Mythic Championship II London is only a day away, adding a new mulligan rule to an old Modern format. After this weekend however, it will be time for something new: War of the Spark Standard! Let’s take a look at my top five cards and two exciting new brews.
Top Five Cards
Nissa, Who Shakes the World starts us off at number five. I underrated this card when I first read it, but there is a lot to like. Nissa’s plus will quickly take over a battle field while you ramp out giant green monsters with her static ability. The double mana from Nissa requires you to play a ton of forests, but the deckbuilding constraints should be worthwhile. I am excited to play Nissa and have fourteen mana on turn five or six to cast massive Finale of Devastations to win in one attack.
Next is Dreadhorde Arcanist. Say it with me: free spells are broken. Cheating on mana is broken. On top of that, being aggressive is the best place to be at the start of a format. Dreadhorde Arcanist lets you do all of those things at the same time. This card lets you generate a lot of velocity and card advantage while attacking, and plays perfectly with pump spells. Cards like Collision // Colossus were already good enough to make the cut, but with Dreadhorde Arcanist you can easily generate turn four kills with a flurry of pump spells.
Poor Nicol Bolas, Dragon God only made it to third. Even so, the card is very obviously pushed. It has the traditional plus one for card advantage, minus three to kill a creature, and an ultimate that wins the game. But the big add here is that Nicol Bolas, Dragon God’s plus generates more card advantage than any planeswalker we have ever seen. If this card sits in play for two turns your already up four cards. There are very few cards in Standard that can dig a player out of that kind of resource deficit.
A surprise at number two, we have Saheeli, Sublime Artificer. Yes, I think the second most powerful card is uncommon. I learned very quickly that this card does amazing things, and it gives a new breath of life to spell-based decks in Standard. The minus looks very unassuming until you cast Crackling Drake and copy it onto a token for psuedo-haste. Plus as a multicolored spell, Saheeli plays well with Hero of Precinct One.
In my opinion, Liliana, Dreadhorde General is the best card in the set. I believe Liliana is comparable to Elspeth, Sun’s Champion. There are multiple scenarios where Liliana is backbreaking. When you are behind and your opponent has two creatures and you have none, the card swings the game on its own. If the game is at parity, it adds creatures to the board, and her static ability punishes opponents for trying to pressure Liliana by attacking or removing your blockers.
Liliana will define Standard and warp the types of threats people play in their decks. Cards like Carnage Tyrant lose a lot of value when people get to play a planeswalker with Barter in Blood attached to it.
New Standard Brews
With War of the Spark on the horizon and SCG Richmond right around the corner, I can’t stop thinking about new Standard. This is the most exciting time to play Magic, so I brewed some deck lists that I think are good starting places for the format.
Jeskai Tokens
| Creatures (10) 3 Goblin Electromancer 3 Crackling Drake 4 Hero of Precinct One Spells (28) 4 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer 4 Opt 4 Shock 4 Depose // Deploy 4 Discovery // Dispersal 3 Heroic Reinforcements 2 Beacon Bolt 2 Justice Strike 1 Lightning Strike | Lands (22) 2 Clifftop Retreat 2 Glacial Fortress 4 Hallowed Fountain 1 Island 1 Mountain 4 Sacred Foundry 4 Steam Vents 4 Sulfur Falls Sideboard: (15) 2 Teferi, Time Raveler 3 Elite Guardmage 3 Lava Coil 1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun 1 Time Wipe 1 Disdainful Stroke 2 Divine Visitation 2 Dovin’s Veto |
This is my favorite deck and it is not close. I have loved Hero of Precinct One since it was spoiled and tried to make aggressively-slanted token decks last format. With the addition of Saheeli, Sublime Articifer, we finally have all the tools to make a deck built around Hero of Precinct One, Saheeli, and multicolored non-creatures spells to make a large board and one shot our opponent with a massive Heroic Reinforcements.
Once you load your deck with instants and sorceries, Crackling Drake becomes the perfect addition. You can use Saheeli’s minus in combination with Crackling Drake to deal massive amounts of damage in one shot.
Dimir Midrange
| Creatures (10) 4 Soul Diviner 4 Thief of Sanity 2 God-Eternal Kefnet Spells (24) 3 Liliana, Dreadhorde General 2 Notion Rain 3 Cast Down 4 Dreadhorde Invasion 4 Enter the God-Eternals 1 Syncopate 4 Thought Erasure 3 Vraska’s Contempt | Lands (25) 4 Watery Grave 3 Blast Zone 4 Drowned Catacomb 6 Island 8 Swamp Sideboard (15) 1 Cry of the Carnarium 2 Disdainful Stroke 4 Duress 2 Hostage Taker 1 Massacre Girl 2 Negate 1 Sorcerous Spyglass 1 The Eldest Reborn 1 Ugin, the Ineffable |
There’s a lot to unpack here. I chose not to make this a Grixis deck for a couple reasons. Grixis Midrange is a more powerful deck than Dimir Midrange, but the two-color deck gets a much less painful manabase. That allows Dimir to play cards that cause you to lose life, like Notion Rain and Dreadhorde Invasion. The mana also leaves room to one of the best utility lands in the format in Blast Zone.
I also think that Soul Diviner is an incredible card advantage engine that is very consistent in combination with amass cards and Blast Zone. Dreadhorde Invasioncan buy you a lot of time in the early game while turning the corner in combination with Enter the God-Eternals. Dimir Midrange seems like the perfect place to be if the format is flooded with aggressive decks.
The new Standard format looks incredible, it has been a long time since I have been this excited for an event. Jeskai Tokens will very likely be my deck for SCG Richmond unless I find something broken in the meantime. What cards have you excited for War of the Spark?