Looking Forward: Preparing for the Rotation

I don’t know if you feel the same way that I do, but with no big Standard tournaments on the horizon and spoils from Ravnica, From the Vault: Realms, Commander’s Arsenal, and the newly announced Holiday Box popping up everywhere, I’m having some trouble focusing on Standard. I’ll still play in FNM’s and such, but my weekends are looking insanely busy for the next few weeks, so even my opportunities to play noncompetitively are curtailed a bit.

With that in mind, I’ve begun looking at the future. As of the time of this writing, we have three spoils. The first, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, has been spoiled in Duel Decks: Izzet vs Golgari. (A product that plans to release with six (!) preview cards.) He provides a number of interesting synergies with the existing Zombie strategies, and the probable reprint of shock-lands would make the mana base not terrible. Also on the Golgari front, we have a large undercosted beater called Deadbridge Goliath which showcases their mechanic – scavenge.

Scavenge 4{G}{G} – (4{G}{G}, Exile this card from your graveyard: Put X +1/+1 counters on target creature, where X is this card's power. Scavenge only as a Sorcery.)

There’s some interesting design space here involving */* creatures, or something like that, but overall, the mechanic doesn’t excite me all too much.

Populate eh? I could dig it.

 In addition, we have a preview of the Silesnya mechanic – Populate – which would appear to dovetail very nicely with token strategies. I know people who have already been discussing new-era Tokens, assuming we can get another in-color anthem to replace Honor of the Pure.  Populate reads as follows:

(To Populate, put a token on the battlefield that’s a copy of a creature token you control.)

My immediate thoughts are that this definitely synergizes with tokens, for obvious reasons, and could possibly break when added to blue (a color that already has access to tokens-of-anything through cackling counterpart.) I don’t know if it’s strong enough, especially with 99% of the set remaining to spoil, but it’s certainly something that I’ll be keeping my eye on as we move forward.

Which brings me to the point of our article today – moving forward. All of us have our pet decks, crafted lovingly over the last few years of standard since Jace and Valakut left the format. I know I’ve personally struck out in a number of directions before finally settling on Tokens as my weapon of choice. Unfortunately for us, all of those strategies are going to need to be reevaluated come rotation.  This brings us to an exciting time, if you enjoy deckbuilding. The format breaks wide open, everything gets tossed up into the air, and we have a few glorious months to decide what’s going to happen.

Possibly even more important – States are coming up! They traditionally happen shortly after the release of the Fall set. (Last year was October 15^th) Because it’s so soon after the release, it tends to feature some of the best deckbuilding opportunities in the year. Prizes include plaques, free entry to tournaments, and perhaps most importantly, a play mat to the top 8.

I am such a sucker for playmats.

Traditionally, at the start of a new format, the decks that have done well at first were highly tuned lists that were adapted from previous highly tuned lists. Wolf Run Ramp was one of the biggest winners at last year’s States because of the work that had previously gone into making Valakut a contender. Not only did people have the majority of the deck already, making it easy to construct, but they were familiar with it’s playstyle.

Other decks fared less well. Neo-Caw, a deck that broadly tried to play  Caw-Blade’s style without Squadron Hawks and Jace, was utterly crushed without it’s critical cards. It didn’t have the permission to play a true control game, and lacked the power to play as beatdown. It fell by the wayside for a time before eventually returning (in spirit at least) as UW Midrange, a delver variant.

Why talk about these things? Simple – look at the past to determine the future. Decks with strong options nowadays will continue to be strong in a few weeks, if they don’t lose too much. Let’s take a look at some of the better decks in the format and highlight what they’ll be losing:

Makes you want to punch him in the face, right?

UW Delver:

While UW Delver is hardly a single deck, it does tend to have a couple of recurring trends. We can safely say that the creature core will remain intact – Delver of Secrets, Snapcaster Mage, Restoration Angel, and Geist of St. Traft. (they lose Blade Splicer and Hero of Bladehold but many lists didn’t opt for those to begin with.) Invisible Stalker, while not a recent favorite, has seen play before, and could again. Likewise, while they lose the Sword of X and Y cycle, but Runechanter’s Pike is still a very serviceable option. The loss of Phantasmal Image also hurts.

Unfortunately for Delver players, the spell base of the deck has been absolutely gutted. With the loss of all their Phyrexian Mana spells, plus the majority of their card filtering, it goes without saying that the deck is going to need a complete overhaul. They can no longer lean on their incredible ability to use every point of mana every turn for drawing, assuming it didn’t go anywhere else. Speaking of other instant speed ways to spend mana, the loss of Mana Leak is very significant, representing a gap in their arsenal that the replacements (Negate and Essence Scatter) cannot deal with. With the loss of their most efficient options, Delver is probably going to take a pretty extreme hit from this rotation.

Zombies

Plus, Zombies seem like this guy's best friend.

While the core of Delver is it’s spells, Zombies has the opposite situation. While it loses some nominal strength from having no two-drop removal in the format, Tragic Slip is still a powerful option. None of the creatures in the deck (save Phyrexian Obliterator) are rotating. On the other hand, zombies receives one major boon that many have overlooked. Celestial Purge was not reprinted.  While the card had seen significant sideboard play, now Zombies have no direct hate – beating a Geralf’s Messenger never seemed harder.

The blue version of the deck seems weak, with the loss of Phantasmal Image as a primary draw to the color, but the BR Version loses almost nothing in the rotation, and also gets the opportunity to play Bonfire.

I’d be on the lookout for this one, folks.

Nope, No Ramp Targets Here.

Wolf Run Ramp

There are two major problems with this archetype as a whole at the moment. The first is that they’ve lose their surest kill condition in Primeval Titan. Whle that’s bad, it only highlights the bigger issue – there’s nothing to ramp to. Return to Ravnica may provide an answer here, but outside of Griselbrand (at a hefty 8 mana), there’s no Elesh Norn, no Titans, no huge swingy creature to put the game out of reach. The guild leaders and champions may give us some help here, but there’s pretty slim pickings overall.

Also notable is the issue of ramping itself. Without Solemn, Sphere of the Suns, and even Birds of Paradise, the ability to go 2-4-6-Titan has been compromised. We do have Farseek, but there isn’t a whole lot else that feels strong enough to justify ramping as a strategy. We may finally be entering an age where ramping to a haymaker isn’t a viable strategy, for the first time since the Worldwake prerelease.

I can’t say I’m going to miss it.

Reanimator/Solar Flare

Much like above – what exactly are you trying to reanimate? A thragtusk? We can talk more if there’s some decent reanimation targets, but until then, I wouldn’t bother. It is notable that this deck does remain intact except for the ACTUAL WAYS TO WIN.

RG Aggro/GW Aggro

While RG aggro is a great deck with a lot of power behind it, one of the reasons that it’s as strong as it is lays entirely with the Swords. Without them, RG will suffer. I don’t want to say unviable, because the creature and spell base are both potent weapons, but coupled with the probably loss of Birds of Paradise, and I think that the deck could be outclassed by anyone trying to go bigger. The loss of Green Sun’s Zenith also hits their consistency hard, still, the deck’s core is there. I just don’t know if it’s enough. Then again, the lack of Day of Judgment is going to push the format closer to creatures, and having Bonfire as an auto-win in the creature-mirror is always reasonable, and the GW version gets Gavony as a late-game pressure play.

Birthing Pod (Naya, Bant, RG, Zombie, etc)

Birthing Pod is rotating. All these decks die. It’s pretty simple here.

Infect

Sorry Phyrexia. You cannot defeat the ravages of time. No more action here.

Trading Post / Mono Black Durdle

While I poke a ton of fun at this deck, it is going to be the deck with the most consistent board wipes in the format. Without Day of Judgment as an option, this deck has a ton of powerful options. Unfortunately, it loses a lot as well – all of its kill conditions lay in the Scars block, and it loses a ton of consistency with the loss of the Wellsprings. I’d expect this deck to shift – becoming BW at the least, which would weaken its Mutilates, (though, with shock lands, perhaps not too much) but ultimately give it better options.

BW Tokens

These guys look like they could get down with some Spirit tokens.

The loss of Honor of the Pure is actually just crippling here. We could make due without Hero of Bladehold, but we *need* eight anthems to make the deck a real thing. There are options – UW Tokens with Talrand, using Favorable Winds, or Junk Tokens with acceleration and Gavony Township, but regardless, things are going to change.

Or hey, maybe Orzhov and Silesnya both give us some goodies and we reign supreme across the format.

Naya Aggro/Naya Humans

It always seems to come back here, doesn’t it?

Naya does lose a lot – the loss of Birds of Paradise damages their already fragile mana base, but the addition of Shocklands should more than make up for that in time. Blade Splicer will be a hit, and might make the white portion of the deck not worth it, however, my guess would be that they’d add in some lower-end ramp spells and just try to go bigger, assuming they can’t find a good three-drop to fit the bill.

Plus, Bonfire is still good, right?

Swoon

UW Humans/Boros Humans/Balls-Out-Aggro

The balls-out aggro deck is always a popular one right after a rotation – and with good reason. If someone isn’t properly respecting it, it often just gets a walkover. However, this deck usually folds to the careful application of any-kind-of-board-wipe. I’d be careful about this deck, but any kind of sweeper is probably enough to keep you safe, and I suspect that there’s no way this can compete with the Zombie deck out of the gates.

Esper Planeswalkers

Now we’re talking! While the deck does lose some things – Gideon and whichever Titans it chose for that week – it does still have a couple of powerhouses. Sorin and Tamiyo are both strong options, and with a new Jace on the horizon, and new Liliana being able to find shocklands to fix your mana, we could have a real deck here. Lingering souls is still just as good as it ever was, and access to Terminus and (albeit weaker) Mutilates could be the key to surviving an aggro heavy world. Keep an eye on this one too, assuming they can plug the holes – but I think this is probably the most reasonable of the control decks in the future.

Mono-Green Fight Club

People have been giving this deck some credit around the internet, but honestly, I don’t think staying Mono-green is worth it in a world without Dungrove Elder. Try to go with a two-color shell, likely GR or GW. In that case, just look above.

Tempered Steel

Lost the namesake spell. No Inkmoth Nexuses. Not worth chatting about anymore.

Elves

Loses everything. Literally 60% of the deck is gone, including Ezuri, Genesis Wave, and Copperhorn Scout. Llanowar Elves are gone, and we’re stuck with a lackluster tribal shell that doesn’t go anywhere.

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Did someone say awesome legendary dragon?

So, where does that lead us? That’s a topic for another day – when we have more spoils from the upcoming set. There’s a lot to work with in the Innistrad Block, but Return To Ravnica will bring plenty of innovations in tow – not to mention much stronger manabases. Shocklands are going to have more ramifications than most realize. Not only will 3 colors be easier, but when you reasonably start with 2-6 less life, aggro decks get much more dangerous.

We’ve also got some other considerations to take into account – each guild will have a keyword, which means we’re dealing with minimum 5 new keywords in the coming set, and five additional in a couple months after that. It only takes one to spawn the next Dredge Archetype, and a bunch of strong legendary creatures are bound to shake things up (Hi Niv-Mizzet! Don’t eat me!)

It’s an exciting time to play magic. Which guild are you most excited for? Are you going to adapt an old deck, or aim for a new one? What’s your strategy and tactics going towards the next set?

Choose your weapon.

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As always, feel free to leave questions or comments here, or on the reddit thread. I’m helping a friend move this weekend, so I won’t be playing any Magic, but there will still be an article here on Tuesday – likely about my preparations for the Judge Conference and GP Boston-Worcester next weekend, which I will be attending.

Until next time,

Andrew