-2) MOCS
| Creatures (5) 2 Dire Fleet Daredevil 3 Siege-Gang Commander Spells (30) 4 Treasure Map 2 Karn, Scion of Urza 4 History of Benalia 1 Seal Away 2 Azor’s Gateway 1 The Immortal Sun 2 Settle the Wreckage 2 Banefire 1 Cleansing Nova 3 Deafening Clarion 2 Star of Extinction 1 Lava Coil 2 Shivan Fire 3 Pirate’s Pillage | Lands (25) 4 Clifftop Retreat 4 Sacred Foundry 2 Boros Guildgate 2 Arch of Orazca 6 Mountain 7 Plains Sideboard (15) 4 Adanto Vanguard 1 Deafening Clarion 1 Seal Away 1 Banefire 2 Invoke the Divine 1 Cleansing Nova 1 Lava Coil 2 Ixalan’s Binding 2 Lyra Dawnbringer |
Sam Black broke out this deck at Grand Prix Milwaukee. Red White Treasure control is not a typical archetype at all. After all, if you’re looking to play control, where are the counterspells or the unbeatable endgame threats? This, however, is the definition of board control—making sure that nothing survives a single turn, combining efficient early game removal with unbeatable boardwipes later. It seems strange to say this, but one thing this does better than the blue based control decks is actually maintain card advantage. With Treasure Map, Azor’s Gateway, and Pirate’s Pillage, once the game has stabilised you should be consistently drawing an extra two to three cards a turn at no additional cost.
The deck appears to even have a reasonable control matchup, with the inclusion of Banefire in the maindeck combined with Azor’s Gateway to burn your opponent out.
Mostly Green, Krakenhouse (5-0)
| Creatures (31) 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Merfolk Branchwalker 4 Thorn Lieutenant 4 Jadelight Ranger 4 Pelt Collector 4 Steel Leaf Champion 3 Ghalta, Primal Hunger 4 Hullhide Ferox Spells (4) 2 Vivien Reid 2 Assassin’s Trophy | Lands (24) 4 Woodland Cemetary 4 Overgrown Tomb 15 Forest 1 Swamp Sideboard (15) 2 Vraska, Relic Seeker 1 Deathgorge Scavenger 1 Assassin’s Trophy 4 Duress 2 Ripjaw Raptor 2 Find // Finality 3 Vine Mare |
If you had told me that GB stompy would be a rogue deck at the start of the format, I would have called you crazy. It seemed like the most logical deck to build, considering it had the fewest pieces to replace and was seeming to be gaining the best removal spell printed. In reality, the deck always struggled with two cards: Lyra Dawnbringer and Settle the Wreckage. Both cards almost single-handedly invalidated their strategy, and losing Blossoming Defense hurt in a way that wasn’t expected.
The one-two punch of Llanowar Elves into Steel Leaf Champion is still very difficult to deal with outside of a timely Lava Coil. If that is followed up with a Nullhide Ferox, it will almost certainly spell lights out for an opponent.
Red-White, Iankleinmtg (5-0)
| Creatures (12) 4 Adanto Vanguard 4 Legion Warboss 4 Tilonalli’s Summoner Spells (24) 4 Heroic Reinforcements 4 Shock 4 Lightning Strike 4 Legion’s Landing 4 History of Benalia 2 Experimental Frenzy 2 Divine Visitation | Lands (24) 4 Clifftop Retreat 4 Sacred Foundry 1 Memorial to Glory 9 Mountain 6 Plains Sideboard (15) 2 Banefire 2 Deafening Clarion 2 Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice 1 Citywide Bust 2 Tajic, Legion’s Edge 4 Tocatli Honor Guard 2 Lyra Dawnbringer |
Now this is a deck I can get behind! An aggro deck with a combo sideplan, the deck can very easily win without the Divine Visitation. What Divine Visitation does provide however, is a way to transform mediocre/average cards into absolute haymakers. While it does ruin some of the inbuilt synergy of History of Benalia, Heroic Reinforcements represents ten hasty damage (note the tokens don’t have haste in built the card gives them haste) and Tilonalli’s Summoner does an exceptional Entreat the Angels imitation.
While ultimately not the most competitive deck, it definitely looks like good fun!
Red-Black, Turnipturnip (5-0)
| Creatures (10) 3 Bone Dragon 4 Dismissive Pyromancer 3 Rekindling Phoenix Spells (25) 3 Treasure Map 3 The Eldest Reborn 3 Lava Coil 2 Cast Down 2 Shivan Fire 3 Vraska’s Contempt 3 Angrath, the Flame-Chained 4 Karn, Scion of Urza 2 Sarkhan, Fireblood | Lands (25) 4 Cinder Barrens 4 Dragonskull Summit 3 Evolving Wilds 8 Mountain 6 Swamp Sideboard (15) 3 Moment of Craving 2 Ritual of Soot 1 Arguel’s Blood Fast 4 Duress 2 Banefire 3 Knight of Malice |
If I sleeved up Jeskai control, this would be as close to my worst fears as I could imagine in Standard. Resilient threats, backed by disruptive planeswalkers and recursion? I think I’ll take my free loss and move onto the next game. While this list is rogue now, this is something I’d definitely look at when Blood Crypt returns to Standard in the next set, along what other cards that Rakdos provides. If we can adapt this with some tools from Orzhov, then we could once again have Red Black on top of the midrange pile again.
While we are in the current information age, deck builders are at less of a premium than before. Now you can see almost daily results of Standard tournaments to influence what deck you play. So much so that deck building is almost considered to be a lost art and that the only way to have success is to copy a tournament winning deck or metagame deck online. Even in the world of immediate results, I disagree and the hard work that it takes to build a rogue deck and have success with it is extremely gratifying. With the small metagame size, Standard is currently in a great position to be taken advantage of in a brewing sense, with the mana only to get better in the future.
Daniel Roberts (@Razoack) is a UK based player writing about all things Standard. Playing since the release of Gatecrash, he loves nothing better than travelling to European GPs with friends and losing in the feature match area. His best record is 12-3 at GP Barcelona 2017, but he’s aiming for that one more win.