Dragons of Tarkir enters its second week of Standard play with a strong showing for the set at SCG: Syracuse. While we haven't seen all-out epic dragonlord battles in the sky, several staples are already emerging in the set.

This week, we'll dig into the trends and highlight your trading steps for this upcoming week.

Hail to the Regent

Thunderbreak Regent is by far the most interesting card of the week.

A regent, by the way, is a person who stands in for the rightful ruler until the ruler is ready to come back to power. I tremble to think of what the Thunderbreak King or Queen must be like.

We saw three G/R Aggro decks take down the T8 of the event, including the winning spot. They offer a simple promise: make mana and smash the opponent with discount fatties. Whether it's a Boon Satyr bestowing an Elvish Mystic or a Stormbreath Dragon rolling out a few turns early, it's hard to beat the pure meat this deck can slam down.

All three lists represent a full set of Thunderbreak Regent. It's a potent card--I don't have to explain that to you at this point. It's a cornerstone of a very reliable strategy. It can come down on turn 3 and get to work, flying over a Hordeling Outburst.

The downside for the speculator is that this dragon has already flown the roost, sitting at $10 average. This is the upper bound for a rare from DTK. I don't expect many to break $15, for that matter. If we're looking at a 50% gain, that's a lot of money to risk for not even a double-up.

G/R is a captivating strategy because of its simplicity. This is a deck I can understand, says the casual dragon fan. Simply hurl fire and dragons.

So what do you do with this dragon? Two things.

First, I expect them to be in high demand for the next two weeks. Just like Snapcaster was the currency in Innistrad, this is going to be the $10 bill that facilitates trades. You won't be able to get up on trades with him or hold for advantage, but having these in your binder will make more magic happen. I suggest trading into these and then quickly out of them in your local store, making use of their high liquidity to make more manageable trades happen.

The second is to pick up the ancillary cards. My two picks on are Boon Satyr and Crater's Claws. And yes, the rhyming is pretty cool on the pair.

Boon Satyr saw a brief $5 price and rides less than a dollar these days. The goat-man was in two of the three R/G aggro lists and is a good stand-in for whatever more expensive card someone is missing.

Crater's Claws isn't a sexy spell, but red burn has hit $5 before. The Claws are Ferocious a good deal of the time. They also see 4x play in the Temur Aggro deck that uses Frost Walker as an early Ferocious enabler.

Actions: Crater's Claws is in a full half of the Top 8, with 11 copies. It's a role-player that people won't notice creeping up to $3. Consider Boon Satyr as another pickup. Rattleclaw Mystic was in two of the three lists, and it's my pick over Caryatid for the aggressive strategy. I like it at $1.50.

Mono-Red and Mostly Mono-red Continue To Perform

Deck naming must be hell for the SCG recappers right now. Here's my short guide:

• G/R Aggro: Dragon-based mana elf aggro
• R/g Aggro: Mono-red splashing for Atarka's Command and similar

Both strategies did well this weekend. Mono-red is getting lumped together with R/G since it's just about the same thing. The idea involves jamming lots of little red guys with burn. In a Siege Rhino world, that's audacious--and it pays off.

The decks have picked Monastery Swiftspear back up, which is a sane move. They're amazing in the opening hand and not-awful off the top.

Ryan Sandrin played the world's gutsiest Firedrinker Satyr singleton, a bold choice in a world with Roast and a billion burn spells. The deck has other synergies, too. A Foundry Street Denizen on the first turn loves to see Dragon Fodder on the second, for example. Nice Caryatid you got there, take 3.

Mono-red remains a pretty cheap deck, too. That clues me in to the fact that it will not remain cheap. Rabblemaster remains the most expensive card, but you need a pair at most. He's even dropped to a more reasonable $15 these days. Zurgo continues to climb up and Stoke the Flames is still doing its impression of a rare.

Actions: Zurgo is up 20% from last week and I still think that guy is pretty darned cheap. I'm still listing him as a buy. He's got definite $5 card material to him. This is also a time to consider whether you want Courser of Kruphix around. On paper, the centaur looks like it mauls monored. In reality, this has fewer homes with Abzan Midrange checking out. This is a miserable time for horsemen.

Tom Ross is back with... non-red cards?!?

Check out Tom's throwback Bant Heroic deck for a moment. If we're going to get into that metagaming out-leveling thing, then this is what cruises past G/R and mono-red aggro.

We sometimes see this happen in Standard, where a player pulls back something from the previous year to wreck with. Tom splashed green for four copies of Dromoka's Command and it's totally game-changing.

• Command my Seeker of the Way, fight your dude. 4/4, gain 4, kill your guy.
• Command my Favored Hoplite 3/4, fight a guy, my guy takes no damage.

You get the picture. Heroic makes all those guys even larger, thanks to the token.

How does mono-red peel through that strategy? It can spam a bunch of tokens, but then Tom's got a pair of Ordeal of Heliod to gain 10 life. If he slaps it on a Seeker of the Way, he gets a counter and a Prowess trigger that turn, gaining four life while he goes through the Ordeal. That can take a lot of steam out of a Thunderbreak Regent and make targeting it a lot less painful.

This also has "cheap deck syndrome", so you can expect the market to jack up the prices on some of the core cards to compensate. Mana Confluence, for example, is a little under $10 right now. I'd expect a small bump there if this deck picks up. I cannot recommend picking up most of the uncommons because they are dogs outside of this deck--Ordeals aren't chase cards.

Actions: Scour your uncommons pile because Favored Hoplite is a $1 uncommon, for starters. Hero of Iroas is at about $3.50 right now and that's seen $8 in the past--the price memory is there. Dromoka's Command is a solid hold--if you trade them, be sure to get good-quality cards out of the deal.

Abzan Is Going Full Aggro

Cats abound in the T25 of the event. Abzan has almost entirely dropped its late-game Whip engine in favor of the much leaner combo of Rakshasa Deathdealer and Fleecemane Lion.

The Deathdealer is sold out at $1 from SCG--expect a higher price on the restock. I think it's a good pickup at that price, especially since we're seeing it in conjunction with Heir of the Wilds. The Rakshasa can get Ferocious at a cheap price.

Players are still sorting out optimal lists. Wingmate Roc is a staple 2-of and, at $5, it's a good pickup. That card is still scary, but it leans really hard on removal in the face of things like Stormbreath Dragon and Thunderbreak Regent. I've seen Warden of the First Tree pop up, but that's a much riskier $5. I'd stay away from him right now.

Actions: The Rakshasa Deathdealer at $1 looks like a steal, but don't be greedy. Khans rares are ubiquitous, so out this when it hits $3 or you might not ever see $4.

A quick hop to Modern with Collected Company

The loss of Birthing Pod means little to Modern players when it can be replaced with Collected Company. Check out this 11th-place list from Max Brown and tell me how awesome that looks.

Let's get this out of the way: yes, Congregation at Dawn into Collected Company seems bonkers. So does setting up Viscera Seer, Kitchen Finks and Melira. People forget just what a pain it was to fight off Finks and Melira alone--suddenly attacks became very unprofitable.

I also like his use of Flickerwisp to imitate Restoration Angel at a price that Collected Company loves. The Wisp can take out any problem permanent, too. If you've played a bit of Modern, you also know what sort of damage a 3/1 flier can do over time.

Collected Company is going kind of nuts at $5 right now. That seems unsustainable because nothing in Standard wants the effect. Thus, it feels forced--$2 looks more realistic.

On the other hand, Congregation at Dawn is hard to find and clocks in at $3. This is one of those ancient uncommons that'll hit $5-7 with decent play. Remember that people are searching for the next Birthing Pod iteration. Those who didn't rage-sell their deck will be glad they kept a Pontiff around want want to pick up the last few incidentals for their deck.

The deck also has zero copies of Garza's Assassin in its 75.

 

This was a fake buyout from last week and one of the stupider ones I've seen. A QS Insider posted about a Collected Company deck in which the pilot ran an Assassin. That was awesome to see on the QS forums, by the way, so all praise to the poster!

It got a life of its own when Chas Andres tweeted about buying up foils of it and then it disappeared online. People fell into the hype and the card did nothing afterward. From 3/30-4/4, it went from $1.60 to $10 as a foil and the foils aren't moving. I'm glad most Insiders stayed away from this and aren't stuck holding a dud foil Coldsnap rare.

Actions: Pass on the Company but get Congregation while it's still reasonably cheap.

Quick Hits:

• Still no Mono-blue Devotion.
• Dragonlord Ojutai showed up in Todd Anderson's Tokens list, but hasn't seen his breakout yet.
• G/R Dragons has got a big ol' target on it now.
• This format is still young enough for new strategies to stun us at the PT.
• No G/W Devotion anywhere to be seen. Sorry Whisperwood Elemental.
• Ire Shaman has a surprisingly-low 15% spread (go ahead, look it up).
• Deathmist Raptor had a few showings in in the T16 and below, but $13 for this thing seems nuts.

Until next week,

-Doug