Brainstorming Standard, Flores Style

Hi again!

Today is an all-Floresian inspired journey into the new Standard format, care of two recent statements made by Mike on SCG. Roughly approximated:

"

The best deck is the deck that plays most of the best cards.

"

and

"

The top 10 cards in Standard:

Jace, the Mind Sculptor Stoneforge Mystic Primeval Titan Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas Preordain Sword of Feast and Famine Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle Tectonic Edge Squadron Hawk Spreading Seas

"

I wanted to use these rules to find the "best" deck to play, so I started with the obvious comic attempt to jam all ten together.

10/10
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle	2 Stoneforge Mystic
9 Mountain	4 Squadron Hawk
2 Tectonic Edge	4 Primeval Titan
2 Darkslick Shores	10 Creatures
4 Seachrome Coast
2 Forest	4 Preordain
1 Island	2 Spreading Seas
1 Plains	4 Prophetic Prism
1 Swamp	4 Sphere of the Suns
3 Evolving Wilds	2 Sword of Feast and Famine
27 Lands	4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
	3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
	23 Other Spells

Shockingly, the mana is a bit sketchy; Valakut puts a major strain on the rest of the deck by requiring so many Mountains just to function when there is no other use for red mana. The inclusion of Tezzeret oddly helps with this, as it drives the need for more artifacts in the deck and thus the inclusion of Sphere of the Suns and Prophetic Prism.

Safe cuts from this build: Primeval Titan and Valakut are both on a completely different plan from the rest of the deck and can be shown the door.

8/10
3 Tectonic Edge	4 Preordain
4 Celestial Collonade	2 Spreading Seas
4 Seachrome Coast	2 Contagion Clasp
4 Creeping Tar Pit	3 Tumble Magnet
2 Darkslick Shores	4 Prophetic Prism
2 Marsh Flats	3 Sphere of the Suns
2 Plains	2 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Island	4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Swamp	4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
25 Lands	28 Other Spells
3 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Squadron Hawk
7 Creatures

The mana becomes much better with these cuts, and we get reliable access to eight manlands into the deal. Because the deck doesn't need so many lands to fuel Valakut there is room for more artifacts to support Tezzeret. When we examine the roles of the cards in more details, it becomes obvious that this is the core of two distinct decks smashed together:

U/W Caw-Go	Common Cards	Tezzeret
Stoneforge Mystic	Preordain	Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Squadron Hawk	Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Sword of Feast and Famine	Spreading Seas
	Tectonic Edge

Unsurprisingly, if we look at the deck that can use the most of these remaining cards we get a familiar list:

7/10 (Caw-Go Update)
4 Celestial Collonade	4 Preordain
4 Glacial Fortress	3 Spell Pierce
4 Seachrome Coast	1 Sylvok Lifestaff
4 Tectonic Edge	1 Deprive
1 Marsh Flats	2 Spreading Seas
1 Scalding Tarn	2 Mana Leak
4 Plains	1 Stoic Rebuttal
4 Island	1 Sword of Feast and Famine
26 Lands	4 Day of Judgment
	4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Stoneforge Mystic	3 Gideon Jura
4 Squadron Hawks	26 Other Spells
8 Creatures

Using the Rule of Flores this should be the best deck in Standard, which seems to have been borne out by the PT Paris results.

(Alternatively, we simply find that the list of top 10 cards was drawn up based mainly on the Pro Tour top 8. Either way the moral of the story is that playing the best performing deck from the latest big tournament is never going to be an awful idea.)

Have fun!

Steve

p.s One last bonus list, attempting to combo off Tezzeret, Throne of Geth and Semblance Anvil:

3/10
4 Inkmoth Nexus	3 Mox Opal
4 Tectonic Edge	4 Preordain
4 Creeping Tar Pit	3 Throne of Geth
4 Darkslick Shores	4 Ichor Wellspring
2 Island	4 Sphere of the Suns
2 Swamp	4 Contagion Clasp
20 Lands	4 Prophetic Prism
	4 Everflowing Chalice
0 Creatures	3 Semblance Anvil
	3 Tumble Magnet
	4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
	40 Other Spells