I have decided for this last hurrah of the current standard environment to only draft in FNMs if the standard constructed event fails to fire. Also i plan to take a new deck each week. This includes some revamped old favorites as well as some builds that are completely new that i feel can only happen in this window. And the last few weeks of living this plan has been a lot of fun. That being said not all of these decks have been good. Winning at least 1 FNM while crashing and burning in others. But that is why the family is drafting, they can carry team Gurobo even if i am not around to do so.

Also i want to add that i was able to take down my shops Gameday tournament with my Red/Black Impact Tremors deck. Totally unchanged for the expected meta. I just played to even out the field of players so we wouldn’t have to deal with bye rounds. My only loss on the day was due to a Mardu dragon deck with a turn 2 Soulfire grand master each game followed up with a Draconic Roar WITH A revealed Dragon for a huge tempo/live swing. Game 2 i was able to push threw this until my opponent was able to Anger of the Gods wiping both board (mostly mine) while gaining 21 life. I held back just in case and started to recover. But a second Anger off the top for my opponent knocked me out of the game and it was just me drawing hoping for a removal spell for his 4/4 dragon… But i was able to make the top 8 and win out. Thankfully my son took down the Mardu player with his blue devotion/artifact deck.

So lets look at the next build i have in process.

I really want to rock a crazy enchantment list while i can. Herald of the Pantheon, Sigil of the Empty Throne and Starfield of Nyx just seem insane mix in a few cards from left field like the Font of XXXs from Journey into Nyx as to control when my enchantments are men and when they are not as well as sweet value cards like Courser and Eidolon of Blossoms.

Here is what i have so far.

4 Font of Fertility
4 Font of Vigor
4 Suspension Field/Silkwrap some combo of these with the others in the sideboard for games 2-3
4 Herald of the Pantheon
4 Banishing Light
1 Bow of Nylea
4 Courser of Kruphix
2 Eidolon of Blossoms
2 Sigil of the Empty Throne
2 Starfield of Nyx

This leaves me with a few slots, 5ish… Unless we do some trimming. If we want to start adding things like Commune with the Gods, Kruphix’s Insight or End Hostilities we start needing to make those cuts. Let alone making room for some way to return our Starfield in the event they get hit other then the Bow of course….

So how do flesh this mess out? We start by looking at our meta. My meta is a hand full of agro decks. Slikwraps and FoVs should handle the early game well enough. If we make it to the mid/late game we should be golden vs them. An Abzan midrange list. As long as we have a Banishing Light for Elisabeth and can recover/stop an Ugin from destroying us we should be okay. Ugin makes me want to splash blue for Disdainful Strokes.. Blue and/or Red is an fairly easy splash thanks to fetches and the FoFs…. Wonder if we want to take advantage of that? I also have a few Artifact decks floating around for the most part i just need to keep my life total high and use the removal enchantments to take things out. There is a few control decks about but they shouldn’t be too much of a problem unless they manage to wipe when i can’t unman my maned up enchantments. Yeah that was a crazy line, but i like it.

I know i want 2 End Hostilities, 3 Kruphix’s Insights. I would like 3 Reclaim and some number of the Green Siege… Sigh. Big mana spells need fast mana if you want them to hit the board quickly.

So lets crunch some numbers.

Is 8 targeted removal spells and 2 sweepers enough/Too much or just right? it feels right to me. You want those 8 early. Most of the time you will be happy to draw 2 or more a game. Hell you might HAVE to draw 3+ to win some games.

Are the 4 FoVs right? I am not sure. I want at least 1 a game. But i also want at least one Starfield and with 3 Kruphix’s Insights and potential drawing from Eidolon of Blossoms it seems safe to trim here.

Could we go below 24 lands? Don’t think so. We want land. In most match ups the more the better. Hell we might want to trim to go up to 25 or 26…

Think i will try it out as

4 Font of Fertility
2 Font of Vigor
4 Suspension Field/Silkwrap Think you go 3/1 Silkwrap/Field
4 Herald of the Pantheon
4 Banishing Light
1 Bow of Nylea
4 Courser of Kruphix
3 Kruphix’s Insights
2 Eidolon of Blossoms
2 Frontier Siege
2 End Hostilities
2 Sigil of the Empty Throne
2 Starfield of Nyx

4 Green/White fetch
3 White/blue Fetch
3 Green/Red Fetch
2 Green/White Temple
4 Plains
6 Forest
2 Island

4 Disdainful Strokes
2 Stubborn Denial
4 The other of the Suspension Field/Silkwrap
3 Reclaim
1 Mountain
1 Font of Ire

There will be some games where we wont be able to win fast enough with the Sigil’s 4/4 fliers. If we can get a little FoI engine running we might be able gain the needed reach that surprises our opponents. I mean 6 mana for 5 damage to the face is just bad. 10 for 10 is better but still bad. 15 for 14 also bad but if you are making 4/4 fliers each turn and it is uncountable it might be better.  If it is bad these last two slots are FoVs for the rush match ups where we are just buying time.

Thoughts?

<3s