Hello everyone. Now that in-store gatherings are allowed in America by Wizards of the Coast again, you may find yourself needing a deck to play for Friday Night Magic. This week I have a few decks in my favorite color combination, Red / White, that you can use at a local Standard event near you. Let's get started.

Lorehold Learn

My first deck features a Phoenix that makes learning fun. Let's check it out.

Lorehold Learn | STX Standard | HelloGoodGame, aetherhub.com user

• Creatures (20)
• 4 Drannith Magistrate
• 4 Elite Spellbinder
• 4 Professor of Symbology
• 4 Retriever Phoenix
• 4 Selfless Savior

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 Guiding Voice
• 4 Igneous Inspiration

• Enchantments (8)
• 4 Showdown of the Skalds
• 4 Sparring Regimen

• Lands (24)
• 10 Plains
• 6 Mountain
• 4 Furycalm Snarl
• 4 Needleverge Pathway // Pillarverge Pathway

• Sideboard (7)
• 1 Environmental Sciences
• 1 Expanded Anatomy
• 1 Spirit Summoning
• 1 Start from Scratch
• 3 Academic Probation

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Retriever Phoenix is a creature that just doesn't quit. When it comes into play, you'll get a 2/2 flying creature with haste, so you'll be able to attack quickly with it. Also, if you cast Retriever Phoenix from your hand, you'll be able to learn. Like other Phoenixes, you'll be able to return Retriever Phoenix from your graveyard to the battlefield. To do this, all you need to do is learn. This can allow you repeated uses of the same Retriever Phoenix throughout the game, offering you the possibility of attacking with evasion for a ton of damage.

Since you'll want to return Retriever Phoenix to the battlefield often, there are a lot of ways to learn in this deck. Professor of Symbology allows you to learn when this Kor Cleric enters the battlefield. Guiding Voice, Sparring Regimen, and Igneous Inspiration all offer additional opportunities to learn in addition to their +1/+1 counters, pseudo-vigilance, and direct damage they provide. Also remember that the learn ability can be used to allow you to discard a card to draw a card. This is a great way for you to discard Retriever Phoenix from your hand in order to return it to the battlefield later in your turn by playing another spell that lets you learn.

There might be times when you have the ability to learn that you won't need to return a Retriever Phoenix to the battlefield. For those times, you might choose a Lesson card from your sideboard to put into your hand. One of my favorite Lessons is Academic Probation. This sorcery offers you a means of spell denial or creature pacification. Since this deck already offers other means of spell denial in the form of Elite Spellbinder and Drannith Magistrate, using Academic Probation to deny your opponent the ability to cast a spell that is disruptive to your plans can help you close out games faster.

Lorehold Spirits

Next, I have a tribal deck for you that is based around Spirits and Clerics. Let's take a look at the deck.

Lorehold Spirits | STX Standard | MtgMalone, aetherhub.com user

• Creatures (26)
• 3 Blade Historian
• 3 Hofri Ghostforge
• 4 Clarion Spirit
• 4 Skyclave Apparition
• 4 Strict Proctor
• 4 Usher of the Fallen
• 4 Venerable Warsinger

• Instants (3)
• 3 Lorehold Command

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Guiding Voice

• Enchantments (3)
• 3 Rally the Ranks

• Lands (24)
• 13 Plains
• 7 Mountain
• 4 Needleverge Pathway // Pillarverge Pathway

• Sideboard (7)
• 1 Academic Probation
• 1 Expanded Anatomy
• 1 Illuminate History
• 1 Introduction to Annihilation
• 1 Mascot Exhibition
• 1 Reduce to Memory
• 1 Spirit Summoning

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Most tribal decks revolve around a specific card that offers a bonus to the chosen tribe. For this deck, that card is Rally the Ranks. When this enchantment enters the battlefield, you'll need to choose a creature type that will receive a +1/+1 bonus. Most of the time, you will want to choose Spirit as your choice, however you might want to consider choosing Cleric for any additional copies of Rally the Ranks you get into play. Hofri Ghostforge is another payoff card for a Spirit tribal deck, which gives all of your Spirits a +1/+1 bonus, trample, and haste. Trample is an amazing bonus, allowing your spirits to potentially deal lethal damage even if they are all blocked.

Blade Historian is great, especially in combination with Hofri Ghostforge. Even without the Dwarf on the battlefield, the double strike Blade Historian provides to your attacking creatures can often be enough of an advantage to allow you to deal lethal damage in no time. That double strike also combos well with Lorehold Command. Once of the choices on Lorehold Command is to give creatures you control +1/+0, plus indestructible and haste until the end of the turn. Any bonus to a creatures power makes blocking them effectively much more difficult when they have double strike.

One combo to watch out for is Strict Proctor and Skyclave Apparition. Strict Proctor counters triggered abilities that happen when a permanent enters the battlefield unless the abilities' controller pays two mana. By itself, this ability can help you prevent a lot of the ETB abilities prevalent in certain decks. However, it will also force you to pay an additional two mana if you wish to exile a card when you cast Skyclave Apparition. Make sure you consider this when you're deciding whether to cast Strict Proctor.

Lorehold Magecraft

The final deck I have for you features the magecraft ability, which can be quite explosive. Let's take a look at it.

Lorehold Magecraft | STX Standard | MTGABrewLab, aetherhub.com user

• Companion (1)
• 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den

• Creatures (12)
• 4 Clarion Spirit
• 4 Clever Lumimancer
• 4 Leonin Lightscribe

• Instants (13)
• 2 Feat of Resistance
• 3 Show of Confidence
• 4 Defiant Strike
• 4 Goblin Wizardry

• Sorceries (13)
• 2 Seize the Spoils
• 3 Rip Apart
• 4 Crash Through
• 4 Igneous Inspiration

• Lands (22)
• 5 Mountain
• 7 Plains
• 1 Lorehold Campus
• 1 Temple of Triumph
• 4 Furycalm Snarl
• 4 Needleverge Pathway // Pillarverge Pathway

• Sideboard (8)
• 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• 1 Environmental Sciences
• 2 Start from Scratch
• 4 Introduction to Prophecy

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Most magecraft decks struggle to find the balance between the number of creatures to include in the deck and the number of instants and sorceries. Typical Magecraft decks include some number Clarion Spirit, Leonin Lightscribe, and Clever Lumimancer. This deck is no exception, and includes full playsets of these creatures. It also includes a playset of Goblin Wizardry, which creates two 1/1 Goblin Wizard creature tokens that have prowess. Since prowess is similar to Magecraft, having these tokens in play will feel very similar to your other creatures in regards to the bonuses they will get when you cast spells.

Show of Confidence is about as close to the storm mechanic as we're likely to see in Standard. When you cast Show of Confidence, you'll get to copy it for each other instant and sorcery spell you've cast this turn. When it resolves, you'll be able to place +1/+1 counters on your creatures and give those creatures vigilance for the turn. Spells like this, that create copies, work really well with Magecraft, but not so well with prowess. You can make up for that by having a copy of Leonin Lightscribe on the battlefield, as it gives a +1/+1 bonus to all of your creatures whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell. By timing things correctly, you can make your creatures very large for the turn, allowing you to attack for a ton of damage.

In order to make sure that the bonuses you've gotten allow you to win the game, you'll likely need some additional help. Crash Through can often be just what you need for these situations. Not only does Crash Through provide your creatures trample for the rest of the turn, but it also allows you to draw a card. Defiant Strike is another one mana spell that gives you a small bonus and allows you to draw a card. Drawing additional cards is extremely important in this deck, as each additional instant or sorcery you cast amounts to extra damage you can do. And, if you have trample, more damage will be done to your opponent even when your opponent blocks.

Wrapping Up

While all of these decks are made up of the same color combination, each of them is different from the others. I'm looking forward to sleeving each of these up and trying them out to see which one I like the best.

What do you think of these decks? Do you have any suggestions for improvements? Let me know by leaving a comment below. Also, feel free to share this article with your friends anywhere on social media. And be sure to join me here again next week as I continue my search for innovative decks in Standard. I'll see you then!

-Mike Likes