On Tuesday I rejoined the ranks of the Magic playing community. I ventured to Ancient Wonders for their usual Tuesday Standard tournament, scoring 3-0-1 and tying for first place. For the moment, I don't want to disclose the decklist I used, as State Championships are this weekend, but I will give my thoughts on the current state of Standard, and the decklists/cards that I currently like. To accomplish this, I examine a few of the top decks from the most recent tournament, SCG Cincinnati (see the lists, here).

First, we have a U/W/R Control list piloted by Todd Anderson. I like this list a lot and think it will be a popular list at states, although I wonder if the deck will be that prevalent given Jace's current $50 price tag. Nevertheless, I think anyone who is going to States should be well prepared to face this deck.

The deck's basic plan is to win with a miracled Entreat the Angels or a planeswalker ultimate. Tamiyo, the Moon Sage and Jace, Architect of Thought are a powerful team, and difficult to eliminate using creatures alone. Tamiyo does an amazing job of dealing with Thragtusk, probably the most prevalent creature in Standard, and Jace is effective against most aggro decks. Anderson's deck has Pillar of Flame and Snapcaster Mage, as well as Terminus and Azorious Charm to live through early aggression. When you add Detention Sphere, the deck is easily able to deal with most threats.

Nevertheless, in my opinion Anderson's deck is not the ideal way of meeting the format. The deck  seems weak to Thragtusk, which in my opinion makes it instantly questionable. In addition, the deck actually has very few win conditions.

Next we have the 4-color Reanimator list piloted by Chris Weidinger. I like this list a lot and playtested something similar online, though I personally did not include red. While Dreadbore is an important card in this list---helping you deal with the pesky planeswalkers mentioned above---it always seems to find its way to the graveyard after Grisly Salvage or Mulch. Therefore, Weidinger is really relying on his creatures to eliminate any pesky planeswalkers, and they fail in this respect. Griselbrand and Angel of Serenity just gets locked down by Tamiyo. What this deck really needs is a card that can kill planeswalkers from the graveyard.

At third place we have a Jund Midrange deck piloted by Lauren Nolen. I also like this list, especially its inclusion of Farseek. I absolutely love Farseek right now and I think it is one of the strongest turn two plays. Farseek is especially potent in this deck, because of the high number of 4 drops: Garruk Relentless, Olivia Voldaren, and Huntmaster of the Fells. And of course, the inclusion of Thragtusk makes this deck especially resilient against aggro and control. The Rakdos Keyrunes give this deck some resilience to sweepers.

I want to get to the rest of the decks in the format, but everything is developing so rapidly I have to get this post out there before it becomes outdated and irrelevant. States this weekend! Stay tuned.