Standard is in a funny spot right now. We have midrange Collected Company and tokens decks which are becoming increasingly inbred to fight against one another. We have control decks trying to go just a little bit bigger than the midrange decks, and ramp decks trying to trump even the control decks. Underneath all of this, there’s the various flavors of White Humans, threatening to crush the dreams of anyone who foregoes their due diligence against aggro strategies. The moral of the story is you have to find a way to go over the top of the midrange and control strategies without giving up too many points against small White creatures. Sam Black may have found a ramp strategy capable of just that.

B/G Great Aurora ? Shadows over Innistrad Standard | Sam Black, Magic Online Championship

• Creatures (13)
• 1 Den Protector
• 1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
• 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 1 Ulvenwald Hydra
• 1 World Breaker
• 4 Sylvan Advocate
• 4 Tireless Tracker

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Ob Nixilis Reignited

• Spells (20)
• 1 Grasp of Darkness
• 1 Pulse of Murasa
• 1 To the Slaughter
• 1 Ultimate Price
• 1 Duress
• 1 Languish
• 1 Nissa's Renewal
• 1 Ruinous Path
• 1 Seasons Past
• 1 The Great Aurora
• 1 Transgress the Mind
• 3 Dark Petition
• 3 Explosive Vegetation
• 3 Nissa's Pilgrimage

• Lands (26)
• 5 Swamp
• 8 Forest
• 1 Mirrorpool
• 4 Evolving Wilds
• 4 Hissing Quagmire
• 4 Llanowar Wastes

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Duress
• 1 Ultimate Price
• 1 Grasp of Darkness
• 3 Languish
• 1 Dark Petition
• 1 To the Slaughter
• 1 Transgress the Mind
• 1 Dead Weight
• 1 Pick the Brain
• 1 Virulent Plague
• 1 Infinite Obliteration
• 1 Gaea's Revenge

Buy This Deck

This deck is very much reminiscent of the Pantheon’s Seasons Past deck from the Pro Tour. Dark Petition plus a plethora of powerful singletons gives you the ability to find the appropriate answer for any given situation, and Seasons Past lets you rebuy a whole mess of cards, including Dark Petition to find Seasons Past all over again.

The difference is Sam has opted to utilize this engine in a ramp shell, using Nissa's Pilgrimage and Explosive Vegetation over Read the Bones and company. This puts the deck into a powerful position where you can walk the line between a big mana control deck and a ramp deck. You don’t have to worry about playing a good mix of monsters and ramp spells, because Dark Petition and Tireless Tracker fill in the gaps in your curve and make sure you always have something to do with your mana.

Particularly interesting are the options Sam has at the top of his curve. A singleton World Breaker and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger are pretty obvious, but there are a number of less straightforward options, such as Ulvenwald Hydra, which can tutor up a MIrrorpool to clone Ulvenwald Hydra or another monstrous threat. There’s also the option to find the deck’s namesake card: The Great Aurora. This deck is very adept at out-permanenting opponents with a mass of lands and clues. This turns The Great Aurora into a board reset allowing you the first crack at casting threats or redeveloping your mana, which is an enormous edge for a deck which tends to fall behind on board.

All told, this is a versatile and powerful ramp deck with the early creatures and removal to keep up with aggro, awesome threats and a late game engine to dominate control and midrange decks, and The Great Aurora to clean up whatever’s left. I’m very excited about this deck, and I absolutely can’t wait to see how it develops further.