A mardu midrange deck for the upcoming Rivals of Ixalan standard. Looking to use a bunch of planeswalkers, strong removal and interesting creatures to close out games. This deck will change as it becomes more streamlined, and hopefully key energy cards will be banned on the 15th making the metagame more interesting. If you like the deck, upvote, comment, and add it to your folders so more people can discover the deck. If you reccomend cards for the deck, also reccomend what cards you would cut. And now, on to the card choices!
Also, check out my other Black midrange decks for the upcoming standard!
Jund Midrange - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/jund-midrange-rix/
Creatures -
Twilight Prophet - Reverse Bob! (Dark Confidant) The deck wants to play a long grindy game so you should have no problem getting the cities blessing. It being a 2/4 is great as it avoids a lot of the current removal and requires you opponent to use 2 cards to kill it.
Bomat Courier - Early aggressive 1 drop that is an artifact for Spire of Industry, and it can refill your hand if it survives for a long time. It can also be used to flip Path of Mettle
because it has haste.
Glorybringer - Still the best red creature and standard, and it is great against a large amount of decks. It also has haste so it can flip Path of Mettle
Tilonalli's Summoner - This card gives the deck a token subtheme. It can easily go very wide, and its tokens easily trigger Ascend. Its only downside is that it is quite vulnerable to early game removal, and your Path of Mettle
kills it if you play incorrectly.
The Scorpion God - While not as powerful as his big brother The Scarab God, he is still a great late game card with his recursion and potential card draw/removal mana sink ability.
Artifacts - Heres to me hoping artifact removal is not played as much in the upcoming standard. (Jokes on me, they reprinted naturalize)
Heart of Kiran - Smuggler's Copter 2.0. An amazing creature, and your planeswalkers can crew it. It also can help trigger Path of Mettle
because it has vigilance.
Planeswalkers -
Angrath, the Flame-Chained - I feel like it would be a sin not to include him, because this poor father who just wanted to bring gifts back to his children got locked on Ixalan all alone, so he needs some friends. He makes good use of your opponent's creatures, can kill them, and is a general nuisance to your opponent.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Still the best planeswalker in standard. All of your abilities are useful, which turns out to be quite useful.
Gideon of the Trials - While not even close to being Gideon, Ally of Zendikar he is still quite good and fills the 3 drop slot. He prevents damage from your opponent's large threats, attacks, and he can crew your Heart of Kiran.
Vraska, Relic Seeker - Her first two abilities are always a good addition, and she can easily out-value an opponent.
Enchantments - To bad naturalize is being reprinted.
Path of Mettle
- Probably the best new enchantment. Easy to flip, board wipes low to the ground token decks, and the backside is quite insane. It can either shock your opponent each turn, or it can kill their annoying attackers, even if they have Hexproof/Shroud. Take that Bristling Hydra.
Profane Procession - While one of the weaker enchantments, it is still a repeatable exile ability that is good against other grindy decks. The flip side is not that insane, and the only downside is that it forces you to flip it.
Removal - This is where the deck shines. It has quite a bit of spot removal to kill those annoying creatures
Fatal Push - Still one of the best removal spells in standard, but usually only a 3 of now because of the matchups where it is bad.
Vraska's Contempt - Exiling a planeswalker/Creature and gaining to life is pretty decent.
Abrade - Kill a creature or an artifact, Profit. When your opponent tries to play The Immortal Sun against all of your planeswalkers they will be quite sad.
Vona's Hunger - Don't know about this one yet. It gets past indestructable and other key words, and our deck is quite good at ascending, but I still don't know how it will play out.
Land - There is only one I want to talk about, Arch of Orazca. While it is not a Library of Alexandria, it triggers Ascend and it is a good late game mana sink. It all checks out.
Sideboard -
Blood Sun - The problem with this card is that you cannot compare it to Blood Moon because they are completely different cards. Each one has there strengths, and Blood Sun is actually better in most cases. It replaces itself with a card in the late game so it is never a dead draw, and it shuts off the annoying lands in standard. If you were putting this in you would probably be taking Path of Mettle
out.
Fumigate - Board Wipe
Vraska, Relic Seeker - Another copy for some matchups
Gifted Aetherborn - In case you need to be more aggressive
Aethersphere Harvester - Great against aggro
Rampaging Ferocidon - Great against lifegain reliant decks such as gift/tokens.
If you like the deck or see something else it could do, comment!
