With the Pro Tour getting ever nearer, this week let's take a look at some of the Big Players in the current Standard.
BR Vehicles
This has been one of the breakout decks of Dominaria Standard. The deck runs a very high red density to allow for the playing of Goblin Chainwhirler. It's one of the most powerful cards in the current meta, and is certainly something worth limiting your colours for. This flavour of Vehicles wants to come out of the gates quickly and uses Heart of Kiran to fly over tricky board states and finish off games.
BR Heart is another name for this deck since most of the time the only actual Vehicles in this deck are three copies of Heart of Kiran.
WB Vehicles
The other vehicle-based deck in this list relies more heavily on the power of Toolcraft Exemplar. This version of the Vehicles deck is far closer to a midrange deck than it's counterpart, utilising Planeswalkers such as Gideon of the Trials and Karn, Scion of Urza to gain incremental advantage. This also allows the deck to use the hidden mode on Heart of Kiran to make crewing just that little bit easier.
White brings several other advantages too, such as access to versatile removal such as Cast Out and stand alone threats like Lyra Dawnbringer and History of Benalia. All in all, this is a powerful deck, but by slowing down you become more venerable to control strategies.
UW Control
Here we have a classic archetype doing what it does best.
UW has gained two crucial pieces from Dominaria; Seal Away and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. These two have really pushed UW ahead of UB in recent weeks. The deck looks to play a normal control game, but relies heavily on sweepers like Fumigate and Settle the Wreckage. This can lead to a bad Vehicles match up due to their natural resilience to mass removal. Should vehicles once again dominate the meta, it's likely that we'll see the Esper variants with Fatal Push perform far better than straight UW decks.
As far as winning the game goes, UW has a few options right now. Torrential Gearhulk is always a good option, as shown by Shota Yasooka and Carlos Romao who both reached the final with control back on Kaladesh. Since then we've seen Approach of the Second Sun be a force to be reckoned with. Even more recently, we have seen Leo Lahonen pave the way with a Win-Conless UW deck, using Teferi to lock out the opponent and then loop himself for ever.
UW GPG
Sticking with the Azorius guild we have one of the most popular "combo" decks currently available. Here we look to reanimate a God-Pharaoh's Gift with Refurbish and start making 4/4 creatures. For a while, after the most recent bannings, Gift was the deck to beat online. It hasn't just found success online however, as Pascal Maynard took it to the finals of the most recent Standard Pro Tour back in Ixalan.
The fear with this deck is that with the resurgence of Vehicles it could fall victim to high densities of Artifact hate in the Sideboards
Mono Red Aggro
Yes, this deck is still here. Go quickly and turn it sideways, just like a classic red deck would want to.
People have been playing with the concept of a red aggro deck since Amonkhet, and it proved to be the real deal when it took down Pro Tour Hour of Devastation in the hands of Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa. Since then the deck has changed and evolved to suit whatever environment Standard has found itself in.
To beat this deck you need to be about a turn bigger than it. Take the red deck's curve and shift everything up one notch, that's how you build to beat mono Red.
Mono Green Stompy
Another one of the breakout decks from Dominaria, Mono Green has shown it is something to be taken seriously. Llanowar Elves and Steel Leaf Champion are what really pushed this deck into contention. A Turn two 5/4 that's hard to block is hard to argue with.
This deck is particularly well suited to the current Standard meta. Artifact Creatures and Enchantment Based Removal are everywhere, so if you can maindeck Thrashing Brontodon then you're probably in quite a good place.
That’s me for this week, no sideboard this time. But, as usual, if you enjoyed the article be sure to share it on Facebook and all the other social media sites, but also let folk at your LGS know. If you want regular updates on my articles be sure to check me out on Facebook right here. I’ll see you guys next time.
