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Main » Articles » Dissecting Dark Ascension, Part 2

Dissecting Dark Ascension, Part 2

Darwin Kastle
Posted on February 6, 2012
 Reddit

In Part 1, I made some observations about a few of the blue and white cards in Dark Ascension. I also suggested a few decklists to try some of the new cards out in Standard. This time, I’ll be taking a look at black, red and green in the new set. One of the things I really like about the set so far is that it lends itself to a bunch of cool ideas for Standard. Pro Tour: Hawaii should be quite interesting, and I’ll be checking out the Standard lists with great interest. In the meantime, I’ll share with you a few more of my Standard ideas.

As you could probably tell from my last article, I think there will be a lot of decks based around a Thought Scour and Screeching Skaab engine. Graveyard decks may well take Standard by storm, and there could easily be a U/X graveyard deck for every color. Green is no exception:

"Battletrees"

Like most two-color decks I design, I chose one color to be my base color (in this case: blue), and then I chose lands and spells with that in mind. I don’t really need green mana until turn three, and I never need gg. With thirty-one creatures, I’m hoping to get one into the graveyard as soon as turn one with a Scour or a Twist. By turn three, I could easily have two or three creatures in the bin and be ready to start dropping Splinterfrights and Wurms. Then, who knows—maybe I’ll start dropping 10/10s on turn four or five. The Ruinator is counter to the goal of building up creatures in the ’yard, but if your opponent has enough removal and/or flyers, it’ll definitely be worth having. The Adepts are there in large part to ensure you aren’t outraced by a deck with a lot of flyers and chump-blockers.

Ghoultree – A 10/10 for 8 mana might be lame, but how about a midgame 10/10 for 1 or 2 mana? Prior to Dark Ascension, there were two problems with G/U in Standard. First, there were only eight big threats in the deck: four Splinterfrights and four Boneyard Wurms. Second, you couldn’t fill up your graveyard fast enough. Thankfully, Dark Ascension addresses both of these issues. Not only does the new Scour/Skaab package help with early graveyard filling, but the Ghoultrees provide you with four more massive threats. It’s also nice that Ghoultree gives you a threat that doesn’t die to having your graveyard hated. Besides, what’s better than bashing someone with a 10/10 Zombie tree?

Tracker's Instincts – This is a card that narrowly missed the cut in this deck. For example, it would probably be more powerful than Deranged Assistant in the deck, but I felt the deck needed a certain critical mass of creatures. It might be a good fit in a Birthing Pod deck. The ability to search for a creature while filling your graveyard is cool enough, but being able to play it out of your graveyard after it’s been milled is really powerful.

"Brains!"

The Skaabs and Zombie Infestations are good for filling up your graveyard for Unbreathing Horde while also finding some Gravecrawlers and Vengeful Pharaohs for your bin. The eight 1-drops and eight 2-drops provide you with some early pressure, and the Captains and Hordes turn the pressure up a notch. The Skinrenders and Pharaohs are there to keep your opponents creatures under control.

Zombie Apocalypse – I originally designed a U/B Zombie deck around Zombie Apocalypse. Blue is great for filling up your Graveyard with Zombies and being able to bring a bunch into play all at once for a single card regardless of casting cost seems pretty amazing. Given the number of Humans running around Standard, the secondary ability is pretty cool, too. Sadly, I decided speed was just too important in Standard. I’m hoping someone proves me wrong in Hawaii with a Zombie Apocalypse deck, though.

Gravecrawler – Zombie decks are much better now that they have a second 2-power 1-drop. The fact that you can dump them into your Graveyard and play them from there is even better. That makes them good both with cards that mill yourself, like Screeching Skaab, and cards that allow you to discard, like Zombie Infestation.

Diregraf Captain – Another thing every tribal deck needs: a lord to pump everybody up. The fact that you can make mass removal painful or even dangerous for your opponent is pretty awesome, too.

Geralf's Messenger – The bbb mana cost makes it a bad fit for this deck, but it would be a solid fit in a mono-black Zombie deck. The combination of undying and its enters-the-battlefield ability makes it pretty nasty to play against and a good fit with Zombie Apocalypse.

"Deja Vu"

This deck reminds me of the Astral Slide decks from Onslaught block. A deck built around some enchantments (in this case: Secrets of the Dead and Burning Vengeance) with a bunch of utility pieces that fit nicely with the enchantments. While this deck has a really good late game, it might be a little too slow against a deck with a lot of flyers and creatures too big to die to Rolling Temblor.

Faithless Looting – This was the card needed to really make a Burning Vengeance deck potentially viable. Starting on turn one, you can start searching for your Burning Vengeance—or even a copy of Secrets of the Dead. If you have to discard a couple flashback cards, oh no . . . having a cheap flashback cost is another reason it’s so well suited for a Vengeance deck.

Shattered Perception – Another of the very few red cards in Dark Ascension worth considering in Standard. It seems that it would be the type of card that would be a good fit for a Burning Vengeance deck, but 3 mana is already a busy point in the curve, and the flashback cost is a little bit too high.

"Stompy"

It probably speaks volumes about how long I’ve been playing Magic that I call this deck Stompy or that I think mono-green is worth trying. Dungrove Elder is basically the reason I think mono-green might be worth playing in Standard. With the Zeniths, it’s like playing eight of them, which should give a lot of decks problems. I hope being able to search for Daybreak Ranger will help against flyers. Being able to play pump spells on tramplers like Garruk's Companion and Skinshifter will help power through decks trying to race while chump-blocking with tokens. Green actually has decent sideboarding, too. Not only does green have really good artifact and enchantment control, but Prey Upon is actually pretty reasonable creature removal for this deck.

Strangleroot Geist – One of the weaknesses of a mono-green creature swarm deck is that it’s usually so vulnerable to mass removal. Adding undying is a good step toward addressing this problem. Adding a haste creature also helps with the problem of green decks being too predictable. It’s especially nice to have a haste creature to search for with Green Sun's Zenith.

Predator Ooze – It’s nice to have a creature that’s resistant to all forms of removal. It’s also nice to have an indestructible creature if you really need a good blocker. Instant creature-pump can allow you to kill enemy creatures unexpectedly, gaining you a counter for the Ooze. If you can bring an Ooze into play on turn two or three, it actually makes a really strong offensive threat as it grows every turn no matter what your opponent does. The Ooze does hate Lawkeepers, though.

 

Based on my first few experiments with Dark Ascension in Standard, I’m expecting a lot of aggression, a lot of graveyard decks, and a lot of aggressive graveyard decks. I definitely see Standard being shaken up. What about you? What are you expecting? What will be the first deck you plan to try? Is there a card you expect to blow up Standard?

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, review, deck lists, dark ascension, darwin kastle

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