The current Standard environment revolves around midrange shells that will happily play longer games. To break the symmetry some players sleeve up much faster decks such as Soldiers or Monored. This roughly makes up the whole landscape of the format. But then you can also brew up something combolicious!
Interesting constructions have popped up here and there, and they see some success too. Whether it's on Arena, at a Regional Championship Qualifier, or a Magic Online Challenge, there are numerous strategies that attack the current format from a different angle. Let's explore three cool new shells!
Tyvar Humans
The first deck I want to dig deeper into is Abzan Humans. It's an aggressive strategy that aims to close the game fast, taking advantage of the opponent stumbling in the early game. It includes multiple one- and two-drops to ensure that it gets out of the gates as soon as the game begins and can multi-spell early. Curves that include into can truly cause trouble. But it also contains a combo angle reminiscent of some Elves builds.
Tyvar Humans
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There are multiple reasons to stay specifically on the Humans theme. For starters, we get to play , which cares about a specific type. In it we get a land that produces mana of any color, so we don't have to worry about double green or double white pips in the top right corner. The second and arguably most important reason is that gives all our Humans the ability to produce mana. This helps us deploy as many creatures as we can as fast as possible. Katilda then also has an activated ability that grows the field at a scary pace, so the card basically serves as enabler and payoff in one.
Phyrexia: All Will Be One brought numerous tools to the table as well. First and foremost, there's . The central synergy between Tyvar's passive and Katilda can create scenarios where we almost go off, similar to what Elf players do with , especially if we get active. No less relevant, the planeswalker's −2 is able to return a killed Katilda or to help find one in the first place.
is an above-rate creature whose activated ability comes in handy as insulation against removal. When it comes to protecting the all-important Katilda, too looks tailor made to offer on-curve cover as early as turn two. Turning a creature unblockable isn't trivial either when it's, say, crashing in for 8 damage. Plus, Tyvar's +1 means we can activate the Mite twice now.
All in all, this is a cohesive aggro strategy that has more than a few tricks up its sleeve. Never underestimate a proactive deck that can land a planeswalker on turn three.
Simic Heroic
The second deck in this breakdown is a combination of Infect, Bogles, and Delver—powerful decks of Modern's past. It's a tricksy blue tempo shell with plenty of protection spells for its creatures. And it's all become possible thanks to an unassuming one-drop from Phyrexia: All Will Be One.
Simic Heroic
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is an infectious creature that will get the opponent a single poison counter if it connects. However, that's not the reason this card is so good. It has a trigger that gets the opponent a poison counter whenever your creature becomes the target of a spell. Crucially, it's any creature you control when it's a target of any spell. This means that a removal cast on any of your creatures will trigger Rotpriest and give the opponent a poison counter. It also means that if you play a beneficial spell on your creature, they also get a counter. Therefore, if you combine dealing damage with repeated targeting of creatures, you can get your opponent poisoned pretty fast.
seems to have been designed for this shell specifically. All your spells that target a non-Ivy creature will get copied and target Ivy. If we play an effect on Rotpriest, it will get copied onto Ivy and since two creatures are now targeted, the opponent gets two poison. The deck runs numerous protection spells for the aforementioned interaction to take place. both protects and even gives the creature a counter to hit harder, gives hexproof and can be a late-game mana sink, and can also act as a way to phase out opposing creatures so that we get in for lethal.
The tricky spells combined with our synergistic creatures make for a cool tempo strategy.
Selesnya Toxic
The last strategy I want to discuss is a deck that has picked up a ton of traction recently, winning a Modern Challenge and posting a ton of results since. Selesnya Toxic is very much centered around the single goal of getting the opponent up to ten poison counters.
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There are 27 creatures in the deck and all of them have toxic. The game will very much be all about pushing attackers through, as every single point of poison matters. It is not enough for the opponent to clog up the ground though. First, can make an attacker unblockable, and if it's a , , or , that's two counters right there. Killing our creatures may not work either. hands out poison for each targeted removal spell, and can stop such an attempt, sometimes both.
Even mass removal does not put us out of business. The strongest card to ensure our longevity is a modern version of , but adapted to a toxic environment: . The fact that these tokens cannot block is barely relevant, since we want to be on the offensive anyway. Once we get the opponent to something like seven poison, they will have to fear even those small Mites. One can play around superior blockers by waiting to accumulate a proper number of Mites before bashing in to make sure that a couple of poison counters get through.
Between all of these tools, this toxic deck is quite threatening. I would expect to see it more and more in upcoming tournaments.
As we can see, Standard is still relatively underexplored. Who knows how many more interesting constructions are lurking just beneath the surface? If you have a deck that you've brewed up, let us know in the comments below! And as always, please remember to hold my hand, and let's pass the turn together. Cheers!
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, not of Cardmarket.
