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Main » Articles » Strixhaven Standard Surprises

Strixhaven Standard Surprises

Mike Likes
Posted on July 8, 2021
 Reddit

Hello everyone. With all of the previews that have happened over the past couple of weeks, I'm certainly excited for the release of Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. In a few weeks, a ton of new cards are going to be introduced to Standard, shaking things up in the process. However, there's still a few weeks until this happens in paper, so, in the meantime, I'll continue bringing you interesting decks that you can use at your local Friday Night Magic tournaments or against your friends. Let's get started.

Izzet Control

We start this week with a control deck, which is a bit out of my normal wheelhouse. Luckily, it's in Izzet colors, making it a great starting place for an aggressive player, such as myself, to begin learning the ways of control. Let's take a look at the deck.

Izzet Control | STX Standard | Random Platinum/Mythic Ranked Player

Brash Taunter
Brash Taunter plays a big part in this deck in order for you to achieve victory. Since it's indestructible, only effects that exile it will remove it from the battlefield. It also deals damage to your opponent in the amount of damage it receives, making it an incredible blocker of bigger creatures. Additionally, you can force Brash Taunter to fight another target creature, preferably one much larger than itself, to deal a fair amount of damage directly to your opponent. All of this damage is but one way this deck is capable of winning.

Due to the sheer number of low mana value instant and sorcery cards in this deck, you'll often be able to create a Weird creature token that has power and toughness in the double digits when you cast Experimental Overload. This Weird token is a terrific target to choose to have Brash Taunter fight. If that's not possible, you could choose to attack with your Weird token, potentially for a lot of damage. The only issue with this is that chump blocking is possible. If attacking isn't able to get the job done, you might want to consider sacrificing your Weird token when you cast Kazuul's Fury // Kazuul's Cliffs. This will allow you to deal damage equal to that Weird's power to any target, most likely your opponent's life total.

As I mentioned, you'll end up with a lot of instant and sorcery spells in your graveyard naturally as the game progresses. There's one combo that I want to mention that can help close out a game easily with Brash Taunter. Blitz of the Thunder-Raptor will deal damage to a creature or planeswalker equal to the number of instant and sorcery cards in your graveyard. By targeting Brash Taunter with Blitz of the Thunder-Raptor, you'll be able to deal a good amount of direct damage directly to your opponent.

Five-Color Nexus

The next deck I have for you is capable of boosting each of its creatures quite a bit. Let's take a look at it.

Five-Color Nexus | STX Standard | Random Platinum/Mythic Ranked Player

Maskwood Nexus
One of the first things to notice about this deck is the number of creatures that provide a power and toughness boost to creatures of various types. Gallia of the Endless Dance boosts Satyrs, Magda, Brazen Outlaw boosts Dwarves, and Hofri Ghostforge boosts Spirits. Normally, you wouldn't expect to see all of these 'lords' together in the same deck. However, because we have Shapeshifter creatures in Standard, combining these creatures in the same deck is very possible.

Next, let's take a look at the various creatures and spells that benefit from specific creature types. Righteous Valkyrie gains you life when another Angel or Cleric enters the battlefield under your control. Piper of the Swarm allows you to sacrifice three Rats to gain control of another creature. Rin and Seri, Inseparable creates additional tokens whenever you cast a Dog or Cat spell, plus it deals damage equal to the number of Dogs you control and gains you life equal to the number of Cats you control. Kogla, the Titan Ape can return a Human you control to your hand in order to become indestructible for the rest of the turn. All of these cards work great with Shapeshifters.

But there is one card that ties this whole deck together. Maskwood Nexus. With a copy of Maskwood Nexus on the battlefield, every creature you control, as well as creature spells you've cast and your creature cards that aren't on the battlefield are every creature type. This allows all of your cards to have an effect on every creature. It allows Haunting Voyage to be able to return all creature cards from your graveyard to the battlefield if it foretold. That allows you to end the game very quickly and decisively.

Jeskai Mill

The final deck I have for you this week features one of my favorite alternate ways to win, milling. Let's check it out.

Jeskai Mill | STX Standard | Random Platinum/Mythic Ranked Player

Ruin Crab
Some people hate playing mill decks, as they feel that you're not really doing anything until you mill the final card of an opponent's deck. For me, I find the art of playing a mill deck to be exciting. There's a certain ebb and flow during a game where you're trying to mill out your opponent that creates feelings of tension that are different than a normal game. One of the key players in this deck is Ruin Crab. While this Crab excels at defending, there will be times that you won't want to risk blocking with it, as blocking can leave it vulnerable to various methods of destruction. Sometimes it will be worth taking two points of damage in order to be able to mill three cards during your next turn.

Another key player in this deck is Teferi's Tutelage. When this enchantment enters the battlefield, you'll draw a card and then discard a card. That begins the continuous cycle of milling cards. For as long as Teferi's Tutelage is on the battlefield, you'll be guaranteed to mill your opponent's deck of two cards on each of your turns thanks to your usual drawing of one card each turn. The milling increases with each additional card you draw each turn. Archmage Emeritus can really help out with this, as you'll draw a card whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell while this Human Wizard is on the battlefield.

Another way to increase the amount of milling taking place is by having a copy of Cosmos Elixir in play. This artifact will do one of two things, depending on whether your life total is greater than 20. If it is, you'll draw a card at the beginning of your end step. This will trigger each copy of Teferi's Tutelage you have in play. If your life total is 20 or less, you'll simply gain 2 life. That can help you stay alive long enough to mill your opponent out. By having multiple copies of both Cosmos Elixir and Teferi's Tutelage in play at the same time, you'll be able to mill a ton of cards each turn. This only increases if you also have Teferi's Ageless Insight on the battlefield, speeding up your opponent's demise.

Wrapping Up

While I'm excited at the potential that Adventures in the Forgotten Realms brings, it's great to see the amount of innovation still taking place in Standard. Each of these decks brings something new to the table that I haven't seen before, and I plan on building all of them to test out in Magic Arena.

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

TAGS articles, standard, metagame, constructed, analysis, decklist, mike likes, stx standard, 07082021

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