New Standard means new brews, and with week one in the books, there’s plenty of room to start exploring. One of the most promising archetypes to come out of the first weekend is an aggressive Humans deck prominently featuring Thalia's Lieutenant to get ahead on the board and kill your opponents. Brian Braun-Duin may be playing the same colors, but he’s got a bigger take on the archetype with a number of interesting interactions.

U/W Midrange ? Shadows over Innistrad Standard | Brian Braun-Duin

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Hidden Dragonslayer
• 4 Archangel of Tithes
• 4 Consul's Lieutenant
• 4 Dragonlord Ojutai
• 4 Knight of the White Orchid
• 4 Reflector Mage

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets

• Spells (12)
• 4 Declaration in Stone
• 4 Always Watching
• 4 Stasis Snare

• Lands (25)
• 10 Plains
• 2 Island
• 1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
• 4 Meandering River
• 4 Port Town
• 4 Prairie Stream

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Stratus Dancer
• 3 Negate
• 3 Silkwrap
• 2 Lantern Scout
• 2 Surge of Righteousness
• 3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Buy This Deck

Always Watching is a particularly interesting card in the new Standard format. It functions as a powerful anthem to fuel aggressive draws, but also allows you to play defense against opposing aggro decks. However, in this deck, Always Watching does a lot more than that. Rather than having to fit Always Watching into your curve early on, you can use it as a curve-topper in order to give your powerful creatures Vigilance when you’re ready to start turning the corner.

The reason Always Watching is so powerful is because of both Dragonlord Ojutai and Archangel of Tithes, both of whom care about being untapped in order for their static abilities to be turned on. It goes without saying the pair is substantially more powerful when you don’t have to decide whether you want to get aggressive or utilize them on defense.

The other breakout card in this deck is Declaration in Stone. At first blush, this card only seems good in aggro decks, since your opponent won’t be able to take time off to crack their clue tokens without risking falling too far behind. However, the ability to unconditionally exile Thopter and Spirit tokens or creatures of any size and color is enormously powerful, and Declaration in Stone has proven itself to be a premiere removal spell in the format.

All told, if everyone else is trying to be aggressive with Collected Company and Thalia's Lieutenant, it may be a great time to be focused on Archangel of Tithes backed by Dragonlord Ojutai. The combination of resilient defense and Hexproof is monstrously powerful, and seems well-positioned against many of the strategies that were popular for week one.