Season 27 for both MPDC and SPDC is getting to its final moments as the new cards from Fate Reforged begin to be made available in MTGO. We talked about the new cards previously and I've got the overall feeling most of the new cards are not going to be added to the existing top decks and while I am a bit skeptical about this, I can see some of those cards improving "tier 2" (do we have tires in Standard Pauper?) decks like Mono Red aggro.
Of course we will know about that very soon, but only when the new cards hit our beloved tournaments.
To get you started, I'm bringing here my two current brews aiming for the next season.
Disclaimer: these decks were loosely tested using software that lets you play the game without rules enforcement and all the other goodies MTGO has to offer. They are in early stages of development and will be tested and tweaked in MTGO during the next weeks. So don't expect them to be ready to competitive play.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel is without any doubt one of the most powerful cards in Standard Pauper right now, second only to Treasure Cruise. But despite all the sheer power Gary had, he hasn't shined in KTK season as much as he used to do in the previous formats. This is because of the lack of synergy black cards have with him in the current card pool. Gary really misses Devour Flesh, Basilica Screecher, Quag Sickness and Stab Wound, as well as the fine creatures with double black mana casting cost RTR had. Also, the fact that current removal is so weak and White is always adding new protecting spells to it's arsenal, makes things even worse.
The solution is to pair Black with other colors, be it Blue for better card draw and bouncing tricks to replace removal or White or Red for better removal. That way, Gary decks could retain part of their power and the Merchant got five wins out of 21 appearances in the Top 4. Not bad, really, but most of them were in the first half of the season, before Boros Heroic, Izzet Control and White Weennies were consolidated as the decks to beat in the format.
Then FRF arrives and I want to talk about a card that may not be obviously fit for a Gary style deck, but I'm pretty sure it will find a home there. Meet Harsh Sustenance:
This card obviously fit a token swarming deck very perfectly and the token shell is the one most people will try to fit it in. But with it's effect somehow mirroring Gary's ETB trigger and being a 3 mana instant removal as well (something MBC and family misses badly), I want to try it in a control deck. We could start adding it and some token generating cards to Orzhov Control, but I feel we can use Gary's real power more effectively when we pair him with Treasure Cruise. This way we can make up for the slowness of the deck and the bad quality of other creatures by drawing billions of cards.
The deck I use as a base is my Dimir Gary Discard deck, which my friend Dan has been showcasing in MagicGatheringStrat youtube channels. Here is a sample match:
It is a grindy and ugly deck trying to make up for the usual weakness of this kind of decks to cards like Gods Willing and Feat of Resistance, by using Black Cat, Mardu Skullhunter and Disciple of Phenax to force our opponent to cast those cards in moments he do not want to do it, leaving his creatures open to further bouncing and removal. You can check a list here. Now, to be able to use Harsh Sustenance we need more creatures and white mana, which can be a problem, so we are tweaking our mana base and starting with three Harsh Sustenance. White can generate more creatures so we are also adding two copies of Raise the Alarm (which can later be replaced by Sandsteppe Outcast, since the flying ability of the token can be very important). We are also going to add a single Scholar of Athreos, since we are all about the drain game and she is a great mana sink. To finish our brew, we are testing Sultai Emissary: it is not an impressive card, but it replaces itself with another creature when it dies, keeping our creature count.
We don't need a huge amount of creatures to make Harsh Sustenance effective here. The card will serve as instant removal and as a way to put us back in the game after taking some early damage. After the Gary-Draw-Gary stage of the game started, Harsh Sustenance can also finish him before he has a chance to come to balance.
The sideboard is pretty much the one I use in the current meta plus Whisk Away, one of the best commons from Fate Reforged.
The Simic Manifest
My other brew tries to create a new deck based around the Manifest mechanic. The new cards Ethereal Ambush and Write into Being are really interesting, specially the later which can be really powerful setting up some tricks depending on the card you chose to manifest. Since it is required by Ethereal Ambush, I chose Simic colors to work with but this is mainly a Blue deck splashing Green.
We will use Blue suite of bouncing effects to slow our opponents and get manifested cards back to our hand when we need them. Divination and Treasure Cruise will get our game going, Nessian Asp and Lotus Path Djinn are our beaters, in case the manifest creatures can't handle it by themselves. We have no removal, but Nullify can be extra valuable here since we are running Voyage's End, Peel from Reality and Whisk Away to force our opponent to cast his creatures again. Jeskai Sage is not a very good creature, but it can be cast and morphed for cheap, which means we can pay 1B to draw a card when it is about to die if it's faced down. I thought about having Sedge Scorpion for surprise Deathtouch or some Morph creatures to get more value out of manifest, but none of them is really good, so here is the list I want to try:
A new card that is surely going to be a major player in the next months is Temur Battle Rage. It is probably an auto include in RDW and Boros. Here is what I think Boros can look like with the new card. Prepare to become very frustrated when you face this card. It will stole many games from you.
That's all folks, let's see what the new format will look like. Have a good one!
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