Magic players: Digital Overload will be hosting its first-ever Standard tournament this Friday at 7pm. We’re as excited as you and eager to take a look at what we can expect this season.
Stoneforge Mystic and Jace are gone. Zendikar has followed them, taking with it a good number of cards, and leaving Innistrad in its wake, a mere 264 new cards to replace Zendikar’s 642. To complicate matters, the new set’s power level seems to be way down from the heights of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Lotus Cobra, and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. This sober step back from the brink of format-breaking power we saw in Caw Blade probably represents Wizards’ desire to regain a firm grip on the reins of its most popular (not to mention lucrative) game by opening up FNMs and the game in general to more archetypes and skill levels.
Many competitive players have been looking to the Scars of Mirrodin block to produce the next dominant decks. After all, Scars cards have strong internal synergy and had enough card-for-card value to be playable alongside Zendikar. However, several Innistrad cards shook up the metagame at major tournaments this month, massively affecting the metagame enough that two of the top decks—Wolfrun G/R and Township Tokens—are named for them. But one Innistrad specter has risen above the others to darken all of Standard with its shadow: Solar Flare.
The deck’s name is an homage to a champion deck of an earlier era, the Ravinca-block Solar Flare created by Paul Cheon, friend of the legendary LSV and 2006 US National Champion. Much as today’s Solar Flare unearthed its name from a long dead deck list, so too does it seek to win games, by calling titans, wurms, and praetors back from the graveyard. The potent combination of Think Twice and Forbidden Alchemy to find combo pieces, Snapcaster Mage and counterspells/removal to stymie early threats while retaining value, and the absolutely unfair play of Sun Titan into Phantasmal Image (copying Sun Titan) into calling back a Liliana of the Veil are all shored up by a reanimation plan fueled by Unburial Rights.
The Esper monstrosity represents the state of control in Standard currently, as well as the most dominant deck with the vast majority of wins in this month’s tournaments. Rumor has it even Digital Overload’s own manager will be sleeving up these sixty for the foreseeable future. Wise mages may want to do their homework and read yesterday’s Channel Fireball article by Alexander Shearer entitled, “Solar Flare by the Numbers” no matter what spells they choose in the coming weeks.
