Yesterday marked the beginning of the new standard season, the older sets are now out and only M15, Theros, Journey, Born and Khans remains. Last night I went with a little bit of a prototype deck to FNM and I went 3-1 only losing to Rabble Red in the final round. This deck I have dubbed “BUG Super Friends”, after one of my favorite standard decks of all time Esper Super Friends. The deck I built worked with these strategies in mind:
1: Ultimate a Planeswalker
2: Mid-Range Aggressive
3: Graveyard Recursion / Lifegain
Ramp:
(4) Elvish Mystic
(3) Embodiment of Spring
(4) Sylvan Caryatid
(3) Courser of Kruphix
One of my late construction adds was the Embodiment of Spring and I have to say, this card is awesome. It provides an early game beefy blocker with the ability to stand in front of a big creature and sack it and get a land. It’s not the fastest way to ramp but it certainly added value to the deck and helped me mana fix if I was coming up short.
Removal:
(3) Sultai Charm
(3) Hero's Downfall
The card that I was most excited to play and happiest to see in my hand from my removal package was the Sultai Charm, this card is pretty much all upside and it is the only charm with 4 options!
Midrange:
(3) Polukranos, World Eater
(3) Soul of Zendikar
(2) Hornet Queen
With all the ramp in this deck Hornet Queen could easily come in on turn 4 or 5 turning a usual late game card into a mid game card. She was the MVP of my midrange and just destroyed Wingmate Roc. A choice most people would consider “odd” was the Soul of Zendikar. A friend of mine suggested this card to me as a possible way around board stalls and would fit in with the Graveyard strategy and he wasn’t wrong. I highly suggest taking another look at this card if you have completely written it off as it just adds so much value to the deck.
Planeswalkers:
(2) Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
(2) Kiora, the Crashing Wave
(1) Nissa, Worldwaker
(2) Clever Impersonator
Ok, before I get angry comments and people dump sacking my front door let me address the elephant in the room. Yes, I know Clever Impersonator is not a Planeswalker, I get it. But I do have him in the deck with the soul purpose of copying another player’s Planeswalker and this was an actual play from last night.
My turn: I play Kiora, the Crashing Wave
Opponent’s Turn: Plays Garruk, Apex Predator and kills my Kiora, the Crashing Wave
My turn: I play Clever Impersonator copying my opponent’s Garruk, Apex Predator and I kill his Garruk.
After that, my opponent was pretty much done and I won the match a few turns later.
Another card that was an all star in my matches was Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. With there being so many aggressive decks now in the format she just out grew the most of them and many of the early game swingers couldn’t get past my Caryatids and Coursers. I think 2 copies is a good place for them at this time as I really don’t want to see her more than once a game.
Graveyard Recursion / Lifegain:
(2) Whip of Erebos
This card is truly magnificent. I cannot stress this enough. The decks that went 4-0 that were not Rabble Red all had some form of lifegain in them (including one very interesting American build which I’ll try to get a snapshot for twitter for next week). Once I was able to get this out and had any of my midrange cards I was pretty much a lock for victory. At one point I was gaining 23 life a turn and just destroying my opponents board with 4/4 lands, 3/3 beasts and a 6/6 Soul it was just awesome. My opponent conceded because they just didn’t have anyway to do enough damage to win the game. Another reason I like the whip so much is because it allows me to recur my Hornet Queen giving me 4 extra deathtouch creatures at the end of turn. The whip lets also lets me recur Clever Impersonator giving me a chance to copy something huge just one more time and possibly win the game as a result.
Land Base / Sideboard:
Honestly, I don’t want to talk to much about the land base and the sideboard right now as this is something I’m still working hard to correct. When it came to the lands I never had a problem with mana fixing but I still feel that it can be better and since the sideboard isn’t complete (as the meta hasn’t settled yet) I’m still working on it.
Next FNM:
I’ll let you know how this deck runs in the weeks to come through twitter (please make sure to follow) as I do really like keeping this site for Commander articles and news mostly.
