As you are reading this, you probably have another window open to the first day of Pro Tour coverage. If you don’t, make that happen. I’ll wait . . . 

With the big stage set and the Limited rounds progressing, I cannot help but feel far more excitement for Constructed this time around. For most people, this may be the usual, but for me, a diehard Limited player, it is certainly out of the norm. While I do like this Draft format, Sealed leaves something to be desired, a common problem for these sets looking to showcase the raw power that comes along with an above-average mana cost. In Draft, these cards can be built around or ignored completely, but in this Sealed environment, they have managed to help the situation by lowering the rarity of many of these cards but have not managed to create a pool that always has the capability of a curve and that is an issue.

While I would love to talk Sealed all day, I should probably instead focus in on the large question mark that has become Standard. For the last number of Pro Tours, we have seen the testing grounds of other major events nearly disappear, with many of the qualified players choose Sealed or testing over these events now that the release is so close to the event itself. This creates an artificial Standard that we have experienced for the past several weeks. While these decks are great and will probably be players this weekend, I would not expect the dominance of G/W Megamorph that we have seen.

While this has all become relatively normal over the past year, this set in particular seems to be highly undervalued among the tier one lists we are seeing.

G/W Megamorph ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Jacob Lively, 1st Place, StarCityGames Open Atlanta

• Creatures (24)
• 2 Hidden Dragonslayer
• 3 Wingmate Roc
• 4 Deathmist Raptor
• 4 Den Protector
• 4 Warden of the First Tree
• 4 Hangarback Walker
• 3 Nissa, Vastwood Seer

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

• Spells (7)
• 3 Valorous Stance
• 4 Dromoka's Command

• Lands (25)
• 5 Plains
• 6 Forest
• 3 Canopy Vista
• 3 Flooded Strand
• 4 Windswept Heath
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Gideon's Reproach
• 2 Evolutionary Leap
• 2 Archangel of Tithes
• 2 Tragic Arrogance
• 1 Dragonlord Dromoka
• 3 Surge of Righteousness
• 2 Whisperwood Elemental
• 1 Mastery of the Unseen

Buy This Deck

This deck is fantastic. It has a fine, low curve that naturally grows into the late game, giving it a strong matchup against almost every deck. So what is missing? Battle for Zendikar is what is missing. The set has had such a limited impact on everything outside of the mana base it is almost sorrowing.

I don’t believe it is that the new cards are unplayable. Perhaps some of them are harder to find on the curve, but overall, the power is there for a set that is mostly mono-colored. So perhaps that is the issue: We have what can probably be described as the best mana in years, and it is supporting a three-colored block. So far, we do not have enough cards from Zendikar to reward you for being in a strategy like Allies or sticking to a single color. The mana not only is plentiful, it does not deal you copious amounts of damage, meaning the aggro decks have an uphill battle that is usually assisted early in the season with clunky mana bases.

Megamorph is clearly a great deck that has taken this mana shift in combination with a series of cards that already had a ton of synergy to beat out these other aggro decks while still having enough spots to have answers for control. Does that make this the best deck in the format? That’s unlikely, and I hope the Pro Tour will show us that. Much like Abzan from last year, this deck is rarely going to kill you quickly, but unlike Abzan, it does have the ability to play more than a single card a turn, and the card advantage is better. So how do we attack that?

We can look to take an aggro approach, which leaves us back at square one, facing down decks that can casually splash for cards like Crackling Doom while not subjecting themselves to a half-dozen damage in the process from their lands. That seems to be the wrong way to turn, and though mana is good, it is somewhat slow for anything more than two colors, thus limiting the reach we have to draw damage sources from many colors. Atarka Red is certainly a deck that is here to stay, but it is not what I would be selecting going into a blind field.

Control has a ton of tools and more Wrath of God effects than you can jam in a five-colored deck, but the win conditions are looking more toward the late game, a place Megamorph can shine given the right setup. Without enough ways to exile cards, they can loop a great deal of card advantage, and that forces more traditional control decks to have to rely on a fairly poor arrangement of counterspells and clunky, or conditional, removal. I feel if you are extending to at least three or four colors, it may be best to accept a more proactive direction, such as this deck from the top sixteen this weekend.

Five-Color Control ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Ali Antrazi, 9th Place, StarCityGames Open Atlanta

• Creatures (18)
• 4 Catacomb Sifter
• 4 Siege Rhino
• 2 Hangarback Walker
• 1 Dragonlord Atarka
• 1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
• 2 Dragonlord Dromoka
• 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

• Spells (14)
• 1 Utter End
• 2 Dig Through Time
• 3 Draconic Roar
• 4 Abzan Charm
• 4 Radiant Flames

• Lands (27)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Canopy Vista
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Prairie Stream
• 1 Shambling Vent
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Sunken Hollow
• 1 Wooded Foothills
• 2 Lumbering Falls
• 2 Windswept Heath
• 3 Polluted Delta
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Flooded Strand

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Transgress the Mind
• 2 Exert Influence
• 2 Fiery Impulse
• 1 Kolaghan's Command
• 2 Surge of Righteousness
• 1 Radiant Purge
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Silumgar, the Drifting Death
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 1 Treasure Cruise
• 1 Sultai Charm

Buy This Deck

I am happy to see a deck without Bring to Light doing well—I have not cared for that card since it was revealed. This deck has the ability to create board presence with one of my favorite cards from the new set, Catacomb Sifter, as well as a number of staples such as Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Hangarback Walker. The late game has gone back to a Dig Through Time–and-Dragons approach, which also allows you to play Draconic Roar, which is probably the best 2-mana removal spell in the format. Choosing to ignore the fact that it will not always be turned on to deal damage to the face is a major step in the right direction.

So far, this is the control deck I have been happiest with, and though I would certainly enjoy playing it, I am not sure it is exactly where I want to be. This deck is labeled control, but the more I look at it, it seems to have a very midrange feel to it, which is why I am probably attracted to the list. It can be very difficult to match Megamorph on sheer card advantage, but if you can get under that deck or land a large threat and keep up in tempo, you do stand a good chance of winning, which is what I am looking to exploit.

The key last year was when I began to play Stubborn Denial and Treasure Cruise in Heroic. I dumped Pilgrims much earlier than most, realizing I was a worse midrange deck than most anyway, and I looked to gain card advantage in the form of used resources while holding the opponent at bay with limited counterspells and protection. Both of these cards were instrumental to my success, and both remain just as powerful.

So this clearly puts me in blue, a color I have gained more respect for in midrange decks over the past year. We can look to be three colors fairly easily if we stay with the easy mana, knowing what other cards to best pair these two cards with is when the difficulty arises. It may be easy to look toward Temur for cards like Savage Knuckleblade to turn on Stubborn Denial, but as I learned last year with Heroic, a Force Spike is plenty times enough in the early game, so forcing the large creature immediately is not always a requirement.

I also want to be able to play Draconic Roar if plausible—the early removal combined with the late-game reach many aggro decks lack means we should probably also be looking at a few Dragons at least. Thunderbreak Regent is my go-to right now. It matches well against Mantis Rider and Wingmate Roc and should probably be our top end. I have considered going further and pairing this with either version of Silumgar for a Grixis shell, but I feel black offers too little right now to make that happen. Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury may be a better argument, but Mardu Dragons already has a better shell for that, and other splashes can help our low end a great deal more. Jeskai does seem to have a great deal going for it outside of these cards, but I have wanted to look further into a shell that can make use of the above resources, so that is where I landed.

Jeskai Aggro . . . err, more Aggro? ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Ryan Bushard

• Creatures (16)
• 2 Monastery Mentor
• 3 Monastery Swiftspear
• 3 Seeker of the Way
• 3 Thunderbreak Regent
• 4 Mantis Rider
• 1 Dragonlord Ojutai

• Spells (21)
• 2 Valorous Stance
• 3 Jeskai Charm
• 3 Wild Slash
• 4 Draconic Roar
• 4 Stubborn Denial
• 2 Treasure Cruise
• 3 Exquisite Firecraft

• Lands (23)
• 3 Island
• 3 Plains
• 5 Mountain
• 2 Battlefield Forge
• 3 Prairie Stream
• 3 Shivan Reef
• 4 Flooded Strand

Buy This Deck

The other direction I have been taking Standard is a little more off the beaten path and not where I want the shell to be yet, but it does follow the same ideology of quick aggression with a midgame to keep the pressure on. The idea came from the Hardened Scales deck after realizing some of the creatures had potential outside of being slaves to the +1/+1 theme that deck holds.

Collected Bant ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Ryan Bushard

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Abzan Falconer
• 2 Heir of the Wilds
• 4 Managorger Hydra
• 4 Monastery Mentor
• 4 Seeker of the Way
• 2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit

• Spells (18)
• 2 Valorous Stance
• 3 Dromoka's Command
• 4 Collected Company
• 4 Ojutai's Command
• 4 Stubborn Denial
• 1 Evolutionary Leap

• Lands (24)
• 2 Plains
• 3 Forest
• 3 Island
• 2 Lumbering Falls
• 3 Canopy Vista
• 3 Prairie Stream
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Windswept Heath

Buy This Deck

I am sure whatever the Pro Tour has in store for us this weekend it will be exciting—G/W Megamorph cannot be the end of this format. Next week, I am sure I will have plenty to delve into from this weekend, so there will probably be a little less brewing and instead a better look forward at what the next few months may hold. I love Crackling Doom as much as the next person, but I want to see some real innovation this weekend. Until next week, join me in watching the titans clash in the Midwest and see just who has mastered this format.

Ryan Bushard

@CryppleCommand