Mardu Aggro For Standard
If you want to play Standard but like me, you don’t want to be on the UW flash or Black/Green Delirium plan, I’m here to tell you there is another option. Here I have designed for you an aggressive deck that can do well against the two main decks of the current metagame. It used to be Mardu Vehicles.
Originally the deck was played during PT Kaladesh by team Lee Shi Tian, Tomoharu Saito. They kept on playing it afterwards as well in the MOCS and following GPs. The deck evolved a lot and my version is quite different now. I don’t think you can call it Mardu Vehicles anymore because I am only playing 4 , but no or . Also the deck is not running any blue cards anymore because of the lack of Aetherworks decks, and the beatdown plan should be enough to fight it if you happen to play against it.
I played the deck in GP Warsaw and I got a 9/0 record day one and finished 45th at the end of the tournament. The list was not perfect but here is what I think is the best 75 cards possible for this metagame.
Jeremy Dezani – Mardu Aggro
4
3
4
4
4
2
1
-Land(22)-
2
4
4
4
4
2
-Creature(20)- |
1
4
4
4
4
1
-Spell(18)- |
2
2
4
2
3
2
-Sideboard(15)- |
Black is only there for and .
Scrounger is the best 2 drop in the format after for your deck. It gives you 4 additional artifacts to help your one drops get bigger and can come back from the graveyard after early trades. 3/2 bodies are great, and you can easily go turn one into a turn 2 , giving you two 3/2 bodies round 2.
is the best removal in standard, especially in an aggressive strategy. It is so much better than that can be disenchanted or which is sorcery speed and gives them a clue. It deals very well with Avacyn with its instant speed. The conditions however are playing red, black and artifacts (otherwise it’s just a ), so it’s not that easy to play, which is why the card doesn’t see as much play as it should.
is the best you can do the turn before they would drop (key card of the matchup). It is really annoying and your opponent has to change his plan because of it. Because of the 12 one drops and , Thalia also has a fair chance of surviving .
– : bad card in the matchup for both decks, especially on the draw
– : less useful against UW than GB delirium, also the worst card in your deck against . You keep one because sometimes it is annoying for Gisela or Avacyn.
– : the matchup is less aggro versus control post board and a 2/3 body is not the best against and .
– is just insane in this match-up. You can deal with , or , destroy to get back a or
and boost your board. Everything for only three mana.
– is here to deal with and .
– is the best answer to which replaces in the UW flash matchup.
– is very good against before delirium happens, but afterwards BG is playing only large toughness creatures, so you have to draw in addition, in order to have enough energy to spend. Sometimes you also need this energy to fix your own mana, which makes it a bit awkward.
– is a better answer to 4+ toughness bodies like with delirium, or . It also deals pretty well with tokens, not to mention the occasional multiple copies of a the same creature present on the battlefield.
– In addition: can easily die to , so you can also side some out for 2 copies of , but then you still don’t have the late game and losing some early plays makes all the other cards in your deck worse overall. I side them out on the draw but would recommend keeping them in on the play.
– is just too expensive for the matchup.
– and are alright in the matchup because you become the removal/control player, but you don’t want to play too many 4 drops.
– can remove from the game and deal with multiple copies of the same creature, two great things against zombies.
– can deal with in time, which is crucial against zombies. The second one can kill anything at instant speed.
– is too expensive in the matchup.
– is too expensive and rarely useful the turn he comes into play.
– deals with vehicles in a very cost efficient manner, allowing you to keep on developing your proactive plan at the same time.
– dodges and , it removes a creature upon arrival and can do that every turn, much better than Gideon as your top of the curve.
– is cheap removal similar to in that you are able to play your own creatures while dealing with your opponent’s threats.
– & have little or no impact on the marvel deck.
– can remove or .
– and are your disruptive options against .
– can boost your entire team like a Gideon emblem, and it is still better than here.
The deck is definitely less stable than a BG delirium and you will mulligan quite a bit more with it.
But the power level is high enough for it to be competitive, which is really rare in this format.
I hope you will join me in the ranks of the non UW / BG players with this deck.
Thank you for reading,
Jeremy DEZANI
Cards found in the Article
Jeremy Dezani
He was the 2013-14 Player of the Year with his crowning achievement taking place at Pro Tour Theros where he won in spectacular fashion with Blue Devotion back in 2013.
He has a stunning 10 Grand Prix Top 8s to his name including 2 wins and Runner-up twice.
He will also be the first Non-Japanese player to join the ranks of the Hareruya Pros.
Articles by Jeremy Dezani
