I’d been bored with this standard for a while, but stumbled on this Rakdos Powerstone list that top 8’d recently and its a lot of fun, while putting up results.

Deck 4 Automated Artificer 4 Bloodthirsty Adversary 4 Thran Spider 3 Phyrexian Fleshgorger 4 Cityscape Leveler 3 Go for the Throat 3 Sheoldred’s Edict 4 Gix’s Caress 2 Excavation Explosion 3 The Mightstone and Weakstone 1 Portal to Phyrexia 2 Mountain 2 Swamp 4 Sulfurous Springs 1 Battlefield Forge 1 Caves of Koilos 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 4 Haunted Ridge 1 Shattered Sanctum 1 Sundown Pass 2 Mirrex 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance 2 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

What are you all playing till WOE is upon us?

  • @[email protected]English
    4•1 year ago

    I’m playing a lot of different stuff in Standard, but this might be the most interesting list. It’s a blue-white poison deck that kind of plays like a burn deck. I found it on magic.gg a couple of weeks ago and tweaked it.

    Deck
    5 [[Island]]
    4 [[Plains]]
    4 [[Adarkar Wastes]]
    2 [[Seachrome Coast]]
    3 [[Mirrex]]
    4 [[Arcane Proxy]]
    4 [[Fateful Absence]]
    4 [[Bring the Ending]]
    4 [[Prologue to Phyresis]]
    4 [[Distorted Curiosity]]
    4 [[Skrelv, Defector Mite]]
    4 [[Crawling Chorus]]
    4 [[Serum Snare]]
    4 [[Experimental Augury]]
    2 [[Deserted Beach]]
    1 [[Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire]]
    1 [[Otawara, Soaring City]]
    2 [[Reject Imperfection]]

    Sideboard
    4 [[Knockout Blow]]
    3 [[Elspeth’s Smite]]
    2 [[The Wandering Emperor]]
    2 [[Destroy Evil]]
    2 [[Temporary Lockdown]]
    2 [[Skrelv’s Hive]]

    Advice for playing it:

    Your opening hand has to be able to cast a Skrelv, Chorus, or Prologue, because those are the only ways to assign the first poison counter.

    Serum Snare is one of the best cards in the deck. Bouncing a three-drop can buy you a lot of tempo. Also, in the late game, Arcane Proxy to flash back Serum Snare targeting the Proxy itself is a pretty good play.

    The sideboard mostly seems intent on beating mono-red, and I sympathize with that goal so I didn’t change it much. I did once get to discard an Obstinate Baloth to Liliana, which was pretty fun, but I ended up taking out the Baloths for a couple of Skrelv’s Hives, which I’m hoping will provide a little more late-game viability against control decks. Might find room for a third copy.

    I will say that this probably doesn’t beat the blue-black proliferate deck, because they’re trying to do the same thing you are but they have real permanents. I faced it once and it wasn’t a close game.

  • @meant2live218
    3•1 year ago

    I haven’t been playing too much Standard, but I have my pet Golgari Titania Meld deck, and I have a so-so Mono-G list and a Gruul modified list.

    That does look like a fun twist on the Rakdos that we’ve all been subject to for the last few months!

    • IralieOP
      1•1 year ago

      I too wish that RG modified was maybe half a tier better. The opening of oily G 1 drop, into +1/+1 counter on creature elf/ [[Kumamo V Kakazan]] followed by [[Feldon of the third path]] into [[Kodama of the West Tree]] is great provided oppo doesn’t have any interaction.

  • Mike
    3•1 year ago

    I haven’t been playing much standard over the last few months, mostly because of how incredibly stale the meta has gotten. This looks like it’s pretty fun though so I might give it a shot.

    • IralieOP
      3•1 year ago

      Yeah, that was me too once I got tired of losing to 4C Atraxa piles with Jeskai Dragons. (and coming to the conclusion that Hardened Scales just doesn’t cut it in Explorer now.)

      Hope you enjoy this list as much as I have been.

  • AndrewMEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    Decklist formatted (2 spaces after each line creates a non-paragraph break):

    Deck
    4 Automated Artificer
    4 Bloodthirsty Adversary
    4 Thran Spider
    3 Phyrexian Fleshgorger
    4 Cityscape Leveler
    3 Go for the Throat
    3 Sheoldred’s Edict
    4 Gix’s Caress
    2 Excavation Explosion
    3 The Mightstone and Weakstone
    1 Portal to Phyrexia
    2 Mountain
    2 Swamp
    4 Sulfurous Springs
    1 Battlefield Forge
    1 Caves of Koilos
    4 Blackcleave Cliffs
    4 Haunted Ridge
    1 Shattered Sanctum
    1 Sundown Pass
    2 Mirrex
    1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
    2 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire