The Greatest standard format of all time in 10 decks

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Mistborn
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The Greatest standard format of all time in 10 decks

Post by Mistborn »

I've spent a lot of time gushing over the old Ravnica block but coming off a format that apparently so bad that they had to ban 5 cards across 3 bannings it seems like as good a time as any to revisit what make that format so well remembered.

While the twee thing to do would to have a deck for each guild that's not how things shaked out back then. Anyway let's jam.

Zoo (Craig Jones)
3 Burning-Tree Shaman
4 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
3 Kami of Ancient Law
4 Kird Ape
4 Savannah Lions
4 Watchwolf

2 Bathe in Light
4 Char
3 Flames of the Blood Hand
4 Lightning Helix
3 Shock

4 Battlefield Forge
1 Brushland
1 Eiganjo Castle
2 Forest
1 Karplusan Forest
1 Plains
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple Garden

Sideboard
1 Flames of the Blood Hand
2 Giant Solifuge
3 Guerrilla Tactics
3 Hunted Wumpus
2 Tin Street Hooligan
4 Umezawa's Jitte
In 1994 Bertrand Lestree piloted and R/G/U/b deck with Kird Apes called Zoo to a second place finish. In 1996 Scott Johns Would unite Kird Apes and Savannah Lions in one deck to great success. As manafixing declined though the field of aggro decks was ceded to monocolor decks. With the reprinting of Kird ape and a new set of dual lands the stage was set for a Zoo deck to return to standard and stick around in eternal formats.

Ravnica Zoo was a fairly straightforward deck you play dudes, attack with them and then close out the game with burn. It played all 3 of the best one drops available alongside Watchwolf and Burning-Tree Shaman some of the largest creatures available at their mana costs, some decks would even run Scab-clan Mauler. No that the burn package is less tuned towards controlling the board than it could be with 0 copies of volcanic hammer, instead the 3 main-deck Flames of the Blood Hand esured the burn-to-the-face plan by squelching life gain from cards like Loxodon hierarch and faiths fetters.

Of course playing aggro in 3 colors had a real cost it was commonly joked that Zoo's worst matchup was it's mana base. With 12 shocklands and 6 painlands this deck took a lot of damage from it's lands. Importantly this is a trade off aggro decks could make unlike in other formats where dual lands had much less manageable citp tapped clauses. Indeed the diversity of decks in Ranvnica was enabled by shockland/painland manabases not favoring controlling decks over aggressive ones.

Heezy Street (Mark Herberholz)
4 Burning-Tree Shaman
4 Dryad Sophisticate
3 Frenzied Goblin
4 Giant Solifuge
4 Kird Ape
4 Scab-Clan Mauler
4 Scorched Rusalka

4 Char
3 Flames of the Blood Hand
3 Moldervine Cloak

6 Forest
4 Karplusan Forest
7 Mountain
2 Skarrg, the Rage Pits
4 Stomping Ground

sideboard
4 Blood Moon
1 Flames of the Blood Hand
2 Naturalize
2 Rumbling Slum
2 Tin Street Hooligan
4 Umezawa's Jitte
While Craig Jones would live forever in the highlight reel Herberholz would actually win the tournament. Heezy Street ran more creatures than Zoo and a somewhat higher curve. Unlike Zoo which planned on overwhelming the opposing creatues through brute power/toughness Heezy Street was a bit more evasive with Dryads landwalk or Frenzyed goblin turning off blockers. Failing that the plan was Moldervine Cloak.

Topping the curve was Good old Captn' Tickles (Giant Solifuge) which often did a bad ball lightning impersonation in aggro matchups but really shined against control decks. It was an especially good response to Wraths skittering in when your opponent thinks they have stabilized the board.

Both of these decks along with Boros deck wins were responsible for setting the pace of the format providing the baseline threats that other decks would have to respond to. Unlike more recent formats aggro decks had a far more defined identity and ran much sleeker mana curves. The was futher enabled by the high quallity of burn in the format
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Mistborn
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Post by Mistborn »

So yeah those aggro decks were a bit less flabby than the ones we see of late but they're not all that interesting at the end of the day. Let's look at some more unique decks.

Greater Gifts (Frank Karsten)
1 Kagemaro, First to Suffer
2 Kokusho, the Evening Star
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Yosei, the Morning Star

2 Farseek
3 Gifts Ungiven
3 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Greater Good
4 Kodama's Reach
1 Last Gasp
1 Putrefy
1 Reclaim
1 Recollect
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Wrath of God

2 Brushland
4 Forest (306)
1 Island (294)
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Plains (290)
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
3 Swamp (298)
2 Temple Garden
2 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Watery Grave

Sideboard
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Death Denied
4 Defense Grid
1 Dosan the Falling Leaf
1 Hana Kami
1 Hideous Laughter
1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
1 Last Gasp
1 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Rending Vines
1 Soulless Revival
Greater Gifts is a combo-control deck. Not in the sense that it is a control deck that happens to end the game with a combo rather it uses it's combo to take and maintain control of the game. The deck is build around using Greater Good to repeatedly sacrifice Yosei, the Morning Star to lock down opponents board. Gifts Ungiven and Sensei's divining top help to set up the combo. 4 wrath and some spot removal are there as a concession to the fact there's another player at the table.

Greater Gifts is in one sense a representative of the Kamigawa-Ravnica format but in another sense a response to that format. Decks generally were about ramping up and tapping out for big haymakers. One way to deal with this kind of format is to go bigger. In an ideal world Greater Gifts can ignore whatever the opponent is doing because it doesn't matter. Of course if the deck is interacted with it has an excellent fallback plan in the ancient midragne wisdom "the last fatty kills them".

Owling Mine (Tiago Chan)
4 Kami of the Crescent Moon

4 Boomerang
4 Ebony Owl Netsuke
2 Evacuation
4 Exhaustion
4 Eye of Nowhere
4 Howling Mine
4 Remand
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Sudden Impact

10 Island
2 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
2 Mountain
4 Shivan Reef
4 Steam Vents

Sideboard
3 Blood Moon
3 Mana Leak
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
3 Pyroclasm
4 Threads of Disloyalty
Owling Mine is a tempo deck not in the sense that it gets underneath the opponent with small creatures and disrupts the opponents responses but in the sense that it's spells generate tempo in massive quantities. Rather than seeking to answer threats and constrain the opponent on cards Owling mine gained time by tap and bounce effects. The Howling mine package ensured against the card disadvantage that normally comes with it's gameplan. Ebony Owl and Sudden Impact ended the game enabled by the opponent having a grip full of cards that they couldn't actually play.

This deck is also designed to take advantage of the big haymaker decks of the era as they were more vulnerable to the tempo spells than other decks. Owning Mine was capable of some of the most brutally unfair plays possible in that era buy bouncing early land drops. However at Honalulu it would be undone by it's poor matchup against aggro.
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Post by Mistborn »

Flores Blue (Michael J Flores)
4 Jushi Apprentice
3 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
3 Keiga the Tide Star

4 Boomerang
3 Disrupting Shoal
4 Mana Leak
4 Remand
4 Hinder
2 Rewind
4 Threads of Disloyalty

1 Minamo School at Water’s Edge
1 Oboro Palace in the Clouds
2 Dimir Aqueduct
4 Quicksand
4 Watery Grave
1 Miren the Moaning Well
1 Mikokoro Center of the Sea
1 Shizo Death’s Storehouse
10 Island

Sideboard
4 Drift of Phantasm
4 Execute
3 Cranial Extraction
2 Dimir Aqueduct
2 Rewind
Flores Blue was the deck to beat going into 2005 worlds issuing a challenge "I can freely tap out for Keiga or Meloku because nothing you do will be better". While that would prove false at worlds those words would be the inspiration for a new from of control deck.

Solar Flare (Paul Cheon)
3 Angel of Despair
3 Court Hussar
1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
2 Yosei, the Morning Star

4 Azorius Signet
4 Compulsive Research
2 Dimir Signet
3 Mortify
2 Persecute
4 Remand
4 Wrath of God
3 Zombify

2 Azorius Chancery
2 Caves of Koilos
1 Eiganjo Castle
3 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
2 Orzhov Basilica
1 Plains
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2 Swamp
2 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Underground River
1 Watery Grave

Sideboard
4 Castigate
3 Condemn
2 Cranial Extraction
4 Descendant of Kiyomaro
2 Persecute
While Flores Blue was one of the first decks to enter the format Solar Flare was one of the last to fully take shape. Like Flores Blue before it plans on tapping out for big threats but for Solar Flare those big treats can come down on turn 4 via Zombify. Note that Solar Flare has a lot of card pulling double duty. It's principal threat Angel of Despair serves double duty as another answer. It's card selection spells Compulsive research and Court Hussar are respectively setup for the Zombify package and a defensive blocker.

Both Flores Blue and Solar Flare were possible because the late game threats were finally starting to justify tapping out for them. But importantly these endgame threats still cost 5-6 mana and thus you couldn't stick them in as the high end of a flabby aggro deck and call that mid-range. If you were playing Spirit Dragons you had to commit to a ramp or control package that allowed aggro a fair chance to get underneath you.
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Post by Mistborn »

Let's keep this going

Firemane Control (Alex Pardo)
3 Firemane Angel

3 Compulsive Research
4 Faith's Fetters
4 Hinder
1 Invoke the Firemind
4 Lightning Helix
4 Mana Leak
4 Remand
2 Rewind
3 Tidings
4 Wrath of God

4 Adarkar Wastes
1 Battlefield Forge
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
6 Island
4 Plains
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Steam Vents

Sideboard
2 Jushi Apprentice
4 Paladin en-Vec
2 Pure Intentions
3 Sacred Ground
2 Scour
2 Smash
The rise of the new breed of control decks didn't put and end to the old style Firemane Control aimed not to go over the top of the format or to preempt it but to outlast it. The deck intended to simply answer everything and then eventually win of the back of endlessly recurring Angels. Some versions would get cute with Zur's Weirding to lock the opponent out of the game or slide in extra threats.

Heartbeat (Mistborn's personal build)
4 Drift of Phantasms
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

1 Compulsive Research
4 Early Harvest
4 Heartbeat of Spring
1 Invoke the Firemind
4 Kodama's Reach
4 Muddle the Mixture
1 Recollect
4 Remand
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Weird Harvest

10 Forest
10 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain

Sideboard
2 Boomerang
3 Cavern Caryatid
2 Naturalize
3 Savage Twister
1 Pyrocalsm
4 Gigadrowse
Heartbeat is a combo deck based around generating huge amounts of mana and then casting Maga, Traitor to Mortals or Invoke the Firemind for X where X=their life total. What makes the deck work is the tremendous amount of card selection and tutors it's able to run. Every part of the combo is cmc 3 and thus fetchable with Drift of Phantasms transmute. Muddle the Mixture and Gigadrowse made the control actually favorable. However the deck had trouble racing aggro or dealing with black discard. This led to some decks adopting the then revolutionary sideboard plan of boarding out combo pieces and ramping into Kamigawa legends.

This deck holds a special place for me because I played it for most of 2006
Gazi-Glare (Katsuhiro Mori)
3 Arashi, the Sky Asunder
1 Birds of Paradise
3 Kodama of the North Tree
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Loxodon Hierarch
4 Selesnya Guildmage
4 Wood Elves
2 Yosei, the Morning Star

2 Congregation at Dawn
3 Glare of Subdual
3 Pithing Needle
2 Seed Spark
3 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Brushland
5 Forest
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Plains
4 Selesnya Sanctuary
4 Temple Garden
4 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree

Sideboard
2 Carven Caryatid
2 Greater Good
3 Hokori, Dust Drinker
1 Kodama of the North Tree
1 Kodama's Reach
2 Naturalize
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Wrath of God
2 Yosei, the Morning Star
Mori rode this deck to victory at the 2005 world championship. While the deck strays a little close to flabby midrange for my taste there's a lot of artistry here. This deck is tuned rather specially to fight Flores decks with Arashi slotting in as both a principal threat and an answer to two main threats from blue decks at the time Keiga, the Tide Star and Meloku the Clouded Mirror. Of course the highlight of the deck is the Gaze of Subdual/token generator engine allowing the deck to control the board. Umezawa's Jite deserves special mention here as it can turn the decks random mana dorks and saprolings into game wining threats on their own. The decks sideboard also deserves mention as it's transformation plan via Greater Good ended up as a deck in it's own right.

Ghost Dad (Ben Goodman)
4 Dark Confidant
4 Ghost Council of Orzhova
3 Kami of Ancient Law
3 Plagued Rusalka
4 Tallowisp
2 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
4 Thief of Hope
Spell 13

1 Indomitable Will
3 Pillory of the Sleepless
4 Shining Shoal
4 Sickening Shoal
1 Strands of Undeath
Land 23

4 Caves of Koilos
1 Eiganjo Castle
4 Godless Shrine
6 Plains
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
6 Swamp
1 Tomb of Urami

Sideboard
2 Blessed Breath
3 Cranial Extraction
1 Enfeeblement
1 Kami of Ancient Law
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
2 Persecute
1 Pillory of the Sleepless
2 Pithing Needle
2 Umezawa's Jitte
The Orzov Guild gave rise to several different archetypes in constructed not all of them were good. Ghost dad is fundamentally a spiritcraft deck. It's key card was Tallowisp with let you tutor for an aura whenever you played a spirit or arcane spell. This in theory allowed you to tutor for removal and circumvent the card disadvantage of using it "Shoal" pitch spells. However all the cute little synergies managed to do is make people think the deck was actually playable in constructed. Indeed the deck was so overhyped that it inspired Patrick Chapin to write an article about how bad the deck was . Regardless it's a testament to how open the format was that Mr. Goodman actually sleeved up Thief of Hope for his pro tour deck.
Last edited by Mistborn on Tue Jul 18, 2017 11:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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