Welcome Magic lovers!
'was the night before Bloomburrow, when all through the house, many creatures were stirring, especially the mouse…and the lizard, and the bat, and the rat, and…
With the imminent arrival of Bloomburrow on Magic Arena this week, many players are feverishly hammering out deck ideas, making metagame projections and trying to determine what the most powerful synergies will be in the post-rotation Standard world. To that end, let's go over a few decks that may prove to be big players in the upcoming Standard metagame, or perhaps just provide some inspiration for players to try something unique with the new cards being released in a couple of days.
This author was fortunate enough to be able to participate in the Magic Arena Early Access streamer event that occurred last week, facing off against other Magic content creators and pros, and while almost everyone was just splashing around with mostly untuned deck lists, some patterns started to emerge.
One of the decks that I faced more than a few times was this spicy Rakdos Lizards list, originally posited by well-known brewer, yoman5:
Rakdos Lizards
At first, it seemed like a typical aggressive Rakdos deck, playing a pile of one and two-mana lizards with a few burn spells to tie it all together, but as I faced it again and again, it began to dawn on me just how much reach this deck has.
Gev, Scaled Scorch is a very powerful lord for this kindred deck, hitting hard for only two mana while pumping up every other creature in the deck, as each lizard will trigger the legendary lord when cast, dealing damage and ensuring that said lizards all enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter. With its ward ability, even killing Gev is painful, and in a deck that wins using the 'death by a thousand cuts' method, every point of damage is crucial.
For the readers who remember how powerful Burning-Tree Emissary was in the Standard Gruul aggro decks of yore, you'll be pleased (or terrified) to learn that Flamecache Gecko is its twin in all but name. The Gecko is trivially easy to trigger, allowing the deck's pilot to double spell easily on turn two. Having more than one Flamecache Gecko in hand allows one to dump all of them onto the battlefield at once, while also using the two mana from the last one to either play a different two-drop, or simply rummage by activating the gecko's ability. This allows for some very powerful starts in which the Rakdos Lizards player can effectively dump their hand onto the board by turn three.
Fireglass Mentor is our card-advantage-on-a-stick, so to speak. Not only is it a Lizard the purpose of triggering Gev, but with all the ways to make one's opponent lose life in this deck, the Mentor will almost certainly be digging two cards deeper into the library every turn, ensuring that the gas keeps flowing.
At the top of the curve, Valley Flamecaller and Hearthborn Battler provide an insane amount of damage amplification and reach, allowing the pilot to set up a huge swing by either piling on more damage than the opponent thought possible with Flamecaller, or smashing with a hasty Hearthborn followed up by a burn spell plus trigger.
Throw in a suite of solid burn spells like Shock and Lightning Strike, plus the ubiquitous Iridescent Vinelasher, and it quickly becomes clear that this deck the tools to reduce the opponent's life total to zero very quickly.
Will that be enough to allow Rakdos Lizards to shove aside the reigning aggro queen, Boros Convoke? That remains to be seen.
Sultai Landfall
While the Streets of New Capenna sacrifice-lands will be rotating along with the tri-lands, the shell of Aftermath Analyst plus Nissa, Resurgent Animist to find them is still quite potent. Especially when one throws a few Iridescent Vinelashers into the mix.
This deck uses the aforementioned Analyst plus other self-mill cards like Fallaji Archaeologist and Cache Grab to quickly stock the graveyard with lands in order to set up a huge burst of damage by activating the Analyst with a Vinelasher or two in play.
Clifftop Lookout can ramp into a turn four Fecund Greenshell, which plays nicely with almost every creature in the deck they all have higher toughness than power.
With Aftermath Analyst, Clifftop Lookout and Fecund Greenshell, this deck should be able to get a lot of land into play very quickly, either killing the opponent outright with Iridescent Vinelasher, or setting up a massive Doppelgang which will surely do the trick.
Determining the number of lands a deck like this wants in order to function consistently can be tricky, and I'm not sure if twenty-four is enough. That said, anyone playing competitive Standard over the last few months has witnessed the power of cards like Doppelgang when combined with the potent Analyst-Nissa shell. It shouldn't be too difficult to hone a list like this into something fearsome.
Abzan Roots
The last deck I ran into more than a couple of times on the ladder during the Early Access event was this innovative Abzan Roots combo deck, which attempts to pull together Scavenger's Talent, Insidious Roots, Forsaken Miner plus any sacrifice outlet to create a loop with which one can mill the opponent to death. It can even be accomplished at instant speed if one has a Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler in play.
The setup for the combo requires the pilot to first get a Scavenger's Talent into play and level it up to 2. Now, whenever a permanent is sacrificed, target opponent mills two cards. Sacrificing the Forsaken Miner triggers the Scavenger's Talent, which targets the opponent, thus committing a crime and bringing the Forsaken Miner back into play from the graveyard, while also making a plant token with Insidious Roots.
Combining this setup with Bartolome del Presidio as our free sacrifice outlet means the deck can infinitely sacrifice the Forsaken Miner to trigger the Talent, as each trigger will bring the Miner back into play to do it again. The single black mana required to keep bringing back the Miner can be produced by the plant tokens being generated with each loop. With Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler giving haste to all one's creatures, it allows the loop to be accomplished at instant speed during any part of the turn cycle.
While several infinite loop combo decks have been legal in Standard for a while now, none have been resilient and consistent enough to see high-level competitive play. Will this graveyard-based engine be the one that breaks through? We'll have to wait and see.
Those are my top picks for new Standard decks to build and tune in the brave new world that awaits us post-rotation. Will any of them prove to be powerful enough to make a in the Standard metagame? Are there yet other strategies out there flying under the radar of most players? Let me know which decks you think will rise to the top of Standard in the coming weeks!
