Hey Everyone! Josh here with another article for Wizard's Den! I want to start by thanking everyone for checking out the last article. I hope it has helped get a feel for what standard may look like this Friday!
Unless you live under a rock you know last weekend was the Khans of Tarkir prerelease. I had the opportunity to play only one single and one 2 headed giant event but I had a blast! I want to talk about some of the cards and mechanics that really stood out to me so let's jump right in!
As anyone who read my last article already knows, I love my Temur. That being said it should go as no surprise that this was my guild of choice at both events I played. The massive power of it's creatures alongside the insanely powerful morph cards makes Temur a Clan to be reckoned with. I would like to share my decklist from my only solo play prerelease I was able to play (though our two headed giant deck for me was INSANE)
Temur prerelease pack
(Promo: Trap Essence)
1x Smoke Teller
1x Highland Game
1x Heir of the Wilds
1x Icefeather Aven
1x Bloodfire Mentor
2x Monastery Flock
1x Mardu Heart-Piercer
1x Bear's Companion
1x Surrak Dragonclaw
1x Avalanche Tusker
1x Ainok Tracker
1x Glacial Stalker
2x Snowhorn Rider
1x Woolly Loxodon
2x Singing Bell Strike
2x Bring Low
1x Ghostfire Blade
1x Temur Banner
1x Incremental Growth
1x Thornwood Falls
1x Frontier Bivouac
5x Forest
5x Island
5x Mountain
I was able to finish 4-0 with this list thanks to the power of morph and it's little friend Ghostfire Blade. The deck has a good ammount of removal for the early and late game in the form of Singing Bell Strike and Bring Low. My only issue with the Singing Bell Strike was how bad of a draw it is in the late game, and how bad in general it is if the game goes extremely long. I did like having the green Cone of Flame which is realistically what Incremental Growth is.
I'm not sure what the third undefeated player chose at this release but there was also an Abzan player as well.
The mechanics that were heavily played this weekend were Raid, Morph, and Outlast (I'll talk briefly about Prowess, Delve and Ferocious as well)
Raid: This mechanic was a perfect support mechanic in my opinion. It allows you to benefit off your attacks with key abilities that range from a few points of burn, to making creatures. I really enjoied the Mardu Heart-Piercer this weekend as his ability to kill several problematic creatures or win you a game is pretty amazing.
Morph: I picked up limited destroyer Tim Z (the 4-0 Abzan player) before the event and asked him about morph and he said to just play them all. I'm glad I played as many as I could. Morph is a ridiculous mechanic that makes combat very difficult for your opponent. You have the ability to blank removal by morphing in response, your opponent literally has to hope they are hitting the right thing. Temur is a great clan to play if you are looking for a strong morph deck, though I recomend playing just about every morph card in your colors. I say this due to the inability to play around the card flipping and due to it's ability to deny your opponent the information of what creatures are actually on the battlefield.
Outlast: This mechanic was a little less flashy than I had hoped as you are often left with the decision to advance your board or to buff your guys. Late game it is significantly better if you can position the game to a huge board stall that is going no where. While this may be common in regular sealed the prerelease packs made for some pretty well honed decks it seems.
Delve: This mechanic is very potent in small doses. Reducing the number of cards with delve in your deck assures that your spells are at excellent value and very potent as far as their casting cost. I personally am a big fan of Sultai Scavenger, Treasure Cruise, Dead Drop and Murderous Cut. All of these cards can be a huge swing in your favor and get even better when cast for next to nothing allowing you to play a critical spell late in the game and a second spell of choice. I'm not a fan of loading up on all of the delve due to the inability to consistently have enough cards in the bin to actually get value off of every delve card you case.
Prowess: While this mechanic is deceivingly powerful, I feel as though it is counteracting itself before you even actually cast a spell. It's very hard to have some form of trick every turn meaning everything has to be perfectly timed to optimize the bonus from prowess. Misuse of a spell could cause a missed blow out or potentially worse, cause you to miss a big damage turn with a flurry of noncreature spells.
Ferocious: This mechanic is really powerful with certain cards. An example of this came in my 2 Headed Giant event this weekend. Using Temur Ascendency alongside several morph creatures allowed huge card advantage throughout the evening and even gave made my Heir of the Wilds a sweet buff on occasion.
I hope this gives some brief insight to some of the cards and power of some of the mechanics Khans of Tarkir has brought to the table. I leave you today with the list of the Standard deck I almost sleeved up to have some fun this Friday.
UW Dragons Throne
4x Loyal Pegasus
4x Soldier of the Pantheon
4x Raise the Alarm
4x Chief Engineer
4x Triplicate Spirits
3x Scuttling Doom Engine
3x Soul of New Phyrexia
3x Colossus of Akros
3x Dragon Throne of Tarkir
4x Banishing Light
4x Flooded Strand
6x Island
14x Plains
This deck's goal is to be really, for lack of a better word, silly. This deck is built idealy to get artifact convoke going with a Chief Engineer and all of the other cheap creatures on the battlefield. From here the goal is to get a Colossus of Akros on the battlefield with a Dragon Throne of Tarkir. From here the fun begins. If you've kept your cheap creatures through this process you probably win the game. Not only that, but as crazy as this sounds, I don't think the format is going to jump right to Silence the Believers or Utter End and I really think that with how slow the format is going to be, there is room for this guy to, on occasion, get a game on his own by going monstrous. If anyone decides to give this a try let me know in the comments how you do and if there are any improvements that might help the deck.
I hope this article helps out in deciding how limited may shape up for the last few PTQ's before the new system starts up. I hope someone gets to live the Colossus dream as well!
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