"What's the best deck in Standard?"

After the results of Pro Tour: Khans of Tarkir and Grand Prix: Los Angeles, Standard would appear to be the stomping grounds of Abzan Midrange and Jeskai Tempo.

These decks are obvious given the new block’s wedges, and they utilize the newest, most efficient creatures in the game--Siege Rhino and Mantis Rider.

They play fundamentally strong cards, and with a mix of creatures and disruptive spells they are able to move fluidly along the spectrum between aggressive and defensive. With a solid pool of core cards to draw from, these decks will be able to adapt to anything, and it’s clear they will be a part of the metagame for a long time coming.

Even with this supposed dominance, Standard is a lot deeper than just these archetypes. The truth is, I think the real future of Standard lies elsewhere, in the decks that not everyone is talking about or even aware of.

No, the top Standard decks of the future are leaner, meaner, and some are already here.

"Well, I have seen a lot of other decks, what about those?"

Sure, there’s also the Green Ramp decks, like Green Devotion and Gruul Midrange. There’s also a hyper-aggressive mono-red deck, Boss Sligh. There’s a control deck for the die hard--Dimir Control--and there’s even a combo deck based around Jeskai Ascendancy. None of those are the best, though.

"Mardu Midrange?"

After a dominating appearance at the TCGplayer MaxPoint Championship, where it put two copies into the finals and another in the Top 8, it’s going to be on everybody’s radar.

It’s a proven itself as a solution to Abzan Midrange. The deck is good, and, as a wedge deck, it takes advantage of it’s own efficient creature in Butcher of the Horde.

Still, Mardu Midrange is not a deck I’m looking towards.

“What about U/W Control? I heard someone won the last StarCity Open with U/W Control.”

Wrong. First off it’s called Azorius now. And second, he lost in the finals.

Jeremy Bylander’s Azorius Control deck from the SCG Standard Open in Minneapolis is a sight to behold, and it applies control principles seen throughout history, but it’s fundamentally not significantly strategically different from the Dimir Control deck debuted at the Pro Tour. It’s worth checking out to be sure, but it doesn’t hold the secrets of Standard.

The Minneapolis Standard Open does hold secrets, but they sit further down in the Standings.

“Gruul Monsters? Temur Monsters?!”

No, the secrets are further down the standings, out of the Top 8 even. All the way down to Brad Nelson’s tenth-place finishing Orzhov Aggro deck.

Secret 1: Brad Nelson’s Orzhov Aggro

Brad Nelson is considered by many to be a Standard expert, and his constant results back up that claim. He is a prolific Standard deck builder, and he often gains a huge edge over the competition through his innovative decklists.

Brad intimately understands Standard from a practical level, from the ground up. He understands what’s important in a game, and what makes a deck tick. This allows him to exploit holes in a certain deck, and, further, weaknesses in an entire metagame. He can put the pieces together into a coherent package that enacts its own proactive gameplan.

Brad did that with the Boros Tokens deck he brought to PT: KTK, and he did it with the Mardu Midrange he piloted to a GP: LA Top 8. He has done it again with his Orzhov Aggro deck.

With Orzhov Aggro, Brad has cut to the heart of the format with an efficient and, most importantly, consistent aggressive package paired with a suite of disruption tailored to the specific concerns of the metagame.

Lands

First off, Brad breaks away from the mold of 3-color decks and into a more consistent two-color base. Three-color decks are plagued with mana issues, and while the multitude of scrylands and painlands make it possible, it comes at the high cost of damage and tapped lands. Tapped lands are particularly troublesome for aggressive decks, which seek to deploy their hands early and can’t afford to stumble if they are to adequately pressure opponents. This is a core problem with the Abzan Aggro deck, which plays upwards of 11 tapped lands.

By moving to two colors, Brad eliminates the unique issues that confront three color decks. He doesn’t have to deal with not having a third color, which means he will be able to cast more of his spells and more consistently aggress and disrupt his opponents. This extends to mulligan decisions, which are made much simpler and less often in a two-color deck than a three-color deck.

Two colors also eliminates much of the need for extra painlands and come-into-played-tapped lands. Eight tapped lands and four painlands is more manageable than something like the ten and six played by Abzan Aggro.

Much of the reason behind the success of Monoblack Devotion and Monoblue Devotion was the inherent consistency in a single-colored deck, and it’s ridiculous to think three colors is necessary if two colors can get the job done. Brad shows us that two color decks can indeed be successful.

Brad’s deck is notable for more than being two colors. The Orzhov Aggro deck is a careful mix of aggressive creatures and disruption, and Brad balanced that with his card choices.

Choices

At its core, this deck is based around leveraging some of the most powerful cards in the format and in the new set--Sorin, Solemn Visitor and Wingmate Roc.

The aggressive suite is based around Sorin, Solemn Visitor, which is not only a great source of creature tokens but also pseudo-anthem effect if its controller has creatures. It’s best in an aggressive deck, and the rest of Brad’s choices revolve around maximizing this planeswalker.

Wingmate Roc is similarly best in an aggressive deck. Its Raid trigger requires a creature, but it’s also the perfect high-end curve-topper for an aggressive deck--the slow it fills here.

It’s a rare source of true card advantage and tempo in a format lacking it, and it gives this deck a useful tool for fighting against attrition or recovering from a negative board state. As a flyer, it’s a great way to fight over Elspeth, Sun's Champion or a board clogged with defense creatures like Courser of Kruphix that would otherwise cause an aggressive deck problems.

The biggest innovation in Brad’s deck--a card that enablers both Sorin, Solemn Visitor and Wingmate Roc--is Raise the Alarm.

The two tokens it creates work very well with the +1 anthem ability on the planeswalker or for chump blocking, and with instant speed allowing it to be cast at the end of the opponents turn, its two tokens work as a very reliable enabler for Raid.

As a two-drop , Raise the Alarm fills an important spot in the curve that doesn’t have many other good options and it gives this deck a great source of board presence early in the game. It creates two cards in one, so it’s excellent against a world filled with 1-for-1 removal and attrition strategies. The format is filled with cards like Lightning Strike and Hero's Downfall that do little against Raise the Alarm.

This deck plays similarly to Jeskai Tempo and Mardu Midrange with a set of Seeker of the Way. This aggressive two-drop is just one color, making it reliable, but its also quite powerful in a deck filled with spells. It’s great combined with the removal suite and and Thoughtseize, but it also takes advantage of Raise the Alarm, which acts as a creature but counts as a spell for Prowess.

Taking another page from Abzan Aggro is a full set of Herald of Torment. First and foremost, this card is excellent because of its Bestow ability, which can lift attackers into the sky and put the opponent on a difficult clock to race. Bestowing also effectively gives Herald of Torment haste because it gets to deal three damage immediately. It’s a very functional offensive three-drop on the curve.

The final piece of the creature puzzle is Brimaz, King of Oreskos, which is capable of winning the game by itself.

It’s simply excellent combined with disruption, which Brad has in spades with discard and a set of Hero's Downfall. It’s also resistant to Bile Blight, one of the premier removal spells in the format.

Maindeck Bile Blight is a specific countermeasure to cards like Hordeling Outburst that have grown in popularity, but it has an impact against most every opponent. Beyond killing most everything from Jeskai Tempo and mana creatures from green decks, it also destroys soldier tokens from Elspeth, Sun's Champion.

Brad has created a deck filled with specific threats that are effective at attacking the format and robust against its removal. He combined them with the best disruption spells in the format. He did so in a two-color deck that maintains a high level of consistency. Brad’s deck is well positioned against the format and looks to be a player going forward.

On the same day Brad played the Open, Martin Juza played it at GP: Stockholm to nearly reach Top 8 with a 22nd place.

This deck is also a lesson on deckbuilding and reveals some truths of the format. Brad played a Boros deck at the Pro Tour, and Dennis Rachid played the same deck to success at GP: Stockholm. Other aggressive two-color combinations, such as Golgari, may also be viable and should be explored.

Secret 2: Whip of Erebos Decks

The next secret of Standard is Whip of Erebos.

Grand Prix: Stockholm was dominated by graveyard strategies that abused the Legendary Enchantment along with a core of graveyard enablers, Satyr Wayfinder and Commune with the Gods.

Christian Seibold reached The top 8 playing a Sultai deck using this list, utilizing Sidisi, Brood Tyrant. He publically shared this strategy at the Pro Tour in his deck tech and followed up with a strong finish last weekend. He is clearly someone who has put a lot of work into the deck and is worth watching.

Lukas Blohon also reached Top 8 with a straight Golgari graveyard deck that also leans on a constellation package.

I played against this deck in a Magic Online 8-man event last week and was very impressed, but looking around online I could find no mention of it anywhere.

Its innovative design was successful last weekend and looks to be a real player going forward. It is capable of going over the top of opponent with Constellation synergies, but it’s also capable of generating value from the graveyard and fighting an attrition battle.

One of the real draws to either graveyard deck is Murderous Cut, which is a highly powerful removal spell that can generate massive tempo, but it must be built around to be as consistently powerful. It’s a real benefit to a dedicated graveyard strategy and something that must be experienced to believed.

These graveyard decks are very powerful and they fight the format on an axis it isn’t yet prepared to fight. With Abzan Aggro on the decline, and Anafenza, the Foremost out of most maindecks, there is no better time to be playing a graveyard decks. Opponents will be forced to adapt or will find problems playing against a proactive strategy that exhausts traditional removal while going over the top of the opponent’s game plan.

~

Standard goes a lot further than the Khans wedges, and forward-thinking players who aren’t afraid to explore and take risks are pushing the format to its limits and finding success. There is still a lot of unexplored territory, and I expect Standard will continue to evolve as more is discovered.

The two strategies I shared today are the type of decks I want to be playing going forward and what I would recommend to anyone playing this weekend.

What’s your Standard secret? Where do you see the Standard format headed? I’ll also answer any questions in the comments section.

-Adam