Alright, so after much pestering from a certain someone (you know who you are) [ed: yes I do] I’m back with a very, very long overdue edition of everyone’s favorite scrub article Outside the Norm. Today we will be going way out of the norm however with my current brew for standard. It has been posting some very positive results in my gauntlet so far. I call the deck 6X=5c Squared and here’s why…
Decklist
4 Thragtusk
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Augur of Bolas
2 Angel of Serenity
4 Supreme Verdict
4 Farseek
4 Azorious Charm
3 Sphinx’s Revelation
3 Searing Spear
2 Rakdos’s Return
1 Aurelia’s Fury
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Increasing Ambition
2 Breeding Pool
2 Clifftop Retreat
4 Glacial Fortress
1 Godless Shine
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Hinterland Harbor
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Sunpetal Grove
2 Temple Garden
1 Watery Grave
Sideboard (still in progress)
3 Purify the Grave
2 Rhox Faithmender
2 Centaur Healer
2 Dissipate
1 Slaughter Games
1 Planar Cleansing
1 Angel of Serenity
1 Olivia Voldaren
1 Essence Scatter
1 Detention Sphere
Okay decklist out of the way and there’s a few things that stand out. Namely, it’s 5 colors, it’s 61 cards, and you probably think that I’m insane. Make no mistake, this is essentially a bant deck splashing black and red for what they can add. And the 61st card is actually a tutor which is our best card in any scenario. It’s the only reason why we play 61 and also allows us to play with a bunch of one ofs in the board.
Let’s talk more on the card choices and look at the creatures first. Thragtusk is a win con as well as lifegain and very strong vs the aggro decks. Snapcaster is absolutely amazing in this deck and also the main reason why Rest in Peace was cut from the sideboard. It allows us to get insane advantage and works quite nicely with the angel. Augur is also very strong as the majority of our deck is instants and sorceries along with having a good blocking body to help us reach our endgame. Lastly, Angel of Serenity. All I can say is “HAVE YOU READ THIS CARD ?!?!?” It is insane. It’s removal, it gets you back your Snapcasters or Thragtusks. Oh, and it’s an awesome beater.
Moving on to the spells we are playing with 5 colors so let’s be realistic. I’m fairly certain that the 4 Farseeks are kind of self-explanatory and as a bonus help us to cast Supreme or Thragtusk earlier. They are just all around good stuff to keep us on color and playing the cool stuff. Next up is Supreme Verdict. We don’t like creatures against us so we just kill ’em all to net card advantage, generally speaking. We play 4 Azorious Charms and I can not stress how powerful this card is. I have used all of it’s functions but putting a creature on top of the library and cycling are easily the two I use the most. 3 Searing Spear is meh, nothing special. Just some spot removal or a little burn to finish off the opponent. Solid role-player. Cyclonic Rift as a one of is just a powerful card and often a blowout, but more then one is just not worth it. I could be argued to have another in the board. As I stated before Increasing is the 61st card which we use as our tutor to find whatever we need when we need it. It’s also great when in the graveyard when we have nothing better to do.
Finally we get to the namesake of the deck, our 6 X spells. Our 3 Sphinx’s draw us cards and gain us life to bury our opponents in card advantage. Rakdos’s Return is a kill condition and trashes their hand to give us another source of insane advantage. And lastly, Aurelia’s Fury is good against creatures or control and can become another massive fireball to the dome.
That’s it for the maindeck so let’s look at the sideboard. We went with Purify the Grave because Rest in Peace hurts us too much and Purify syncs up beautifully with Snapcaster and Augur. Dissipate is our counterspell for reanimator as well as control, very strong with our guys and just plain good. 2 Faithmenders and 2 Healers are there vs aggro. Just gain life to get out of range from the aggro decks and Faithmender plus Revelation is just amazing. Our one of Detention Sphere and Planar Cleansing are both primarily for the midrange decks and get rid of pesky things like walkers or Assemble the Legion. Olivia goes in against midrange and Jund, she is just so friggen sweet. Slaughter Games is both for the control matches as well as reanimator. Essence Scatter as a one of vs midrange, and maybe maybe for aggro. Lastly the third angel is for midrange and control.
Okay, so here’s how it works. Just about everything you do is more powerful then anything the other deck can. All of your X spells are just amazing at burying your opponent in advantage no matter which you are casting and can become auto-kills a lot of times late game with a Snapcaster. Aggro and midrange matches are pretty easy because you can mostly just tempo ’em out, cast something BIG and then it’s usually over. I haven’t had the chance to play out the control matchup too much, and there is a good chance that Psychic Spiral will need to find a place in the board.
Let’s take a look at some of the matchups…
The Aggro matchup is pretty good for us unless they nut draw us game one…
-2 Rakdos’s Return
-2 Angel of Serenity
-1 Aurelia’s Fury
+2 Centaur Healer
+2 Rhox Faithmender
+1 Detention Sphere
Midrange is also pretty good game one as we can just go bigger and bury them in advantage…
-1 Aurelia’s Fury
-1 Searing Spear
-1 Increasing Ambition
-1 Augur of Bolas
+1 Detention Sphere
+1 Planar Cleansing
+1 Angel of Serenity
+1 Olivia Voldaren
Junk Reanimator…
-1 Rakdos’s Return
-3 Searing Spear
-4 Thragtusk
-1 Azorious Charm
+1 Olivia Voldaren
+1 Angel of Serenity
+3 Purify the Grave
+2 Dissipate
+1 Slaughter Games
+1 Essence Scatter
Humanimator…
-2 Rakdos’s Return
-1 Cyclonic Rift
-2 Thragtusk
+3 Purify the Grave
+1 Slaughter Games
+1 Angel of Serenity
Control…
-4 Supreme Verdict
-2 Searing Spear
+2 Dissipate
+2 Centaur Healer
+1 Angel of Serenity
+1 Olivia Voldaren
I hope you enjoy this list, I certainly have been having a blast with it. As I continue to learn what’s working and what isn’t I will continue to tweak it. Feel free to send me your idea or questions. And if you battle with this brew let me know what your ideas for it are so we can tune this into a killing machine. Good luck.
Until next time…
Norman Fried
Twitter – @NormanFried1
Email – normanfried@live.ca
