Most promising deck in Amonkhet standard?

[Kingofmottinos]

I'm glad that you like the first deck. How do you like the Sultai Deck with the Naga? Lastly I include the Hazoret's Favor because you can use it to power up the soulstinger before you kill it on purpose. Think about it, soulstinger enters with 2x -1/-1 counters, then if you play other spells to give it another -1/-1 counter (meaning it'd have three), you can boost it up with the enchantment and make it die at the end of the next end step. This way if you opponent does not block the attack they may be taking up to 4 points of damage. If they don't block and it dies then you can distribute more -1/-1 counters on other creatures. If you had nest of scarabs on the field then that's going to be A LOT of tokens.

   Also as far as deck size goes I personally like to play larger decks. It's not a "bigger is better" thing with me, I just feel that playing the minimum puts me at a disadvantage as far as resources and possible deck outs go. Also when I play my games tend to go longer than most people's matches (because I don't like giving easy wins). As long as I'm less than 70 cards and I include cycling, drawing multiple times per turn, or self milling tactics that work into the mechanics or theme of the deck then it really doesn't matter too much. For example: at my pre-release event I ran a 60 card deck while everyone else was playing 40 card decks. With the way I played the deck I had 1 win (against a mardu zombie) /1 loss (Rakdos Zombie Token and discard) / 2 draws (Azorious Embalm & Gruul Exert). I've learned in my years of playing that people build their decks as they need to. If a strategy works and the deck flows the way that it's supposed to then bigger won't mean slower.

I didn't think about soulstinger and favor, nice combo! I like the sultai, but I don't get why would you use cancel instead of disallow. Since this topic seems pretty active I'm thinking about finishing my (hopefully) tier 1 decks and I'm gonna wrap them in a new topic about tier 1 decks along the decks we all posted here where everyone can post his decks and his bets. Next deck in my list is -1-1 counters

[G. Moto]

I included only the cancel instead of disallow because I was trying to stay within this new Amonkhet set. One thing that I try to do when building decks is to use cards only from a single block if I can. This way it forces me to look at the set more in depth and find combos that others would not (for example, Soulstinger and Consuming Fervor). But if you're looking for an overall standard deck then disallow over cancel would be the better of the two simply because it stops spells from entering and stops them from resolving. Just keep in mind that when sets start rotating that the disallow will drop first.

[robort]

Going by amonket alone I would definitely say the zombies, black puts em out extremely fast and with the 2 cards that give zombies +1 +1 makes any zombie army really big. Then with Liliana helps recursion as well from the graveyard and then embalm. Then a 2 drop instant white that gives zombies +2 +1 which also makes them bigger as well.

[G. Moto]

  White and Black is a strong combo. Sure its using enemy colors but the recursion is strong between using the Life/Death aspect of the deck build. With the other colors such as Blue (esper), Red (mardu), and Green (abzan) you'll have even more options. Esper gives you the build up you need with minimum intrusion from your opponent. The Mardu can give you an aggressive army of Zombies with combat tactics. Abzan can give you the same build up as Esper but at a faster rate. You may not have as many stopping spells in green but you'll have a lot of growing and protection spells between both Green and White. Keep in mind that every color has its place both on and off the battlefield. Knowing what kind of deck you want to run is one thing, knowing what colors you need to make the deck operate that way is a different story.

[robort]

Moto, not saying you can't go by any other colors but just using these 3 cards alone of In Oketra's Name , Liliana's Mastery, and Lord of the Accursed will give all your zombies +4 +3 for a single attack turn. Nevermind adding menace to those zombies as well.

[G. Moto]

   You do have a point, W/B is no doubt SOLID in this block. But the big thing you have to consider about this post is this, "the most promising deck in Amonkhet Standard". W/B has the consistency to survive but knowing how pro players may play there is a great chance of someone on the pro circuit splashing that third color. Keep in mind that the more colors you have the more options that your deck will have.

     The thing that scares people about multi-color decks is because they fear the possibility of inconsistency. I'm going to be honest, when the Khans of Tarkir first came out I didn't want to play three colors. I thought it would slow my deck down, that It would mess up my mana base too much, that I'd have inconsistent hand draws and wouldn't be able to play as fast. But the big thing that I learned about tri-color decks is this: The more colors you have access to the more power that you are able to wield. Your deck will run however you build it to run. I can guarantee you that somebody is going to be playing a tri-color deck somewhere. I'm not pretending that I'm psychic or anything, just saying that the deck build has to be solid and that having that extra color WILL give you more options than your opponent. That's why at my pre-release event I played a tri-colored deck. At my event location only 1 of my 4 opponents played a tri-colored deck. It can be difficult to make the deck work properly due to color ratios but in this set where there is an obvious TRIBAL SUPPORT among various colors it makes the task easier.

[Firegriff]

With all of the dual lands, tri colored decks aren't impossible.  For EDH, I lean towards three colordecks for the exact reason G Moto states.  It gives me options for solutions to multiple opponents.  There are still some weaknesses (Grixis is notably weak on options for protection from Enchantments), but in general you have many more options.  In Standard, I lean towards 2 colors more because I enjoy building decks along a theme.  While I wish they would have banned the pairing of Saheeli and Felidar Guardian (I am scrambling to make the infinite aether loop replacements needed for the loss of Felidar Guardian), they made their decision.  The deck can still consistantly end gane around turn 6 or 7, but a 6 cmc angel is still a delay from a 4 cmc cat.  Still, I enjoy brainstorming ideas, so toying with working red into the green white deck.  Just not seeing enough options from what I currently have available.

[G. Moto]

  Just out of curiosity my daywalking children of the multiverse, what color decks have you seen so far in Standard play and which ones have you seen play effectively?

[Kingofmottinos]

I have played against the three meta decks (now there are only two eheheh), then mostly R/W humans and B/W aristocrats. My deck were just budget decks, G/R energy, R/W start your engines and Mardu terrorist deck, as I named it (steal cards, attack with them and sac them). TOday I opened a box of modern masters I won during the Easter lottery at my local card store and I made 130 euros in cards. Pretty meh, but just enough to make a tier 1 deck when we will finally understand the new meta (I'm from Italy and cards are really cheap). Looking forward jund hapatra and Nissa-Rhonas'champion-cast-everything-you-want-completely-free decks. What about emerge? Does it have a chance to really shine? With drake heaven it could jump to tier 1 in my opinion.

[G. Moto]

  If you're referring to EMERGE (from Innistrad) then it may be a tad slow compared to this new set. Reason being is that you have to sac creatures in order to summon then and then you still have to pay mana to initiate the summon. Now EMBALM may be an effective mechanic because it's a mana activated ability. That means you can play it on anyone's turn essentially. Also the creature that is produced is a ZOMBIE token and is a COPY of the creature that is embalmed. Now if you on't necessarily need the creature themselves then I guess you' be ok with exiling creatures from the grave. Personally I wish wizards would make a mechanic that lets you retrieve creatures and various spells from exile. I'm not talking that gank elrdazi stuff, I'm talking a full on mechanic that utilizes the out of game space effectively. That would open up SOOOOO much ingenuity when it comes to new deck builds.

[Kingofmottinos]

Wait, I thought you could embalm only as a sorcery. At least on Xmage says so. I actually think that emerge has a chance, I've been trying a build that adds bloodrage brawler and hazoret to the original decklist and it's wrecking people's faces just when they don't expect it. So far the most promising decks I tried are this one, Hapatra Jund, G/B Ballista (but we already know it) and U/G Nissa and Rhonas' champion. Hapatra's deck is the most difficult to build because there's so many things you can do... just a few hours ago a friend of mine texted me telling me that I absolutely need to fit a pair of phanarmonicon in the deck, there's so much to discover about this archetype.

[Firegriff]

Just played through a draft with GR exert deck.  Lost first round to a WR exert deck (barely) that scorched my first 3 critters in one turn.  Switched in a couple of flings and dominated rounds 2 and 3.  Pathmaker Initiate with instant speed pumps for Nimble-Blade Khenra helped, but was able to cycle and draw through Battlefield scavenger and Watchful naga to Honored Hydra To great effect.  Didn't hurt that my first rare was Sheltered Thicket!  2nd round was against BW tokens and third was a BUW discard cycle.  Will post the 40 card draft deck later, but got Oketra the True from prize pack.

[G. Moto]

@kingofmottinos, you are right. Embalming is only at sorcery speed so that does slow down token production. But depending on what tokens you make you can still have an effective field.

@Firegriff, G/R EXERT does sound effective. Also if you use that fling on your honored hydra then you'll be getting in lots of damage. If you pump it up before you fling your hydra then you'll still be able to embalm it  and then still have a blocker for next turn. "Throwing Snakes" sounds like a cool deck idea. Add some blue and then you'll have spell recursion by including scribe of the mindful.

[Firegriff]

I was thinking white for Always Watching...

[Firegriff]

I did fling the hydra around a bit. Alas, my rival planeswalkers were not very amused to find a rather annoyed mummified hydra in their face.  They created quite a large number of angry, pained shrieks.  Of course, their dragons didn't appreciate me throwing my suped up jackels at them after hitting their master, either...