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Deck Overview- Standard Tormenting Abzan

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A lot of Magic happened this weekend, though that doesn't always mean a lot of exciting decks. Unless of course seeing green/red decks take the lion's share of Top 8 slots this weekend is something you consider exciting. While there wasn't a ton of innovation on the GP or SCG circuit, I did come across a pretty spicy Abzan build from the MTGO PTQ on Saturday:

The maindeck Self-Inflicted Wounds are some combination of insanity and genius. Having a removal spell that tags Dragonlord Ojutai in addition to being live against almost every other deck sounds pretty solid. It's clearly not the droid you're looking for against Atarka Red, but the sideboard Drown in Sorrows will help fix that problem.

It's really interesting seeing four Herald of Torment here. Herald isn't a card that's really seen a ton of play at any point of its Standard legality, but I can see the merit of playing it right now. Flying over all of the Deathmist Raptors out there is a pretty big game.


I would be concerned about the weakness that Herald has to Dromoka's Command in addition to it being another card that's pretty poor against the red decks, but outside of those factors there are some pretty clever plays on the metagame here. This isn't the kind of build that's just going to be good week in and week out, but this is a nice example of creative metagaming.

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