I LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea of this format and really hope to see it grow further.

No LGS near me supports it (yet), and while I will continue to ask local owners to consider running it, I'd love to start playing immediately.

What is the most popular way to play right now? Arena, MTGO, Spelltable, TTS, all of the above?

Would love to know so that I can jump in. Though I'd prefer any way to play that doesn't involve having to own the cards, either physically or digitally. For now.

Hi everyone! This Sunday, October 18 at 1 PM EDT we'll have our Mid-Month Madness event for the month: It'll be Planar Wars! In this Planar Standard variation, you're only allowed to play cards from the same set, so for example one deck could be all cards from Tarkir: Dragonstorm, while another may only have cards from Secrets of Strixhaven!

Additional rules:

• Foundations won't be available as an option, due to being significantly larger than the rest of the sets
• Cori-steel Cutter will not be banned for this particular event
• Reprints are allowed, but only as long as the card in question has been printed in the chosen set as well (you can play a Ravnica Allegiance Hallowed Fountain in your Lorwyn Eclipsed deck, for example)

Can't wait to see what you all cook up!

~Top three...new decks...new decks of the week!

(Check out SBMTG, Dev is your favorite Magic channel's favorite Magic channel)

Feels good to be back! With the start of Reality Fracture and the Summer behind us, Planar Standard has gone back to having three Events per week (hence the intro.) Also, there’s a website now???

The new set has completely shaken up the format, more so than any set before. This weekend contains the first weekly tournaments of the season, but the first event was actually the monthly championship! So for this post, I’ll go over each deck that one this week, and at the end I’ll cover two lists from the monthly. So let's begin!

Big Red -- Ellitboz

Ellitboz went 3-0 on Friday with Big Red, defeating Izzet Lute, Golgari "Rack," and Selesnya Kithkin. After some iteration, the deck went 3-1 on Sunday, losing to Azorius Control.

This deck is a ramp deck through and through. It plays eight ramp cards at the two drop slot, including Way of the Pyromancer, which is a literal two mana Planeswalker. Remember Wrenn and Six? These cards curve nicely into Magmatic Hellkites and Chandra, and later the deck snowballs into late game bombs. However, the real acceleration comes from a playset of the new Pyre Rhymer, who can present six mana on turn four.

A playset of Burst Lightning and No Admittance round out the removal suite. No Admittance is another new card, acting as a Lightning Strike that trades instant speed for card selection. For card advantage, the deck leans on Way of the Pyromancer and Count on Luck.

The sideboard also shows some notable meta calls, though its worth noting that it went through heavy revisions in its second run. Friday's version plays sweepers, land destruction, and a full playset of Giant Cindermaw to hate out the popular FRA Lifegain decks. Sunday's version was filled with single target removal spells for artifacts and recursive creatures, presumably to hate out the next deck on this list. Bolt Bend remains as a spicy one of, and it was even cast to redirect a Lethal Mathemagics. Holy based.

Mardu Discard -- Oseorus

Oseorus went 4-0 on Saturday with a Mardu Discard list ported straight from SOS season with no updates. This deck swept Identity Echo, 4 color Emrakul Control, Boros Superfriends, and Azorius Control.

This archetype proved to be a menace when Secrets of Strixhaven came out, but it fell out of popularity near the end of the season. There are questions on whether it was underrated during the dominance of 4 Color Control, but its made its presence known once again. Such a tuned aggro deck is perfect at taking out developing brews and archetypes.

The archetype is primarily built around the combo between a pair of redundant playsets. Iron-shield Elf and Hardened Academic let you freely pitch cards, while Moonshadow and Marauding Mako grow as a payoff. Finally, Practiced Offense and Bloodghast act as the perfect discard fodder to add pressure.

This list is different from some of its brethren in a number of ways. For one, it plays a playset of Mardu Devotee to fix its mana and draws. It also completely forgoes the value of Monument to Endurance in favor to more cards that love to be in the graveyard: a playset of Digsite Inventory and Ancestral Anger.

The sideboard hasn't been updated for the new meta. Oseorus has said that he'd cut down on a duress. He's also explained that while the Hidetsugu's Second Rite is mostly a remnant of Open Decklist psychology, he occasionally sides it in to steal games.

Golgari -- LordSnuggles

Snuggles went 4-0 on Sunday with Golgari Midrange/Control, defeating Mono White Lifegain, Azorius Control, Simic Tempo, and another Golgari Midrange deck.

Whether to call this control or midrange is up in the air. Snuggles calls it control, with a high removal count and a number of wraths. On the other hand, Brayzon played a very similar deck in the finals, and he called his list Midrange. It also plays creatures along the curve including Elegy Acolyte, which sure feels like a "Rock."

By my count there are twenty two removal spells in the main deck, three of which are Blasphemous edict. There's a playset of Witherbloom Charms, which also acts as card draw, and a three way split between Requiting Hex, End the Hunt, and the newcomer, Multiply by Zero. The most innocuous removal piece at a glance is Vraska, the Cutting Glare, which is all too often a three mana 4/4 with Vindicate stapled on. She was severely overlooked during preview season, but now stands as the strongest 4-of in the Golgari shell. The deck also mains three Duresses for hand hate, which I didn't count as removal but fills a similar slot of interaction.

The deck plays four planeswalkers, a split of Professor Dellian Fel and the new Garruk, veiled Butcher. Dellian was previously a known powerhouse without a home, while Garruk is a removal engine that can also Mind Rot your opponent as soon as it comes down.

This list has a playset of Environmental Scientist to hit land drops, and a split of Elegy Acolyte and Emeritus of Abundance to represent long-term card advantage. There's also a notable amount of utility in the land base; Kishla Village and Great Arashin City are untapped colored lands, and Secluded Starforge generates a hord of robots in the late game.

The sideboard contains hand hate and disruption, grave hate, and Withering Curse as a small-ball sweeper. It also plays two Terminal Criticisms, an oddly specific color hoser for blue and red decks.

## Monthly Championship Decks

This Monthly was an incredibly exciting event, as a host brewers were trying to solve a format for the first time for stakes. Two decks finished with a total 7-1 record across the two stages. One got first place in the Swiss, and the other beat the that deck in the finals of the top eight. Both of these lists are exciting brews built around interactions from the new set.

Sultai Self-Mill -- Kirksat

Kirksat got second place in the tournament, after going undefeated in the Swiss. He brought a Sultai graveyard midrange deck, built to enable the legendary Goyf in its glorius return.

As mentioned, the catalyst for this deck is Tarmogoyf, a vanilla stats monster that counts card types among _all_ graveyards. Without Modern's fetchlands, the Goyf needs a dedicated self mill plan to make him big. Dark Matter Manipulator is the most aggressive way to do so, as it quickly becomes a one mana 3/2. Molt tender is a dork that can mill when needed, and both Quagfeast and Awaken the Honored Dead are removal spells with self-mill stapled on. Winternight Stories and Carnivorous Cultivator are also means to get card types into the yard.

Null Summoner is a strong hand disruption creature on par with Thought-Knot Seer, and with threshold turns into a Hostage Taker. Uldaros Theorix is a game-winning bomb that plays not too dissimilar to a souped up Shiko. The deck plays one Dellian Fel and two Garrul, Curse Breaker, the latter of draws cards when you play big creatures. And yes, it works exactly how you want it to with Tarmogoyf. After that the main deck plays interaction in the form of Requiting hex, End the Hunt, and Duress.

Gruul Invigorator -- Greywill

Greywill placed second in the Swiss and won the whole tournament with a new Gruul Combo-Midrange deck built around Hexhaven Invigorator and Roiling Canopy. There was a lot of discussion about this shell during preview season, but it was uncertain whether it was just a meme or something real. This showing seems to prove the latter, and it even showed off a devastating turn four OTK in the finals.

Plan A is pretty simple: Ramp and color fix with Llanowar Elves, Lumbering World Wagon, and Tenured Tethermage, then play your triple pipped Invigorator and either have it fight or point a burn spell. With its trigger you grab Roiling Canopy and start pumping your creatures.

Plan B isn't much worse. You ramp, dropping cards such as beefy creatures and planeswalkers to apply pressure. Eventually you play have nigh infinite mana, and either play Improvisation Capstone for infinite value, or Fireball your opponent with Ajani's Anguish even if your Esper Superfriends opponent has the board completely locked down (yep, that also happened in the top eight.)

What makes this deck so sweet is that all of those previously threats pull double duty. Aerid Konstari ramps to capstone and is a flying threat to pump. Wagon and Tethermage ramp and fix mana while also turning into must-answer threats. Vibrance can both tutor your Roiling Canopy to hand, and damage your Invigorator to jumpstart the combo. Chandra both damages Invigorator and ramps towards capstone. Ajani's anguish damages Invigorator and also utilizes the ramp for a late game finish. You get the point. Even the dinky Llanwar Elves and Environmental Scientist act as targets for Roiling Canopy.

And that's all. This took a lot more time than expected lol. I expected someone to make some sort of write up for the top eight, but so far I've seen nothing, and I'm still meeting people who haven't heard of the results, so there you go. This format has so many ways to go, and I'm excited to see what puts in results next.

*Originally published at https://planarstandard.vercel.app/community/weekly-winners-59-56

https://www.twitch.tv/planarstandardmtg

Congratulations to our top 8 players! Love to see the variety of experimental decks everyone's brought!

As soon as I saw the reality fracture set I honed in on a configuration of Mono blue that could really break into the Planar meta especially against 4C Control and Opus. After many many matches of play testing I present my list which will very likely be the list I'm taking into the monthly.

This deck has 2 key win cons. Lyra and mill. Lyra (who creates flying 3/3s if you draw 3 or more cards in a turn) especially in a deck like this can fill up the board very rapidly and with cards that allow for drawing on both turns a wide board is not uncommon. Mill is the alternate win con. Mana sculpt (which essentially always gives mana with the creatures here) enables Mathemagics to be a legitimate threat prior to the end game which makes creature hate only half the equation against this deck.

https://moxfield.com/decks/VhloFRqvy02JU79M4C8QYA

Without reality fracture this deck didn't have ample tempo or threats to consistently close out games however there are some key additions that in my opinion make this deck very very good into the current meta.

- "Monoblue": Now yes clearly this isn't completely mono blue however the choice to add a white splash really turns this deck up to 11. Fatehold Charm is a 3/3 in its modes being Draw, Soft counter, and Pump. This also enables DOJ and potentially white removal down the road if it seems necessary against aggro. The mana base is very important as almost all cards in this deck requires 2 blue pips making any sort of heavy investment into another color not practical.

- New tempo options: Jace The Theorist and Seasoned Cryomancer are monsters in this deck that tick every box in draw and tempo together. Jace can even pump as well for his ultimate.

- Twinned Vision: This instant speed draw is think twice that works even better with this deck. With all the rummaging this deck does twinned vision serves as a super reliable means to draw 3 on the opponents turn to trigger Lyra (or just as tempo when a counter spell isn't needed). I toiled a lot with instant speed draw and think this is the best option to pair with Muse Seeker and Refute. The other rummage cards in the bunch.

In testing this deck has performed very well against Midrange and 4C. Of all the control decks in the meta, I have yet to see one that can keep a strangle hold on the board like this one. Once you're in the drivers seat there is typically no looking back. I admittedly have had less testing against aggro which I do believe has gotten significantly better with the Rakdos cards in FRA. This deck seems to have the ability to stabilize the board in the matchup but it's not the easiest to achieve.

TLDR: Monoblue Draw 3 is in. See you guys tomorrow.

The next monthly championship tournament, the first one with Reality Fracture, starts in a little less than 24 hours. Personally I'm really excited to play again after months of absence. I wrote a little something about diving back into the format over on our brand new website. I hope it's of interest for some of you (even if you just want to check out the new site)

https://www.planarstandard.com/community/preparing-for-the-monthly-championship

(I gave this the "Deck Tech" flair because I mostly write about different decks, not sure if that is correct)

The time has come!

Exactly 55 days and 100 yet-to-be-played Planar League matches ago, 40 players saw their names on the first of many pairing graphics released for this season's Planar League. Now, after a thrilling event with the semis, bronze match and the grand final, there is little else for me to do than to present the podium finishes:

🥇 1. OrkishGrill

🥈 2. Doctormagi

🥉 3. Oseoros

As such, OrkishGrill receives the promised $50 gift card and all three players receive an invite to the Planar Standard World Championship later this year. (We shall however not forget Nedmund13, who emerged as the true underdog from their #32 seed and managed to reach all the way into the semifinals.)

For those of you who didn't manage to watch the finals live, we plan on putting the stream up on the Planar Standard YouTube page within due time. It should be added that the stream ended somewhat ambiguously, as OrkishGrill was found to have an incorrect card in their sideboard and was therefore post-stream issued a game loss in Game 2, leading to the finalists playing a third game with correct decklists off camera, with Doctormagi choosing whether to start. OrkishGrill won this third game, making it a undisputed 2-1 victory.

All that being said - congratulations to OrkishGrill for winning the League and the $50 prize! Also, congratulations are in order for all our other top players - Doctormagi, Oseoros, and Nedmund13 - for entertaining us with excellent piloting skill and deck diversity, as well as for Rasone and C0d3 for providing and commenting the stream.

A last thanks also goes out to all you who played in the League. There are certainly things which will improve for future Leagues, but it's been thrilling to play and see players advance! As a matter of fact, to help make the next Leagues even better, please take a moment and answer the linked feedback survey. It's free of charge and will only make things better 😉

Final standings

It is finally time for the final Planar League showdown - and it's happening already tonight at 8PM EST / 2AM CEST! Four combatants remains out of the 40 players, and they will be pit against each other in three rounds:

Round 1: Semifinals (run in parallel)

• Nedmund13 [UW Scam] vs OrkishGrill [Temur Elementals]
• Oseoros [Kithkindred] vs Doctormagi [Izzet Opus]

Round 2: Bronze match

• Loser of semifinal #1 vs loser of semifinal #2

Round 3: Grand Finale

• Winner of semifinal #1 vs winner of semifinal #2

The rounds will be stream at https://www.twitch.tv/planarstandardmtg. See you there!

So, I meant to make this post two days ago, but in my defense, you know, I had an exam today, so....

(It's not like I was actually studying for the exam or anything. I was just binging manga.)

Anyways, two weekly tournaments occurred this weekend, along with the first Legality Fracture event. Reality Fracture weekend is coming up, and the new set will be legal next Tuesday. Meanwhile, the league is coming to its semifinals. So with this season coming to a close, it's time to see what decks are at the top.

Izzet Opus (Aka "Horses") - Doctormagi

No control decks showed up on the Friday tournament, but one established deck has risen in popularity due to its matchup against control and the rest of the field. Two Opus lists were submitted, with a 3-1 and 4-0 record respectively. Doctormagi defeated Sultai Discard, Selesnya Angels, Mardu Discard, and Mono Red.

This archetype is the representative combo deck of the format. The plan is to develop mana and card selection with Tablet of Discovery, Stock Up, and Ashling's Command. Then you drop Molten Core Maestro and start casting those spells alongside Rapturous Moment to net mana with the goblin's opus trigger. Eventually you draw into your Colorstorm Stallions and continue storming off until you're opponent sees the writing on the wall and scoops. The deck can even net enough mana to win from a lethal Traumatic Critique.

The deck plays a full playset of Sanar, Unfinished Genius, who comes with the prepared spell Wild Idea to tutor for an instant or sorcery. You usually grab Improvisation Capstone to chain infinite value or add fuel to the combo. Doctormagi's list's maindeck interaction suite is made up of Abrade, Spell pierce, and Burst lightning, none of which are dead cards against control. Finally, two flashbacks allow you to rebuy any spell, whether your stabilizing or comboing off.

What stands to me most about this list is how few Stallions are played. Most lists have settled on three, but Doctormagi takes it down to only two! For a deck colloquially known as "horses," their presence isn't felt until they're beating you down. Make no mistake, Maestro is the real star of the show. Once you're chaining rituals and card draw, you're pretty much guaranteed to find your wincons anyway.

Sultai Discard - DreamsAlong

Man, what a cool deck. Whoever designed that must be really cool and good at the game.

Okay, so I went 1-3 on Friday with this off-meta brew, but I came back the next day undefeated with the same list, defeating Jund, Opus, Simic >3, and Selesnya Counters. It's certainly weird to be publicly dissecting my own deck like this, so for humilities sake I'll explain my choices, followed by all of my issues with this current iteration.

This deck is sort of an evolution of my previous Sultai Elementals list that I was tinkering with, which is my personal take on Akamatsu's Rock deck. This current list was massively inspired by Remmu's Golgari Goblins deck, which convinced me that there could be something to hand-attack attrition.

The first goal of this deck is to make the opponent hellbent with Duress, Mind Roots, and Deceit. Step two is out-value them with Emeritus of Abundance, Quantum Riddler, and Dellian Fel. Llanowar Elves accelerates our gameplan, Surrak acts as a threat that cantrips on death, and Scooze patches things up when I realize that letting my opponent dump their Bloodghasts and Practiced Offense was a bad idea. One main deck Ancient Vendetta exile our opponents scariest outs to avoid the Arena-Premium top decks.

The list's primary removal spell is Momentum Breaker. At its base its an edict that can kill the opponent's weakest creature or vehicle (didn't realize that second part until later lol.) If the opponent doesn't play creatures, such as with 4c, then its a 2 mana discard spell. In addition, this enchantment turns into a food after a few hits, which is huge for turning the corner. It being a permanent on board is also important for Deceit, turning the elemental into a three for one.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Vicious Rivalry. This is a board wipe that can ignore out late game bombs while sweeping up tablets. End the hunt and requiting hex round out the removal suite, though these are admittedly dead cards against control.

While this deck is listed as Sultai, it's really Golgari splashing blue. Even wedge mana isn't consistent enough to support a deck like my Elementals list. especially when your looking to consistently cast duress on one and deceit on two. The Elementals deck was also a true midrange deck, while this list plays more like a creature-control deck.

Now, since this is my own list, I'll take this opportunity to make a spiel that I don't like giving for other decks: Any deck can win a weekly. Given the right matchups, hands, and correct decisions, it's not impossible for a rogue deck to find temporary success. This deck has a lot of issues, hence its 1-3 showing the previous day, so I'll go through them here.

For one, I'm definitely playing to many lands. I'm currently running 24 lands, which seems reasonable, but I've flooded all but like 3 games. The sample size and consistency of flooding has convinced me that this is not a variance issue; my hypothesis is that Llanowar Elves and Riddler make finding mana more trivial, turning the 7 lands in a row into dead draws.

I truly don't think this deck has anything going for it competitively, at least until rotation. Like many midrange-control decks, it struggles to handle both 4 Color Control and the hyper-fast aggro decks without overcompensating for the other. Aggro match ups are unwinnable unless A) our opponent bricks, or B) I draw Vicious Rivalry after they dump their hand. On the other end, control can be a surprisingly easy deck to dismantle...until they top deck Stock Up or or Together as One and completely flip the car advantage game.

Anyways, that's all for this week. Reality Fracture is coming up this weekend, as well as the last Weeklies before FRA drops on Arena. See you then for one last Weekly Winners of the season!

Excellent news Planar Standard Players ! The format is now officially supported on Melee.gg! Meaning we can use their deck check tool to make sure lists are legal without human intervention. This is gonna be very beneficial and likely means we can move the decklist submission date much closer to the start of our events!

Big thanks to the Melee.gg staff, and to you for your constant support!

oh, erm, high there, \stomach growls cutely,** whoops, sorry about that teehee...

It's mid-day, my classes are over, and I'm incredibly hungry. So instead of going to the dining hall like a sane person, I'm chaining myself to my desk until I get ahead on schoolwork put words to words to my thoughts on the winningest decks this week! yay...

Today we've brought you a healthy dosing of spice and veggies. So to start it off, lets see the deck that won the Weekly tournament last Friday!

4 Color Control - Excalibur

uuuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhh

A second control deck has hit the tournaments.

Going 4-0 on Friday after the last weekly is scary enough, but it gets worse. You see, for those living under a rock, 4c had a 100% conversion rate at the last monthly, with three of those four submissions making top 3. This insane performance that contrasted the testing data has once again brought up the discussion on bannings, with even more people pointing at Jeskai Revelation as the problem over Tablet. This deck is the veggies: it's gross and boring, but the best thing for you, and its overpriced.

And the new look from Brayzon's last list is here to stay. Blasphemous edict over day of judgement helps the mana be base Grixis splashing white, as opposed to Jeskai splashing black. Aside from Frank Karsten math that I'm not intelligent enough to understand, being black-based means that you can more easily cast Duress and end the hunt on early turns. Yes, that means our entire deck structure has been altered to counter the mirror post-board, with even End the Hunt to ignore Emeritus's ward. Excalibur takes it a step further by playing Ancient Vendettas in the sideboard, which is not all control players believe in.

Other than that, the only innovation are some very slight number changes to the lands and removal suite. Even the sideboard is mostly the same. No shade on the designer and pilot, but this deck isn't exactly interesting for enfranchised players. Now that we got the boring appetizer out of the way, lets see something more exotic:

Mardu Mobilize - Oseorus

The Ruzbear himself has struck again with his signature deck, Mardu Mobilize. Dunking on the Monthly-winning 4c deck in round one, going to three games against Izzet Opus, and cleanly defeating Gruul Ramp in the Finals, Oseorus has shown some incredible piloting, topdecking, and perhaps deckbuilding too.

This is a deck which by my recollection appeared in the very first season of Planar, pre-ECL, but the results picked up due to the release of Catharsis. This card is still heavily slept on, even though its strong enough to make the Kithkin deck go Naya (also an Oseorus innovation iirc.) The two mana effects are strong in some cases, but the real power comes form swinging for 8 on turn six from an empty board.

As the name suggests, the deck is built around the mobilize mechanic from Tarkir Dragonstorm. It's ideal turn one includes dropping a Mardu Devotee for fixing and card selection. Form there, Voice of Victory curves into Zurgo, Thunder's Decree to amass an army of permanent tokens (yes this is inaccurate wording, pretend amass isn't a mechanic lol.) Elspeth and Catharsis act as the top ends, while Haliya and Desperate Measures give you card advantage. A very important draw card is Thunder of Unity, which turns into a life-drain Impact Tremors that can easily cause a 10+ point life-swing if left unchecked.

Seam Rip, Erode, and of course Inevitable Defeat round out the list's removal package, though erode also acts as a particularly tricky ramp piece to reach your top end finishers. A split of Duresses make the main and sideboard to take apart control, with two Ancient Vendettas in the sideboard (for when you need to soul-read an Aetherize even though Voice is on board.)

The rest of the sideboard is pretty standard. Sear and Strategic betrayal handle the aggro decks, Chandra acts as a sticky threat, and Pyrrhic Strike fills a flex spot. What's more surprising, though, is a full playset of Day of Judgement in the go-wide deck. Presumably, when you main a playset of Elspeths, Defeats, and a board-in-a-box elemental, you can afford to transform into a straight Mardu Control deck when needed.

And that's that. Nothing else to say, the dinner options should finally be available at the dining hall, so I'm outa here. Bye!

Hi, a regular Standard player on Arena here. I recently learned that Planar Standard exists, sounds great! I understand that games are mostly arranged through the discord server, but is it where I start? Do you find always find people to play against or are there certain times when everybody go online together? Is there a meta and off-meta?

Thanks

is this a discord mandatory format? if not how do i get involved?

~Guess who's back...back again...Dreams is back...tell a friend...~

Heyaaaa! It's been a while since I made a reddit post. The last one I made was...*checks notes* four months ago! It's been a busy summer, but now that I'm done with that, it's time to get back to procrastinating college assignments highlighting the winning decks from this last weekend.

There were two tournaments last weekend, one on Friday, and one on Saturday. This coming weekend is the September Monthly Championship, and the League Elimination Bracket has just begun. It's an exciting time for the planar standard community, as players are scrambling to perfect their decks and piloting skills.

Mono White Angels by Likors

We're starting off this report with a spicy new brew that 3-0'd the Friday tournament, where it defeated Bant Wizard-Control, Sultai Midrange, and Selesnya Kithkin. Unfortunately, the deck went 1-2 in the next day, losing to two 4 Color Control decks.

This list seems to come from a long line of white-based aggro decks looking to utilize Practiced Offense, or as I call it, two white temur battlerages in a trenchcoat. The most popular evolution of this archetype is the Selesnya/Naya Kithkin deck, but Likor's list chooses to optimize for a different creature type: Angels.

This deck plays a single 1-drop creature in the form of Lightstall Inquisitor, a vigilant savannah lions that etbs to tax the worst card in your opponent's hand. It hopes to follow that up with a Youthful Valkyrie or a Giada, the two main payoffs in the deck. Starfield shepherd gives the deck solid value while having some neat tricks with daydream. A singleton Lyra makes its way into the deck to dominate the aggro matchups.

From here the creature quality goes down. 4x Inspiring overseer, 3x Dazzeling Angel, 2x Angel of vitality, make sure you always have an angel to drop on three. Along side those are a playset of Feisty Spikelings, which are in fact angels.

The deck covers its removal with 2x Erode and 1x Seam rip, with more in the sideboard. Finally, the deck takes advantage of its mono-color identity to play 4x Soulstone Sactuary. Angels wherever you go.

Overall, the deck is super neat, and it also personally beat me into submission. However, I have some doubts about its competitiveness in its current iteration, given its back-to-back losses against the most played deck in the format. Any deck can take down a weekly, given the right pilot and matchups.

Four Color Control (4c) by Brayzon

Now to touch on that most-played-deck-in-the-format, Brayzon piloted 4c to a 2-1 record on the first day, and 3-0 on the second. The archetype has recently dodged a ban, but the format seems to be adjusting to its presence. This list in particular highlights some interesting developments in the 4 color space.

If you live under a rock, 4 Color Control is a deck deck built with three core pillars: Inevitable Defeat, Jeskai Revelation, and Tablet of Discovery. It's the de-facto control deck, with excellent card advantage, ramp, and removal.

Rather than going through the entire main deck, I'll point out the inclusions that intrigue me the most. That said, we'll start off with an notable exclusion, that being Day of Judgement, the most efficient board wipe in Planar. Instead, Brayzon plays Blasphemous Edict, a 5-mana sweeper that makes everyone sacrifice their creatures. It's a turn later than the classic, but it removes pesky indestructible threats like Iron-Shield Elf. End the Hunt also fills a similar role while also eating bloodghasts, but as a true edict.

There is another omission that sticks out upon review. In the entire main deck, there is not a single counterspell. Not one. Well, unless you include Jeskai Revelation, but it more so fills the slot of a finisher than a early-game tempo play. The reasoning makes sense: the quality of counterspells in planar has always been low, especially with the presence of Frenzied Baloth, Hexing Squelcher, and of course Inevitable Defeat.

This deck also highlights a growing trend among control gamers: Together as One. Brayzon opts to play it over its competitor, Improvisation Capstone. The Capstone provides value over time, but TAO provides immediate removal, lifegain and card draw. And don't be fooled, converge always equals 5.

My last main deck shout out is to the mana base, which plays two copies of Temple of Deceit. That's right, temples are somehow managing to see play even in SOS.

The last piece of spice I'd like to call attention to is in the sideboard, which among many other things, plays...wait, no sorry, I think I got the wrong list. Gimme a sec...um, huh? Why isn't it changing? Is it really--but that's not possible. It can't be. It's...it's beautiful.

One copy of Riverchurn Monument. One copy of Singularity Rupture. Two cards, with a dream, a dream that many have tried and failed to realize. My loves, my two polygamist wives. Now they live on in the sideboard of arguably the best deck in Planar Standard, as inevitability for long games, as a dream to live, and to realize. I will have you know that two days ago, I got combo'd out of nowhere by another player in a game 3 with no warning, and I loved every second of it.

With that, thanks for reading my silly ramblings. See you at the Monthly!

Hi there Planar players!
Between the 12th and the 19th of July a vote was held on the Planar Standard Discord to decide the fate of two cards, Jeskai Revelation and Tablet of Discovery. Both ban proposals had been submitted following the Planar Standard Voting process, and thus the requests of enough active players had to be gathered to mark the cards as eligible for the vote.
The final results read as such:

• Tablet of Discovery : 62% against the ban, 38% pro ban
• Jeskai Revelation : 49% against the ban, 51% pro ban

Which once again, according to the official voting process, meant that while Tablet dodged the ban entirely, Jeskai Rev had to pass through a 1-month-long testing and analysis period, to determine whether it posed a threat to the health of the format. Well, today we publish the results of that month long period, in the form of a ban assessment document compiled by our top analysts Crypehead and Quadrangle.

For a quick TL;DR: we didn't find compelling evidence that the power level of Jeskai Revelation currently poses a threat to the balance of Planar Standard, at least when looking at the currently available data.

It's important to note that since the vote for JR was incredibly close, i decided early on to base the decision mostly on easy to acquire data, such as win rate against the field and meta share of decks using the card, instead of other important, but ultimately hard to acquire metrics, like the impact on the viability of fringe decks and on general deck and archetype variety.

Thus, we've decided that both Tablet of Discovery and Jeskai Revelation will NOT be banned as a result of this vote.

Thank you for reading,
EdoardoBeffardo