Throne of Eldraine: Week One Decklists
Rotation has happened, Ixalan, Rivals of Ixalan, M19 and Dominaria are all gone and in their place we have the latest set filling the void, Throne of Eldraine.
Fortunately for fans of Magic the Gathering, of which we proudly count ourselves among, this latest set is a massive success, not only in power level, but also enjoyability.
Currently, the meta game is all over the place, as pro players and brewers alike attempt to come up with the most powerful, most busted decks that this standard season has to offer, of which there are many.
We will now focus and highlight a few of the decks finding success in the first week of the Throne of Eldraine standard season.
Green-White Adventures
The first deck that we are going to talk about was recently piloted by Aaron Barich in the SCG Standard Classic Philadelphia tournament, of which it took the coveted first place position, defeating some skilled players and stiff competition.
This deck falls into the Selesnya Conclave guild colors of white-green, and features a large number of low cost, high value creature cards.
With 30 creatures in total, this is a deck that is looking to hit the board fast with its numerous one mana cost creatures, then use these creatures to help “convoke” and cast the Venerated Loxodon, buffing all your creatures in the process.
This is the classic “white weenie” strategy that we have seen since Venerated Loxodon released in the Guilds of Ravnica set, however, with the release of Throne of Eldraine, this “go wide” strategy has serious gas in the form of Edgewall Innkeeper.
The combination of Edgewall Innkeeper, plus the insane amount of Adventure cards from the Throne of Eldraine set give this deck some serious staying power, drawing you a card each and every time that an adventure creature card is cast.
This can quickly result in a flooded board state, where you outnumber your opponent in both creature and card count, a deadly and oftentimes winning combination.
Finally, in the mid game, this deck features Lovestruck Beast and Questing Beast, two powerful finishers that are easy to cast, but have devastating results.
Golos, Tireless Pilgrim and Field of the Dead
Many players believed that with Scapeshift rotating out of Standard, due to its inclusion in M19, that the Field of Dead decks would drift into obscurity, however, as we have seen in week one of Throne of Eldraine standard, this couldn’t be any more inaccurate.
The Field of Dead strategy is alive and stronger than ever, with the card rapidly rising in price due to the sheer number of decks that have found a home for it, due to the incredible value that it has to offer.
The decklist shown above is just one of many that plays Field of the Dead, however, what many of these decks have in common is the fact that the vast majority of the Field of Dead decks play Golos, Tireless Pilgrim.
The reason for this, is the fact that Golos, Tireless Pilgrim flawlessly fits into the Field of Dead strategy, that wants to play many different types of lands to activate its passive ability.
Golos also wants to do this, as his insanely powerful activated ability allows you to exile the top three cards of your library and play them that turn, without paying their mana cost.
In addition to this, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim can search for your missing Field of the Dead card, or any other land card that you are missing to get things rolling, as soon as it hits the board due to its first ability.
To finish things off and to keep your card draw going strong, many Field of the Dead decks include 3-4 copies of Hydroid Krasis, a card that loves the sheer number of lands that these decks like to play.
Expect to see these cards a whole lot more moving forward into this standard season, as this deck is the real deal and is incredibly hard to beat once it gets going.
Jeskai Superfriend, Fires Invention
The last decklist that we are going to highlight today is incredibly powerful and fun to play, well, at least if you are the one piloting it.
The Jeskai Fires of Invention Superfriends decklist revolves predominantly around one very, very busted card, the Fires of Invention.
This card is pure value and very hard to beat once it hits the board, as it allows you to play two cards per turn, regardless of its mana color cost, as long as you have enough lands of any color to play it, without paying its cost.
This has lead to a number of busted decks entering into the Throne of Eldraine standard season, one of which is centered around casting Fires of Invention, followed by the Cavalier of Flame and Cavalier of Gales, both of which are from the M20 set.
The other strategy is that of the decklist that we featured above, which is the Jeskai Superfriends, that focuses on casting the Fires of Invention, followed in rapid succession by a number of incredibly powerful Planeswalkers.
Both Ugin and Sarkhan act as your finishers in this deck, as both can quickly take over the game if not rapidly dealt with.
To get you to the later stages, Teferi, Narset and a plethora of tempo / board wipe cards help you to reach the point in which you can cast Sarkhan and turn your Planeswalkers into 4/4 fliers that can crush your opponent in a single turn.
In Conclusion
The Throne of Eldraine standard season is wide open and is a brewers paradise, as new list seem to be coming out each and everyday, many of which can go toe to toe against the current “top decks” in the meta.
There are many more decks that need to be mentioned such as the large number of powerful Mono Black decks that have seen play, plus the blue mill decks that have found some success, however there are simply too many to mention all in one article.
This standard season is going to be an exciting one, simply due to the fact that there are so many viable decks to play and we are overjoyed to see that once again Wizards of the Coast has hit its mark, nailing this most recent set.
Which deck are you currently enjoying the most, which ones do you believe to be the best positioned to come out on top of this standard season? Let us know in the comment section below and as always, thanks for reading!