At the beginning of this Standard format we saw a lot of players hyping a U/R Prowess deck featuring Monastery Swiftspear, Stormchaser Mage, and Abbot of Keral Keep backed by the powerful new cantrips of Expedite and Slip Through Space. These decks were very popular in the short term, but proved to be too soft to effects like Crackling Doom and Murderous Cut. As Standard shifts away from efficient answers and back toward powerful hay-makers, it may be time for this style of deck to make a comeback. Take a look at Heraklinos1989’s most recent take on the archetype:

Grixis Prowess ? Oath of the Gatewatch Standard | Heraklinos1989, 5-0 Standard League

• Creatures (12)
• 4 Abbot of Keral Keep
• 4 Monastery Swiftspear
• 4 Stormchaser Mage

• Spells (24)
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 3 Fiery Impulse
• 3 Temur Battle Rage
• 3 Wild Slash
• 4 Titan's Strength
• 2 Magmatic Insight
• 2 Painful Truths
• 2 Roast
• 4 Treasure Cruise

• Lands (24)
• 1 Island
• 3 Mountain
• 1 Sunken Hollow
• 1 Wooded Foothills
• 2 Smoldering Marsh
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Shivan Reef
• 4 Wandering Fumarole

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 1 Painful Truths
• 1 Roast
• 2 Disdainful Stroke
• 2 Dispel
• 2 Duress
• 2 Outpost Siege
• 2 Radiant Flames
• 2 Virulent Plague

Buy This Deck

The overall shell of the deck hasn’t changed. Prowess creatures plus efficient spells, Titan's Strength, and Temur Battle Rage to close out games. The difference is this deck is much less combo oriented. There are no cantrips like Expedite and Slip Through Space, which can be awkward against removal spells or just rot in your hand if the board is devoid of creatures. Instead, Heraklinos1989 has maxed out on efficient interaction and card drawing independent of creatures.

Painful Truths and Treasure Cruise do a fantastic job of keeping your hand flush with more hasty creatures and efficient removal. This allows you to threaten to kill your opponent off of very little base if they ever tap out. Even if an opponent taps out for something like a Siege Rhino against an empty board, you can easily follow up with Monastery Swiftspear, Titan's Strength, and Temur Battle Rage to get in for twelve damage and force a chump block.

Another powerful thing about this deck is the ability to leverage Wandering Fumarole. Against removal heavy decks, you can often force them to leverage their removal to kill your Prowess creatures, leaving Wandering Fumarole on the board relatively unopposed. The important thing is Fumarole can attack as a 4/1 without any help, powering up the ferocious half of Temur Battle Rage. This means even if your opponent can kill all of your creatures, they still might just die.

This seems like a reasonably well-positioned against decks playing to the board. The ability to flood the board with Prowess creatures while efficiently killing your opponent’s best blockers gives this deck an absurd ability to sneak through a single attacker, which is often all you need.