GP Louisville brews

This, or some variant thereof, is what I REALLY want to play.... Grindy, durdling, slow, control...  Something with Ral Zarek... I liked him from the moment they spoiled him... His ultimate is unpredictable.  Awesome at some points, and completely worthless at others.  His other two abilities are really solid... -2: deal 3 damage to target creature or player.. You can do that twice without ever using his +1... Pretty good value even at that, particularly against aggressive strategies.  I really like his +1 too...  If you want him to, he sort of costs 3 mana instead of 4.  The ability to untap a land every turn provides so much more flexibility and control over your manabase.  I wouldn't be surprised to see him in some 3-color decks in the coming months.  The "tap" component of his +1 ability lends itself very well to aggressive strategies, so a deck that's a little less top-heavy might end up being the way to use him.  In the control mirrors, however, the tap ability can be used to force the opponent to be more careful about how he spends his mana, so that he leaves mana up for counterspells.
Red Deck Wins is super-efficient, beastly, and performing really well.  It's also the largest part of the metagame.  I don't like netdecking.  I die a little inside while looking at decks online.  They are good lists... Just something  about playing other people's decks unsettles me.  Maybe I'll get over it eventually.

Might just say fooy on it and play what I want to since I'm going mostly for fun, and for the opportunity to connect with non-Christians.

BR aggro is another consideration.  There are a billion ways to build it, and I haven't been able to thumb my nose at any of them.

White Weenie hasn't been performing well (at least not that I've seen... and I haven't seen much), but there's a really, really good 75 in there somewhere.

The deck I definitely don't want to be on this GP is GW aggro.  EVERYONE running control is running Ratchet Bombs it seems...  Fleecemane Lion was one of my favorite cards in Theros, but with good sweepers in the format, I feel like the 2-for-1 potential of that card drops significantly.  Sure, it's possible, but the rest of your board is still gone.  Think I'd prefer playing a different deck regardless.

Deck Review: Birthing Pod

Was going through my list of articles and realized this one never got posted.  It's outdated and short, but its points are still pretty valid.

Podding has not produced as many sound results as anticipated.  The deck, despite its sound strategy of pouring a steady stream of threats onto the battlefield, is difficult to pilot perfectly. 

In addition, the deck fails to attack the opponent on multiple levels.  Two good examples of attacking the opponent on multiple levels can be found in two of the top tier decks: Wolf Run can win through Titan and friends attacks as well as Inkmoth Nexus, and Red Deck Wins has Shrine of Burning Rage.  While Shrine of Burning Rage isn't exactly a different level, it allows the red deck to play a different game than the opponent is.  For every red spell cast and every turn that passes, the shrine can do an additional point of damage, forcing the opponent to play as though he had much less life than  he actually does.

Consistency issues are the final nails in the coffin.  The deck can't count on having a Pod every game, and when it doesn't, it plays out as an inferior ramp deck. 

The State of Standard

Standard is a pretty healthy format at the moment.  With Nationals approaching, there are several tier 1 decks to be considered.  Wolf Run Ramp, Red Deck Wins, and Solar Flare are the big three.  Tempered steel, with its ability to steal games, is not one to be counted out, but does not have the raw power of the top tier decks.

Solar Flare is moving away from Liliana and towards Jace, Memory Adept.  I believe this is among the proper approaches to take, as Liliana is weak in the Wolf Run Ramp matchup.  Of the big three, Wolf Run Ramp seems to be the deck to beat.  The top 8 of Grand Prix Brisbane featured 4 Wolf Run Ramp, 3 UB control, and 1 WG Hero of Bladehold beatdown deck.  View the results for yourself here.  Among the UB control lists was a Tezzeret deck.  Any of the top decks that could fit it in ran Wring Flesh.  Having a 1-mana out to annoying X/1 creatures outside of red is worthy of inclusion.  Wring Flesh as a maindeck card in UB control is probably a good enough reason to avoid running Tempered Steel in the present format.  Oddly enough, the winner of the tournament was UB control.  The deck is legit.  Untapping with a Concecrated Sphinx against any deck seems good.  The card's primary weakness is its lack of an immediate effect.  The deck's other finishers make up for that quite nicely.  UB control's finishers are immune to Dismember, at least if the red zone is not considered in the equation.  If the deck isn't tier 1, it is very close.


There are other tournament results to consider.  The StarCityGames.com Standard Open brings more lists to the table.  There were a great number of innovations in the tournament, as pointed out by Mike Flores here.  For innovative Solar Flare decks, Christian Valent's decklist takes the cake.  The deck features no planeswalkers at all.  None.  Not even in the sideboard.  The deck is a thing of beauty.  As a concession to aggressive strategies, the deck has a miser Celestial Purge, 3 Timely Reinforcements, and 2 Day of Judgment.  In the current meta, I don't know that such a decklist would work.  Ghost Quarter is a must to deal with Kessig Wolf Run and Inkmoth Nexus.  Running lands that don't tap for colored mana can really strain a deck working off of 3 colors.  However, switching numbers around a bit and overhauling the mana base may produce a list that has a solid chance.  The tournament saw decks that ran fewer than four Mana Leak.  Personally, I don't like the card at all right now.  You are quite often outside Mana Leak range once you see something relevant to counter with it.