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As today (Oct 5, 2018) was the first day after rotation and adding Guilds of Ravnica cards, I decided to throw together a deck at the last minute and go to FNM. At the time I built the deck, I did not yet have any GRN cards, so I was limited to Ixalan, Rivals of Ixalan, Dominaria, and Core Set 2019. Here's the list that I threw together in about 30 minutes-- and then got first place with a 3-0 record!
First, I decided that I wanted to play my only copies of a couple of cards-- 2x
Lyra Dawnbringer
and 2x --
Resplendent Angel
, and I wondered whether I might be able to use any of my copies of
History of Benalia
. I went for a knight-themed deck, but I quickly realized that mono-white knights is not really that great. I thought about going white weenie, and that didn't seem too great either, so I finally just started pulling cards that I thought would be good. After a few minutes of just trying to decide what looked good and what didn't, I threw the cards into the deck box and drove the 75 miles to the game store, then made some final decisions a few minutes before play started!
My logic was simple-- for the first night of a new Standard format, most people seem to want to try to play the few new mythic and rare cards they managed to get, and they usually go midrange and strange combos to play around with some of the splashy new cards. As a result, I thought that a fast aggro deck might be able to slide in below the radar and steal a couple of wins. It worked!
After the aforementioned angels, I chose
Dauntless Bodyguard
and
Knight of Grace
, and then remembered
Skymarcher Aspirant
, so those all made it in. While flipping through my binder, I saw
Leonin Vanguard
and thought it might be worth a try. I thought more fliers would be good, so I put in some
Remorseful Cleric
(and I was glad that I did!), and to help out the team I threw in
Benalish Marshal
. I also ran across
Shield Mare
and realized that might be useful, and then I saw a card that I have been wanting to play since I first saw it--
Leonin Warleader
! I sprinkled in
Seal Away
and
Ixalan's Binding
for some removal, a couple of
History of Benalia
and off we went!
First match was against a mono-black deck that tried to focus on hand disruption (
Mind Rot
and similar). My aggro deck got off and running. I did have to dump a couple of cards to
Mind Rot
, but by then I had a nice board state (by turn 5!), so it was over fairly quickly with a couple of
Knight of Grace
s on the battlefield. Won 2-0.
Second match was against U/W Teferi: creatureless before siding,
Lyra Dawnbringer
after siding. My deck was simply too fast and I managed to win 2-0. I felt pretty lucky with that win, but I took it and was happy. My opponent is an excellent player and his deck is pretty sweet.
Third match was against one of the people always winning FNM and similar, and a person I rarely defeat. He was playing some Izzet brew with several of the new GRN cards; a very cool deck. Again, though, my deck was too fast. Won the first game quickly, lost the second quickly (just wasn't a lucky game for me, I guess), and won the third game, so a 2-1 win!
3-0 at FNM! I know that I was lucky, and I played a couple of really experienced players who are very savvy, so that made me feel even luckier! Sometimes a deck just flows, and I had that fortune this evening!
I hope you enjoy the deck and give it a try. It was fun to play and it will be interesting to see if it can stay competitive once the post-rotation Standard format settles down in the next few weeks.
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