Standard: Naoki Shimizu's Bant Flash

Of the PTQ winners in the last post, probably the coolest deck is this thing by famous UG master Naoki Shimizu:

2012-style Bant Control decks had, like, Thragtusk and Farseek. Shimizu's deck plays 4 Advent of the Wurm and 3 Unsummon instead of those cards.

There are some defensive creatures in the sideboard, but the maindeck uses only 5 sorcery-speed cards (2 Supreme Verdict and 3 Augur of Bolas). Basically, Shimizu played a dedicated Snapcaster Mage deck to qualify for the pro tour:

  25 lands (with no "ability lands")
  15 card draw (counting Snapcasters and Augurs)
  5 creatures
  12 removal (including 4 bounce effects)
  3 counterspells

Shimizu beat a Zombie deck in the finals of a PTQ near Kobe. Here's a fun sample hand:

Standard: PTQ Theros win scoreboard

Compiling the winning decks from this page, here's a scoreboard of what decks have won the most spots at PT Theros:

Deck	W	Places
Junk Rites	8	South Carolina, British Columbia, Maryland, Kansas, Florida, MTGO, Ontario, New Hampshire
Jund	8	Mississippi, Connecticut, Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Washington, Nebraska
Gruul	6	New York, New Mexico, Alberta, Ontario, MTGO, Washington
UWR Flash	5	MTGO, MTGO, Arkansas, California, Massachusetts
BWR Aristocrats	5	Texas, Ontario, Oklahoma, Montana, British Columbia
Red	4	MTGO, California, MTGO, California
Bant Auras	4	New York, Maine, Virginia, Oregon
Big Naya	3	Japan, Tennessee, Iowa
Naya Humans	2	Alberta, Manitoba
Esper Control	2	North Carolina, Michigan
UG Quirion Dryad	1	Arizona
Humans Rites	1	Japan
Bant Flash	1	Japan
Rakdos	1	Nebraska
GB	1	Idaho
Junk Aristocrats	1	MTGO

Notably few PTQ wins for Big Naya or Junk Aristocrats. All 8 of the recorded "Jund PTQs" were in the States.

Finance: Grading the M14 Mythics

(modified from the great MythicSpoiler.com)

There are 10 new mythics and 3 reprinted mythics in Magic 2014. I ranked the new ones by their chance of being good in standard:

Chandra (60%). The point of this would be to +1, survive to untap, and then start getting a free card a turn. It wouldn't go in a 19 mountain aggro deck, and the +0 doesn't interact well with counterspells or Bonfires. Probably a Farseek deck is best; Jund could be adapted to play some cheap blockers -- Elvish Visionary?

Shadowborn Demon (50%). I had this much lower until I read Owen Turtenwald's M14 piece. "Destroy target creature" less powerful in current standard than it sounds, but Owen points out that sacrificing creatures is pretty easy.

Scourge of Valkas (25%). Obviously this does nothing today, but if, say, two good cheap dragons are printed in the next block, Scourge of Valkas will start looking real.

Garruk, Caller of Beasts (25%). A sideboard card for a hypothetical Bant. I don't know if people will want more than two copies.

Archangel of Thune (10%). You'd need, like, Sol Wardens and Soulmenders to make this work -- creatures that can gain life for zero mana.

Kalonian Hydra (5%). Wolfir Silverheart is underplayed, but this does so much less than Wolfir Silverheart.

Rise of the Dark Realms (1%). I'm not sure how much play 7BB for "Win the game" would see.

Devout Invocation (1%). If you have seven mana and a lot of untapped creatures, there are other cards that just win you the game.

Windreader Sphinx (1%). It's tough to see where this does more than Angel of Serenity / Sphinx's Revelation / Aetherling.

Primeval Bounty (0%). You'd have to be playing a very slow deck with a lot of creatures in it somehow.


The "good mythics" are Chandra and Shadowborn Demon, which will open at (rightfully) high prices.

The mythic I might speculate is Scourge of Valkas -- I'd want to buy low in August and then hope for a Dragon deck in standard by 2014. But the price might not go low enough -- Scourge of Valkas has casual appeal and other people might be making the same play as me.

My plan for now is to sell every mythic rare I open.

Standard: Composition of Jund decks

Here's a table of successful Jund decks over the last couple months. The four decks on the left are Reid Duke from GP Miami, Paul Cheon and Jose Francisco Silva from this PE, and Owen Turtenwald from his last Jund article. (The other decks in the table are pre-Voice of Resurgence.)

Here are the common elements of our four "up-to-date" Jund maindecks:

   25 lands
    (20 duals + 2 Kessig Wolf Run + 3 other)
   7 "small spells" (4 Farseek + Arbor Elf / Rakdos Keyrune / Ground Seal)
   14 creatures
    (2 Olivia + 4 Huntmaster + 4 Thragtusk + 2 Garruk Primal Hunter + 2 other)
   7 removal spells
    (1 Tragic Slip + 2 Putrefy + 4 others)
   3 Bonfire of the Damned
   1 Rakdos' Return

This formula sums to 57 slots; most of the decks spend the last 3 wildcard slots on "big spells" -- the last Bonfire, extra Olivia or Rakdos' Return, or the potentially-big Mizzium Mortars.

We can say 25 lands / 7 small spells / 7 removal / 21 big spells is the usual formula for standard Jund.

Duke's Miami deck follows this formula the closest:
- His 2 "other" creatures were Vampire Nighthawks.
- His 4 "other" removal were 2 Pillar of Flame, 1 Abrupt Decay, and a 2nd Tragic Slip.
- His 3 wildcard spells were Bonfire #4, Olivia #3, and Rakdos' Return #2.
- His manabase was 22 duals, 2 Wolf Run, and 1 Cavern of Souls.
- His "small spells" were the 4 Farseek, 2 Ground Seal, and 1 Rakdos Keyrune.

Of the four decks we're looking at, Cheon's is the outlier -- it plays 2 Liliana, 2 Arbor Elf, and 3 Forest, which are all "throwbacks" to pre-Voice of Resurgence.

The patterns are a bit different if we look at players' 75s instead of their 60s:

Counting sideboards, our Jund decks all need access to 3 Ground Seal, 2 Vampire Nighthawk, 2 Liliana, and 3 Pillar of Flame, plus some mixture of 5 discard spells. The average sideboard is mostly taken up by filling out those quotas, with a few slots left for big creatures or extra removal or Underworld Connections. Our formula of 25 / 7 / 7 / 21 expands to something like 25 / 10 / 11 / 24, leaving only 5 flexible spaces for sweet sideboard tech.

Reid Duke is really running a "modest" Jund deck here -- he skips out on stuff like Sire of Insanity and Mizzium Mortars, but he includes all 4 copies of Ground Seal and Tragic Slip. The most glamourous thing about the deck was probably that it had 2 Ruric Thar instead of Vraska or whatever, but the Ruric Thars never even made it into the text coverage.

Probably the "big mana" engine makes sideboarding more important with Jund than with other standard decks -- if only 28/60 of the deck is action spells, swapping out 6 cards can make a big difference in what the deck does (unlike in a deck with 40 creatures).

Standard: GP Miami Grinder Scoreboard

Tallying up the undefeated grinder lists:
  5 Reanimator (2 Four-Colour, 2 Junk, 1 Human)
  3 Big Naya
  2 Jund
  1 UWR Resto
  1 UW Resto
  1 BWr Aristocrats
  1 Jund Aggro

- Benjamin Battle's UW Flash ran a Runechanter's Pike for 12 creatures + 2 Moorland Haunts. He only had 2 Supreme Verdict in the deck, with another 2 Supreme Verdict and 2 Terminus in the sideboard.

- Trevor Holmes' Naya had 4 Farseek and 3 Domri Rade co-existing in the maindeck somehow, with a creature curve of 4-4-4-9-3-2.

- Michael Brady's Jund had 2 Zhur-Taa Druid. Robert Pompa's Jund had 2 Thundermaw Hellkite and 1 Staff of Nin.

- Joey Dial's Jund Aggro is the 4 Spike Jester deck that's shown up online. It has a creature curve 8-18-0-8, with 6 burn spells and 20 land, and the obligatory 4 Domri Rade in the sideboard.

Standard: Xathrid Necromancer Aristocrats for future standard

From the M14 spoiler, Xathrid Necromancer seems like a really good constructed card.

Rotlung Reanimator was amazing in standard about ten years ago -- just for fun, here's a Zombie deck that won French Nationals in 2003:

Now, here is a deck played by megafone and ar7ic that can put many Humans into the graveyard and can also make good use of Zombie tokens:

Human Aristocrats
4 Champion of the Parish, 4 Doomed Traveler
4 Cartel Aristocrat, 4 Knight of Infamy, 2 Skirsdag High Priest
3 Silverblade Paladin, 2 Lingering Souls
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
2 Zealous Conscripts
5 removal
2 varying slots
24 lands (including 4 Cavern of Souls)

This deck uses Champion of the Parish and Cavern of Souls for synergy with the "Human" creature type on stuff like Doomed Traveler and Cartel Aristocrat. It goes light on normal "token combo stuff" (with 0 Blood Artist, 0 Sorin, and only 2 Lingering Souls), instead playing "pump creatures" (Knight of Infamy and Silverblade Paladin) to attack with a giant Champion of the Parish or a giant flying Vampire.

Xathrid Necromancer fits this deck's strength -- it is a Human; it cashes in on Humans; and it makes lots of tokens. Here's a sketch of an all-in Aristocrats combo deck for summer standard, using the same WBr Humans mana-base:

Future Human Aristocrats
4 Champion of the Parish, 4 Doomed Traveler
4 Cartel Aristocrat, 4 Blood Artist, 2 Gather the Townsfolk, 3 Skirsdag High Priest
4 Xathrid Necromancer, 4 Lingering Souls
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat, 2 Sorin
3 removal
24 lands

This weakens the mana-fixing power of Cavern of Souls a lot, so it might be optimal with something like 12 shocklands, 4 Clifftop Retreat, 4 Isolated Chapel, and 4 Plains. I've called Blood Artist weak, but sacrificing creatures will be much more affordable when Xathrid Necromancer is legal.

Here is a fun turn-4 goldfish:

T1 Champion of the Parish.
T2 Gather the Townsfolk, attack for 3.
T3 Xathrid Necromancer, attack for 4 with Champion.
T4 Blood Artist, Cartel Aristocrat.

Attack for 5 with Champion of the Parish. Sacrifice 4 Humans to drain 4 life and make 4 Zombies. Sacrifice 4 Zombies to drain the last 4 life.

Wackier options include Intangible Virtue, Bloodthrone Vampire, Disciple of Bolas, and Maw of Obzedat. Brian Braun-Duin sketched a WB Humans deck with Mutavault and suggested the glorious option of Increasing Devotion. A more sensible option might be to play a 4c Human Aristocrats deck with Avacyn's Pilgrim and Mayor of Avabruck, using the Necromancer just for value instead of for combo potential.

Standard: Online Scoreboard, June 21-27

(Decklists grabbed from the righthand column of MtgOnline.com.)

Here's a table of all the 4-0 decks (DE) or 6-win decks (PE) from June 21 to 27:

Deck	Count	Players
Junk Rites	10	JFumerton79, Exokell, L1X0, YS, CharLy, 88trample, Enrico, MagicPlayerDudeBro, SethDrone, L1X0
Saito Rg	9	tayman227, vsk, hot milk, Azazel314, syrup16g, TheNoodle812, Devil, megafone, vsk
Jund	7	Boin, dailyllama, juppal, nitechill, bluedragon123, Chlywly1, ProtossX
UWR Resto	7	BigAnnie, Bluecry, Zorrrba, MituliakV, Cryptic, Cryptic, Mingpac
Naya Humans	4	ThomasH, the adult swim, frankkarsten, Diem4x
UWR Slow	4	Crossfire42, bratschnik, Born2Win, Carl
Big Naya	3	Blinky010, AKMiD, BytorAndTheSnowdog
Bant Control	3	trunks132, reiderrabbit, Trailerpark
BWr Aristocrats	2	i b TRUE, xLeitix
Naya Blitz	2	Silver Death, HaM 187
Junk Aristocrats	2	MagicLair, enzoreal
UWB Alchemy Rites	2	pelli, pelli
Bant Auras	2	Lister1991, RReigle82
Jund Creatures	2	Xeroo, battleofjace
Red	1	trog3r
4C Alchemy Rites	1	zhuhao
4C Faithless Rites	1	usokui3
GW Tokens	1	armel
Surgeon Generals	1	Scream
Jund Blitz	1	AmericanO
Farseek Naya	1	duparcqG
GB Mutilate	1	Ofelia
Prime Speaker Bant	1	XxForgexX
BWr Human Aristocrats	1	ar7ic
4C Human Aristocrats	1	Vicalis
URw Nivix Cyclops	1	le fondue

The three players in bold (YS, ThomasH, i b TRUE) won PEs with their decks.

The four players in italics (L1X0, vsk, Cryptic, pelli) are the players who appeared twice.

This table counts 71 decks that 4-0'ed (or similar), and it gives roughly the same archetype breakdown as the MtgGoldfish stats that include 3-1 decks:

Combining some different decks into rough categories, we can make this pie chart of what standard decks are doing well on Magic Online:

Compared to the scoreboard I made in early June:
- Aristocrats decks and Big Naya decks are performing worse now.
- Fast Red decks (now with Madcap Skills!) and Fast Naya decks are performing better now.
- Junk Rites and UWR are still the best (though the UWR lists have changed a lot).

Nice Play: Michael Hetrick versus Centaur Healer

From M2G2 of this Domri Naya event, Michael Hetrick has to pick a turn three play against a Prime Speaker Bant deck:

I wouldn't mind playing Reckoner, but I still think I would rather have Domri in this situation.... Actually, that's not 100% true. If I Domri +1, we're getting a long game advantage, but he already has the advantage in the long game.

We could Mortars his guy and play Experiment One and attack for three. That also prevents him from Resto-ing the Healer.... Yeah, I guess that's true. Then we could play around the Resto next turn with Rampager.

If we just Domri'ed, we'd be playing a control role, which I don't think we should really be doing. Yeah, we're not gonna do that.

There is a slight downside [to Mortars + Experiment One]. We could save [Mortars] -- but I don't think it's that significant, especially since pretty soon we're gonna have Domri and our Reckoner, which can suffice as removal.

Hetrick should be relieved that it was a Healer instead of a brick-wall Loxodon Smiter, but I like his decision to play Mortars and Experiment One, and I like the logic behind it.

(He's also completely bottle-necked at three mana, so playing Domri to find extra creatures probably won't
do much to win him the game.)

The one other thing I'd consider is just attacking first to see if the opponent cares about Flinthoof Boar. We could do Rampager + Experiment One on a block (since that signals no Restoration Angel) or just deal 3 and cast Reckoner otherwise.

Video: Highlights from Sam Pardee playing Junk Aristocrats

(Working through a backlog of CFB videos.)

Here are some highlights from this recorded 8-man of Sam Pardee playing Junk Aristocrats.

M1G1 -- Sideboarding vs. Naya Aggro

To make room for more removal and Unflinching Courage, Pardee takes out all the Blood Artist and all the Sorin from his deck.

I like Abrupt Decay. I typically like cutting Blood Artist, because -- Blood Artist is really good when we're trading resources, which is what we want to be doing in this matchup, but it doesn't actually make us any ... It makes trading resources better for us, but it doesn't help us successfully trade resources, if that makes sense.

Cartel Aristocrat helps us successfully trade resources -- we're trading a Spirit token to give it protection to hopefully trade for one of his guys. So that's a trade we're willing to do. Blood Artist makes that trade more profitable for us, but we don't need those trades to be more profitable; we just need them to be happening. So I like shaving Blood Artist out.

I think Unflinching Courage is good. I think Sorin's also not very good in this matchup, because he's very slow, especially on the draw. I like Garruk because he can kill -- if they have Fiend Hunter, if they have Avacyn's Pilgrim -- there's just a lot of little guys he can kill.

This seems like a great plan for on the draw versus Naya aggro -- if you make the entire deck about 1-for-1 trades, something like Lingering Souls ends up taking over.

Blood Artist is sort of a combo card in a deck that often wants to scrape card advantage instead of making a combo kill. Making a lot of creatures and pumping them with Sorin and Gavony Township is the "real plan," and Blood Artist just speeds up the kill by one turn when that plan is working. It creates the illusion of a lower creature curve (since it's technically a 2-drop), but I wonder if Selesnya Charm or something would just be more effective.

M2G1 -- Picking a turn two creature

So here's the tricky spot -- whether you play Aristocat or Voice. If they have access to Pillar of Flame (I guess he could still be Jund), it's typically better to play the Aristocrat first, because you don't want to get your Voice killed, so that's why I'm doing that here. The other, secondary, reason is that they're going to hit for the same amount this turn, so it doesn't really matter.

[The opponent plays another GB land and passes.] I guess if I'd played Voice, he would have had to main-phase his [spell] -- I'm guessing he's going to cast a Grisly Salvage here.

This was just a sensible play and good reasoning. Aristocrat before Voice to guarantee you'll get the Elemental.

M3G1 -- What to do with Sorin

The two Searing Spears in the graveyard are, of course, for the Voice of Resurgence in graveyard and the Elemental it made. Pardee untaps and plays Sorin on turn 4 here:

I'm just going to play it and plus it. He could kill it, potentially, with a Warleader's Helix, in which case I'd rather have minus'ed it, but it's not that likely that he has it -- they usually only run 1 or 2 Helixes -- and even in that case, I think I'll be in good shape.

Basically I think it's much more likely that he has something like a Snapcaster for his Searing Spear to kill Sorin, but maybe that just doesn't matter that much and I should just do it anyway. No, I'm gonna plus. I can always minus next turn, unless he has the Warleader's Helix, which I don't think he does. I don't think he would have snap-killed that Voice token if he had a Warleader's Helix.

He goes back and forth on this one before deciding to +1 and make a token. I think the decision is very clear -- even with a power boost, his small army will not be much pressure for a UWR deck with 17 life and 5 cards. Generating a second army of Vampires should be done as quickly as possible.

The +1 is better against the Snapcaster turn that he sniffs out, but it's also better against most other possibilities: Supreme Verdict, Restoration Angel, or just Azorius Charm.

Other notes
- Pardee says that the deck's biggest problem is mana-flood. He plays 22 mana lands + 3 Gavony Township
- He boards out the Skirsdag High Priests against UW decks -- the logic being that sacrificing a Doomed Traveler to trigger Morbid is walking into Supreme Verdict.

Standard: Flinthoof Humans

Took this Naya Blitz deck with singleton sideboard to 8-0 in my last two events. Still a solid Standard archetype. pic.twitter.com/LRU85HxHzk
— Frank Karsten (@karsten_frank) June 25, 2013

Here's the list laid out in yesterday's winner's circle:

Creature curve 12-21-4-3, topping out at Frontline Medics and Ghor-Clan Rampagers. Zero removal, though the Medics and Firefist Strikers might let you "ignore" creatures you can't kill. Flinthoof Boars with only 8 mountains.

Pedro Carvalho asked about Hamlet Captain over Boar, and Karsten replied with a link to a deck by Andre Mueller.

@_megafone_ I still like Boar to grow Exp. One to 3/3. But you should check Andre Muller's PTQ T8 list: http://t.co/zZLgWGe5vl (1st post)
— Frank Karsten (@karsten_frank) June 25, 2013

4 Boros Elite, 4 Experiment One, 4 Champion of the Parish

4 Burning-Tree Emissary, 4 Mayor of Avabruck, 4 Lightning Mauler, 4 Flinthoof Boar, 3 Hamlet Captain, 1 Thalia
3 Kessig Malcontents
3 Ghor-Clan Rampager
2 Searing Spear
4 Cavern of Souls, 12 Shocklands, 4 M10 duals

That's a creature curve of 12-20-3-3, with 2 actual spells (Searing Spears) and the same 20 lands as Karsten's deck.

There is an 8-card difference between the two maindecks. Karsten has 2 extra Thalia, 2 Firefist Striker, and 4 Frontline Medic, where Mueller has 3 Hamlet Captain, 2 Searing Spear, and 3 Kessig Malcontents.

(Mueller also has an actual 4-of in his sideboard, to protect his Medic-less deck from Supreme Verdicts.)

With its superior 1-drops, Humans has sort of taken over from Saito-style Rg as the top Burning-Tree aggro deck in standard. Running Flinthoof Boar on a 3C Cavern of Souls mana base is bold tech from some very advanced players.

Writing: Willy Edel teaches us to sideboard

Edel with tapped Thundermaw Hellkite.

Hopefully you've already read and loved Willy Edel's new Domri Naya article on CFB. The great thing is how flexible he comes off about decklists; he sounds like he's always trying different versions and different sideboard configurations. He always wins with the deck, but he always adapts to a new optimal build.

Here are Edel's words of wisdom about sideboarding with Domri Naya (and the irrelevance of "sideboard guides"):

More important than a sideboard guide, you need to keep three things in mind when sideboarding:
1 – Don’t sideboard so much that your deck will lose its identity.
2 – Keep a smooth mana curve—taking out all 2-drops for 5-drops isn’t good.
3 – Know what game you want to play and sideboard accordingly. You want to end the game ASAP? Are you the control deck? You want to play a grindy game?

These are just fundamentals but people (including me) miss them all the time.

Standard: Quack Quack's Immortal Servitude Aristocrats

I've seen a 3-1 version of this deck somewhere, but Quack Quack is known to be good at MTGO, so this 4-0 version is worth posting:

The creature curve here is 4/20/1, if you were wondering. The idea here must be a combo-kill with Blood Artist, because I don't see any Gavony Townships or Sorins or Garolz the Scar-Striped.

I am not sure what this deck does against Rest in Peace or how Elvish Visionary is better than 4/1 haste flying, but I just purchased 2 Immortal Servitude so I hope they go up in value.

By the end of summer I hope we see, like, Gruul War Chant Aristocrats.

Standard: Online Scoreboard for June 3-8

Counting the 4-0's in DEs and everything that managed 6 wins in a PE this week, here's a scoreboard for the successes of standard decks in posted tournaments on Magic Online since June 3.

deck	#	players
UWR	10	ryan ward, andreas94, gnorilgrande, krom321, syrup16g, pegleg, steb, 3tzis, alfredo torres, normajean
BWG Reanimator	10	wizard pt, disgust, lfceline, leozito, fsumagic, zenith777, cwllc, l1x0, totertipper, bornman
Domri Naya	9	entril, olivetti, hoey07, hoey07, gallows, phresh87, junglefever85, laduree, xovah
BWG Aristocrats	7	cursedwave, akerlund, leetroxordude, quack quack, rastaf, kmaster, kumazemi
Saito Rg	6	aspankxx, norrin rad, devil, isaiascantub, chantsu, pponomarew
Jund	5	skittrix, keraan, stolpage, randomdrooler, protossx
BWR Aristocrats	4	gall, gall, kazuyamishima, enzoreal
Bant Auras	4	nerney9, valada, disil, dps330, nerney9
GW Big Tokens	2	deel, darkestmage
GW Auras	2	agnara, agnara
UW Control	2	huggins, tefaru
Elf Ramp	2	nielsen333, parasprite
GB Control	1	tetar
Grixis Control	1	purpler
Cloudfin RUG	1	giddens
Esper Control	1	stikfas
Naya Blitz	1	theagent002
4c Reanimator	1	thekid
Bant Control	1	shipitholla
Farseek Naya	1	wargoat
Gruul	1	thomash
Gruul Blitz	1	thommo
Naya Humans	1	tenele

If we count Aristocrats with green and Aristocrats with red as two versions of the same deck, then we have a "big four" decks (Aristocrats, UWR, BWG Reanimator, and Domri Naya) holding 40 of the 74 successes on our scoreboard, with the rest of the spots going to Jund, Auras, "minor" decks, and different versions of Naya beatdown.

- Multiple appearances: Agnara with GW Auras, Hoey07 with Domri Naya, and Gall with BWR Aristocrats.
- Tournament victories: Laduree with Domri Naya and tenele with Naya Humans (feat. 20 land and 4 Boros Elite).

The IRL standard result this weekend is Casey Hanford winning an SCG Open with an Aristocrats that had 2 Obzedat, beating a Naya Blitz deck with 3 Madcap Skills in the final. The top 8 included a normal UWR with 2 Geist of Saint Traft, a dedicated UWR Geist deck with some Thundermaw Hellkites and Ral Zareks, and a Naya Humans deck with 2 Kessig Malcontents and 2 Cloudshift.

Finance: Early June Winners and Losers

Using the awesome MtgGoldfish standard indices, this week's winners and losers:

- 5 of the top 7 winners are cards in the GWB Aristocrats deck.
- 5 of the top 6 winners are Innistrad block cards (rotating from standard in September).

Voice of Resurgence at $50 makes enough sense; it's third-set mythic that goes into a whole bunch of standard and modern decks. The fact that it is still peaking online about 5 weeks after the prerelease (and 2 weeks after it won the PT) tells me, as a speculator, that it's OK to buy in on blue-chip cards even a bit after they spike -- more buyers always show up; players will keep buying the new decks for some weeks after they first appear.

- 9 of the 10 losers cost 4 or more mana to cast
- 6 of the 10 losers are Innistrad block cards that will rotate.

It makes some sense that Sphinx's Revelation dropped, since standard has shifted away from being a Revelation-based format, but it's a surprise to see Advent of the Wurm drop this week. That card keeps showing up in new decks and wasn't really overplayed before in standard.

For the giant drop it took in these charts, Bonfire of the Damned (20.12) is still worth more than Domri Rade (14.86) when we look at the listings. Bonfire is an Innistrad block card that is not played outside of standard and has been replaced by Mizzium Mortars in most decks. Domri Rade is a 4-of in the likely best deck in standard. I expect to see Bonfire of the Damned under "top losers" again for the next few weeks.

Standard: WGb Virtue Tokens

Michael Jacob's stream tonight involved a 4-0 with a WGb tokens deck that wasn't Aristocrats -- it was an Intangible Virtue deck with copies of Midnight Haunting and Collective Blessing main. Deel 4-0ed with a similar list yesterday:

This version breaks down to:
- 24 land + 4 Pilgrim
- 20 token-makers + 3 Voice of Resurgence
- 2 Putrefy
- 7 Anthem effects

I forgot to take a screenshot of Jacob's version, but I assume it cut some of the "weird cards" for the 4th Voice of Resurgence, 4th Call of the Conclave, and 2nd Gavony Township -- if Aristocrats can run 2 Gavony Township, then certainly this deck can.

Other 4-0 decks from this same event include Agnara's GW Ethereal Armor deck (no Hexproof), huggins' UW control with 2 Runechanter's Pike main, and nielsen333's GW Elf-Ramp deck with 4 Elvish Archdruid and 4 Soul of the Harvest.

Standard: Jund is the slowest

Some opening hands
From M3G1 of Michael Hetrick's Jund videos -- an opening hand on the play:

t1 nothing
t2 nothing
t3 Putrefy
t4 possibly nothing

Hetrick:
"Even if we draw a red source quickly enough, this hand doesn't do anything, still, for quite a while. The best that we could draw would be Farseek, obviously, but we'd still need to draw the correct card after that. This being an unknown matchup, I'm gonna have to mulligan. This hand just wouldn't be very good against aggro."

Here's the six we find:

t1 nothing
t2 Ground Seal
t3 probably a Keyrune
t4 probably a Huntmaster

Hetrick:
"Alright. Sure."

The second hand casts some spells by turn three, but against aggro, it wouldn't offer any resistance until the turn-four Huntmaster.

Though they're both better than a mull to five, neither of these hands is very likely to win against aggro.

Does Jund not run early drops?
Not really.

For three mana or less, a normal Jund deck has something like 8-10 removal, 4 Farseek, 2 Keyrune, and 2 Ground Seal, plus possibly maindeck Lilianas. This represents 16-20 of the 35 or so spell slots in the deck -- but only the removal and the Lilanas will affect the board.

Discounting the "set-up" cards (mana acceleration and cycling Ground Seals), we can expect about 10 spells from a Jund deck that will affect the board for three mana or less. A lot of aggro decks run 30+ spells that affect the board for three mana or less.

Does Jund need early drops?
Maybe not.

Jund is capable of fighting aggro with stuff like t3 Huntmaster or t4 Thragtusk. On the play, the Farseek plan can actually work against Champions of the Parish and Flinthoof Boars.

But probably yes.

Jund decks have a ton of Pillar of Flame, Tragic Slip, Vampire Nighthawk, and other cheap anti-aggro spells in the sideboard. The transformative aspect of this implies that the optimal plan for beating fast creatures is the opposite plan from how the deck is built. We could say that Jund decks are pre-boarded for Reanimator and other big-spell matchups.

Owen Turtenwald's Jund article this week mentioned that Farseek is the best card in the deck and basically showed that no hand with Farseek should ever be mulliganed. Turtenwald plays Keyrunes to supplement Farseek; traditionally, turn three mana acceleration in constructed is a sign of a slow format. The giant importance of a Rampant Growth that doesn't even block should illustrate how slow the Jund deck is.

How can such a slow deck be good?
It is good when the other decks are slow.

As far as I know, Jund does poorly in aggro matchups and really well in matchups where it can win with Rakdos' Return and Sire of Insanity. This means that it's a good deck in top 8s and day 2s, but it mostly loses in online daily events, where grinders play 19-land mono-red decks (for budget reasons and clock reasons).

Do the blue decks have early drops?
Yes -- they have Augur of Bolas and Azorius Charm.

The UWR decks floating around Magic Online these days are all big spell decks, with counterspells, Planeswalkers, and Sphinx's Revelations. A typical blue deck doesn't use many slots for pure removal (burn spells or Detention Sphere), but Augur of Bolas and Azorius Charm mean UW can play 8 two-drops that both draw cards and slow an aggro rush.

Standard: UWR vs BWG Aristocrats

From Guillaume Matignon's stream, here's a BWG Aristocrats deck curving out on the play and still having zero chance of winning:

Pretty brutal. Matignon seemed not to know his opponent's deck, but his commenters gave a pretty clear explanation:

Pas le bon! A mieux deck against aggro (as seen in Brad Nelson's wins against Zombies and Naya Aggro) but much less bien against Rea -- and apparently against blue decks.

Matignon kills a Skirsdag High Priest with the Staticaster / Restoration Angel combo, and the opponent scoops early.

Another note: Matignon's version of the deck, intriguingly titled "UWR Wafo," plays 2 Rewind, 2 Restoration Angel, and a handful of other creatures.

UPDATE: From R3 of the same tournament, here's how Junk Aristocrats can beat UWR -- double Voice of Resurgence:

Matignon lost this match. Renounce the Guilds did a lot of work for him, but Turn // Burn seemed weak against armies of tokens.

Standard: Weekend standard scoreboard

Using the top 8 from Baltimore SCG Open, the top 4 decks from this weekend's online premier events, and the 4-0 decks from this weekend's posted dailies, here are some new standings from the horse-race for best deck in standard:

- The UWR deck has a core of Snapcaster, Revelation, Think Twice, Dissipate, Azorius Charm, and a lot of burn spells, judging by its MtgGoldfish profile. Both the Goldfish aggregate list and VFS's PE-winning list only use 2 Supreme Verdict. A lot of players have cut Restoration Angel and play a nearly creatureless version.

- The Rg decks here are all from DEs.

- The Naya Aggro finishes are all from the SCG top 8 and all follow Aaron Barich's 0 Burning-Tree Emissary model.

- akiaya's 4th-place BRW Control deck is a bit of a surprise. Highlights include 2 Nearheath Pilgrim and 2 Underworld Connections main.

- TinMan354 made a PE finals with a version of 4c Reanimator that used 2 Rolling Temblor and 2 Pillar of Flame instead of the usual Lingering Souls or Harvest Pyre.

- I called it control on the table, but pelli's Esper deck had the reanimator engine of 4 Forbidden Alchemy and 3 Unburial Rites to put Angels of Serenity into play.

- A lot of the decks marked "control" on this table are creature-based control decks. Those include mikev1919's GB deck (with 4 Desecration Demon, 4 Geralf's Messenger, and 3 Mutilate), MattsuN and aldevab's Loxodon Smiter Bant decks, smh's RUG deck (featuring 2 Izzet Staticaster and 3 Ral Zarek), and Jake Taft's BUG Control (with 3 Mutilate and 3 Warped Physique).

- A 4-0 deck that was closer to pure control was mikebrav's WB deck, featuring 3 Terminus and 3 Blind Obedience.

Standard: 4-0s from last two dailies

Creature decks (listed fast-to-slow):
(lands / creature curve / other spells)
- ThySaintsSurround playing Naya Humans (20 / 12-16-4 / 8) including 4 Hamlet Captains and no Avacyn's Pilgrims
- Silverwave528 playing Red (20 / 9-15-4-8 / 4) including 4 Volcanic Strength as the only non-creature spells
- Gereffi playing Red (21 / 8-15-6-4 / 6)
- werebear03 playing Rg (20 / 8-12-5-8 / 7)
- sneakattackkid playing Rg (21 / 8-12-4-8 / 7)
- Pandabeast24 playing Naya (22 / 8-8-8-6 / 8) with 4 Silverblade Paladin and 4 Rancor
- Jilesoftrees playing "big" Naya Humans (23 / 8-12-7-4 / 6) with 2 Unflinching Courage main
- normajean playing GB (23 / 6-8-10 / 13) with 2 Ulvenwald Tracker, 2 Ranger's Guile and 4 Putrefy
- Thalai playing Junk Aristocrats (23 / 7-15-7 / 8) with 4 Skirsdag High Priest main
- MagicLair playing BWr Aristocrats (24 / 8-10-6-5-2 / 5) with no Boros Reckoners and 2 Zealous Conscripts as the only maindeck red cards
- Dzy playing Edel Naya (24 / 6-10-7-3-4 / 6) including 4 Domri Rade and 4 Thundermaw Hellkite
- bone55 playing Ken Yukuhiro's Big Naya deck (24 / 4-4-8-8-4 / 8) including 4 Huntmaster of the Fells

Reanimator decks:
(lands + elves and farseeks / mulch, grisly salvage, and faithless looting / non-elf creatures + unburial rites / removal)
- orgneone playing Guadelajara-style Junk Reanimator (22+8 / 7 / 19+4 / 0)
- egdirb playing Junk Reanimator (23+7 / 6 / 15+4 / 5) with Loxodon Smiter, Farseek, and Abrupt Decay

- BigPrads playing Junk Reanimator (24+6 / 7 / 18+4 / 1) with Centaur Healer, Farseek, and Blood Baron

- Walka playing Danabeast's 4c Reanimator (23 / 12 / 17+4 / 4)

- Zwischenzug playing 4c Reanimator (23 / 12 / 17+4 / 4), Danabeast's list but with a Voice of Resurgence instead of the Sire of Insanity

- TikyTon playing 4c Reanimator (23 / 12 / 18+4 / 3) with 3 Huntmaster of the Fells

Blue-based control decks:

(lands / card draw / creatures / removal / counterspells)

- peter780107 playing UWR control (25 / 5 / 12 / 16 / 2) with no Azorius Charm or Think Twice, 2 Ral Zarek, and 2 Aurelia the Warleader

- littledarwin playing UWR control (26 / 7 / 5 / 17 / 5) with 3 Azorius Charm and 3 Think Twice

The blue control lists are a bit fuzzy to break down -- lots of cards serve multiple purposes and lots of cards are different between the two lists. Neither of them played more than 3 copies of any spell.

Lists are from the posted DEs on May 29 and 30.

Standard: Composition of Junk Reanimator

A typical Junk Reanimator decklist follows this formula:

• 23 lands
• 7 mana elves (Arbor Elf and Avacyn's Pilgrim)
• 19 creatures (2 Fiend Hunter, 4 Restoration Angel, 4 Thragtusk, 3 Acidic Slime, 3 Angel of Serenity, and 3 others)
• 4 Grisly Salvage and 3 Mulch
• 4 Unburial Rites

How top 8 decks this weekend varied on this formula:

• Andres Martinez's GP-winning deck had 2 Sin Collector and 1 Deathrite Shaman in his last three creature slots. He also had a Sever the Bloodline over the 4th Thragtusk.

• Emmanuel Ramirez Sanchez's GP top 8 deck had 2 Sin Collector and a 3rd Fiend Hunter in his last three creature slots.

• Manuel Monge Hernandez's GP top 8 deck had 3 Lingering Souls and 2 Lotleth Troll, cutting the 2 Fiend Hunter. He also used 2 Craterhoof Behemoth instead of a Thragtusk and an Acidic Slime.

• Emiliano Sanchez Gonzalez's GP top 8 deck had 3 Voice of Resurgence in the spare creature slots, an Obzedat over the 4th Thragtusk, and a Blood Baron of Vizkopaas his 61st card.

• Phillip Robinson's SCG Open top 8 deck had an 8th mana elf, a 3rd Fiend Hunter, and a Sever the Bloodline. He used an Obzedat instead of the 4th Thragtusk.

• Aaron McNeely's SCG Open top 8 deck had 2 Sin Collectors and a Sever the Bloodline in the last three slots.

• Quack Quack's PE top-4 deck had 2 Voice of Resurgence and 2 Sin Collector, cutting down to 6 mana elves.

• smallsin's PE 2nd-place deck actually had a lot of differences from our formula. Smallsin used 3 Centaur Healer, 3 Abrupt Decay, and a Sever the Bloodline, cutting the a Mulch, a Restoration Angel, and the 2 Fiend Hunter. It also had an Obzedat and a Craterhoof Behemoth over 2 of the Acidic Slimes.

Here's a table comparing this weekend's Junk Reanimator decklists: