Super Standard and You

Hi, Timmy! You should have just finished the release event last weekend and pulled that shiny new Woodland Bellower?  Good for you!

Now you must be sleeving up cards for the standard, playing with all those new cards and hoping to win that games day Playmat in less a month’s time?

Did you know that with the release of Magic Origins, it is possibly the last “Super Standard” after the changes in block release?

If you don’t, well, you are in for a treat today!

More information

“Super Standard” occurs once a year, in a 2-3 month period where one core set rotates into standard and forms a large pool of cards allowing all sorts of shenanigans. Examples deck archetypes that might occur include:

1. 5 Color Slivers

2. Mono – Black Zombies

3. Turbo-Fog

4. Mono – Red Goblins

5. Black-White Humans (RTR-INS days with Cartel Aristocrat)

6. Merfolk (Yes, it was tried and tested)

And so on. With the existence of “Super Standard” (Yes, I will keep doing quotations to emphasis until it’s a thing), deck brewers will surprise the unsuspecting FNM go-ers with their own home brews and try to pull a win. The trick to a good home brew is to identify the right deck that works. The reprint of [[Goblin Piledriver]] means more ways to hit hard in the standard format by abusing it with Goblin Rabblemaster!

Mono Red Goblins

Creatures (26)

4x Foundry Street Denizen	4x Frenzied Goblin
4x Goblin Glory Chaser	4x Mardu Scout
4x Goblin Rabblemaster	4x Goblin Piledriver
2x Goblin Heelcutter

 

Others (14)

4x Dragon Fodder	4x Infectious Bloodlust
2x Stoke the Flames	4x War Horn

 

Lands (20)

20x Mountain

 

Inclusion of War Horn requires further testing, but I suspect in a deck filled with so much goblins if you have early copies, you will always benefit from it. Drawing it late game makes it a dead draw, but the deck is aggressive enough that you will always be pushing damage with it instead. Infectious Bloodlust

is another fairly odd card, it is like a Rancor that only recurs 3 times, but can prove useful in situations where your opponents have a large blockers that is stopping you from pushing in damage.

Of course, with decks like this, another will have to rise and meet the challenge of the Red Goblin Hordes. What’s more powerful to screw aggro over than some old fashioned control decks:

Rakdos Control

 

Planeswalkers (6)

3x Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker	1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2x Liliana Vess

 

Creatures (4)

4x Thunderbreak Regent

 

Spells (23)

3x Languish	2x Anger of the gods
2x Hero’s Downfall	2x Murderous Cut
4x Exquisite Firecraft	3x Molten Vortex
3x Read the Bones	4x Thoughtseize

 

Lands (27)

4x Temple of Malice	4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Bloodfell Caves	1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
7x Mountain	7x Swamp

 

 

Exquisite Firecraft is quite the interesting card. It’s a red heavy 3 mana burn 4 card, possibly remade from Char, with the downside of taking 2 damage yourself turned into a sorcery speed instead. While the Spell Mastery makes it very annoying against blue players, turning it on in this deck isn’t too difficult with 20 cards being instant or sorcery. Molten Vortex is a new card I like to try and exploit due to the high amount of lands in a control deck, drawing it late game and throwing land cards like Shock makes the overflow of land seems like it’s not a bad thing.

As I look forward to the arrival of ‘’Super Standard” I find myself more and more intrigued by the end amounts of archetypes that is improve on, and the other new brews that are just waiting to be exposed to the light. And as the end of an structure of Standard finally close in on us, what better way to send it off than a last hurray filled with Jank decks and durdling combos. So, until next time, keep brewing.

 

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