I left you last week(ish) with a Standard list that I thought looked promising, and then 8 of the cards got banned. Here's a new plan:
4 Ravenous Chupacabra
4 Jadelight Ranger
2 The Scarab God
4 Winding Constrictor
4 Merfolk Branchwalker
4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
3 Walking Ballista
2 Hostage Taker
2 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
3 Nissa, Steward of Elements
3 Fatal Push
5 Forest
2 Swamp
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Fetid Pools
2 Aether Hub
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Botanical Sanctum
2 Tetzimoc, Primal Death
1 Hostage Taker
1 Fatal Push
4 Moment of Craving
1 Negate
2 Essence Scatter
4 Duress
Even more than before, I am really excited about Jadelight Ranger. Reason one is that Rogue Refiner's absence leaves a gaping hole for a value three-drop, just not one that specifically abuses Energy. Reason two is that, since we have no Attune with Aether anymore, the land count in the deck goes up, which makes Jadelight Ranger's Explores even better. This deck skews away from the Energy mechanic, since we no longer have access to a bunch of Energy laying around. Longtusk Cub is no longer going to be a lot more than just a 2/2 on turn 2. However, Exploring on Jadelight Ranger and Merfolk Branchwalker is still a combo with Winding Constrictor, as are Walking Ballista, Yahenni, and Glint-Sleeve Siphoner. Glint-Sleeve never really was a normal Energy card, and a Siphoner with two Energy counters isn't much worse than a Siphoner with twelve Energy counters, so it's staying in the deck.
Nissa ties the room together. It's a really good three drop on an empty board that's removal-proof, and also a fantastic late game card. Scarab God blah blah blah.
4 Jadelight Ranger
4 Winding Constrictor
4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
4 Walking Ballista
3 Ravenous Chupacabra
4 Glorybringer
4 Longtusk Cub
2 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
2 Fatal Push
4 Harnessed Lightning
4 Aether Hub
3 Canyon Slough
4 Blooming Marsh
3 Dragonskull Summit
3 Rootbound Crag
3 Sheltered Thicket
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
2 Tetzimoc, Primal Death
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
4 Moment of Craving
2 Fatal Push
4 Duress
This deck goes the other direction and continues the Energy plan. We get to rock with Constrictors and Glint-Sleeves in place of our Rogue Refiners, so it's really kinda similar to Temur Energy with the blue swapped out with black. We get to kill lots of creatures, which may or may not be that great in the upcoming format. I'm kind of expecting more Abzan or Esper Tokens and blue control decks than what we previously had, due to the red cards that got banned. If that doesn't happen and killing creatures turns out to be good, this deck does plenty of it.
You'll notice the Yahenni, Undying Partisan in both lists. It's a card that I'm kind of high on at the moment. The Token decks all run Fumigate and lots of creatures that die, and against control it's a Haste creature that's Fumigate-proof. I think it's in a good place in the format, but only in creature decks that can kill their opponent's stuff pretty easily.
What I've found on Magic Online so far is lots of decks that Ravenous Chupacabra isn't that great against. I was expecting to nuke lots of Longtusk Cubs and Whirler Virtuosos, but mostly I'm hitting Hidden Stockpile tokens, which isn't awesome. When it's been good, though, it's been real good. It helps push your early threats through for damage and the body is very relevant when you are putting pressure on. We'll see how the format shakes out, but the only 4-drop in that slot that is appreciably better when Chupacabra is bad is probably Gonti, which is a card that's always on my radar.
I've yet to cast a Tetzimoc, but I really want to before I dismiss it, but I'm not playing against a lot of midrange mirrors yet.
However, I think I'll be doing more work on Modern in the coming week or so here, since I am again playing in an SCG team open, and likely going to be playing Modern again. Since we last left off, I've cut the Blood Moons out of the board in favor of another Blightning(!), a Grim Lavamancer, and an Obstinate Baloth. I'm finding that the discard is great against Valakut, so long as it's not Inquisition of Kozileks, and that Blood Moon doesn't do enough against Tron anyways. At the last team open I played, there were lots of midrange mirrors and control decks that we faced in the Modern slot, which makes sense to me. Your Modern player is likely to be someone who really likes the format and tinkers around with the list of their favorite deck a lot, not someone who just jams Tron when it's in favor. That's my theory anyways. Hopefully we won't see a lot of Tron (or Dredge, or Living End, for that matter), or if we do, then their Standard and Legacy players suck. But, we'll see, since the Standard format just took a big turn, I might be playing that instead. Wish me luck.
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