It uses planeswalkers heavily, with both Wanderers and Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim being the key players. Outside of that, the deck is mostly the same as earlier iterations. It also makes use of one of the best cards from March of the Machine, Sunfall, to keep your opponent's board in check and make a big attacking Phyrexian creature if need be. It has picked up a few creatures, though, in the form of the ramp tool Ambitious Farmhand. Combine it with Wedding Announcement to make tokens for beaters, and you'll be chipping away at your opponent at an impressively steady pace.Īzorius Control has managed to hold onto its position, being one of the few decks to not be pushed out of the meta following the bans. The aim here is to use Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines and make use of her ETB trigger doubling abilities, following it up with things like Loran of the Third Path and Spirited Companion for extra value.įor control pieces, you've got Destroy Evil, Sunfall, The Wandering Emperor and The Eternal Wanderer, which at this point have to be two of the best planeswalker cards ever printed. Midrange is out and Control is firmly in, with a white/black variant on the deck creeping its way into the meta. With such a wide toolkit, this deck can answer pretty much any thread until it has time to build up the poison damage with Skrelv, or simply chip away with Raffine. Some of the new tools to the deck are Rona, Herald of Invasion, which provides stable card draw and discard every turn, and Invasion of Amonkhet, which destroys your opponents' hands while replenishing your own. It also makes use of Raffine, Scheming Seer, has almost single-handedly been driving Esper decks for over a year now thanks to its ability to connive for the cards you want. Who needs red, when white can offer those dimir Midrange decks just as much gas? The white/blue/black Esper Midrange deck makes use of many of the tools older midrange decks enjoyed, like Sheoldred, The Apocalypse, Cut Down, and Go For The Throat. Being able to search your deck for any enchantment is very powerful, giving this deck a level of consistency it hasn't had before. Of course, at its core this is still the same Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty deck, thanks to Generous Visitor, Jukai Naturalist, and Michiko's Reign of Truth letting you get lots of enchantments out quickly, then using them to deal huge damage to your opponent.Ī big player now, though, is March of the Machine's Invasion of Theros. Since we last saw it, it's been powered up by cards like Calix, Guided by Guide, Ossification, and Seal From Existence.

Working its way back into the top decks of the format is the green/white Selesnya Enchantments. It goes to show how big of a change the bans had to relegate Sheoldred to the sideboard once more, though.

If you're struggling against creature-heavy strategies, the sideboard does run Hullbreaker Horror, Chrome Host Seedshark, and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Once they're mostly out of the picture, you can then use something like Jace, The Perfected Mind to mill them out, or maybe a Samurai token made by The Wandering Emperor to beat them down. The first of many control decks taking over the Standard metagame, the white/blue/black Esper Control completely forgoes creatures in exchange for a planeswalker-heavy strategy.īy removing permanents with The Wandering Emperor, Void Rend, Cut Down, and Sheoldred's Edict, or countering spells with Disdainful Stroke and Negate, your goal is to stall your opponent out. If all else fails, having a load of Topiary Stompers and Archangel of Wraths to smash face with is always good. Instead of being part of a hugely evil reanimation strategy, the goal here is to actually cast Atraxa, Grand Unifier for her regular casting cost by ramping out as many lands as possible.īy using cards like Topiary Stomper, Invasion of Zendikar, and Realmbreaker, you'll be making enough mana to not only cast Atraxa, but also cast and transform Etali, Primal Conquerer and go for the kill with those 11 poison counters. If you are missing the old days of the blue/black/red Grixis Midrange decks, this should help soften the blow. This is still very much a 'good stuff' kind of deck, hoping to just use good value to keep your opponents at bay with lots of hand destruction, forced sacrifice, and removal. Though we do see the usual black staples like Sheoldred, The Apocalypse, Cut Down, and Sheoldred's Edict, we're also seeing some less common cards like Ertai Resurrected and Mirrex work their way in too. Without Fable of the Mirror-breaker pushing every deck towards red, blue/black Dimir Midrange decks have had a lot more room to mature.

Mtg standard meta decks