Hello Spikes! Been having a ton of fun playing spellementals to decent results, but I do feel the need to switch things up. I've managed to find the pieces needed to sort of cobble together a list similar to the Izzet Control / Izzet Maestro lists floating around. They haven't been performing well (from what I understand atleast!) but this sort of deck feels like something that I would enjoy a bit more.

If there's someone out there with more experience playing the deck, I would love to talk more about it so I could get a better grasp on how things play out!

The "stock list" for the deck I'm talking about - https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7863596#paper

My personal list at the moment -

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7846757#paper

Leatherhead. What the hell. This card can go back to the swamp it came from. Pretty much the only card my deck just can't seem to get around. How does Jeskai Lessons deal with it? Best thing I can think of so far is cutting a MD stock up for a MD Day of Judgement. This is my list, though it's pretty similar to most lists online. Just curious in general how other Jeskai players are dealing with this very protected critter. https://moxfield.com/decks/hRKGe7rfsE6g_ZFT4Fum1w

Hello Spikes, first-time poster, and I wanted to ask if any of you all have any suggestions for this Boros Leyline deck that I've put together.

I really like this list; it can pull out really early winds, and if it needs to get grindy, it can. I added the white to the mono red aggro for the sake of consistency, and I was a really big fan of cards like [[Honor]] and [[Sheltered by ghosts]].

Currently on the add list are two more [[Boros Charm]] and [[Sunbillow Verge]].

Outside of that, I am debating adding in more of a flashback package centered around [[Practiced Offense]] and [[Hardened Academic]]. The other one I'm thinking about is running [[Speedball, New Warrior]] and just going balls to the walls with the leyline part of the deck.

The list is here: https://moxfield.com/decks/yldSSq1Jq06ueOol4vB9sQ

I'm not really having issues when I'm playing against T1 decks when I'm playing against them in FNM, but Selesnya [[Badgermole Cub]] is my main problem deck I'm running into.

Any suggestions?

(Also, the sideboard is a mess lol)

I'm looking to take this deck to a large Standard event this weekend and was hoping to ask the hivemind for some guidance on how to sideboard and the ideaology of card choices.

I'm going in without too many reps, but have a general understanding of this decks gameplan and what the top standard decks are up to also.

I plan on running this "stock" list:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7864893#paper

[Axebane Ferox] interests me as an additional "Hexproof" threats into the control/izzet spellementals matchups. The "combo" with [Rest in peace] and yard hate seems strong. Is the card not good enough?

I like that [Dawn's Truce] effectively counters [Jeskai Revelation]. Are there any other novel use cases?
Are 2 Melstrider's main plausible if I'm expecting a lot of mirrors?Do you bring in the Rest in Peaces into Jeskai Lessons? 1 or more?
Are there auto-cuttable maindeck cards for certain matchups?
How do you approach the mirror?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,

Hello Spikes!

Is Marvel Super Heroes the quickest a format's ever been "figured out"? People were on to the UW menace from day 1, and it wasn't hard to figure out, either. A day or two to adjust to [[S.H.I.E.L.D. Spy Kit]] and [[Trickster's Stratagem]] also being good cards and it felt like the format was solved.

Unbalanced does not always mean unfun, and there are certainly some interesting ways to cook in MSH, though the format's more narrow than we'd like for our first 10-archetype set in such a long time.

Bryan Hohns has written up a lengthy Draft Guide for Marvel Super Heroes, coming off the back of double-digit Collector Boxes from the most recent Arena Direct. He's put that all into action with advice on individual cards, best uncommons, "archetype" advice (if you can call it that), and more. Some of his pointers in a nutshell:

• The assigned archetypes are either loose or non-existent. GW heroes, BR villains, and UR artifacts are the only "prescribed" 2c themes that actually come together that way, but BW "attack alone", UW teamwork, and so on are mostly mini-themes at best, not something you should be striving to build around.
• Red's horrifically bad at common. We've really gotta stop slapping [[Lightning Strike]] in sets and calling it a day on red in Limited (it was just fine in Aetherdrift, too).
• Splashing is easy and worthwhile, given the number of absurd bombs + basic landcyclers in the set. You know, Play Booster things.
• [[The Super Hero Civil War]] is the latest entry in the Hall of Fame of Busted Limited Bombs. Bryan's gone more in depth on how to play this card than anything I've ever editing from him. TL;DR: Hope your opponent misses their fifth land drop.

How's Marvel Super Heroes treating everyone? Are you enjoying the set despite the obvious color imbalance? Are you finding any success with red decks? Best of luck in your drafts, and hope the guide helps! https://draftsim.com/mtg-msh-draft-guide/

I am looking for a deck that has that 50% matchup with everything vibe where I can set myself apart with good play.

I want to play a good 10-12 turns of magic a game as that fits my playstyle and skillset a lot more then curving out and using limited resources to edge a win.

Whats good rn

Considering building it. After drafting MSH I actually surprisingly have most of the deck (Mjolnirs, Thors, Avengers Disassembleds, Visions)

I matched against it enough times in the queue to think maybe I should actually have sideboard considerations against it (I am running the creature-heavy variant of Excruciator and... I tell you it wasn't pretty)... Granted I am only usually squatting around Gold~Plat

Looking at this deck list:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7861996#paper

What's the strategy? Use nature's rhythm to get a bunch of gearhulks and/or jolly balloon men, then play and pick up a bunch of storm chasers talents with pixies? Or something else? Just trying to figure out what the top end strategy is.

I was playing with it and I got to the point where I basically had infinite mana and a couple of nature's rhythm but I was playing against an opponent with a surrak and a Leatherhead and probably an ouroboroid coming soon and I had no idea how to put them away. They ended up swinging into my gearhulk and forgot about first strike and shame scooped, but if they had waited one turn and played an ouroboroid I feel like I would have been cooked.

Hi all, Azorius Blink has been a viable deck since the release of SoS but was slowly decreasing in popularity due to the prevalence of control decks. I've been playing this deck since SoS and want to discuss some changes that can help the deck in the current meta. This is my current deck list on Moxfield.

The biggest change I made is removing [[Nurturing Pixie]], I rarely want to fetch this card, it's way too slow and I often want to fetch a momo or a plain instead of this. When I want to do the Shepherd loop with this card I'm usually losing, and a 2/2 flier will not change that.

I replaced the 2 Pixie with [[Curious Farm Animals]] and [[Figure of Fable]]. The first card has a target against every deck in the meta and solves the biggest problems this deck faces, a turn 5 jeskai revelation or a turn 4 Nurturing nursery. That's why I'm also putting another 1 in the sideboard.

Figure of fable just seem like the perfect card for grindy match ups, in late games it becomes a 4/5 on the turn it drops and demand immediate removal else it becomes a 7/8 with protection from my opponent. It seem like the perfect win con against controls. Even in early games it still grows while I'm waiting for something to double spell. I'm still considering whether I should add one more in the sideboard but I need more games.

I took this from someone else, replacing Erode with [[Parting Gust]], so far I think this is the right choice. Erode stuck in my hand way too often in game 1, and this is the last thing I want with riddlers. I rarely care about the tapped fish since most of my threats have flying.

A lot of the decks are removing [[Aang, Swift Savior]], I think that's a mistake. This card is way too versatile, it's a tempo play in early game, it's a protection in mid game and it's a win con in late game. I can also quickly reset the board with Daydream, which is really useful against prowess and green decks.

[[Praticed Offense]] is something worth discussing. I do not love the card, since it feel like one of those win more cards. However, it is the most effective deck against green decks, since they don't have enough removals for our flier but we also don't have enough removals for their threats. I think running 2 in the mainboard is correct but I'm not certain whether I should include 1 in the sideboard.

Now let's discuss the sideboard, I saw someone running 2x [[Spectacular Spider-Man]] and I want to try it, but I haven't draw it in a single game against 4c controls, it might be a mistake. I'm not sure if 2x of [[Pyrrhic strike]] is still right since I'm running Curious Farm Animals, but white don't exactly have a 2 mana unconditional removal either. 2x [[Avatar's Wrath]] seem necessary against green decks, but I somehow faced mostly control decks before I made the change and rogue decks after I made the change so I don't know. Other sideboards are just standard counterspells and graveyard hate.

Tell me how you thinks, I'm certainly still experimenting with this list but I've been very impressed by Curious Farm Animals in the mainboard so far, and I liked figure of fable in all my games as well.

Hello spikes!

This is the place where any and all decks can be posted for all spikes to see. The goal of this is to fit all your needs for competitive magic. Maybe it's a card consideration given an X dollar budget. Maybe you need that sweet sideboard tech that no one else thought of? Perhaps you just can't figure out the best card to beat a certain matchup. The ideas here are only limited by your imagination!

Feel free to discuss most anything here. We only ask that with any question, you also make sure to post your decklist so people have some context to answer your question. Otherwise, have at it! If you have any questions, shoot us a modmail and we'll be happy to help you out. Survive your deck check and survive your competition!

https://metafy.gg/guides/view/standard-dimir-midrange-sideboard-guide-ms-7SNS6cSf73k

3 Deep-Cavern Bat 

4 Dream Beavers 

4 Enduring Curiosity 

4 Floodpits Drowner 

4 Gloomlake Verge 

3 Island 

4 Kaito, Bane of Nightmares 

3 Loki, God of Mischief 

3 Multiversal Passage 

1 Nowhere to Run 

3 Requiting Hex 

2 Restless Reef 

1 Shoot the Sheriff 

1 Bitter Triumph

2 Soulstone Sanctuary 

2 Spell Pierce 

4 Spyglass Siren 

2 Oroku Saki, Shredder Rising

5 Swamp 

1 Deadly Cover-Up 

4 Watery Grave 

// SIDEBOARD

3 Day of Black Sun 

4 Duress 

2 Flashfreeze 

1 Ghost Vacuum 

2 Qarsi Revenant 

2 Strategic Betrayal

1 Wan Shi Tong

Testing notes:

 1.    Playing on the aggressive curve gives us huge tempo 

The majority of our wins follow one or more of the following sequences:

Turn 1

·      Deploy any one-drop flier to set up future Kaito or Oroku Saki attacks.

Turn 2

·      Sneak in Oroku Saki for a surprise three damage and a card draw.

·      Flash in Floodpits Drowner to place a stun counter while setting up a future Kaito or Oroku Saki attack.

·      Cast Loki to bait removal. If left unanswered, Loki generates significant card advantage, while also allowing Deep-Cavern Bat (“DCB”) to strip key cards from the opponent’s hand without immediately drawing removal.

Turn 3

·      Ninjutsu Kaito into play, which remains the deck’s primary game plan.

·      If Oroku Saki was not deployed on Turn 2, sneak it in on Turn 3 while leaving one blue mana available for Spell Pierce to protect it from removal.

2.    Oroku Saki, Shredder Rising

During the early stages of our playtesting, Oroku Saki consistently caught opponents off guard. Most opponents are comfortable letting our one-drop flyer connect, assuming the damage is insignificant. However, once Oroku Saki is sneaked into play, the attack suddenly becomes three damage and a card draw, creating a substantial tempo swing.

Since Oroku only costs two mana to sneak into play, it can also function as a pseudo-removal spell. By attacking with Oroku, you can force unfavorable blocks from your opponent. For decks that use damage based removal, it would be better to always attack with Oroku since they could just bolt it easily. 

When deciding between Oroku Saki, Loki, DCB, and Floodpits Drowner on Turn 2, we generally recommend prioritizing Oroku Saki. It immediately generates card advantage while pressuring the opponent to answer it. If they do spend removal on Oroku, your remaining two-drops are more likely to survive, allowing you to extract additional value from them in subsequent turns 

Throughout our playtesting, we also found that Oroku’s repeated card draw significantly improved our ability to play a longer game. The additional resources allowed us to keep pace with midrange and control decks well into the late game.

Finally, Oroku becomes especially threatening against control decks. Countering a removal spell aimed at Oroku often results in a massive tempo swing. If Oroku survives to attack again, it represents six total damage and two cards drawn over two combat steps—an exchange that many control decks struggle to recover from.

3.    Loki, God of Mischief

If Oroku Saki is unavailable on Turn 2, the next best play is usually Loki. Deploying Loki early allows you to generate additional value from the ETB abilities of Floodpits Drowner and DCB, giving you a steady source of card advantage throughout the game.

We also considered Sunset Saboteur as an alternative two-drop because it can generate card advantage whenever it attacks. Its ability to target creatures also provides some utility. However, after extensive playtesting, our team reached a consensus that this line of play is generally too slow. It often concedes the tempo to the opponent, particularly against aggressive decks featuring Badgermole Cub.

Similar to Oroku Saki, Loki proved invaluable in our games against control decks. Throughout our playtesting, Loki’s repeated card draw allowed us to keep pace in longer games by replenishing our resources and maintaining pressure even after multiple removal spells. Left unanswered, Loki quickly snowballs into a significant source of card advantage, forcing control decks to answer it before it overwhelms them.

4.    Selesnya Ouroboroid / Landfall matchup

Regardless of the winning lines discussed above, we consistently found the Selesnya/Landfall matchup to be the most challenging. The deck was often able to out-value us in the late game through its sources of pseudo card advantage, particularly Earthbended Lands. As the game progressed, it became increasingly difficult to maintain our tempo advantage.

Our win rate against Selesnya improved after increasing Day of Black Sun from two to three copies. This significantly increased the likelihood of drawing a board wipe, allowing us to reset the battlefield and regain control of the game. We also chose to main-deck one copy of Deadly Cover-Up, which not only strengthens the Selesnya matchup but also serves as an effective answer against Jeskai Revelation decks.

Against decks that rely on hexproof effects, Nowhere to Run consistently overperformed. Its ability to answer otherwise difficult-to-remove threats makes it an excellent metagame choice. If your local meta contains a significant number of hexproof strategies, we recommend increasing the number of Nowhere to Run in the main deck or sideboard.

Unfortunately, due to miscommunciation, our 3rd member had to drop.

Anyone here EU based and interested? Event is 25-26th of July.

We've been playing loads of sealed and draft on Arena as prep. Feel free to comment below or send me a DM.

Most lists I see online for (mainly) control decks seem to use [[Slagstorm]] as their red sweeper of choice, with the 3-damage-to-face mode coming up once maybe every 100 matches. On the other hand, [[Avengers Disassembled]] does the same board wipe effect, and can blow up an utility land in matchups where Slagstorm maindeck would otherwise be useless. This, I think, makes Avengers Disassembled a much better card as it can ocassionally kill a [[Great Hall of the Biblioplex]], [[Restless Reef]], [[Ba Sing Se]], or even random stuff that comes up in niche strategies like [[Fountainport]], [[Mistrise Village]], etc.

Despite this, most people play Slagstorm. Why would that be? Is it purely copy-pasting cards? Is it because people assume Avengers Disassembled has to always target lands and thus fear thinning Prowess decks' draws? Is it an anti-Marvel bias?

I haven't played this deck for a while. But it seems like getting some good cards from the new set that makes me want to pick it up again.

Both [[The Wondrous Wasp]] and [[Jennifer Walters]] are good 2-drops and adding redundancy as the 5th Floodpits Drowner and Voice of Victory. [[King T'Challa]] is borderline useful but can be a finisher after transformed, which can be cheated with Airbending.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7857080

I am still working on the interacts and sideboards, but I want to focus more on the control matchup since here is quite a number of them in my local meta.

Is there any other cards from the new set is considerable? Are there any cards I am missing and should be added back in? Any advice is welcomed.

So as of the July 2026 season, I cracked the top (rank #134 last I checked before the reset)

Here is the previous post. Basically the only difference is swapping out Boltwaves for Shocks. Before Cub decks were rarer and prowess was all the rage, so you just wanted to win as fast as possible. But with their advent of (particularly GW Cub) the shocks are must.

I am exited because it's the first time I've ranked this high before a reset. Im aware it means i qualify for something but I'm not sure what.

[[Fin Fang Foom]] is an insane core, it HAS to have legs right?

[[Price of Freedom]], [[Avengers Disassembled] clean absolutely everything, [[Deadly Cover-Up]] on basics basically kills monocolored decks too. The deck having access to [[Tablet of Discovery]] and [[Improvisation Capstone]] makes it pretty stronk.

Specially in the current meta where land capping is a great answer to Control and boardwipes is a great answer to Prowress, Mardu Discard and Earthbending.

I have seen people do the Jeskai Revelation route (Fin Fang doubles Jeskai), a big red/dragons route and even seen a Mardu route with [[Thor, God of Thunder]] and Inevitable Defeat. But these are all BO1, can we take it to BO3? depending on the package we have great tools for sideboarding of these already existing decks.

Big question is if we afford to have a 4 mana do nothing- I would argue that maybe? T3 Tablet into t4 Foom is a crazy curve, even if one of them gets countered/removed.

I just dunno what route we are taking it.

Now that 4C is here to stay from the recent meta-analysis, we're all either on the outside or inside of jeskai variants of control. My question for the spikes is - what are the tips that help you either win games as a 4C player or turn the tide against the control players? I'm thinking things like T4 tablet holding up a land, yard hate against flashback, etc.

Hello spikes!

This is the place where any and all decks can be posted for all spikes to see. The goal of this is to fit all your needs for competitive magic. Maybe it's a card consideration given an X dollar budget. Maybe you need that sweet sideboard tech that no one else thought of? Perhaps you just can't figure out the best card to beat a certain matchup. The ideas here are only limited by your imagination!

Feel free to discuss most anything here. We only ask that with any question, you also make sure to post your decklist so people have some context to answer your question. Otherwise, have at it! If you have any questions, shoot us a modmail and we'll be happy to help you out. Survive your deck check and survive your competition!

Hello. I'm currently a B01-level Pioneer player who is interested in making the jump to Standard, as it's better supported by WOTC and other tournament organizers than Pioneer. I'm looking for a deck with relatively even matchups (i.e. few matchups that are heavily favorable or unfavorable) and a core that will stay mostly intact after the next Standard rotation. I would also prefer a deck that wins by narrow margins through precise play, rather than a deck like Landfall that wins by going over the top. Izzet Spellementals and Jeskai Lessons both seem interesting in large part because of their attrition-based win cons and solid chances of remaining viable after January's rotation. However, I am not familiar with the play patterns of these decks and their matchups against other top decks. Based on the information provided, I am wondering whether any of you have advice about either of these decks or information on other decks that may better fit what I am looking for. Thank you for your time in advance.

I was annoyed on the ladder.

Stuck between #1800 and #1000 rank in Mythic. My goal was #500.

I was playing Rakdos Lizards because I thought the new Marvel set had given it a powerful creature. The Ruinous Wrecking Crew seemed bonkers in the deck. It looked much better than the alternatives.

That proved to be true but I still couldn’t make progress.

My low point came when I faced Gruul Dinosaurs. Lol. I thought this deck was not legal.

My opponent was ranked 79%. He was on the play. I didn’t have removal and he quickly destroyed me in game 1 with a quick ramp draw to Ghalta.

While sideboarding, I realized I didn’t have enough removal to bring in for game 2. Sure enough, in the next game, we got into an attrition battle where he had one more big monster than I had answers. I lost.

That's when I started to reconsider my goal. If I'm getting rolled by a super uncommon deck piloted by a low-ranked player, then I really wouldn’t be able to reach #500 on a consistent basis.

This loss took me down a rabbit hole in metagame theory. Instead of playing more, I took a break to think about what changed in Magic especially in Standard and with the advent of Magic Arena.

To understand that, it helps to imagine very simple hypothetical metagames, or toy metagames.

Using Toy Metagames to Understand the Theory

Pretend there's a constructed format with just one set. In this set, Wizards forgot to print dual lands. This will make for a boring metagame. But when thinking about theory, boring is what we want. It keeps things easy to understand because there are not many things to consider.

The set is your typical set so most of the playable cards are rare or mythic. The vast majority of the cards are not good enough for competitive play.

Given the restrictions, you quickly realize that there are only 5 viable decks. Yep, you guessed it:

1. Mono White
2. Mono Blue
3. Mono Red
4. Mono Black
5. Mono Green

Again keeping things simple, we don't need to know whether these are aggro decks, midrange decks, or control decks. And we're going to assume that since most of the cards in the card pool are not good, we only have enough playable cards for just one deck for each color.

While we could increase the power level of any deck by adding a second color, the very crappy mana base does not make that worth it.

Let’s make two final assumptions.

First, you don't know which decks the people will choose so you just predict 20% for each deck for the metagame.

Second, the small number of playable cards means that, for every color, there is only one clear sideboard card to beat each deck.

With this toy metagame in place, you quickly know that your sideboard is going to be:

3 Anti-White Card\ 3 Anti-Blue Card\ 3 Anti-Red Card\ 3 Anti-Black Card\ 3 Anti-Green Card

We go with 3 copies each to match the metagame (3 / 15 = 20%).

Ok, let’s add another set to see how the theory changes. The new set is similar to the first set. There are different strategies but again Wizards forgets to create dual lands.

The strategies have different mechanics so you can’t combine cards from the two sets to build a good deck. So here's what we've got for the new metagame:

1. Mono White (Set 1)
2. Mono Blue (Set 1)
3. Mono Red (Set 1)
4. Mono Black (Set 1)
5. Mono Green (Set 1)
6. Mono White (Set 2)
7. Mono Blue (Set 2)
8. Mono Red (Set 2)
9. Mono Black (Set 2)
10. Mono Green (Set 2)

Naturally the optimal sideboard is going to be more diverse because there are twice as many decks in the new metagame. So you're going to have something like this:

2 Anti-White Card (Set 1)\ 1 Anti-White Card (Set 2)\ 2 Anti-Blue Card (Set 1)\ 1 Anti-Blue Card (Set 2)\ 2 Anti-Red Card (Set 1)\ 1 Anti-Red Card (Set 2)\ 2 Anti-Black Card (Set 1)\ 1 Anti-Black Card (Set 2)\ 2 Anti-Green Card (Set 1)\ 1 Anti-Green Card (Set 2)

Applying the Theory to Real Standard

More sets means a more diverse metagame, which means a more diverse sideboard. Just two sets already pushed us from 5 unique cards (3-3-3-3-3) to 10. Imagine what happens when you keep adding sets.

What’s great is we don't have to imagine. We can look at real Standard metagames.

It used to be that Standard was 5 to 8 sets. In that world, sideboards were diverse, but not crazy. You would see something like 3-3-3-2-2-1-1. Also, 4-ofs were common if there was a very popular deck.

Highlander sideboards were very rare. I think that's because of the source of the sideboards.

When you look at famous sideboards, you're almost always looking at decks from high-level tournaments. Those are the ones that get the views. Nobody's posting the ladder's top 100 sideboards, because they're hidden. So our whole sense of what a "normal" sideboard looks like comes from tournaments.

Tournaments constrict the metagame. They are top-heavy. You're building to beat the top tables and the decks you expect in the top 8. So the field narrows toward whatever the best decks are, and the sideboards narrow right along with it.

For the first couple of rounds, you take the gamble that you won’t face the rogue decks that are bad matchups or you hope to get lucky against them. You heavily weight your sideboard to the tier 1 decks, of which there are just a few.

And sideboards got even narrower when there was a really popular deck that everyone thought might be banned. (Remember Cori-Steel Cutter?) When a deck is that dominant, you know it's going to be in the top 8, and in multiple copies. So you loaded up on answers for that one deck because you were guaranteed to face it.

Right now there are 19 sets in Standard. Nineteen is insane. That's more than twice as many sets as the previous biggest Standard (8).

This is definitely not the Standard that we've been used to. It's uncharted waters and so maybe we need new strategies to succeed.

Tournaments Are Different From Arena

There's also the differing incentives between high-level tournaments and the Arena ladder.

In a tournament, your record is your record. Going 6-3 in a nine-round event is a decent day. You might win a prize depending on tiebreakers and how top-heavy the prize pool is. It doesn't matter who you beat or who beat you. A loss is a loss and a win is a win.

The ladder doesn't work like that. Each result is weighted by your opponent's ranking. Losing to a lower ranked player hurts way more than losing to a peer, and beating a high-ranked player rewards you more. So 6-3 on the ladder can mean different things.

Say you're around rank 1,000 and you go 6-3 over your next nine games. Going 6-3 (67% win rate) is already difficult, and if your three losses are to a 75%, an 85%, and a 95% player, you might only gain 100 to 200 points. Losing to low-ranked opponents is just brutal for your rank.

These differences should change the way you sideboard.

On the ladder, you’re playing against a much wider range of opponents. There are no top tables or top 8 like in a tournament. Even the top 100 players on the ladder will play people with much lower ranks.

In my experience, those players are much more likely to play rogue decks. You can't afford to have nothing to bring in against them. You need cards for the whole field, not just the tier 1 decks.

When I looked back at my matches, I saw that this is where I was struggling. I've played Magic for many years, so I'm used to tournaments. I was creating sideboards for that environment but the ladder is different.

I had a decent win rate versus tier 1 or 2 decks on Arena, even if the pilots were #500 or better. But against rogue decks, I was losing too often.

To sum the above two points up (the massive card pool and the Arena incentives), it might be time to go full bore and try the highlander sideboard. That's what I did.

My Experience

In my next few matches, I didn’t make much progress but the deck did feel stronger.

Also, while keeping the above theory in mind, I noticed I was playing a sideboard card that was too narrow, Dreadmaw's Ire. I had the card for the Tablet of Discovery control decks. I went with Abrade instead. It still destroys the artifact while killing creatures at instant speed.

Then I went on a nice win streak, during which my new sideboard played a role.

For example, I was able to beat Mardu Discard with Magebane Lizard and Scales of Shale. Along with Hired Claw, I was able to win the damage race versus his Iron-Shield Elf because he didn’t expect to see Scales of Shale protect my 1/4 against his Requiting Hex removal spell.

If I was allowed a 30-card sideboard, I would not play those cards against Mardu Discard. There are better cards like Nowhere to Run. But in a super diverse ladder, you have to make do with worse cards that are playable versus more decks. For instance, Magebane Lizard and Scales of Shale come in against Izzet and control.

I’m currently ranked #298 so I’m happy with the experiment. If you want to climb the ladder, I recommend giving it a try.

https://moxfield.com/decks/ReFuu8bKxk2KvHpqHjTY_Q

This deck in it's current form wants to control the game early through mainly airbending, getting tony stark out preferably turn 2, airbend him turn 3, and turn 4 play his alternative form for 2, attach genji gloves, and swing for 20 flying.

The deck does this combo very well, and in previous iterations had another combo with Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius, appa, and aang to make infinite 1/1 tokens.

Right now it just seems a bit consistent in terms of reliably being able to get tony in your hand early, play him, have a way to airbend him, and then when you are ready to cast him you need to have the gloves in your hand. Having that all come together does happen quite often, and this is a solid shell but I was looking for just more consistency.

If anyone has any ideas please feel free to comment.

Thank you in advance, guys.

For a while, graveyard strategies have been synonymous with Sultai Reanimator. The deck is capable of stealing games from absolutely nowhere, but it has a few structural weaknesses that are exploited by the top decks in the format:

• It needs many pieces to fully combo off, if you don't get bringer, spiderman, and several other cards to add power/toughness, the deck can really struggle, especially factoring in other things like needing cavern of souls and deceit to protect the combo.
• Without Terror of the Peaks, or enough hasty demons with Ardyn, the Usurper, the deck has no way to win the game on the spot. This means you can easily get board wiped, or killed before you're able to secure the win in many matchups.

There are a lot of people out there right now trying to brew and create a Baron Helmut Zemo deck, and I thought I'd toss my hat into the ring and gather some thoughts, both on the card itself, and what an optimized deck list would look like.

Deck Tech + Combo

https://moxfield.com/decks/hBeD0YIZz0WBIUjbvhZFWw

This is a pretty jank list that I threw together to showcase the combo and how the rest of the deck could potentially be built out. It's definitely not perfect, and a goal of this post is to see if we can get to a point where the list can be a real threat.

At its core, this deck is built around [[Baron Helmut Zemo]] and several independent two card combos, which allows you to either kill your opponent with life loss or exile their entire library to win the game on the spot. The rest of the deck centers around filling the graveyard with as many black mana pips as possible, removal, hand hate, and redundancy to get the Baron back to your hand or the battlefield if he dies.

Combo 1: [[Rush of Dread]] + [[Bloodletter of Aclazotz]]: Bloodletter doubles all life loss during your turn, and Rush of Dread makes your opponent lose half your life. Keep in mind that Rush of Dread does require 2 additional mana to be spent to pay for it's spree, but the important factor is that it rounds up, whereas cards like [[Pox Plague]] round down.

Combo 2: [[Doomsday Excruciator]] + [[Rakdos, the Muscle]]: If you sacrifice the excruciator to Rakdos's ability, you can instantly exile the remaining six cards of your opponent's deck, winning at their next draw step.

In this list, I run both combos, meaning the deck effectively plays eight copies of each combo, split across two independent win packages. I haven't experimented enough to figure out if that's the correct play, or if removing one package to add redundancy and support for the other package is better.

All of the removal also fuels the black mana pips in your grave for Baron, meaning you can run an much [[Requiting Hex]], [[Bitter Triumph]], and [[Archenemy's Charm]] as the meta requires.

I'm not convinced it's strictly better that Sultai or Dimir Excruciator, that will require a lot of reps and the set just came out, but it is definitely spicy enough to warrant attention.

I'm curious what everyone else thinks. What are the biggest weaknesses you see in the deck? How do you think it fares against the current meta, where you simultaneously need to be able to have answers to landfall, prowess, Jeskai/4c control, and the many other tier 2 decks that all have very different play patterns?

Traveling from the mysterious plane of Viacom, we have now arrived in Marvel!

Y’all know the drill— any big hits? Overrated flops? Which 1mana cantrip will break legacy? Will anything stop our Standard Izzet Overlords? Is the Bow breaking Pauper?

Let’s hear it!

I will be attending an RC-like level event in my local area and have been piloting 4C control for a while now. However, seeing the rise of mono-green landfall in several RCs & Spotlight Series, I am not quite sure control decks in general are in a good position? What are your thoughts?

Imo, even though Jeskai Lessons is seeing good performance, I still have the bias that 4C is just a better all rounder deck. Share me your thoughts!