Welcome Magic lovers!
With Aetherdrift having finally screeched into Standard, it has many deck-builders all revved up about new strategies and synergies, while many other players are simply tinkering and tuning under the hood of the existing, established decks in order to find any new tools which may bolster them. Today, we'll cover a couple of the more interesting new brews that have surfaced and how they play out.
One of the exciting new tools from Aetherdrift that has many players buzzing is Monument to Endurance. This build-around card doesn't actually do anything itself, but by repeatedly being triggered by literally anything that causes a player to discard, it threatens to amass a mountain of value if left unmolested. It's surprising how many great spells are currently floating around in Standard which provide discard outlets to trigger the Monument.
One of the most powerful engine pieces in Standard to pair with the new Monument to Endurance in order to really get it going is Artist's Talent. This two-mana enchantment not only allows for multiple discards each turn, as long as one can keep casting non-creature spells, but can also be leveled up to make everything cheaper, and even leveled up all the way to help slam the door shut on the game very quickly. Thus, the deck is filled with cheap, one-mana cantrips and removal spells, as well as the potent combo of Stormchaser's Talent and This Town Ain't Big Enough, which can loop infinitely in order to trigger Artist's Talent and, in turn, Monument to Endurance.
This plethora of non-creature spells allows the pilot to trigger Monument to Endurance almost at will, and multiple times each turn. On the opponent's turn, an instant-speed Opt, Think Twice, or Torch the Tower will also trigger Monument, providing the pilot with complete control over when they want to go for it. Think Twice is useful, despite costing twice as much as Opt or Sleight of Hand, as it can be discarded for value with Artist's Talent, only to be cast again out of the graveyard.
Thundertrap Trainer is absolute gold in this list, as it not only finds more gas, while also providing a valuable blocker against the more aggressive strategies, but it also digs through the deck to find both Artist's Talent and/or Monument to Endurance in order to kickstart the deck's engine.
A pair of Roaring Furnace // Steaming Sauna provide both interaction in the early game, as well as a font of card advantage in the late game, in order to give the pilot enough cardboard to discard to keep things chugging along. Ral, Crackling Wit also discards, though putting itself to a single loyalty in order to do so is usually only done as a last resort. Often, he's there to buy additional time.
While the deck is only running a paltry twenty-one lands, finding them shouldn’t be a problem with this much velocity, due to all the cheap card draw effects. The deck does want to keep making land drops up to five or six, despite most of its spells costing very little, as it needs to cast multiple spells in a turn in order to keep up with the other decks in the format once the game enters the mid and late-game stages.
Sideboard
The sideboard is pretty self-explanatory, with new addition Caelorna, Coral Tyrant coming in against the aggressive red decks, alongside Scorching Shot and the sweeper Ill-Timed Explosion.
Ghost Vacuum is here to keep the graveyard-based combo decks in check, while a pair of both Negate and the newly reprinted Spell Pierce can be invaluable against control and spell-based combo decks like Omniscience.
Is this the best shell for the newly printed powerhouse, Monument to Endurance? Only time will tell.
Our next list features another Aetherdrift artifact engine piece just begging to have a deck built around it in Riverchurn Monument. That's right, mill is back on the menu, baby!
Riverchurn Monument not only provides a cheap and easy way to start the mill process going, but also has an exhaust ability that can easily end the game on the spot by putting the rest of the opponent's library into their graveyard in one fell swoop. The main combo piece to pair alongside the Monument is Terisian Mindbreaker, as it can mill half the opponent's deck in one shot first, allowing the Riverchurn Monument to exhaust and mill the rest, regardless of how many cards they started with.
This two-card combo is definitely powerful enough to build around, and there are many versions of the deck floating around, from mono-blue to blue-red and blue-black. The Dimir version provides the best balance between combo and early interaction, playing almost like a blue-black control deck with a powerful end-game finish. The goal is to use an early Fallaji Archaeologist, Collector's Vault, or Ephara's Dispersal to get the Terisian Mindbreaker into the graveyard so that it can be Unearthed on turn four to mill half the opponent's library. That sets up the win as soon as the pilot can find and exhaust a Riverchurn Monument.
Three Steps Ahead does great work here, providing interaction in the form of a counterspell, while also giving the pilot another way to discard a Mindbreaker with its second mode. A pair of Stock Up also helps to provide card advantage and filtering in order to find the pieces necessary to combo off.
Venerable black removal spells, Cut Down and Go for the Throat, are here to help the deck survive the early game aggression from the red decks in the format and buy the pilot time to set up the combo kill. Deadly Cover-Up is perfect here, as it not only provides a big red button to smash in order to wipe the board and come back from a bleak game-state, but because the deck is milling the opponent with Riverchurn and Jace, the Perfected Mind, it's a relatively simple matter to collect evidence and strip a valuable card from their deck as well.
Speaking of Jace, the Perfected Mind, he shines here for obvious reasons. Milling oneself early in order to get that Terisian Mindbreaker into the graveyard, or putting the final nail in the coffin by decking the opponent for their remaining cards in the library are both fantastic. Even just drawing a couple of Jace after having Riverchurn Monument going for a few turns is usually enough to do it.
The mana is fairly straightforward, with plenty of blue and black sources backed up by a pair of Demolition Field and a single Blast Zone to deal with graveyard-hate like Ghost Vacuum or lands like Restless Cottage, both of which can threaten to eat the Mindbreaker before it can be unearthed. Restless Reef is an obvious playset here as it can easily finish milling the opponent to death after a Deadly Cover-Up has cleaned up the board.
Sideboard
The sideboard has mostly what one would expect out of a blue-black control deck, with additional cheap removal spells, alongside a pair of Malicious Eclipse to handle go-wide creature decks, more counter-magic, as well as some disruption in the form of Duress and Tishana's Tidebinder. Withering Torment is a way to deal with Rest in Peace and other annoying enchantments that blue-black is poorly equipped to fight.
Has this new Aetherdrift artifact finally pushed the mill deck into a spot where it's viable in Standard? Take this list for a spin and find out!
