r/StandardMTG

I play a lot of modern and watching Aspiringspike has been one of the most awe inspiring things to watch in terms of seeing a master brewer work. Seeing him cook up monstrosities that eventually turn into meta decks is so much fun, but I was wondering if there's someone like that working in standard? Most vids I see are people playing other people's decks, maybe it's because there's less room in a much smaller format? Idk, looking for recs!

Hello!

If you're like me and enjoy interesting, unpopular combo decks, you may have heard of the "4c gearhulk combo" deck, also known as "SewerBloom". The deck aims to combo off by using the jolly balloon man to copy a nurturing pixie, which bounces a sewerveilance cam to untap JBM. then you tap a bloom tender for a bunch of mana, play the cam, untap the tender, use the left over mana to make another pixie, repeat until you have enough hasty fliers to win.

The supporting pieces of the deck are gearhulk, which upon entering tutors up 2 combo pieces, and nature's rhythm, which is used to get our 1x JBM out of the deck.

Previously, both stormchasers talent and badgermole cub were used in this deck. Talent was great because it gave you blue and red for bloom tender on a one drop, and let you recur boomerang basics, which could extend your mana production loops. Badgermole cub was... Badgermole cub. It's insane mana acceleration and ability to allow a blue land to tap for UG instead of just one mana is what allowed the earth bent land to be used to combo off.

However, without those pieces, the deck has been left utterly unplayable. I have a couple of ideas for trying to piece it back together (I'm well aware it won't be anywhere near as strong as it was before), but since I'm wildcard poor, I want to get some outside perspective on this rebuild.

Option 1: we jam transdimensional bovine and figure of fable / spider manifestation. Bovine is a double dork which means it can sustain the infinite. Costing three mana and not accelerating our other mana sources is tough, but at least it's copies 5-8 of a combo piece. This way feels simple and not cute, but also heavily restricts lots of the lines that would previously allow the deck to explosive win from bad spots. Figure of fable and spider manifestation are early plays that also accelerate our bloom tender. Not sure the exact ratio of cards that would get used here.

Option 2: instead of using a double dork, we double the sewerveilance cam triggers. The best candidate for this is starfield vocalist, which can warp in for 1U on the combo turn. By double triggering the cam, single mana dorks (like the 0/4 treefolk druid that can make any color) can now make enough mana to sustain the combo. This seems like the coolest fix but also probably the worst of the three I came up with in my head.

Option 3: formidable speaker. This card would allow us to tutor up bloom tenders. In addition, it's ability to pay 1 of the ideally 3 mana tender makes to untap tender and make more mana, means that formidable speaker does a better impression of cub than you might think. Alongside this, I believe we would use some number of spider manifestations as well, to still be giving our tender access to red mana. Figure of fable too for white mana pre gearhulk, but again, maybe that's all too cute.

I would love any input from anybody else who played or is playing this deck, or if anybody is just looking for a fun deck building challenge.

Thanks!

Working on a standard deck and would appreciate any help. Thank you.

I was thinking about what deck to play in standard now that the badget Is gone and ive Always felt fashinated by Maze's End, i cant really find a way to build It efficiently + there Is ancient vendetta that Is really popular rn, and It kinda destroys Ur main win con. Any ideas?

To find someone that has tested It would be super super cool.

Hey everyone, I am getting ready to build my decks in preparation for standard RCQs and just also getting into competitive standard. I want it to be known that I would like to be able to play with 2 to 3 decks. After the band list, I know there have been some pretty significant shifts in the meta. My top three decks right now I’m considering are Spellementals, life gain, and Dimir excruciator. Are these good options to play? I know excruciator takes some Hits in the rotation but do you guys have any other recommendations?

With bans coming round in 2027 only half the verges will be playable. With stormchasers ban I’ve been trying to switch to spellementals but I feel like the decks that are left which are super controlly easily remove my creatures. I’m trying to switch to excruciator but most of the decks price comes down to the lands. I’m gonna skip on the cavern of souls and riddler in sideboard to save $100 but wanted general thoughts if the verge was worth picking up or I should take a look at a diff deck list

While perusing at work an interesting thought popped into my head: would it be possible to make a spicy red control in the current standard format considering the vast amount of cards we have available?

Something that doesn’t flow into the cheap elemental path. Or maybe a tempo deck with big boys coming in at the end?

What do you all think? Is it T3/4 doable?

I've been really enjoying Standard lately and am fascinated by a lot of the discourse among enfranchised players. I've been thinking about the future of Standard and discussing it among my friends but I want to hear what the Magic Reddit community thinks.

Listed below are some questions I put together to encourage discussion:

1. How many decks should be viable at the metagame level for you to consider the format diverse and healthy?
2. When was the last Standard environment that you considered to be terrific from a gameplay perspective? What made that Standard environment so fun?
3. Are the interests and desires of Best of 1 players in direct conflict of the interest and desires of Best of 3 players? What changes can be made to accommodate both environments?
4. Which archetypes, decks or mechanics would you like to see supported or bolstered more in the current Standard meta game?
5. What do you enjoy the most about the current Standard environment?
6. What do you like the least about the current Standard environment?

**Here a few of my thoughts to get the conversation started**:

Obviously there is a big shakeup going on now with recent card bannings and The Hobbit set being released, but even before that, I can't remember the last time we had a Standard environment with so many different archetypes and color diversity that are competing at the top of the meta game.

The fact that there's a deck centered around a card with six black pips in its mana cost (\[\[Doomsday Excruciator\]\]) is pretty amazing. It's nothing like the mono green Landfall deck which differs greatly from the White/Blue/Black/Red Control decks that cast cards like \[\[Inevitable Defeat\]\] and \[\[Jeskai Revalaion\]\].

There's a Avatar Lessons Spellsling deck also which is very different from the White/Green \[\[Practice Offense\]\]/\[\[Brightglass Gearhulk\]\] deck. Not to mention the Sultai reanimator decks making great use of cards like \[\[Town Greeter\]\] and \[\[Bringer of the Last Gift\]\]. Not to mention the \[\[Slickshot Showoff\]\] aggressive prowess decks and the Elemental typal decks.

When I pause and think about how dynamic and unique some of the decks are in Standard, it really is quite amazing. Particularly because when many of these cards were previewed, the community dismissed some of these cards as bulk rares, Commander chaff or too awkward/niche for competitive Standard.

I am not bored of the meta and I don't think of it as one dimensional or shallow. We are talking about several distinct archetypes across the color pie spectrum that are viable at the top of the meta. There are aggro decks and control decks along with decks in between.

While there are some cards and play patterns that I'm not fond of, I haven't personally had this much fun engaging with a Standard environment since Kaldheim Standard and that was more than 5 years ago.

When rotation hits what are the chances there will be another cavern of souls type land or cavern of souls itself staying in the format? I feel like control will be really oppressive without it

For me:

[[Superior spiderman]]: Reanimation that cheats "playing from hand" is absurd. let alone at 4 mana.

[[Sheltered by ghosts]]: This would be super good at exile and 1+, with ward 2. Adding lifelink to it just warps entire games and basically wins the game with one card. cant wait to see this bs rotate.

[[Tablet of discovery]]: i feel like every other deck is using this right now, tired of seeing it tbh.

im so happy the cub, stormchaser and gran gran are gone btw.

Goodbye Cub, goodbye Gran, goodbye Stormchaser's Talent.