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?
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.
Cheers for the list, looks fun. I’ll give it a go next time my dailies land on W or U.
[[card name]] to call