I know it has been a minute. Due to everything shifting because of the virus my schedule is all whack. As I have done in the past, I go on the Destroy Target Permanent podcast the week before review to discuss Top 10s as well as talking about the Early Access Streamer event Wizards invited me too (#sponsored). Now that I have seen most of the new decks people are trying and the synergies I usually like to go over where my picks fell and ones we didn’t see coming.
Super Honorable: Frondland Felidar – didn’t expect this card to due anything that is why it didn’t even crack the honorables but I think a sweet vigilance deck with Ajani from War as well as the G/W adventure shell that has fell off the wagon.
Honorable Mentions: Lands, heartless act, weaponize the monsters, swallow whole, blitz of the thunder raptor – The reason I lumped all these together because I know most of them will see play. I don’t know about the swallow whole and the weaponize but everything else seems to have home but is too boring for the top 10.
10. Chevill, bane of monsters, Skycat Sovereign – Don’t worry this is the only tie. Skycat slips right into the Tier 3 W/U flyers deck but after playing it, it might just be the thing to push the deck. The only issue is yes it can be a good deck but how does it fair against the other decks in the meta. Great example to this is Mono black devotion. If you look at the deck in a vacuum the deck is great, but as compared to the rest of the meta the deck doesn’t quite match up. Chevill was put here as well for the same reason. The card looks good in a vacuum but has to be in the right meta for it to work. If you play against a lot of mono red this card is great. If you are playing against fires this card is not so great.
9. General Kudro – As to be expected the card is great. Slots into modern humans and I believe may push pioneer Humans to a playable deck. Standard the deck has a weird problem. Don’t get me wrong the deck is still strong but a lot of good humans want soldiers or knights. Example is Black Lance Paragon and Fervent Champion, two good humans but are a lot better with knights. Still I think Mardu humans will be a Tier 2 or Tier 1.5 deck.
8. Narset of the Ancient Way – I really want Jeskai superfriends to be a thing, it doesn’t look like it but this card has been great in the Jeskai control decks floating around as well as I think some Jeskai Fires lists picked it up. This card really brings together some sweet Jeskai control builds.
7. Gemrazer – When I played this card it was great but no one else did. I think this card is a sleeper of the format. If we continue to see fires, witch’s oven, wilderness reclamation I think this card is very playable in aggressive green decks.
6. Slitherwisp – Flash already had a very good core but adding this card a few others as well Dimir flash looks very nice. The question I ask is this, is this better than Simic? Dropping ambusher and frilled mystic hurts but Slitherwisp is the card that can bring it all together. After playing in the Goblin Trader FNM on Arena last night I think Mono-Blue could also be a choice.
5. Vivien, Monster’s Advocate – Probably the most played of the new walkers but I think it has the problem that other cards have. Do I think this card is poweful? Yes. Do I think this card fits into a lot of decks? Yes. The problem is can this deck fight against the rest of the meta. I could see this be a sideboard card like old 5 mana Vivien. At 5 mana even making a blocker this may be too slow but who cares I like it.
4. Luminous Broothmoth – This card is one of the best designed white cards I have seen in a very long time. I thought this card would fit into a sacrifice deck but the oversight there is this card isn’t 2 mana or less because of the companion. So far this fits right into the Broken Bant builds of Gyruda, protecting the deck from sweepers.
3. Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast – A repeatable chaos warp on a walker seems very good. This had a place in a cool Starcity VS Jeskai Walkers deck but I haven’t really seen anything else about it. I think this card will be busted soon in a big beefy Gruul list.
2. Song of Creation – Slotting right into Temur Adventure decks as well as creating new Temur self-mill decks. This card is everything you want in Temur. I think Escape to the Wilds is gone and this is the replacement. The only issue with this card I have seen is decking yourself out but hopefully by that time you have a way to win. Oh, yea it gets hit by Aether Gust but so does like 80% of the meta right now so who cares.
1. Companions – I played Hearthstone for a few years before I picked up the Pokemon TCG. When they put deck building requirement cards in it broke the game. The issue being is when you have restriction let’s say like all even cards. The card pull you get the cards from is lower so finding the most busted build tends to happen faster. I think one of them will be banned in the next few weeks if everything doesn’t shake out. As of this article Gyruda has been out two days and is a menace. Being able to spark double and Thassa makes this deck bonkers. Tons of mirrors if you play this right now online. Damage isn’t the way to win in the mirror, it’s whoever decks out first. Companions will shake up all formats. I like it when Wizards take risks it makes for cool formats. I think overall companions are a positive but only time will tell.
I’m pretty sure this is the most solid top 10 I have every made but I also think there is a ton of busted cards in this set. Below are the cards I wished I put on my top 10 after playing a bunch of standard. I think this sets up a great next article talking about those if they are still relevant. You can find me on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lanethemain and Twitter: @lanethemain. If you find any cool decks out there be sure to let me know. With everything happenings make sure to lane5 at checkout on https://www.goblintraders.net/ to same 5% at checkout. Bye everybody.
