| I was going to write this week about what Modern deck I would be playing at #SCGMKE this weekend, except that hasn't changed in the past two weeks. If you're new to the newsletter, you should check out the R/G Through the Breach deck that I wrote about two weeks ago. I still think it's one of the best things you can be doing in the format and I had the opportunity to show that last weekend at States. The deck led me to an undefeated record through seven rounds of Swiss, and it not for a particularly slippery bogle standing in its way, I think I could have left with the trophy. So with that in mind, I wanted to talk to you about the Standard Classic that's happening on Sunday. This is the first Standard tournament after Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad and I expect the format to be very shaken up by the results. The Pro Tour Top 8 featured eight different archetypes—many of them brand new to the format. With so many new decks in the format, I wanted to talk about why you might want to play them and how you should change your sideboard to beat them. I'll admit that Jon Finkel's Top 8 deck is about as much fun you can have without playing Islands. Its strategy is both simple and elegant. Kill everything, reload, and kill everything again. Don't be fooled by the green cards, this deck plays out like Mono-Black Control and it does a great job at it. Why you should play it: The deck's cards are generic enough answers that you are unlikely to be caught off guard by some new strategy. If you can name a card that dodges Duress, Transgress the Mind, Ruinous Path, and Languish, then you're likely playing another game. Finkel's deck plays all these spells and backs them up with a full four copies of Read the Bones and Dark Petition. No matter what your opponent does, you should be able to answer it. How to sideboard against it: While the Season's Past deck is very powerful, it is also very slow in how it can act. They will likely play one sorcery every turn until the late game when they can play two. You can attack the deck in a couple of ways, the easiest being playing recurring threats. Cards like Deathmist Raptor and Den Protector don't mind getting hit by a removal spell and should be good against the deck as long as you can keep a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet off their side of the table. Additionally, a card like Dragonlord Ojutai with Haven of the Spirit Dragon should be able to get at least one hit in before the control deck is able to knock it from the skies. If I wanted a card specifically designed to beat the Seasons Past deck, I would look at trying a couple copies of Invasive Surgery. This one-mana counterspell from Shadows over Innistrad has more than 20 cards that it can hit, which makes it a better card than something like Dispel. On top of this, if your deck is able to achieve delirium, the second ability on Invasive Surgery can be very painful when targeting Dark Petition or Seasons Past. Team EUreka came up with this update to the traditional ramp deck and despite Brad Nelson's loss in the Top 8, this deck was the talk of the tournament for most of the Swiss rounds. Unlike previous ramp decks, Nelson's Goggles ramp deck uses only six main deck ramp spells (along with four copies of Drownyard Temple) to get up to its haymakers, which means the deck has plenty of space for interactive spells. Being able to play a playset of Fiery Impulse in a ramp deck helps many of its weakest matchups. Why you should play it: It's a ramp deck with decisions. With previous ramp decks you would frequently have to keep your opening seven and then hope that your opponent didn't kill you. This is no longer the case. By playing seven discard-and-draw effects, you get to spend the early turns of the game sculpting your hand into the spells that are right for the matchup. This effect makes your sideboard that much better and winning Games 2 and 3 becomes much more of a reality. How to sideboard against it: What you need to know about this deck is that it can sweep your board every turn of the game starting on Turn 5. It plays Dragonlord Atarka, Chandra Flamecaller, and both halves of Kozilek's Return. Fortunately, all of these except the first half of Return all happen at sorcery speed which means that you can sneak damage in against this deck by using threats that can be played at instant speed. While there are many great instant-speed options against the deck (Collected Company, Archangel Avacyn, or even just playing counterspells), I think the best weapon against it is the combination of Secure the Wastes and Westvale Abbey. Because the deck is based in just red and green, it actually has no ways of removing the 9/7 in the main or sideboard. Nelson could have played a couple copies of Clip Wings, but even then there is no guarantee that he could leave up mana to cast it because of the cost of all of the deck's tap-out threats. If you are going to go the route of playing counterspells against the deck, it's worth noting that Seth Manfield played Spell Shrivel as his go-to counterspell last weekend. The ability to exile World Breaker as opposed to just countering it shouldn't be overlooked. The Pro Tour winning decklist from Steve Rubin should now be at the front of everyone's mind. It did, after all, win the event. The deck plays out with a midrange strategy that is strong against removal due to the fact that many of its threats generate tokens and come from Planeswalkers. This deck isn't entirely new as we saw Andrew Maine finish in the semifinals of the Columbus Invitational with a similar list, but Rubin's take was significantly different. Why you should play it: The deck is both strong against value-based strategies and resilient against sweepers. In the Top 8 of the Pro Tour, we saw Rubin repeatedly overpower Andrea Mengucci's Bant Company deck in the finals due to the deck's ability to go wide once the board state became clogged with creatures. This is something I would expect to be good for the deck, but what was more impressive was Rubin's match against Nelson's Goggles Ramp deck. Nelson would play sweeper after sweeper, but Rubin was able to reload every time into another attack and took the match in a 3-0 sweep. When your tokens deck is winning games against board control then you know you're in the right place. How to sideboard against it: Rubin did a lot to improve the deck from the list that Maine played. In Maine's list it was possible to ignore cards like Elvish Visionary and Declaration in Stone, but Rubin has made that tougher by replacing them with cards that stand better on their own like Sylvan Advocate. All of this makes the G/W deck harder to control so it may be best to present your own threats instead of trying to answer theirs. I would look toward strategies like the B/G Aristocrats deck that Luis Scott-Vargas used in the Top 8 to try and exploit the slower speed of the G/W deck. Because G/W Tokens is both slow and somewhat light on removal, you should have enough time to set up multiple Zulaport Cutthroats. As far as individual cards are concerned, the deck is not the best at dealing with flyers, relying heavily on Archangel Avacyn to protect its Planeswalkers. One card I would look at playing out of the sideboard would be Dragonlord Silumgar. The 3/5 body matches up in the all the ways we would want, whether it's blocking Avacyn, attacking Nissa, stealing Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, or, if we're lucky, taking over an Ormendahl, Profane Prince that has broken out of the Abbey. I hope this gives you some idea of how to tune your deck for the Standard Classic this weekend. I'm looking forward to casting the Modern Open with Ryan Overturf, and with any luck, I'll see you in Milwaukee. — Matthias Hunt, @MtGMatthias | 
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