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Join me as I navigate a best of three traditional draft of Zendikar Rising on Arena! Below is a link to the videos (there are three parts).
Two things to keep in mind:
- Arena hiccuped on me while I was attempting to start my first match. So you'll hear me mention that while I'm playing, but I ended up still being able to play all three rounds.
- My family came home towards the end of the draft, so don't mind their talking in the background. The interruptions should be brief!
Please comment below if you'd like to see more content on Quiet Speculation like this. I can provide more Arena draft videos and Standard/Historic play if there's enough interest! Thanks for watching!
The problem is that Standard is far slower than Modern and has worse answers. This let Omnath sit on the board more often and accrue value. Or, even better, take advantage of weak aggro decks and let Omnath hang out in hand until the time was optimal to cast it, play a land to trigger the lifegain, follow up with Fertile Footsteps, trigger the mana ability, then end the game with Escape to the Wilds. Modern's aggro decks kill on turn four and usually have some kind of disruption, so the optimal Omnath line isn't possible. And this isn't counting how much harder four-color decks have it in a format with Blood Moon and 
The only ramp comes from 2 Growth Spirals. The rest of the spells are interactive, with the only constants being 4 Path to Exile. Everything else is negotiable or a metagame call.
The problem is that the four-color value lists, whether this Field/Uro centric or not, are massively durdly. To the point of actively doing nothing a lot of the time. In testing, Uro's had to mulligan very aggressively for hands that did anything. I'm not even talking about curving well, I literally mean that a lot of hands I've pulled have just done squat, playing a turn 3 Uro at most. Most of the problem is that the deck is exactly 48.3% lands. Most hands will be mostly lands by simple math.
thought must go into each fetch because, doing it even slightly wrong will severely constrain available mana down the line. And that's not getting into the additional calculations for Cryptic Command and Mystic Sanctuary. This is a deck that wants to and must hit every land drop perfectly.
makes you dream about crushing opponents that thoroughly again. Which is my explanation for the deck's popularity; gotta chase that high (variance sequence).
splutter out due to unreachable color requirements. Copycat doesn't have to get a Triome first then hit another fetch or die every game! That alone is reason to switch.
No clever deck titles here -- 
David wrote 
Needleverge finds its stride in a deck like this one, that doesn't fetch but loves painless, flexible lands to smooth out its mana. Thanks to the new land, Ideal has little trouble stretching to splash red, which affords it access to heavy-duty land hate in Blood Moon and Boil.
I have been playing and working on Death and Taxes (hereafter: DnT) for 
I won plenty of local events over the years thanks to correctly anticipating metagames and preparing accordingly. However, whenever I took DnT to wider metas, it just couldn't compete. The power and universality wasn't there. And Humans did a lot of the same things but with a faster clock, so why bother with the pet project? Until 2020, of course. DnT has exploded over the past month thanks to Zendikar Rising. So today I'll be looking at these finally successful builds and breaking down the card choices.
This is Parrit's deck from their best result so far, but honestly, I could have picked any event. Parrit's maindeck hasn't noticeably changed since Rising released online. This player is also personally responsible for close to half of DnT's results so far, so I had choices, but it makes the most sense to go with the best result.
The key to the deck are the eight disruptive creatures, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Leonin Arbiter. I might have seen one list that didn't run full sets of each. Without these speedbumps, DnT cannot keep up with the rest of Modern. Thalia is better than Arbiter in the sense that noncreature spells see more play, and the tax is more consistently disruptive than soft search prevention, but that's balanced by Lava Dart. Arbiter is crippling against unprepared decks and makes Ghost Quarter into Strip Mine while Path to Exile becomes the best removal spell ever.
Both creatures form the heart of the deck. The trick is knowing which one is more relevant. As mentioned above, DnT is very much a deck that requires and rewards format knowledge. Given a choice, it is highly contextual which one to play first: not just the opponent's deck must be considered, but also how your own turns will play out. Playing Arbiter may or may not cripple the opponent's mana development, but it will make it harder to cast Stoneforge for several turns. Thalia may stunt the opponent's gameplan, but will also tax Path. Planning ahead and knowing what's most important in the matchup is key.
Stoneforge Mystic is the card advantage engine in the deck. In the past, it wasn't clear that she was better than the traditional Blade Splicer advantage engine, but every list I've seen so far has been on Stoneforge, so that's no longer the case. Despite 
Equipping on entry is huge by itself, but it also synergizes with Flickerwisp. Thus, it has functions as a combat trick, stalemate breaker, and a normal equipment. A very strong pickup.
Giver has always suffered from not being Mother of Runes. Gaining a point of toughness and the ability to protect from colorless cards is solid, but not being able to protect herself really let the side down. In a world where Jund was a big player, it was too easy for Step-Mom of Runes to die uselessly. In Legacy, Bolting an untapped, active Mom ensures a two-for-one since she'll protect herself from the first Bolt. In Modern, it's no risk to Bolt Step-Mom, then Bolt whatever she tries to protect. I kept running Thraben Inspector over Giver as a result.
Archon of Emeria
Angel is the old standby, and is at her best in a grindy metagame. Blanking even a single removal spell can be backbreaking against Jund or control. Being a 3/4 is also frequently relevant, and when blocking is essential, Resto will always be my pick. Current builds are not the best place for her, as there's no special way to get any value except blinking Apparition. Blocking isn't great right now given Prowess, and true attrition is down. Jund is Tier 2 and Omnath is about drawing lots of cards. The lower removal counts in the Omnath decks do make a single blink far more valuable, but on the whole I think Resto isn't the call, at least this month.
I have a strained relationship with this card. On the one hand, it is the best hard-counter for search effects in white and phenomenal against Primeval Titan, Scapeshift, and Bring to Light. On the other, Mindcensor has a long history of making promises to me it couldn't keep, dating back to failing to prevent Dragonstorm from going off five times at 2007 Regionals. Mindcensor can't prevent the opponent just having it, and counting on it does just lead to heartbreak. I think that having a few in the 75 is a good idea given how the meta is moving. However, the body is fragile enough and effect narrow enough I'd keep Mindcensor in the sideboard.
Every mono-white DnT list I've seen is running 23 lands. A few Boros lists run 21-22 because they're swapping a Field of Ruin or two for Cleansing Wildfire, but they're outliers. The overall breakdown has also very consistently been 11 Plains, 12 utility lands. The utility lands are typically distributed as 4 Horizon lands, 4 Ghost Quarter, 4 Field of Ruin. Again, as of writing, this specific distribution is at least 90% of the lists I've processed, so I'd call it the default. The main deviations are whether to run Horizon Canopy, Silent Clearing, or Sunbaked Canyon, and it really doesn't matter.
Eiganjo does nothing against Lightning Bolt, rarely saves Thalia in combat, and requires two mana to stop a Lava Dart. It's a pale shadow of Karakas and I wouldn't bother.
Forge-Tender is a very good card in a format where specific red spells need to be answered and/or blocked and/or Anger of the Gods is everywhere. This is pretty accurate at the moment. The issue is that Auriok Champion is generally better in more matchups, especially the Scourge of the Skyclaves decks that have started spiking up. Also, given Champion's popularity, a lot of decks are giving up on Anger in favor of Kozilek's Return. Therefore, I'd run Champion as my anti-red card and pack Selfless Spirit for sweepers.
If the only deck that needed Relic-Warder as an answer was Affinity, that would be ok. Exiling a counter-laden creature is very good. However, the main decks with artifacts run Karn, the Great Creator. This lets them wish for Torpor Orb, and most do run a copy. Orb means all the ETB creatures are effectively textless, which means no answers to the Ensnaring Bridge follow-up. For that reason, DnT is better off with Disenchant or Revoke Existence.
