Our league finalists had to invent a whole standard deck, along with making up ideas for a variety of standard sets to go in it! This week is Provocative’s entry, and you’ll hear all about some new tokens, Rakdos planeswalkers, and why the sun is bad!
The Challenge
You will each design a standard, 60-card constructed deck (we’re letting you slide on sideboards, this time) with the following characteristics and deck skeleton.
Deckname: Jund Builder Bear
Deck Colors: Black, Red, Green
Archetype: Artifact Sacrifice Midrange
5 four-ofs (nonland)
4 three-ofs (nonland)
1 two-of (nonland)
2 one-ofs (nonland)
1 land
Across your submission, we expect to see three new custom mechanics. Lastly, we also want to see the different sets from your custom standard represented in the deck.
-13 unique cards submitted
-No limitations on rarity and/or card types.
-At least three custom mechanics
-One card named “Builder Bear”
-At least one card designed in the Black, Red, and Green color identities.
-An artifact sacrifice deck generally plays artifacts with the intent to sacrifice them for value/board presence/damage; Midrange decks tend to hold the center of the Aggro to Control spectrum and have tools for playing both aggressively and defensively.
-Use card flavor, card names, set symbols, etc. to show off the breadth of your standard environment (3-6 unique sets represented across your submission.)
-A 250 word blurb to describe your deck (can be a sales pitch, a tournament report, a deck tech, etc.) Please keep your blurb to words.
Provocative’s Blurb:
Tournament Report for Jund Builder Bear
The main card of the deck is Builder Bear (Cirque du Terror). Landing it on turn two and keeping it around quickly snowballs the game to a victory by turning incubate cards (Phyrexia: In the Void) into stat monsters. Xotual Sentinel (Xoton: Rise and Fall) and Thief Guild Runner (Caves of Ulto) are cheap generators of fodder. Builder Bear proved extremely potent against other midrange decks by going wide with bears and Unbound Seishin (Ayakama: Past) while other decks failed to go tall, such as Atarka five-color midrange.
The other half of the deck revolves around Xoton, Sun’s Scion (Xoton: Rise and Fall). The card is a potent reanimator piece for small threats, and if it ever flips, it becomes a card advantage engine. Cards like Phyrexian Core-Render (Phyrexia: In the Void) and Nullborn Ronin (Ayakama: Future) also pay off this game plan as well. These grindy engines eviscerated decks like Mono Red Unluckiest Curses Aggro, who typically ran out of steam under the flurry of removal.
The removal package is wide and fitted to the meta. Death with the Dawn (Xoton: Rise and Fall) and Nuacta Arbiter (Xoton: Rise and Fall) are catch alls in a very wide meta, while Drag Light into the Void (Ayakama: Past) is an allowance for UW Control’s hexproof threat of choice, Archon of Sea Gate.
After conquering UW Control in the finals of GP Buenos Aires, Builder Bear is well positioned to be the scourge of 2027.
The Decklist:
Lands:
Mayakama Silverpool
Mana Value 1:
4x Xotual Sentinel
2x Drag Light into the Void
Mana Value 2:
4x Builder Bear
4x Thief Guild Runner
3x Altar to Perfection
3x Death with the Dawn
Mana Value 3:
3x Xoton, Sun’s Scion // He Who Devoured the Sun
4x Unbound Seishin
3x Perverted Compleation
Mana Value 4:
4x Nuacta Arbiter
1x Nullborn Ronin
Mana Value 5:
1x Phyrexian Core-Render
The Cards!:
