Building Blocks

Control decks tend to be blue based due to one real reason - card advantage.  The amount of cards these decks can see in any given game can be obscene.  This episode is all about one of the exceptions.  Due to one line of text on a card, this deck gains an amount of inevitability few decks can hope to chase.  From the minds of Team Pantheon comes Seasons Past!

Dragons are an iconic creature type, possibly the most of all time, but they typically don't show up in the competitive scene very often.  The topic of conversation this episode is one of the times they did, all it took was a couple quite good Dragons and a busted spell to make it viable!  Dragonlord Ojutai, Dragonlord Silumgar, and Dig Through Time send their regards this installment as Esper Dragons gets the spotlight!

We're returning to Kamigawa/Ravnica Standard to talk about a fixed version of possibly the most frustrating enchantment to play against.  Turns out, even if you remove a card type from Opposition, you still end up with a powerful card.  As Kamigawa rotates out, and Time Spiral in, the deck ends up in a very interesting spot - an aggro deck.  Glare of Subdual and Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree are the focus this week!

Starting with this episode, every once in a while the subject matter will switch from an archetype to a single card.  We'll follow the deck throughout it's run in Standard, and see how it affected the metagame.  This time around, it's everyone's favorite card with Phyrexian Mana, Birthing Pod!  Enjoy!

In celebration of Stoneforge's emergence into Modern, we're talking about the deck that got her banned in the first place.  This episode, Jason and Coleman chronicle the ascent of Stoneforge from barely above bulk status to banned at the same time as Jace, the Mind Sculptor.  Squadron Hawks carrying swords are the point of discussion, it's Caw-Blade!

When a new deck debuts at a Pro Tour, it typically doesn't do amazingly well.  Be it sub-optimal cards, slightly wrong metagame call, or even just old fashioned bad luck; these archetypes will get people talking, but won't set the world on fire.  This week, we look at a deck that did the exact opposite.  Breaking out at Pro Tour Gatecrash, Lingering Souls and company led the Magic world on four distinctly different versions of Aristocrats and kind of turning deckbuilding on its head.

Ravnica/Time Spiral standard was weird.  For one thing, there wasn't a prototypical aggro deck in the format.  For another, the format produced an oddball like this.  Brine Elemental was the namesake of the deck, and when combined with Vesuvan Shapeshifter, it led to one of the last true prison endgames.  From the minds of Paul Cheon and LSV, it's Pickles!

Abusing the graveyard is a tried and true method of building great decks, using a variety of different approaches.  Unburial Rites was printed in a graveyard-centric set, and came to define the format for its entire existence in Standard.  This episode, Jason and Coleman examine why putting flashback on a card like this is crucial to the card being absurdly powerful and why Angel of Serenity is an incredibly powerful card.

The term Jund is used to describe a particular style of deck.  It seems like the deck has been around since the Magic's inception, but the deck is actually newer than you might think, only premiering in Shards of Alara.  This week, Jason and Coleman take a look at how Bloodbraid Elf cascading into Blightning ruled a format and made up nearly 60% of Worlds one year!

Combo decks don't tend to do well in Standard; the card pool is too narrow, the metagame is too harsh, the deck itself is a flash in the pan, the reasons are numerous.  On this episode, Jason and Coleman take a look at one of the most wide open Standard formats ever, and how one format contained a full eight cards now currently banned in older formats.

Sample decklists:

U/R Twin (Brunet910): https://bit.ly/2XGg80s

U/R Ascension (Tobias Dreger): https://bit.ly/2LXRiBQ

Holy Relic (zagnut111): https://bit.ly/2SkdnvS

Valakut (Mulldrifter): https://bit.ly/2YSDyvQ