It is that dreaded time of year again. Standard will rotate in late September and with it we will lose most of the established decks. However, some decks survive and will be ready to pounce on a weaker format. Today I will walk you through six decks I expect to be solid picks once rotation hits. You can start playing them right now to get some reps in but who knows what Zendikar Rising will bring; for better or for worse.
RWx Cycling
Lands (18)
10 Plains
4 Mountain
4 Raugrin Triome
Creatures (16)
4 Drannith Healer
4 Drannith Stinger
4 Flourishing Fox
4 Valiant Rescuer
Spells (26)
4 Boon of the Wish-Giver
4 Footfall Crater
4 Go for Blood
2 Memory Leak
4 Frostveil Ambush
4 Startling Development
4 Zenith Flare
If you know me, you had to see this one coming. I wrote extensively about porting this deck to Pioneer so of course I love the Standard build. Better yet, Amonkhet Remastered comes out before rotation to make a Historic build playable. Anyways, the Standard build was very successful shortly after Ikoria released but it has mostly fallen off; before the recent bans anyways.
All this deck loses from rotation is Sacred Foundry. But Raugrin Triome is pretty solid in its own right. Triome lets us cast the blue spells in a pinch and happens to cycle. I also cannot help but to mention the cost. The deck is cheap in paper and very easy to piece together on Arena. Every card in the deck comes from Ikoria and you only need five rares. This will be a great choice on Day 1 of new Standard so start grabbing your Ikoria packs now.
Temur Adventures
Lands (26)
4 Fabled Passage
4 Ketria Triome
6 Forest
5 Island
3 Mountain
4 Temple of Mystery
Creatures (26)
4 Beanstalk Giant
4 Bonecrusher Giant
4 Brazen Borrower
4 Edgewall Innkeeper
4 Fae of Wishes
4 Lovestruck Beast
4 Adventurous Impulse
Spells (8)
4 Lucky Clover
2 Escape to the Wilds
Here we have another deck that is nearly block-constructed but the cost is way higher. Lots of Rares and a few Mythics but a ton of power. This deck has never really gone away and continues to place at tournaments at the time of this writing. The spells are nearly unaffected, it is the excellent shockland manabase that is on its way out here. I do believe we can still make Temur work via Fabled Passage and Ketria Triome. The deck will be slower due to the ETB tapped lands but it will take less damage in the process; a downgrade but not a huge one.
This deck has always been pretty ridiculous just based on the value it generates. Adventure is a high value mechanic in general and these creatures are good enough to see play elsewhere. But in here you are doubling those effects and drawing cards with each creature cast. The deck always has something to do with its mana and eventually Fae of Wishes can answer almost anything in the format. I am unsure of the flex slots in the list above but the core is so powerful that I expect this to remain viable after rotation.
Mono-Red Aggro
Lands (22)
4 Castle Embereth
18 Mountain
Creatures (34)
4 Anax, Hardened in the Forge
4 Bolt Hound
4 Bonecrusher Giant
4 Fervent Champion
4 Rimrock Knight
4 Robber of the Rich
2 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
4 Weaselback Redcap
4 ?????
Spells (4)
4 Embercleave
This one is pretty obvious. Standard has had a viable red aggro strategy at all times for years now and this new Standard will be no different. The current strategy is similar to what you see above and consistently places at large tournaments. It does not lose much with rotation. We drop Runaway Steamkin for Bolthound; a change some players were making already. We also lose Scorch Spitter and Tin-Street Dodger; some players used Grim Initiate. Admittedly, our replacements are pretty medium.
I can make peace with running Weaselback Redcap. It is a mana sink and it is a Knight for Champion to boost. After that though it is pretty disappointing. Goblin Arsonist is pretty mopey outside of a dedicated goblin deck in 2020. Gingerbrute does not synergize with Anax and Torbran. Shock is always there but bodies are so important in the Embercleave + Embereth + Bolthound deck. So keep an eye out for red one drops in the Zendikar Rising spoiler. Goblin Guide would be huge for us. Either way, this deck will be excellent. It is competitive now and does not lose much in the rotation.
Mono-Green Aggro
Lands (24)
4 Castle Garenbrig
20 Forest
Creatures (30)
4 Gemrazer
4 Questing Beast
4 Scavenging Ooze
4 Stonecoil Serpent
3 Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig
4 Lovestruck Beast
4 Gingerbrute
3 Syr Faren, the Hengehammer
Spells (6)
4 Primal Might
2 The Great Henge
This deck, unlike Mono-Red, does lose quite a bit at rotation; Pelt Collector, Barkhide Troll, and Vivien are quite powerful. However, the replacements are not too shabby. We can nearly straight swap them for Gingerbrute, Syr Faren, and The Great Henge. I also upped the count on Yorvo to fill in some slots. Gingerbrute is needed to keep our one drop count up but also enables Lovestruck Beast while acting as an evasive threat; it even can gain some life in a pinch.
I am less excited about Syr Faren. A bear that can give another attacker +2/+2 will rarely get to attack more than once, if at all. But it is incredible with Primal Might so it makes the cut. Outside of that it is the same deck currently seeing success in the format. I may be running too many copies of Gemrazer. But when the high power sets rotate, I expect the artifacts and enchantments of Eldraine and Theros to see more play. If not though, Garruk’s Harbinger is very interesting.
Mono-White Aggro
Lands (21)
4 Castle Ardenvale
19 Plains
Creatures (24)
4 Garrison Cat
4 Giant Killer
4 Alseid of Life’s Bounty
4 Seasoned Hallowblade
4 Selfless Savior
4 Venerable Knight
Spells (15)
4 Basri’s Solidarity
4 Heraldic Banner
4 Glorious Anthem
3 Basri Ket
The primary losses for this deck are Venerated Loxodon and Hunted Witness. Swapping Witness with Alseid is fine; recursion and protection often serve the same purpose. However, we are very sad to see the Lox go. It was typical for this to generate 7-8 P/T for less than three mana. It has been enabling these strategies for its entire Standard tenure. We did recently get similar effects though so the deck should be fine.
Heraldic Banner has started to creep into lists and with Lox gone it will be a necessity. We were also lucky to receive Glorious Anthem and Solidarity in M21. With all of these, we are still very capable of turning one-drops into credible threats. Our direct slot-in for Lox is Basri Ket and he is just fine. The +1 ability is a bit mopey but the -2 is huge in here; often generating three or more tokens that will be boosted by our anthem effects. The deck will still work and if Brave the Elements is in Zendikar again, this should be excellent.
Paw Blade
Lands (22)
9 Mountain
7 Plains
4 Temple of Triumph
2 Wind-Scarred Crag
Creatures (34)
4 Gingerbrute
4 Selfless Savior
4 Alpine Houndmaster
3 Alpine Watchdog
3 Igneous Cur
4 Seasoned Hallowblade
4 Bonecrusher Giant
4 Bolt Hound
4 Pack Leader
Spells (4)
4 Embercleave
I have to say that I am just not a believer here. I included it because a couple readers asked me to take a swing at it. This deck has put up only middling results and it actually loses quite a bit from rotation. This deck benefited heavily from Winota + Warboss, a Historic-banned combo, at the top end. Well Warboss rotates and we lost a great Human to get off the top in Tajic. So I went ahead and cut Winota entirely; there are only eight other humans in the deck after all.
Now, our top end is Bolthound and admittedly he is a good boy. Between that and the other good boys, it became clear that we need the goodest boy. Pack Leader lets us smack in without fear of losing much of our board. I will admit that I have been impressed by this tribal angle of the deck. It does net a sizable amount of card advantage and the threats are often difficult to deal with. However, you likely should just build Mono-Red. But if you love dogs this is actually quite good.
Wrap-Up
Those are the six decks I have come up with for Post-Rotation Standard. Originally, I had Cat Oven on here as a seventh but the bans spoiled that. That deck was already losing so much with rotation, they ought to have left cat alone and banned something else from the deck; something that would rotate anyways. Alas, they did not.
We might also see some Mutate piles or even a Knights deck pop up but I do not expect the format’s power level to drop that low. Is there anything else I missed though? Any decks that are one great card away from breaking out? Please share your thoughts with us in our discussion group. Or if you would like to take a swing at writing content for the site you can contact us directly here.
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