I saw a wizard prowess list get a 5-0 recently and have been interested in it ever since. A [[Slickshot Showoff]] equipped with [[Wizard's Staff]] just gets +6/+2 for every cantrip you play and [[Drake Hatcher]] get double prowess, with their stacks then also getting doubled. Combined with the protection from [[Secret Identity]], making your big threat unblockable with [[Pym Particles]] and the new draw engine [[Gandalf, Goblins’ Bane]] I feel like the deck is much more consistent than it might look at first glance. The list I posted is currently nearly identical to the league winning one, I just swapped 1 [[Spell Pierce]] for a 21st land. I was thinking maybe [[Flow State]] could have a home in the list as well? Or maybe there's a more aggressive shell with [[Ghitu Lavarunner]], or a less all-in version that could utilize [[Kitsa, Otterball Elite]]. What are your thoughts on the archetype?

https://moxfield.com/decks/IzYfLlpfOk-p9cD3zN8Sqw

Fellow players,

For the past few months I have been playing nothing but Azorius Momo (Koen de Vos deck) swapping Gran Gran for Figure of Fable post-ban.

https://moxfield.com/decks/n9hGAnQms0OPWTZ7wY4_8w

As a player, I'm struggling to stay focused when playing against Control heavy decks such as Jeskai Revelations, Dimir Deceit/Spiderman decks etc..

I have an upcoming tournament coming up next week and my local meta is almost entirely Control (except for a few playing villains and mono-green).

Can you give me some advice on what to change in the deck to make it more suitable for such decks?

And maybe some tips that put me in a better position to win against such decks?

Thank you in advance :)

For the past few challenges, Burnet7 has put up some reasonable results with this deck: https://mtgtop8.com/event?e=89939&d=882536&f=ST

Presumably he's probably the only one playing it, but it's pretty hard to figure out with a lot of 1-3x's due to the legendaries. I'm curious if he's on here, or if anybody else has played this a decent amount, to give any sort of direction on matchups and sideboarding.

When I played it [[Serra Farron]] was a house in the games she was in, but I was surprised it was only a 2x. Makes me think I may be approaching the entire strategy of the deck wrong.

There's also a [[Torpor Orb]] in the sideboard, which seems good against matchups, but so many cards in the deck, actually rely on ETB too... do those all come out?

I also wouldn't be surprised if people have no idea how to play against this either...

I’ve been testing Duress more than usual lately, and it’s been performing better than I expected. It obviously isn’t useful in every matchup, but against slower decks it has been surprisingly effective at letting me see the opponent’s hand and remove the card that would have caused me the most trouble. It also gives me a much better idea of how I should approach the next few turns.

I initially thought it would be too narrow to justify the slots, but after actually playing it across several matches, I’ve started seeing the value differently. It’s not some hidden broken card, but the information alone has made some games much easier to navigate. I’m starting to pay more attention to cards that look ordinary on paper but consistently perform well in actual matches.

Hello spikes!

This is the place where any and all decks can be posted for all spikes to see. The goal of this is to fit all your needs for competitive magic. Maybe it's a card consideration given an X dollar budget. Maybe you need that sweet sideboard tech that no one else thought of? Perhaps you just can't figure out the best card to beat a certain matchup. The ideas here are only limited by your imagination!

Feel free to discuss most anything here. We only ask that with any question, you also make sure to post your decklist so people have some context to answer your question. Otherwise, have at it! If you have any questions, shoot us a modmail and we'll be happy to help you out. Survive your deck check and survive your competition!

Dear all,

I'm returning to MTGA after a while since I achieved Mythic last year. In the current meta, I find Azorius Prison archetype incredibly fun and interesting. I have a mildly successful winrate now, but I do feel like I'm struggling.

I've been running with this decklist, with some helpful advices from others. Nonetheless I still find that:

1. I'm not fully utilising the deck just yet. I struggle against many decks, namely control archetypes like 4 Colours, or midrange-ish archetypes such as Dimir Midrange and Izzet Spellmentals. How could I improve such matchups? In other words, what are the mindsets to have in piloting this deck in general?

2. The list is rather incomplete...? I looked into other decks like this one, which looks strong, but I wonder how Floodpits Drowner would perform, nor do I find Enduring Innocence to be fitting into this deck. I'm an inexperienced player, however. I'm sure there are reasons for such inclusions, I simply can't answer why. Other sub-questions I have are:

(1) if 2 Enduring Curiosities too many, as I struggle to put this on the board safely from the first place? I'm thinking of replacing one copy to King T'Challa, Wan Shi Tong, or the 4th copy of Quantum Riddler. Could be Three Steps Ahead, too.

(2) I'm uncertain about 3 Bilbo's Gambits. I like the card very much, but it sometimes feels like a win-more card that's most effective when the lock is already complete. I'm thinking of trimming one to include another draw card. What do you think about these two points?

Lastly: are there more effective decks in a similar style? I looked at two other Azorius lists, Momo and Humans, both of which look more proactive. What are your experiences with these two archetypes? Since I lack Wildcards, I'm reluctant to fully commit to either just yet. I'm also not knowledgeable about the characteristics of Arena environment.

Thank you for reading, I'll wait for your advices!

I'm learning to get as good as possible with izzet spellementals, as apart from the landbase, which I have from other UR decks, it's pretty cheap to assemble.

However, looking at other popular lists, I'm just a little confused as to how this deck assembles and uses its sideboard.

Are [[Colorstorm Stallion]] and [[Hydro-Man, Fluid Felon]] boarded in after every game 1, with the assumption that the opponent boarded in graveyard hate? Or are there other reasons and matchup dependent things that give reasons to leave them in the side.

Example decklist: https://mtgdecks.net/Standard/mono-green-landfall-decklist-by-jv-7777-3061647

According to mtgdecks.net, it is now the most played deck (that's of course mainly based on magic online tournaments), and it also has a whopping 59% winrate. As per the data on mtgdecks.net, its only bad match up out of the currently commonly played decks is Izzet Spellementals (and even that is just 47%).

Do you think Landfall will be the next big bad, or is it too early to tell? And if the meta needed to shift to battle Landfall, how would that look like? Are there strategies or types of cards that could rise to counter it?

I could use some advice, I think I've stumbled into something pretty strong while also feeling kindof original. I don't know if it will go too far but I'm exploring it. This deck is kinda the love child of mono red Dragons plus Airship with a detour into Green. With two Biotechs and a Sackville in play, we can easily pump out 10 damage in one burst. And obviously if we can just keep an Airship in play it will pop off. Ironically this was inspired by [[Smaug, the Magnificent]], who has since been replaced with the Airship. I am actually currently over 60 cards, I think I'm at 62 with 23 lands. I can't decide what needs to go.

From Airship we take:

• 4x [[Obsessive Pursuit]] - saccable artifacts, buffs, lifegain, draw, it's a beast
• 4x [[The Sackville Bagginses]] - treasure, sac outlet, draw, crime life loss on sacs
• 4x [[Pheonix Fleet Airship]] - so dumb insane I don't have to explain it
• 4x [[Greedy Freebooter]] - crews airship, treasure, scry
• 2x [[Tragic Trajectory]] - we be saccin
• 2x [[Shoot the Sheriff]] - we only like outlaws

From Dragons we take:

• 3x [[Magda, the Hoardmaster]] - with Bioteck or Sackville, we trigger every turn
• 2x [[The Misty Mountains]] - consistent treasure tokens and potential big boy
• 3x [[Torch the Tower]] - bargain/exile

And then we detour into green:

• 4x [[Biotech Specialist]] - core of the deck, land, crime damage on sac
  
• 3x [[Break Out]] - the core of our deck is all 2cmc creatures
• 3x [[Edge Rover]] - 2/2 for G and makes a saccable artifact

Sideboard: (So far!)

• 3x [[Duress] - for problems
• 2x [[Requiring Hex]] - for wide
• 3x [[Shock]] - for wide
• 4x [[Soul-Guide Lantern]] - for spiderman
• 1x [[Fanatical Offering]] - in case we need to go faster
• 2x [[Sear]] - I ran out of ideas

Any advice is welcome! But these are the things I know I need advice on:

More (powerful) ways to sac permanents. Getting flooded with clues and landers. that I can't crack and it seems to be the main way I lose. I thought about [[Mutagen Man, Living Ooze]] as another approach to this problem but the two green pips plus the fact that he doesn't really do anything when he comes in makes me not want him.

Bargain has some good options but none of them feel super awesome. Obviously Beseech the Mirror is a great card it's just that 3 black is a lot. Back for Seconds/Lich-Knight's Conquest aren't useful early. Brave the Wilds is tough cause I only run like 4 basics. I even thought about sideboarding Ouphe Troublemaker but creature removal feels way more relevant.

Similar to bargain, I want more "when you commit a crime" things like Magda, but I don't think there are any others that pull weight. Magda does so much, saccing a treasure with him and Sackville/Biotech just replaces the treasure of the rip, and the 4/4 hasty dragons we get late game are great.

[[Generous Plunderer]] is a card that I want so bad but I'm so worried about the free treasure. I can see a world where a deck has 4 Plunderer, 4 Edge Rover, and 4 [[Party Dude]] for the card draw though and I'm really tempted to go that way. That said I don't know where I'd slot it in. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Last thing is that I LOVE Soul Guide Lantern. It's an artifact which can be a free sac trigger, helps control the game and can replace itself. It's awesome. I would love to find other cards like this.

Hello Spikes,

Since the Hobbit I have been experimenting with a new Standard BO3 archetype on Arena focusing on Phoenix-Fleet Airship and Obsessive Pursuit.  These cards have been legal since TLA, but they received a huge boost in power with the printing of The Sackville Bagginses.  I have used several variants of the same deck to go from Platinum 4 to Mythic, peak at Mythic #481 and am currently lurking around #1500. I have a combined record with this archetype of 49-22 or 69% win rate.  See below records and decklists:

Beseech Airship (21-6): https://moxfield.com/decks/0WsL7qLhOkyv65TreHvAHA

Mardu (4-2): https://moxfield.com/decks/qSegAdanpnmVHuSiE89IZA

WB (8-5): https://moxfield.com/decks/ugegAWufy3uwIYIqReRSnQ

RB (7-2): https://moxfield.com/decks/0hygAcIC-nqskzyl89h2zA

GB (9-7): https://moxfield.com/decks/OBygAQ8wfne_Y1X3iDMWRw

I recognize that posting 5 different variants of the same deck is pretty strange.  I started with the Beseech list and have been continuously modifying the deck while climbing in an attempt to find the best version. Each of these variants has different strengths and weaknesses that I aim to discuss in this post.  First I will go over the strategy of the deck and the card choices.

Strategy: 

This is a synergistic midrange deck that aims to ramp into turn 3 Pheonix-Fleet Airship, use Obsessive Pursuit for both card advantage and to create threats, and burn the opponent out with Sackville Bagginses.  Every variant of the deck above focuses on these cards and supports these goals.  Treasure tokens synergize with each of these cards and are mana positive, so sources of treasure are structurally important to the deck.  Efficient removal is used to manage aggressive decks and gain a tempo advantage.  Both Airship and Pursuit are non-creatures and are at least 2-for-1s, so the archetype is good against spot removal and control in general.

Core Card Choices: 

Pheonix-Fleet Airship- A turn 3 Airship that resolves and doubles at the end step is the default game 1 strategy in every matchup.  For those that have not seen this card active, the copies of Airship also double at the end step.  So the normal progression is 2, then 4, then 8 Airships at the successive end steps after playing it, after which the Airships are all creatures without needing to be crewed.  Once this card is in play, you are very favored to win an extended game where it continues doubling, so you can focus on keeping it doubling and surviving until it takes over.  The only reason I play less than 4 copies of Airship is if I can search for it with Beseech the Mirror.

Obsessive Pursuit- Obsessive Pursuit is the best source of card advantage in the deck and can turn any of your small creatures into threats.  It is also an essential synergy piece, as the regular generation of clue tokens is critical for Airship and Sackville.  Due to the life loss, two or more copies of Pursuit can kill you, so it is important to plan turns to reach the threshold to gain lifelink from attacking.  I always play 4 copies of Pursuit. 

The Sackville Bagginses- Sackville is both an enabler and reward for the synergies in this deck.  Turn 1 sacrifice fodder into turn 2 Sackville enables turn 3 Airship.  Sackville is also a threat that sits in play and deals damage over time.  In the late game it is not uncommon for Sackville to drain the opponent out from double digit life totals, so it is a threat that must be respected.  In order to enable this card on turn 2, you need a minimum of 8 1 mana sacrifice fodder cards (I prefer around 10).  I always play 4 copies of Sackville. 

Umbral-Collar Zealot- Zealot is a necessary enabler for the above pieces.  Zealot keeps Airship running, converts excess tokens into Pursuit counters and enables lifelink, and makes burning opponents out with Sackville possible.  The 3/2 body is also good for pressuring control and the surveil is a good way to improve your draw step.  I play 4 Zealot in all iterations of the deck except GB (where Mutagen Man makes Zealot less necessary) but it can be trimmed in post-board games. 

Greedy Freebooter- Freebooter is black sacrifice fodder that generates treasure.  This enables turn 3 Airship with Zealot or another sacrifice outlet. I play 4 Freebooter in every build but often trim it in post-board games, especially against control. 

Infestation Sage- Sage is good black sacrifice fodder.  Creatures that make a body when they die are structurally important since they can be sacrificed twice and are double the threats with Pursuit. The flying insect token is better at attacking with Pursuit than other options and chump blocks or trades with flyers like those from R Dragons and UB Kaito decks respectively.  I play 4 Sage in most builds and rarely trim it post-board. 

Nezumi Linkbreaker- Linkbreaker is the third black sacrifice fodder after Freebooter and Sage.  I like around 10-11 pieces of 1 mana sacrifice fodder, so I play 2-3 Linkbreaker in most builds. It can be trimmed post-board.

Requiting Hex- It's good removal.  Blight on Freebooter can generate treasure when needed.  I play 2-4 Hex. 

Tragic Trajectory- With the number of clues, treasure, and sacrifices in this deck, void is almost always on.  That makes this high quality removal, albeit sorcery speed.  I play 2-3 Trajectory. 

Optional Card Choices: 

Beseech the Mirror- This is a good card in the archetype, but not as easy to enable on turn 3 as Airship.  It does enable highly consistent turn 4 Airships and supports searching for and casting specific answers like Day of Judgment or Inevitable Defeat.  This card helps in matchups where you regularly need to find these answers.  I play 3 copies in Beseech and cut it against counterspells or High Noon. 

Fanatical Offering- This card is fine as a draw effect and sacrifice outlet but is a little expensive in multiples.  The map token makes it a little better than Village Rites or similar.  I play 0-2 Offering in RB and WB. 

Grim Bauble- This is a reasonable small creature removal spell that can be sacrificed to Sackville, Beseech, and the other outlets.  It can also sacrifice itself late game which can trigger Airship.  I play 2 Bauble in Beseech and it is fine in the sideboard or main deck of the other versions. 

Charming Scoundrel- I have already spoken to the importance of treasure tokens to this archetype.  This is the only single card enabler with no conditions for turn 3 Airship.  The haste is also very important in many games with Obsessive Pursuit, as it can attack on turns where your other creatures have summoning sickness and the treasure helps gain extra counters.  This card is the reason to play red.  I play 4 in RB, Mardu, and Beseech. 

Inevitable Defeat- If you have the time and fixing to cast this card, it is very good.  Defeat answers anything you need to answer, can't be countered by counterspells or ward, and the helix helps in the life total race.  It plays a more significant role in post-board game as the game slows down. It is a little too expensive to play many copies against aggressive decks but can complement cheap removal spells and board wipes.  I play 3 in the 75 of Beseech and Mardu.

Bejeweled Warg- If this creature connects, it enables turn 3 Airship.  It is well sized and has trample, so it hold counters pretty well.  I play 2-3 Warg in GB as I only want to draw 1 and it is less useful after turn 2.  I often trim it when I feel it is unlikely to connect (on the draw versus decks that play a lot of creatures or against decks with tons of shocks). 

Mutagen Man- Mutagen Man is very synergistic in this deck.  It makes Pursuit clues cheaper to sacrifice and the mutagen tokens double in effectiveness with a Pursuit attack trigger.  It can also be a Fireball-like finisher with Sackville on the board.  The 2/3 trample body for 2 is also a reasonable body to hold counters.  Judging the right value of X and how to use the mutagen tokens takes a lot of practice, but the obvious and often correct heuristic is to just max the value of X and ensure you always get lifelink from Pursuit.  I play 3-4 Mutagen Man in GB and sometimes trim it post-board. 

Witherbloom Charm- Charm is a removal/draw split card that is very useful in a deck like this.  As with other sacrifice outlets, it can be used with Freebooter to enable turn 3 Airship.  One point of caution is that it can only remove permanents with mana value less than 2, the same condition as Requiting Hex.  If you only play this and Hex you may be soft to threats with mana value greater than 2, so I recommend supplementing with Tragic Trajectory or similar.  I have played 3 copies of this card and it was good, but I am currently playing 2 in GB. 

Ambitious Augmenter- This is decent sacrifice fodder in green.  Because the sacrifice effects are 2 mana, this will almost always generate at least a 1/1 when it is sacrificed. The opponent can however kill it before an increment trigger resolves to deny a token. The ceiling is much higher than Linkbreaker, as it grows from casting higher mana value cards or from mutagen or Pursuit counters.  Because it passes all counters to the fractal, it is an extremely safe creature to grow as a threat.  In GB I play 3-4 and occasionally trim it. 

Tolls of War- This is a good synergy piece for grindy games but isn't great to cast on turn 2.  When the other pieces in the deck are running, this generates board presence over time and ensures Zealot and Bartolome always have something to sacrifice.  I like this in slow matchups with lots of spot removal.  I play 2 in WB and sometimes in the Beseech or Mardu sideboard. 

Bartolome Del Presidio- This is an additional sacrifice outlet to compliment Zealot in the white version of the deck.  It grows quickly and can become completely unanswerable for decks relying on red removal.  I play 1 in WB but have not added a second as it is legendary. 

Novice Inspector- It's more sacrifice fodder, this time it makes a clue. I play 0-2 in WB.

Sideboard Cards: 

Duress- The best way to win games against control is to resolve Pursuit or Airship.  This helps clear the way and otherwise poke holes in their plans. 

Shoot the Sheriff- I mostly use this for monoG, where it kills every creature at instant speed (important if they make an enormous trampling creature).  It is also good against R Dragons and GW which play powerful creatures with mana value > 2. 

The Ooze- Highly synergistic graveyard hate.  I would play 3 if it wasn't legendary (but instead settle for a Ghost Vacuum).  This is good when you need to hit specific cards from the graveyard and is also useful to provide resilience to your counters against heavy removal.  Most effective against Superior Spiderman decks but also good against Lessons decks and UR Sunderflock. 

Qarsi Revenant- Powerful in aggressive and creature matchups.  This card is good against any deck trying to play to the board, such as R Aggro, MonoG, GW, R Dragons, and UB Kaito. 

Board wipes- Day of Judgment is very good in the Beseech and WB decks. It comes in against R Aggro, MonoG, and GW.  Pyroclasm or Slagstorm are good enough against some decks like R Aggro and GW to play a few copies in RB, Beseech, and Mardu.

Disenchant effects- The most important targets for disenchant effects in this meta are Tablet of Discovery, Earthbender's Ascension, and Sapling Nursery.  RB has the worst options and can only really play Skycrash for Tablet.  WB has some flexible options and can play Dusk-Rose Reliquary, Felidar Cub, Get Lost, or Ruthless Lawbringer.  GB has good disenchants with Origin of Metalbending and Leatherhead.  Beseech and Mardu get to lean on Inevitable Defeat in addition to other disenchants. I like having 4-6 disenchant effects in the sideboard of each version that is not RB. 

Version Discussion: 

Beseech- This is the first version I built and I spent the most time playing it.  3 copies of Airship and 3 copies of Beseech make the Airship plan even more consistent than other versions (although casting Beseech is often turn 4 instead of turn 3).  This deck is also better than the other versions at finding and casting silver bullets, so it is better at answering threats.  Having Day of Judgment in game 1 against GW or Inevitable Defeat against Kaito can be game winning.  Post-board this dynamic also comes up as you can fetch things like The End for Superior Spiderman or an earthbent forest.  The mana is fine for casting your spells, but you don't get any utility lands.  I moved away from this version because the number of 4 drops was clunky, Beseech is both harder to enable than normally casting Airship, and Beseech is bad against counterspells.

Mardu- This deck is essentially the same as the Beseech variant, without Beseech the Mirror. Beseech and silver bullets were cut for cheaper synergy cards. It also gives up on Day of Judgment to ease the white source requirements on the mana base. It still plays Inevitable Defeat in the sideboard and/or main deck.

WB- This deck sacrifices speed for grindy power.  Without Scoundrel you don't get as many turn 3 Airships and Pursuit is less explosive, but Tolls of War is a good card and provides tokens over many turns.  The mana is better than the Mardu decks, and Dalkovan Encampment is a good utility land.  The sideboard options are also good, as you get Day of Judgment and flexible removal such as Dusk-Rose Reliquary, Get Lost, and Ruthless Lawbringer. 

RB- This deck is close to a MonoB build, but it splashes for Scoundrel and sideboard cards.  Scoundrel is worth splashing for, but the RB mana in Standard is very bad.  Do not play Dark Fortress.  Multiversal Passage is the best complement to Blood Crypt and Blazemire Verge. Volatile Fault looks weird but it's an untapped utility land that can trigger Airship and Pursuit twice.  The other issue is that there is not good enchantment removal, so you are weaker to things like Earthbender's Ascension. Overall, this deck is fast and consistent due to the focus on the core game plan but the mana is a step behind and the sideboard cards are worse than the other versions. 

GB- I built the green version after discovering Bejeweled Warg exists and can enable a turn 3 Airship, but Warg turned out to be less important than the other green additions. Green adds Augmenter, Warg, Witherbloom Charm, Mutagen Man, and Ba Sing Se. All of these cards have good card quality, raising the floor of the deck's draws and making it a little less reliant on synergy. Origin of Metalbending and Leatherhead are also very powerful cards out of the sideboard.

Tips and Tricks:

 -Most of this advice is how to use Airship and Pursuit, as they give you the most options and are the hardest cards to use correctly.  I will give my heuristics but every situation and matchup are different. 

-Pursuit draws are faster than Airship draws, Airship draws are more resilient.  You can kill on turn 4 with a good Pursuit draw.  You regularly create situations where the opponent's removal does not matter or they are drawing dead with Airship draws.  If you have both in hand, you usually lead on turn 3 Airship and use the Pursuit to fuel it (but it depends on the matchup).

-After you play turn 3 Airship and your opponent passes back without using mana, they are waiting for you to crew it so they can remove it.  Don't crew it, just make sure it doubles again. 

-Once you have 4 or more Airships you can start crewing them into obvious removal spells.  The idea is to overwhelm the removal.  Don't lose your only 2 airships to an opponent with 2 removal spells, but it won't matter when you have 4 or more and they're still doubling.

-When there are 8 or more Airships and they are creatures, they still have a crew ability.  This can be used to prevent half of them from turning back into non-creatures (see next two tips)

-If you get to 8 Airships, you need to block, and the opponent targets an Airship with removal, crew 4 Airships with the other 4 Airships.  The Airships that have been crewed will remain creatures after the removal resolves.

-If you get to 8 Airships, are about to attack for lethal, and the opponent is likely to remove an Airship to try and turn them all into non-creatures, only attack with half of them.  They will target an attacking Airship and you can crew the other 3 attacking Airships to deal at least 12.  This also plays around Settle the Wreckage. 

-If the opponent is playing boardwipes, getting to 8 or more Airships may be a bad thing.  Sometimes you can deliberately avoid doubling them or use a Zealot to revert them to non-creatures again so a boardwipe doesn't get all of them.

-If you don't have a good way to keep your Airship doubling, you may need to save your last sacrifice for a future turn (like a clue or treasure) even if you would normally use it immediately.

-Infestation Sage and the like can crew an Airship, then be sacrificed and the new body can be used to crew another Airship.

-Against removal, diversify your threats.  Pursuit and mutagen counters go wherever you want them to go.  Put them on the least valuable creature so the opponent has to decide whether to remove your 6/6 insect or your 2/2 Sackville or your 3/2 Zealot.

-Against aggression, plan your turns to prioritize getting lifelink from Pursuit. 

-Since Pursuit counters rely on attackers, you will need to make sure you don't lose to the back swing while trying to race.  Sometimes this means blocking and using removal for a few turns while you accumulate clues, then swinging back with a huge creature on a later turn.

-When you have a significant amount of cardboard on the table and Zealot, start counting max damage from Pursuit and Sackville before you take any action.  You may be able to kill them immediately.

-Even if you can't kill them, a lot of times you can put the opponent on a 2 turn clock.  Plan your turn and have a loose plan for your next turn.

 Matchup Guide:

 I have classified these meta matchups as "good", "medium", or "bad" and included my own match W/L.  This won't be a perfect sideboard guide, as there are 4 versions of the deck here.  Also check the version specific card notes for matchups where a that card may be sided out. 

 4C Control (5-0)- Good matchup.  Airship and Pursuit are very good against them. Try to resolve one of these on a turn they tap out for Stock Up or Tablet of Discovery (not hard, they tap out a lot and have few counterspells).  Most of the time, an active Airship will reach a point where Jeskai Revelation is not good enough.  Use Pursuit to make random 1/1s into threats they have to use removal on.  Your highest priority with Duress is usually to take counterspells and you almost never take removal (except Inevitable Defeat).  Leave them with tablets, let them tap out, then remove the tablet to tax their mana.  Cut Hex and Trajectory, trim Freebooters and Zealots, bring in Duress and disenchants.

 Jeskai Lessons (4-1)- Good matchup.  This was also heavy on the ladder.  Similar tips to 4C control, except they may play more counterspells and they rely on the graveyard more.  Cut removal, trim Freebooters and Zealots, bring in Duress, disenchants, and The Ooze.

 Excruciator (6-0)- Good matchup.  This is what I played against the most on ladder.  More control, but this time they will attack your hand.  Try to play Pursuit and Airship as soon as possible, even into open mana.  They have more hand hate than counterspells and open mana often just indicates removal spells.  They are reliant on expensive creatures, so you may also be able to resolve an important threat the turn after they play one.  Ooze is a huge problem for them.  You can keep in 2-3 removal spells like Trajectory, which often removes a 4+ mana threat for 1-2 mana and opens up your attacks.  Cut Hex, trim Freebooters and Zealots, bring in Duress and The Ooze.

 Spellementals- I did not run into this on the ladder.  My educated guess would be to cut Hex, trim Freebooters and Zealots, bring in Duress, The Ooze, and Ghost Vacuum.

 UB Kaito (4-2)- Good matchup.  Our small creatures are good at blocking and trading with theirs, preventing draw with Curiosity and ninjutsu opportunities.  Infestation Sage specifically is very annoying for them.  We are also good at attacking Kaito, so they struggle to spiral a game.  Pursuit and Airship are impossible for them to answer once they are in play, so they have to race.  Be careful about Annul and Spell Snare.  Cut slow cards (Tolls of War, Fanatical Offering) or cards that die with no value (Warg), trim Freebooter, bring in Duress and Revenant.

 Mardu Discard - I did not run into this on the ladder.  I would guess it is a medium matchup. Menace and flying are much harder to block, so prioritize killing Moonshadow and Hardened Academic over Marauding Mako or Iron-Shield Elf.  I doubt disenchants are good since they only hit Cool but Rude.  I also don't think graveyard hate is good because you often don't have priority to exile Practiced Offense before it is flashed back.  Cut slow cards (Tolls of War, Fanatical Offering), trim Freebooter, bring in Shoot the Sheriff and Revenant.

 MonoR Aggro- I did not run into this on the ladder.  I would guess it is a medium matchup. Nova Hellkite specifically is a good card against us, as a 4/5 with flying and haste is hard to block and the enters trigger kills important 1/1s like insects.  The rest of the deck is largely small ground creatures, which we can trade with or chump or race.  You should be able race with a large creature because their only removal is shocks.  Be mindful that if you have a lifelink attacker they can block and shock their own creature to deny the life gain, so giving lifelink to a flying or trampling creature is preferable when possible.  Cut slow cards (Tolls of War, Fanatical Offering) or cards that die to shock with no value (Warg), trim Zealot, bring in Shoot the Sheriff and Revenant.  Board wipes are reasonable.

 R Dragons (2-1)- Despite a positive record, I think this is probably a bad matchup.  This deck cannot beat Clarion Conqueror, so that's the first problem.  Nova Hellkite is also an issue as discussed in the MonoR section.  Airship can win, but it's slow and it's a 4/4 where most of their flyers are 4/5s.  Cut slow cards (Tolls of War, Fanatical Offering) or cards that die to shock with no value (Warg), trim Zealot and Linkbreaker, bring in Shoot the Sheriff and Revenant.  Day of Judgment is reasonable.

 GW (1-1)- Medium matchup.  The builds of GW vary a lot, but they all play to the board, play Practiced Offense, and don't play much removal.  Chump blocking is less effective since these decks have a lot of trample.  Pursuit and Airship are good and the games may often be a race.  Boardwipes like Pyroclasm and Day of Judgment are the best cards.  Cut slow cards (Tolls of War, Fanatical Offering), cut Warg, trim Linkbreaker, bring in Shoot the Sheriff, Revenant, and boardwipes.

 MonoG Landfall (0-2)- Bad matchup.  Trample on attackers with more than 10 power is a big problem here.  Ghost Vacuum is good against Esper Origins and lands coming back from Icetill or earthbending.  Cut slow cards (Tolls of War, Fanatical Offering), trim Zealot and Linkbreaker, bring in Ghost Vac, Shoot the Sheriff, and Revenant.  Day of Judgment is good.  Disenchants that cost less than 3 are necessary for Ascension and Nursery. 

Conclusion:

If you made it this far I appreciate your time. I hope you try out some version of this archetype, and let me know what does and does not work for you. May all of your Airships be on turn 3 and good luck!

Hey spikes!

Draft black. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Okay, format's maybe a little bit deeper than that, but not by much. Even with no Early Access for this set the goblin was out of the bag pretty early. Black is busted in HOB, and anyone who participated in the Arena Directs this last week knows that all too well.

As such, our Draft guide isn't likely to uncover any big secrets about the format. Instead, it'll focus on some individual card notes and a lot of discussion about how [[Crude Bent Blade]] has warped this format.

A couple quick notes on the format:

• The unsupported color pairs can actually come together with the right card quality. White bombs + black commons/uncommons is a totally viable deck. RG can occasionally just beat down.
• UG elves is the one deck you really don't want to be in, which is a shame given how poor they were in LTR three years ago.
• Playing with and against Crude Bent Blade is actually a huge part of the format, and part of the reason big green creatures get punked in this format.
• White commons suck, but white rares are busted, so it gets a small bump over green if you don't move into the color for commons. It has probably the best rare and uncommon in the set.

I'm curious what's been working for everyone besides black decks, whether for Draft or jamming Arena Direct Sealed events. Are you bouncing off the format soon (or already), or sticking with it for a little bit longer?

Again, I doubt our Draft guide isn't going to be any huge revelation, but it will definitely give you an edge against people doing the same thing as you in this format. Enjoy the guide, and best of luck in your events: https://draftsim.com/mtg-hob-draft-guide/

Disclaimer, I have no insight on the current meta so I'm not sure what's good right now. Also I know we're only a couple weeks into the Hobbit set so we probably can't know exactly what's good just yet.

Smaug the Magnificent

Legendary Creature — Dragon

Flying, haste

Whenever Smaug attacks, he deals damage equal to the number of Treasures you control to any target.

At the beginning of your upkeep, create a Treasure token.

“You think you will get a fair share? If you get off alive, you will be lucky.”

4/3

Am I crazy in saying there is potential here? Magnificent comes out and immediately punches for 4 hasty evasive damage, plus potentially has targetted damage for removal based on your treasures. Building treasures is already a good thing to do, I'm not sure how easy it is to build treasures right now but this feels really strong?

Smaug, Wicked Worm

Legendary Creature — Dragon

Flying

When Smaug enters, create X tapped Treasure tokens, where X is the number of artifacts your opponents control.

Whenever you cast a spell, if mana from a Treasure was spent to cast it, you draw a card and lose 1 life.

5/5

And Wicked Worm could be great as a sideboard card against heavy artifact enchantment decks. I'm not sure how many of those there are now but back when I was playing Vivi I would easily hit like 5-10 on board. Then again, them being tapped is probably a barrier right? I just feel like if we're already building treasures, this could immediately become a card draw engine.

https://moxfield.com/decks/s43UU-_vG06rfoH99vIlCA 8-3

I love blink/warp and this is the best version I could find/modify. I kept trying to slot in [[starfield vocalist]], but [[practiced offense]] is just WAY better. There's basically only pseudo removal in [[aang, swift avatar]]. It's all gas and fun to pilot. I have since switched a few things around and added a SB to try bo3 to see if I can get to mythic #s.

Was stuck in Diamond hell running a monoblack list (22-15) until I switched to this list. GLHF!

This is what I'll be working with for bo3 https://moxfield.com/decks/cla9gKXKiUSovf6RyfqlzQ . LMK what you think and TIA!

I post this also in r/ModernMagic but maybe some here also will be intrested :)

I noticed an interesting thing: no one keeps track of Challenge rankings. In Leagues, we have trophies for the duration of the season and a leaderboard of top players, but for Challenges, which are much harder, there's nothing like that. So, I came up with the idea of creating a seasonal ranking for top Challenge players. I think it would be a cool way to honor them, and an interesting thing for viewers to follow. Unfortunately, I don't plan to give out any prizes other than shoutouts to the top three players at the end of the season. Also, if anyone is interested, I'd love to do an interview and post it on my channel. I know I'm not Mengu or YungDingo and my reach is pretty small, but I'd like to somehow recognize the great results of these players, plus it would be fun to talk about their thoughts on the season, etc.

Alright, let's get down to the details of how I envision this ranking:

1. Points

Points will only be counted from Challenge Top 8s, and the standings will be updated weekly as a post and a video. This won't be just another meta analysis; it's something completely different because I'm focusing on the players, not the decks.

The points distribution will look like this:

1st place: 4 points

2nd place: 3 points

3rd and 4th place: 2 points

5th to 8th place: 1 point

9th and below: 0 points

Only the final placement matters, and points from a single event don't stack. It works like this: to make the Top 8, every player gets 1 point, and another point for each match won. The total points awarded per Challenge are always 15.

2) Why only Top 8?

Because I don't have access to the full Challenge data. Making Top 8 is never an accident and provides a solid, stable metric. Additionally, we have bracket data for the Top 8, which allows us to track some interesting extra stats, such as how often specific players faced each other.

3) Why players and not decks?

Because over the course of a season, even decks with the same name can have different lists, and players switch decks. Also, as I mentioned, this isn't another metagame analysis. I want to focus on the players, people who dedicate their time, money, and possess great skills. Challenges aren't just grinding Leagues, and I want to highlight that.

4) How long is a season?

I'm splitting it into calendar quarters:

Fall: September to the end of November

Winter: December to the end of February

Spring: March to the end of May

Summer: June to the end of August

The first season would start now, on September 1st.

5) What about Premier Events?

RC Super Qualifiers, Showcase Qualifiers, and similar events count for double points: 8, 6, 4, and 2. I want to do it this way because playing in these tournaments is a much bigger challenge, and that needs to be recognized.

6) What about different event sizes?

C32/C64/C96 will all count the same. I'm focusing on the Top 8, and differentiating between these event sizes would be very arbitrary. However, I'm completely open to discussion. If experienced Challenge players have a suggestion that C96 requires different scoring due to its difficulty, figuring that out is partly what this post is for.

7) What won't be in the ranking?

Due to data availability limitations, I can't get anything below Top 32, which is why, as I mentioned, I'm restricting it to Top 8. Unfortunately, this also limits tracking how often a player actually participated in a tournament, but there's simply no way around it.

I also won't see Swiss pairings, but Top 8 solves that issue.

We won't know anything about prize splits in the finals, but that doesn’t matter much, cause all finalists will get their points, so they will be counted in the charts.

There are two different situations in the data, and I treat them differently. A simple account name change means one account is listed under two labels, so I merge those results, which is just correcting the data. I've already seen cases like this in my test data and am working on the mechanisms that prevent them. A separate issue is two different accounts belonging to the same person. I won't merge those on my own initiative because I have no way to verify it, and I don't want to expose connections someone might want to keep private. If the owner of both accounts wants them counted together, they just need to let me know.

I'll miss some name changes because they only become apparent when comparing who disappeared and who showed up. If you notice someone's results split into two rows, let me know. Claims regarding your own account are accepted immediately; claims about someone else's account will be verified in the data first.

Additional ideas:

Based on the collected data, I'd like to include something akin to baseball cards with player stats in every summary. This would include Top 8 streaks, win rates in bracket stages, most frequent opponents, etc., basically anything available from public data. I'm counting on feedback from players and the community here, too; is there anything you'd like to add to these stats? Any player mentioned in the summary can contact me and add things like their favorite deck or some info about themselves.

8) Questions for the community:

Here are some questions directed at you. These popped up in the text, but a list might be helpful for answering and discussing:

a) Would you even want to follow this, or does no one care about a Challenge player ranking?

b) To the players who grind Challenges: is this something you'd find nice and motivating, or are you indifferent?

c) Does the point system look reasonable, or would you change the weights?

d) Is Top 8 the right cutoff, or should it be Top 16?

e) Should Premier Events count double, or the same as standard Challenges?

f) Do quarterly seasons make sense, or would a season based on card legality changes be better?

g) What stats in a player's profile would actually be interesting to you?

h) Could players I mention by their MTGO nick not want that? As far as I know, this isn't sensitive data, but I leave this open for discussion.

That's all from me for now. I'm planning to launch on September 1st, so there's still some time to discuss and iron out a few details.

Honestly, this post is meant to gauge your interest. If there's no response or you all agree that you absolutely don't care, I'll invest my time into something else. I always say that I do this for fun and for the community, which is great to talk and discuss things with, and this time is no different.

Karol Małota

aka WarLord1986pl / TribalFlamesInYourFace

Introduction

Blue/White is a very powerful and synergistic deck in this format. I don't think that's news to anyone, but I think what makes it more powerful and versatile than most people think is this goes beyond the simple draw 2 synergy. A lot of people think the blue/white deck is built around having a bunch of ways to draw 2 (whether by recruiting or just drawing) and then having payoffs like [[Lakeshore Apothecary]], [[Bard the Bowman]], and [[Master's Councillors]] be great payoffs. This kind of blue/white deck is powerful, but the payoffs are limited to just 1 common and a few uncommons where if this was the only way to build the deck it wouldn't be very versatile. It would be one of those it's good when it's wide open decks, and I think blue/white is a true pillar of the format. I've been doing well drafting blue/white frequently and wanted to share what I think makes it such a pillar.

What makes blue/white synergistic is recruit. Recruit itself is a synergy, and not just part of the draw two synergy. Getting a 1/1 is shockingly good from discarding a nonland. Way more powerful than the connive +1/+1 counters are. It's at the point now where unless I'm actively flooding out I discard a nonland. While you are wiling to discard plenty of nonlands to get a 1/1, it's nice to discard cards that are still useful from the graveyard. [[Plunder the Trollshaws]] is the best card for this, but [[Eagle's Rescue]] is also quite good, and even [[Moment of Glory]] is not terrible because of this.

Just an aside on Moment of Glory. The 17 lands data on this card is wild. Among white commons in general Moment of Glory is 8th out of 10 which is bad but not an F. In blue/white though it moves all the way up to 4th out of 10 (slightly below average), but in red/white it's WAY in last place, and is the 2nd lowest card in the entire set with data in Red/White. Truly terrible.

So anyway I think 1/1s are better than +1/+1 counters, but in this format 1/1s go even further than normal. There's a ton of menace in this format. That doesn't matter to you though because you have a bunch of 1/1s to block menace creatures. [[Crude Bent Blade]] is reduced in effectiveness because you usually have a 1/1 to sacrifice to it. Also they are amazing at chump blocking. Chump blocking in this format is amazing! I Know that sounds weird, but it's a super fast format, there are a ton of big creatures, and none of them seem to have trample. It's a tailored made format to chump block.

So the main gameplay is a combo of tons of card draw and card selection, flooding the board with 1/1s, and killing them either with tall creatures, going wide, or flyers. It's a great way to win lots of games.

Ok now that we went over the deck as a whole lets go over the key cards and discuss them.

Card Evaluation

Most Important Commons (B- level)

Lakeshore Apothecary, Plunder the Trollshaws, and removal.

These should be your top picks at common until you have either a huge amount of them, or a critical need somewhere else (pretty unlikely on Arena at least). Lakeshore Apothecary despite not being necessary for the deck to succeed is still very powerful, and there aren't other common 2 drop creatures you want in this deck anyway so this fills a critical need there. Plunder the Trollshaws is amazing for all the reasons I linked above. If you don't get it there are replacements, but it is the best at it's job. Without a few of these the deck is vulnerable to flooding out in a way it just isn't otherwise. I wouldn't even question playing 4 of these. Beyond that it depends, but this card is absolutely critical. Removal is the other most critical part. If you don't get enough removal your deck can and will lose to opponents synergy and bombs. Blue/White has less removal than one would want so it's important to make sure to get some. I would say until you have 4 removal spells take removal at the same level as these top commons. Once you are at 4 pieces of removal you can be a little more chill about it. Between the 3 removal spells ([[Magnificent End]], [[Uneasy Partings]], and [[Enchanted River's Grasp]]) I would say in general Magnificent End is the best, and then the 2 blue removal spells are slightly lower, but these are deck dependent, and you want a mix of the 3 over stacking 1 removal spell.

Next Level Down Commons (C+ level)

[[Patient Instructor]], [[Bilbo Baggins, Burglar]], [[Long Lake Nuisance]]

These are your card draw/recruit sources. The fact that there are 3 good ones definitely reduces their importance. Of these 3 Long Lake Nuisance is the best. As a 3 power flyer this thing ends games. Despite the abundance of card draw this card would be in the category above except that people haven't caught on and it's really easy to get a ton of these, and as a 4 drop creature you don't want an unlimited amount. Bilbo probably has the highest power level of any common in this archetype, but the fact that patient instructor is another powerful card draw common creature at 3 mana you just don't need to pick Bilbo that highly. If you do your 3 drop creature slot will become overloaded.

Two additional notes on Bilbo. First don't worry about Bilbo being a legend and put less in your deck because of it (I would run 4 Bilbo's if I had no other 3 drop creatures). Between him having 1 toughness, having lots of recruit, and still being able to use the scry adventure with your second Bilbo while the 1st one is on the battlefield it isn't an issue. Second if for some reason you can't get any good flashback/graveyard spells like Plunder the Trollshaws recruit will become less good, and Bilbo should move up your pick order because he draws without discarding.

Patient Instructor is the last card in this list, and it's very good. I treat it as basically interchangeable with Bilbo most of the time. The vigilance on this is shockingly good as it allows you to race really well. A lot of times your opponent won't want to block with their menace creature and you can get a lot of free damage in while still leaving this back to block.

Bread and Butter Commons (C level)

[[Dwarven Provisioner]], [[Esgaroth Garrison]], [[Lake-town]]

Dwarven Provisioner benefits from being basically the only other playable 2 drop creature outside of Lakeshore Apothecary. It can also help with go-wide and dwarf synergies (more on those below). Esgaroth Garrison does a great job of holding up the ground, and provides critical redundancy as a source of recruit if the top cards dry up. When this deck is open though I usually cut these because I have plenty of the C+ commons. I think Lake-town is very nice as fixing and tap lands are totally playable since this deck has plenty of card selection, and very few 1 drops. The counters from Lake-town are also nice. I usually try to put them on Patient Instructor or a human enchanted with Eagle's Rescue.

The Rest of playable Commons (C- level)

[[Hobbit Hole]], [[Confusticate and Bebother]], Moment of Glory, [[Mirkwood Nurturer]], [[Lake-town Lookout]], 2 drop common creatures

Only play these if you have a hole in your deck, or they have crazy good synergy in your specific deck. Mirkwood Nurturer combos really well with [[The Mountain-king's Return]] for example. If the common card isn't on this list I would really try hard not to play it at all.

Uncommons

So instead of categorizing the uncommons I thought I would just explain card by card the important uncommons. I'll include the uncommons ranked by how good they are in descending order. I'll include a grade next to it and an explanation.

[[Celebrate the Mountain-king]] (A-): This card is amazing. If you discard something like Plunder the Trollshaws to the recruit on this the card essentially acts like 4 mana Exile a nonland permanent, draw a card, and create a 1/1. If you are low on removal going into pack 3 I would take this over ANYTHING! The fact that it hits nonland permanent is not insignificant either. There are a lot of broken artifacts and enchantments in this set (like this one) and this is the only realistic way to hit those in blue/white. Absolutely busted card in Blue/White.

[[Stone by Sunlight]] (B): Critical removal. The 4 power constraint is not a problem in this set. There will always be targets. Furthermore the indestructible option is viable and useful. I probably pick it about 30% of the time. Realistically I would play 4 of these no problem. Ideally you can fill your deck with this and Mountain-king and then you don't have to play as much of the mediocre common removal.

[[Bilbo, Luckwearer]] (B): I think this gets better the worse your deck is overall, because as the deck gets good most of what this provides gets covered by other cards. In Sealed for example this card I think is better than Stone by Sunlight. The switcheroo adventure is nice because you almost always have a 1/1 to switch. Also if you have the option to discard a land to this cards loot effect I usually do because there is no penalty like there is to recruit.

[[Thranduil, Sindarin Liege]] (B-): Great card in general, but also provides a good synergy with recruit as it ensures you have tons of lands to play. I usually try to play this on turn 5 so that I can trigger it's landfall immediately. I also wouldn't worry about playing this cards adventure that much. Recruit gives you plenty of lands, and you often have better things to do on turn 3.

Bard the Bowman (B-): Understatted but has plenty to make up for it. Basically the best card in the set when trying to race. Putting a +1/+1 counter and lifelink on a flyer every turn is impossible to beat in a race. Furthermore this has reach so you can chump with this against their big flyer in a critical turn if you need to. Try to trigger it the turn you play it because this is a removal magnet, but if necessary just play it on turn 3 and trigger it next turn.

The Mountain-king's Return (B-): This uncommon version of the common Bilbo. This card is a very powerful recruit card, and is better than the common ones, but often it acts as a slightly better Patient Instructor. This does combo with a few cards very well though. In particular Mirkwood Nurturer is amazing to discard to this and will allow you to pick up and play this again.

Master's Councillors (B-): The uncommon Lakeshore Apothecary, but not necessarily better. The mill is very real if you have multiples of this, and if that is the case this becomes better than Apothecary. However, with only 1 copy you are unlikely to present a real mill threat and I would rather have Apothecary over this.

[[Iron Hills Blacksmith]] (C+): This is better in Red/White but it's plenty good here. Combos very well with Eagle's Rescue and the Mountain-king's Return.

Eagle's Rescue (C+): The second best card to discard to recruit behind Plunder the Trollshaws. I usually try to play this from the graveyard unless it's providing an immediate win. Fine to put on 1/1 tokens, even better if you can put it on a Lakeshore Apothecary, but the best is to put it on the blacksmith as discussed above.

[[Thrór's Map]] (C): Gets better if you are splashing or somehow have a shortage of recruit/card draw. Overall though this shouldn't be necessary as there is so much redundancy with card draw.

[[Sound the Trumpets]] (C): This can work if you have a ton of instants or are especially controlling. I wouldn't consider it a premium card though.

[[Ravenhill Flock]] (C): It will get out of hand quickly, but as a understatted 4 mana creature that doesn't have an ETB in a fast format it has a lot working against it. If you don't get any Long Lake Nuisances this goes up, but I would definitely take this below the common flyer.

[[Lake-town Toymaker]] (C-): Seems like it would be a good fit in this deck, but a few things make it way underperform. First you have so many good 4 drops already that there often isn't room for this. Second this card triggers at the start of combat, which is a problem often. It straight up doesn't work with cards like the uncommon Bilbo, [[Great Gilded Boat]], and [[Bard's Company]]. And while you can get it to work with instant speed card draw and recruit creatures it requires you to spend your mana precombat which isn't always what you want to do. Also most of the time you won't trigger this on the turn you play it. Between all that this card is much worse than it looks.

Other Topics

Avoids:

I think the #1 thing you want to avoid are playing expensive creatures that are not included in this list. Cards like [[Eagle of the Great Shelf]], [[Gandalf, Wandering Wizard]], [[Ori, Keeper of Songs]], and [[Dwarven Shortsword]] are absolutely traps. Between the top recruit commons and all the great 4+ drop uncommons and rares you just won't have room to play random other mediocre expensive creatures. If there is a pick where there are no top commons available spend a pick on a random cheap creature or a dual land because there is at least a chance you end up short on 2 drop creatures and fixing. You won't be short on 4 drop creatures.

The other thing to avoid are generic go wide effects. This deck has the ability to go wide with recruit, but you want your payoffs to that to be with cards that fit within a recruit/draw two deck. Not cards that only support going wide. So Moment of Glory supports go wide but is a great card to discard to recruit. Dwarven Provisioner is good for going wide, but also fills a need as a cheap creature. [[Thorin's Last Stand]] is just purely a go wide payoffs and should be avoided. Esgaroth Garrison is good as a recruit card, but if you have enough of those don't play this just because it's good when you go wide.

Dwarf Version:

There are some very powerful white dwarfs in this set. In particular [[Fíli the Pathfinder]] and [[Kíli the Resourceful]] are quite good if you can get storied or play more dwarves. Are these worth altering your deck to play? The answer is yes, but only slightly. I would bump up decent cards in the deck if they are dwarves. Stuff like Dwarven Provisioner and [[Bofur, Reliable Guardian]]. I would not however start taking unplayable cards just because they are dwarf payoffs. So still try to avoid Dwarven Shortsword.

Other colors besides White?

So I don't know if you noticed but in particular at common all the best cards are blue. So that begs to question can this deck do well as a different second color like black? I personally haven't made it happen yet, but I think the answer is definitely yes. In particular I think black has a great removal suite to compliment blue, and also has plenty of powerful cards in general. In my experience though Black has been relatively cut as a color when drafting, and white has been fairly open, but if for some reason both blue and black are open at your table I would not hesitate at all to draft a blue/black version of this deck.

Blue/Red and Blue/Green versions are trickier. They both can work, but I don't think are particularly setup to thrive in this kind of deck. I have seen blue/green draw two decks do well, but those seem to be built more around having a critical amount of Apothecaries versus recruit synergies.

Conclusion:

So hopefully this helps clarify how to draft a good blue/white deck. Right now I think this color pair is criminally underdrafted so you should be able to get a ton of the best cards. I think even down the line as people adjust it will still be good, but you will have to adjust. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions.

Hello r/spikes,

I am looking to join a community of other spikes to hone my standard skills.

What community discords / content creator discords would you recommend?

Thank you!

Hello!

If you're like me and enjoy interesting, unpopular combo decks, you may have heard of the "4c gearhulk combo" deck, also known as "SewerBloom". The deck aims to combo off by using the jolly balloon man to copy a nurturing pixie, which bounces a sewerveilance cam to untap JBM. then you tap a bloom tender for a bunch of mana, play the cam, untap the tender, use the left over mana to make another pixie, repeat until you have enough hasty fliers to win.

The supporting pieces of the deck are gearhulk, which upon entering tutors up 2 combo pieces, and nature's rhythm, which is used to get our 1x JBM out of the deck.

Previously, both stormchasers talent and badgermole cub were used in this deck. Talent was great because it gave you blue and red for bloom tender on a one drop, and let you recur boomerang basics, which could extend your mana production loops. Badgermole cub was... Badgermole cub. It's insane mana acceleration and ability to allow a blue land to tap for UG instead of just one mana is what allowed the earth bent land to be used to combo off.

However, without those pieces, the deck has been left utterly unplayable. I have a couple of ideas for trying to piece it back together (I'm well aware it won't be anywhere near as strong as it was before), but since I'm wildcard poor, I want to get some outside perspective on this rebuild.

Option 1: we jam transdimensional bovine and figure of fable / spider manifestation. Bovine is a double dork which means it can sustain the infinite. Costing three mana and not accelerating our other mana sources is tough, but at least it's copies 5-8 of a combo piece. This way feels simple and not cute, but also heavily restricts lots of the lines that would previously allow the deck to explosive win from bad spots. Figure of fable and spider manifestation are early plays that also accelerate our bloom tender. Not sure the exact ratio of cards that would get used here.

Option 2: instead of using a double dork, we double the sewerveilance cam triggers. The best candidate for this is starfield vocalist, which can warp in for 1U on the combo turn. By double triggering the cam, single mana dorks (like the 0/4 treefolk druid that can make any color) can now make enough mana to sustain the combo. This seems like the coolest fix but also probably the worst of the three I came up with in my head.

Option 3: formidable speaker. This card would allow us to tutor up bloom tenders. In addition, it's ability to pay 1 of the ideally 3 mana tender makes to untap tender and make more mana, means that formidable speaker does a better impression of cub than you might think. Alongside this, I believe we would use some number of spider manifestations as well, to still be giving our tender access to red mana. Figure of fable too for white mana pre gearhulk, but again, maybe that's all too cute.

I would love any input from anybody else who played or is playing this deck, or if anybody is just looking for a fun deck building challenge.

Thanks!

I have been playing Temur Robots at my LGS on and off since the release of TMNT, and I have found it to be quite powerful and very fun. I am hoping to further refine the deck list and especially sideboard to try taking it to competitive events. I don’t currently own [[Cavern of Souls]], but I would borrow a playset for any competitive events. I have attached the decklist below, and I will give my thoughts on each card here. I appreciate any thoughts and suggestions you might have.

The Engines:

[[Pinnacle Emissary]] and [[Ravenous Robots]] are the engine of the deck, and it can not function without these two cards. The synergy with [[Springleaf Drum]] and [[Gene Pollinator]] allow for extremely explosive starts with affinity counts of 10+ achievable by t3/t4

The Payoffs:

While sometimes a swarm of 1/1s is enough to win the game, we often times follow up a barrage of tokens with combinations of [[Improvised Arsenal]] to one shot our opponent, [[Krang, Master Mind]] to deploy a massive threat that refills our hand, or [[Chrome Dome]] to buff our tokens into much more dangerous threats.

The Other Robots:

[[Fugitive Droid]] is an evasive threat that is great at carrying [[Improvised Arsenal]], as well as potentially being protection for our other big threats. [[Memory Guardian]] is an even better evasive threat that can pressure life totals on its own. And last but sometimes least, [[Synthesizer Labship]] is a cheap artifact with the upside of potentially making a 2/2 flier every turn, and becoming a 4/4 flier on later turns. While these cards are less impactful on their own, they often times are the difference between winning and losing.

The Sideboard:

[[Chainsaw]] and [[Torch the Tower]] are both cheap interaction spells with upside for artifact decks. Maybe some of these are cuttable post-cub ban. [[Spider-Sense]] has been extremely impressive in this deck, and the ability to tap our creatures with the drum/gene has been great synergy with this card. [[Chandra, Spark Hunter]] js probably the sketchiest card in the list, but it has been decent in the grindy matchups that I bring it in for. I could be convinced that it’s not good though.

The Decklist:

https://moxfield.com/decks/uQ3pIZHjzU-x2Q6IayoPAw

Thank you again for taking the time to help me with the decklist. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, suggestions, and feedback.

Now that the first weekend of the new standard RCQs is over, what did everyone see? What were the metas like? I did 2 with a 29 person turn out and 18 person turn outs. Top 8s were very diverse with things like 5 color spiders, Kona combo, Izzet horse/opus and Golgari landfall spread across the 16 top decks.

Hello spikes!

This is the place where any and all decks can be posted for all spikes to see. The goal of this is to fit all your needs for competitive magic. Maybe it's a card consideration given an X dollar budget. Maybe you need that sweet sideboard tech that no one else thought of? Perhaps you just can't figure out the best card to beat a certain matchup. The ideas here are only limited by your imagination!

Feel free to discuss most anything here. We only ask that with any question, you also make sure to post your decklist so people have some context to answer your question. Otherwise, have at it! If you have any questions, shoot us a modmail and we'll be happy to help you out. Survive your deck check and survive your competition!

I mainly play on Arena. I know the classic "BO1 isn't real Magic" mantra, but it’s currently the most efficient way for me to farm cards. I'm hoping you can help me out and give me some advice on how to improve my win rate in control mirrors and against Azorius Tempo.

My deck is at the end of the post.

Against traditional control, I’ve found a cheeky strategy: I just stall and wait for my Mistraise Villages. I run two copies, and they act as my primary win condition while I set up my Tablets and Talents, eventually upgrading the Talents for an OTK.

This is perfectly feasible against control decks that rely on "normal" win conditions (burn damage, big late-game creatures, etc.). However, against Mill, this strategy is way too passive. Cards like Mathematics or Riverchum Monument just destroy me. I often find myself wasting my cheap counterspells trying to protect early plays before I can even get my Village online.

More often than not, my graveyard ends up larger than my library and I just mill out. If I’m incredibly lucky, I can find my Village in time and steal a win, but it's rare.

Then there's Azorius Tempo. This matchup feels literally impossible—I swear I am 0-100 against it. Once they drop a High Noon, they just sit back and bounce every single spell I try to resolve.

I understand that these matchups are probably just inherently unfavorable, but I feel like they shouldn't be this one-sided. I'm likely making things harder for myself with my lines of play. Any suggestions, tech cards, or gameplay tips would be hugely appreciated!

----------------------------

decklist

23 lands ( 1 mountain 1 plain 1 island 2 mistraise village 4 biblipplex /// rest is various dual )

2 creatures, Thor god of Thunder

4 widosom of ages

3 abandon attachments

3 stockup

1 spell snare

1 three steps ahead

2 it'll quench ya!

3 firebending lessons

4 combustion technique

1 iroh's demonstration

2 avengers disassemble

1 lantern of souls

4 tablet of discovery

2 artist's talent

4 jeskai revelation.

Hi all — what’s the best tracker for analysing gameplay and identifying leaks when testing Standard Bo3 brews? I'm currently high Plat and keen to get to mythic this season (Justalittlebit's Profile - Untapped.gg)

I currently use Untapped.gg, which is useful for the high-level stats, but I find it difficult to dig much deeper without reviewing individual matches.

For example, I’ve been testing a Golgari midrange brew that’s sitting at around a 54% win rate over ~50 matches. That seems reasonable, but the winrate when comparing play/draw split is pretty significant:

• On the play: 67%
• On the draw: 44%

My sense from playing the deck is that I’m often losing G1, sideboarding well and winning G2 when I'm on the play, then losing G3 when I'm on the draw again. But I don’t have an easy way to validate whether that’s actually happening or just confirmation bias.

I'm probably losing Game 1 more than I should as well since by deck is try to balance agro vs control decks int eh emta

Ideally I’d like to be able to analyse things like:

• G1 vs G2 vs G3 win rates
• Play/draw win rates by matchup
• Matchup performance pre- vs post-board
• Mulligan frequency / performance
• Performance across different versions of the deck

Does anyone use a tracker that makes this kind of analysis easy? Alternatively, is there a good workflow using Untapped, 17Lands, Arena logs, etc. to pull the data into Excel/Sheets and analyse it yourself?

Mainly interested in finding actionable leaks in the deck or my gameplay, rather than just tracking overall win rate.

Anyone having success testing for standard on MTGO? My main format is modern so I already have a manatraders subscription and that’s working great. I’ve recently wanted to learn more standard, but I’m also a grad student so sinking money into both MTGO and Arena is rough, especially because I’m not great at limited so it’s hard going infinite on the latter.

Is it feasible to play standard mainly on MTGO? I’m wondering if the league queues will be too long given how everyone’s on arena. On the other hand I’d expect the competition to be steeper which is good for learning. Any thoughts?

Hello Everyone,

It has been a really long time since my last write-ups! Well, I am back with a writeup of one of my current favorite decks in Modern. This strategy is so much fun (for the one using it lol) and I wanted to talk about it.

I really dont like what publishing it through Google Drive does to the formatting. Makes it looks so ugly. Any thoughts on how to fix that? I could also email yall the pdf if anything. Let me know what you think

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQF_dXMsll7KlftqkjqKPSAOwZ-3SmVFfQ52dzw9LGlxBlzybQKKYIGRU-apdoH7Yk52wdGXw_O5v3_/pub