Remembering The Pros

Hey all! It has been another great weekend well spent and guess what, we are few days away from MtG Worlds Championships 2009. I’m sure in this 2009 season ender tournament, the Standard metagame will again shape up with possible new decks to surface. Speaking of which, Jund’s domination in Standard is still unopposed.

The deck is truly remarkable in dealing with other decks in the format. Is Jund the new fae? Perhaps, but looking at the current meta, it seems that we have forgotten an old mechanic which I think is a powerful answer to the current Standard. The mechanic I’m referring to is Protection. The printing of the cards using this mechanic has declined on the latest sets but let’s see the current ones available in Standard.

Conflux Outlander Cycle – a remake of Invasion’s protection bears, this is probably the best two drops to use for your tricolor decks. Vedalken and Valeron excels against the current meta.

Black/White Knight – these old favorites came back in M10 and seems to see play in Vampires and Soldiers deck.

Devout Lightcaster – this pro-black Kor is recently used main deck on Mono White Control and midrange decks as an answer against Jund and Vampires.

Malakir Bloodwitch – Vamp’s pro-white momma acts as the deck’s finisher on most of its matchups. A built-in Drain Life and evasion via flying are a bonus too.

Baneslayer Angel – Protection from Dragons and Demons is just an add-on to this already tough all-in-one card.

So these are the worth mentioning critters that we can use. Next up, why don’t we build a deck out of these guys. My preferred choice, which a co-player also made a deck with last Friday, is a Bant colored aggro deck filled with protection guys backed up with counters, and a few pump and spot removal spells.

Here’s a suggested deck list made by fellow player Kira:

 

The list would look so “expensive” but out of that, we can have a budgeted version. Here are the cards that I would include:

Deft Duelist
Rhox Warmonk
Vedalken Outlander
Valeron Outlander
White Knight
Honor of the Pure
Path to Exile

My replacements would be from Vines of Vastwood into Brave the Elements, Baneslayer Angel into Knight of New Alara. Here’s my first version which I call “Bant Pro”:

 

I’ve added Dauntless Escort for mass removal spells like Day of Judgement and also act as an additional beatdown critter in the deck. The sideboard plan would probably be similar to that of a typical Bant list. I’m referring to generic sideboards like Celestial Purge, Negate, etc. Just plan out depending on your local meta. I hope you can try this suggested list on your tournaments and feel free to leave a comment for your suggestions. Until next post.