In League With Morgan: Standard Sultai Seasons Past

Posted on June 1, 2016

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of watching my friends play Magic at GP Minneapolis. For the most part, they were all on some variation of a Duskwatch Recruiter deck — tokens, Cryptolith Rite, Collected Company, what have you. One of my friends even went on to win the whole thing (congrats Alex!) with G/W Tokens. However, as you may have noticed, I have been steering very clear of those decks.

One of my friends settled on a list based on one by Sam Black: G/B The Great Aurora. The deck is a spin on the Seasons Past decks from the most recent Pro Tour, but with a ramp component that makes up for its poor early game. By the time GP Minneapolis came around, my friend had cut the Great Aurora plan, and was on a ramp-style Seasons Past deck. I started my search with those, and found this one, from GP Manchester, splashing for Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Dragonlord Silumgar.

Deck Tech

Sultai Seasons Past ? Shadows over Innistrad Standard | Morgan Wentworth

Match 1: W/R Humans

Match 2: Jeskai Midrange

Match 3: Bant Midrange

Match 4: Bant Humans

Match 5: U/G Eldrazi

One of the main things I noticed about this deck when I was playing it wasit suffered from two sides of the same coin: no early game. It could not keep up with the aggressive decks without Languishing, and it could not put pressure on the ramp deck. Jace rarely flipped, and when it did it was mildly underwhelming. Painful Truths seemed like a tool to help me hit land drops, but due to the mana base I was frequently paying more than three life for the privilege. I turned to a different 3-mana sorcery that played better with Sylvan Advocate, and retooled the mana base slightly. While I never saw the Den Protector in any of my matches, I wanted to give World Breaker a shot, so that was the last cut. The sideboard Painful Truths became a second Infinite Obliteration, to try and address the more diverse threats in the format.

Why play this deck over the more traditional Seasons Past decks? Having access to things like Negate and Silumgar's Command are really worth the splash, especially when this mana base makes it so easy.