The story of Standard coming out of the Pro Tour was the success of tokens strategies and the breakout of Cryptolith Rite. Each of these strategies is monstrously powerful and capable of overwhelming most decks in Standard with a reasonable draw. But what happens when you try to combine the aggressive token strategy with Cryptolith Rite, rather than focusing on a more combo-oriented approach? mario91234 set out to answer exactly that question:

R/G Rites ? Shadows over Innistrad Standard | mario91234, 5-0 Standard League

• Creatures (15)
• 3 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
• 4 Elvish Visionary
• 4 Hangarback Walker
• 4 Loam Dryad

• Planeswalkers (8)
• 4 Arlinn Kord
• 4 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar

• Spells (13)
• 3 Fiery Conclusion
• 4 Dragon Fodder
• 3 Cryptolith Rite
• 3 Evolutionary Leap

• Lands (24)
• 4 Mountain
• 8 Forest
• 4 Cinder Glade
• 4 Game Trail
• 4 Westvale Abbey

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Cryptolith Rite
• 3 Atarka's Command
• 2 Caustic Caterpillar
• 1 Display of Dominance
• 2 Exquisite Firecraft
• 2 Qal Sisma Behemoth
• 4 Rending Volley

Buy This Deck

The fact this is the first deck to feature Arlinn Kord in the new Standard format is incredibly exciting to me. This card is incredibly powerful, but hasn’t really had a home in the format just yet, but this is the perfect spot for it. Arlinn Kord is a powerful threat in a format defined by other tokens and Planeswalkers. Arlinn allows your tokens to more effectively attack into opposing squads and threaten opposing Planeswalkers. This is especially true with Pia and Kiran Nalaar to help clear the way or provide additional evasive bodies for Nissa’s minus two and Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon’s plus one.

The additional advantage this deck has over other midrange decks is the ability to go bigger with Evolutionary Leap. With Nissa and Arlinn generating token fodder, as well as Hangarback Walker and Pia and Kiran Nalaar generating extra bodies, it’s easy to find yourself with extra bodies to sacrifice with Evolutionary Leap so you can try to find more valuable creatures. It is a little surprising to see so few powerful, top-end creatures in an Evolutionary Leap deck. Even just a copy or two of something like Dragonlord Atarka might be a powerful singleton, given Cryptolith Rite enables you to cast it and you’ll have excess tokens and Loam Dryads to sacrifice to Evolutionary Leap to try to find it.

The combination of Cryptolith Rite with Evolutionary Leap is especially powerful given so many midrange and control decks are leaning so heavily on spot removal spells to contain early creatures. This means as soon as they start targeting tokens with removal spells, you’ll have plenty of mana to cycle away your creatures for value and still develop your board effectively to keep up the pressure.

All in all, this seems like a fantastic shell for attacking other token-based strategies. You have Arlinn Kord to apply additional pressure, Evolutionary Leap to go a little bit bigger, and plenty of options further up the curve to break open stalemates. Particularly powerful is the ability to generate evasive tokens, either by sacrificing Hangarback Walker or just casting Pia and Kiran Nalaar. This deck has all the tools necessary for success in this format, and I can’t wait to see if this is the shell which brings Arlinn Kord to the forefront.