An Introduction to how you can approach League Standard Deck building

This article is written by Tom Vandevelde and is our very first contribution!

League Standard: The Rules

The League Standard format is explained in detail elsewhere on the site, but for convenience’s sake, I’ll repeat its rules in short. In order to make up a League Standard legal deck, the main deck must be comprised out of at least 60 cards. A sideboard, made up out of 15 additional cards, is optional, but not mandatory. All cards must be legal in the current Standard format, and should therefore be printed in one of the following sets:

Theros

Born of the Gods

Journey into Nyx

M15

Khans of Tarkir

Fate Reforged

What distinguishes League Standard from regular Standard, however, are the restrictions on the number of uncommons and rares: the entire deck (main deck and sideboard) must not contain more than 15 uncommons and 4 unique rares total. A card’s rarity is determined by its rarity within the current Standard format. So while Last Breath was originally printed as an uncommon, in Mercadian Masques block, its most recent printing in Theros was at common. For the sake of League Standard play, it is therefore considered a common.

Since the format is not as widely played as Standard and Modern, and to an extent even Commander, it is almost impossible to ‘netdeck’, that is: to google a deck that a top pro did well with at some international tournament, copy it card for card, sleeve it up and take it to the your local shop in order to mercilessly crush your less experienced counterparts and dance on their tear-drenched table. If netdecking is not an option, that means you will have to think about how to build your deck yourself. And this article is here to help you do that, presenting four common angles to deck building.

Four ways to build your deck

1. Play the best cards

When deck building for regular formats, such as Standard or Modern, one usually looks at the rares first, because often they are the most powerful cards. Some decks try to cram in as many of the most powerful cards as they can, and hope to beat their opponents on sheer card quality.

This is the case for instance with Abzan Midrange, a Standard deck that is currently performing well, and therefore very popular. It is comprised of the best removal and the most powerful creatures and Planeswalkers in the Abzan colors and beats it opponents mostly by playing ‘better’ cards than them. Just look at the number of rares in this list, which won Ari Lax the last Pro Tour:

Lands (24)

4 Temple of Malady (R)

4 Sandsteppe Citadel (U)

4 Windswept Heath (R)

1 Mana Confluence (R)

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth (R)

2 Llanowar Wastes (R)

2 Caves of Koilos (R)

1 Temple of Silence (R)

3 Forest

2 Plains

Creatures (16)

4 Sylvan Caryatid (R)

4 Courser of Cruphix (R)

4 Siege Rhino (R)

2 Wingmate Roc (R)

2 Elvish Mystic

Other Spells (20)

4 Thoughtseize (R)

4 Abzan Charm (U)

3 Hero’s Downfall (R)

2 Utter End (R)

3 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion (R)

2 Ajani, Mentor of Heroes (R)

2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor (R)

Out of the 60 cards in the main deck, a whopping 45 (!) are either rare or mythic rare, 8 are uncommon, and besides the 5 basic lands, no more than 2 are lowly commons. Needless to say, the price tag of this deck is reasonably high.

A deck like this is a value deck, it’s not designed around a theme or specific ability it just puts out the strongest creatures backed up with the best removal. Building this type of deck is difficult for League Standard and requires you to look more into what the best creatures are in the uncommon and common section of the current rotation of sets.

2. Build around one card

Another way to go about building a successful deck in a traditional format, is taking one (or more) ‘build-around’ card and constructing the rest of your deck as to exploit that one card to the fullest.

When playing such a deck you normally want to run 4 copies of such a card. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is a bonkers card for any mono ramp deck, but only having access to one copy in League Standard obviously makes it hard to build a complete strategy around it.

Luckily for us, it is not necessarily impossible, as there are always a number of interesting uncommons, sometimes even commons, to build around. Quite often, this strategy provides the most unusual and interesting decks. Being somewhat of a Johnny, I wholeheartedly approve of this approach to building your deck. Within the current League Standard, some uncommons that have caught my eye are Secret Plans, Goblinslide and Riptide Chimera to name but a few.

In fact, Iarre Lafort played a very cool deck constructed around that last card at one of the last League Standard tourneys, and immediately had people copying and tuning this fun list! Niels Viaene courteously shipped me the list he is working on, stressing that it is still a work in progress:

Niels Viaene – Riptide “in progress” Chimera

Lands (22)

7 Forest

6 Mountain

4 Swiftwater Cliffs

3 Thornwood Falls

2 Island

Creatures (10)

4 Riptide Chimera (U)

4 Satyr Wayfinder / Elvish Mystic

1 Keranos, God of Storms (R)

1 Eidolon of Blossoms (R)

Other (28)

4 Magma Spray

2 Dragon Mantle

4 Lightning Strike

4 Nylea’s Presence

3 Raised by Wolves (U)

2 Goblinslide (U)

2 Reviving Melody (U)

3 Commune with the Gods

1 Hammer of Purphuros (R)

1 Xenagos, the Reveler (R)

Riptide Chimera’s ability has you return an enchantment to your hand every turn. While this is supposed to be a drawback (if you have no other enchanments, you have to return the Chimera itself), careful deck construction can turn this into an advantage. Returning Dragon’s Mantle or Nylea’s Presence every turn to draw extra cards, or putting packs of wolves into play with Raised by Wolves is just value! Notice how Niels also includes one of the other build-around cards I mentioned: Goblinslide. Because of the high number of non-creature spells in the deck, Goblinslide gets plenty of opportunities to spit out hasty little critters. That’s synergy right there, ladies and gentlemen!

3. Focus on one of the basic strategies

Another potentially successful way of building your deck, and perhaps the one most often used by more experienced Magic players, is to figure out whether or not it is possible to recreate a time-tested and successful archetype from Magic’s past by using the cards available within the present format.

While most commons and uncommons may not be individually powerful, put the right ones together in a proven strategy, and they can form a very potent deck indeed. Mono Red Aggro, built around a low curve with small, efficient creatures, backed up by burn spells, has always been a very successful strategy.

While it might feel daunting to replace 3 of those Rabblemasters with “only” Valley Dasher or Monastary Swiftspear, don’t forget that your opponent has limits in his deck too! More often than not, aggressive strategies feature quite a lot of commons and uncommons, since these decks rely more on efficient threats (which are often printed at lower rarities) than on complex, gamestate altering rares. This makes them an especially potent choice for formats such as League Standard. Compare the following two lists for instance:

Raphael Levy – ‘Rabble Red’ (Worlds 2014)

Creatures (16)

4 Foundry Street Denizen

4 Goblin Rabblemaster

4 Monastery Swiftspear

4 Valley Dasher

Other Spells (22)

4 Hordeling Outburst

4 Lightning Strike

4 Magma Jet

2 Searing Blood

4 Stoke the Flames

4 Titan’s Strength

Land (22)

22 Mountain

Tom Vandevelde – ‘Mono Red Aggro’

Creatures (16)

4 Monastery Swiftspear (U)

4 Foundry Street Denizen

3 Akroan Crusader

4 Valley Dasher

1 Goblin Rabblemaster (R)

Other Spells (23)

4 Hammerhand

4 Titan’s Strength

4 Lightning Strike

3 Searing Blood (U)

4 Hordling Outburst (U)

4 Stoke the Flames (U)

Land (21)

21 Mountain

Sideboard (15)

4 Scouring Sands

1 Barrage of Boulders

2 Act of Treason

1 Harnass by Force (R)

1 Eidolon of the Great Revel (R)

1 Chandra, Pyromaster (R)

2 Borderland Marauder

3 Magma Spray

The first is Pro Tour Hall of Famer Raphael Levy’s ‘Rabble Red’ list from the 2014 World Championships, the second my own League Standard list from a recent tournament, where I finished 3-1. Notice how little the lists differ? This is because the deck contains a large amount of commons and uncommons, and therefore translates more easily to the League Standard format. As a rule of thumb, decks that work in regular Standard and can be ported to League Standard without too many changes, will probably do well there too.

Similarly, while you might not be able to play 4 Crux of Fate, replace them by 4 Drown in Sorrow, and you can still put together a decent control deck from the best common removal, card draw and counterspells. These are two examples of composing your deck with a certain proven strategy in mind. Synergy can rule the day as well, however.

Synergy, Synergy, Synergy

Often times, several commons and uncommons are printed with the same keyword, turning this into a subtheme of the set. The best of these become strategies to look out for in draft, and it is when this happens that the League Standard player should keep their eyes peeled, and consider experimenting with the theme for constructed as well. Think of the many common Heroic creatures and ways to trigger them, for instance. Although not that strong individually, put together properly, they make up one strong deck. The same goes for the Outlast creatures combined with spells that give them +1/+1 counters, such as Incremental Growth and Feat of Resistance. There are also spells that put cards into your graveyard to be combined with the many powerful, but expensive, Delve spells.

This type of approach to deck building is my personal favorite, so you will often find me playing decks that contain all kinds of nifty little interactions. To go back to the first example, the Heroic mechanic is one that is ideally suited to League Standard, as many of its cards are either uncommon or common, and the rares are not essential to the strategy. This explains why Heroic is one of the most prominent decks among League Standard players at the moment. To finish up with, here’s my take on the archetype:

Tom Vandevelde – UW Heroic

Creatures (19)

4 Lagonna-Band Trailblazer

2 Favored Hoplite (U)

1 Hero of Iroas (R)

3 Seeker of the Way (U)

4 Battlewise Hoplite (U)

3 Heliod’s Pilgrim

1 Eidolon of Countless Battles (R)

1 Fabled Hero (R)

Other Spells (19)

4 Defiant Strike

4 Gods Willing

1 Ajani’s Presence

2 Feat of Resistance

1 Ordeal of Heliod (U)

1 Aqueous Form

1 Stratus Walk

1 Singing Bell Strike

4 Ordeal of Thassa (U)

Land (22)

10 Plains

3 Island

4 Evolving Wilds

4 Tranquil Cove

1 Flooded Strand (R)

Sideboard (15)

2 Erase

2 Ajani’s Presence

1 Ordeal of Heliod (U)

1 Heliod’s Pilgrim

1 Aqueous Form

3 Negate

3 Wavecrash Triton

2 Treasure Cruise

Notice how I filled one of my rare slots with a Flooded Strand? Since the rares were not essential to the core of the deck, I decided to put one of the rare slots to use in order to improve the deck’s manabase, which sorely needed it. But I am getting ahead of myself, optimal use of your rare slots is a topic for another day. For now, I hope you have enjoyed this article, and, who knows, maybe even learnt something new about basic deckbuilding strategy.

Until next time, may you Channel Emrakul, and not Stuffy Doll

Tom