Tarkir: Dragonstorm will be launching on Magic: the Gathering Arena on Tuesday, April 8th, so until we get our hands on the products, jank lovers like myself and, possibly, yourself are stuck speculating on which cards will be good enough to cut it in Standard. So far, with only a few days of preview season under our belts, a few have caught my attention as powerful enough to possibly make the cut.
A lot of the current meta, think of as Gruul Mice and Esper Pixie, are very tuned decks and I don't expect these to get many new toys that will be faster or more consistent than their current pieces. That said, I believe (or vainly hope) that a few new archetypes will get the support they need to step up and challenge the current meta in a fun way. Let's look at what those are.
Midrange
Golgari midrange has been a staple in Standard for some time now ever since Restless Cottage and Mosswood Dreadknight joined the party. While many people are still playing these decks on Arena, the win rates have fallen off a bit and many midrange players have moved to Dimir to play a more tempo gameplan. Tarkir: Dragonstorm includes both the Sultai and Abzan clans and, as such, green/black/X midrange decks could get enough support to join the fight again.
A 3/3 for three with Deathtouch isn't exactly a banger of a card, but Severance Priest's ability to strip a card from the opponent's hand forever is incredibly strong. It also has a delayed trigger for leaving the battlefield just like the original Oblivion Ring or Mesmeric Fiend, meaning that if you can sacrifice, bounce, or blink it in response to its enter trigger, you simply strip the card from their hand with no drawback. I want to run this in a deck with Bartolomé del Presidio and Not Dead After All for maximum opponent frustration.
Three mana across three colors is a steep cost in today's Standard, to be sure, but Awaken the Honored Dead is doing so many things that I think it's worth the price. Binding the Old Gods taught me how valuable it is when sagas have their best chapters early and Awaken the Honored Dead is doing something similar, except its chapters two and three are arguably stronger than Binding in the right shell. Additionally, you can target it with This Town Ain't Big Enough in response to the chapter three hitting the stack to reset it after getting all three chapters worth of value. In a midrange deck leveraging a bounce package, this card could be very strong.
Teval, Arbiter of Virtue has one of the most crippling downsides I've ever seen on a Magic card. Causing you life loss every time you cast a spell, and having the number be tied to the mana value, could lock you out of necessary plays to win the game. That said, it's also an overstatted flier that can put your opponent on a very fast clock if they can't block it. While I trust a crazy combo is waiting to be cracked with this card, I like the idea of dropping it on curve and possibly free-casting one big colorless threat immediately after like Sire of Seven Deaths or Ugin, Eye of the Storm. You'll take a big hit to the face and your graveyard, but the tempo advantage could be huge against midrange or control.
Betor, Kin to All has a ton of text on it that could, for Standard's purposes, be summed up as: Have another three-toughness creature on the board to draw an extra card at the end of your turn. A 5/7 flier for five that can easily draw a card each turn sounds like a great midrange card to me. Hopefully midrange will have a place to play in our future Standard.
Control
As of this writing, I think Marang River Regent is the strongest dragon we've seen from Tarkir: Dragonstorm. While that might change as preview season marches on, this will no doubt be a shoe-in finisher for control decks. The omen spell, Coil and Catch, is a powerful card draw spell that reminds me of Memory Deluge as you can cast it on your opponent's end step, and the six-drop body bouncing two permanents as it enters means you don't have to choose between establishing your finisher or controlling the board. Omens reshuffling into your deck also creates an interesting dynamic where you're more likely to draw them in the late game as your deck thins. I'd be happy to draw this two or three times throughout the course of a game, personally.
Taigam, Master Opportunist is an odd creature because it lets you copy spells, play the copies, and then suspends the original. If a permanent is triggered off this, the copy enters as a token and can be interacted with in all the ways we enjoy. As someone who's been playing a lot of Three Blind Mice and Caretaker's Talent, this is very intriguing. My only reservation is he's a two-mana creature that dies to Cut Down, but since he's so cheap, you can easily cast him and then follow him up with a two- or three-mana spell and immediately trigger him. This represents card advantage if the game can grind and I'm interested to experiment with him.
If the Caretaker's Talent token control deck makes any kind of resurgence, I think Elspeth, Storm Slayer is exactly the kind of card that deck wants. Bringing Anointed Procession into Standard on a card that can create tokens itself seems powerful, but her zero-loyalty ability to give all creatures you control flying could dynamically change the battlefield so much that I'd say she's worth five mana. Those token builds have fallen out of favor, but with a top-end like this, they might make a comeback.
Aggro
Honestly, I don’t think aggressive strategies need a lot of help right now, but there is one card that could support a non-red archetype that I’d love to see step up into the limelight.
Green creatures have needed a power boost to keep up with red as of late, and I think Surrak, Elusive Hunter represents a big step in the right direction. Being an overstatted three-drop with trample is a great start, but he's more than just a good stat line. Being uncounterable is important as it helps make sure he draws you at least one card off his static ability. Between this and Spinner of Souls, green is generating card advantage if they are answered, which helps rebuild in such a removal-heavy meta. Surrak gives me hope for a mono-green aggro deck to step back up soon.