A few weeks after Magic 2014 has been released into Standard, only little things have changed. The set has at the least provided new cards to top archetypes. The top tier decks are still the Jund Midrange, Junk Aristocrats and American Flash. As you’ll notice, these decks based their card power on three colors and benefit from the Ravnica dual lands and M13 mana fixers for consistency. There is one weakness though and I’ll sum it up into two words: Burning Earth.

RG Ramp Earth by Mark Ian Alloso

Lands
2 Kessig Wolf Run
7 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Stomping Ground

Creatures
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
4 Thragtusk
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Thundermaw Hellkite
1 Zhur-Taa Druid

Spells
3 Bonfire of the Damned
4 Burning Earth
4 Farseek
2 Garruk Relentless/Garruk, the Veil-Cursed
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Pillar of Flame
2 Searing Spear

I’m pretty sure you’ve seen a list with the same strategy at the recent Grand Prix Calgary wherein it made into the Top 8. This version though is the adding of Green for better mana acceleration. This build focuses more into ramping up to an early Burning Earth lock or into Hellkites and beasts. The access of Green gets you Huntmasters and Thragtusks in the list.

I’ve included a few two-ofs spot removal to support the usual Red board sweepers. The flame pillars are for resurgent voices and Searing spears for hasty Hellriders. It may not always the case but because you don’t want them to create an early board advantage while you setup your big threats or lock them with the enchantment.

The deck’s sideboard would probably look like this one:

2 Acidic Slime
4 Strangleroot Geist
2 Pillar of Flame
2 Garruk Primal Hunter
1 Naturalize
3 Scavenging Ooze
1 Searing Spear

Strangleroot Geists are your early defense against Red Green aggro decks in addition to spot removals Pillar of Flame and spear. Acidic Slimes can be reinforced for the Burning Earth lock or for Bant Hexproof matchups. Naturalize can also be used for those decks as well as answering relevant enchantments like Detention Sphere, Oblivion Ring, Assemble the Legion, etc.

Since Junk Rites can curve out to an early reanimation, Scavenging Ooze is your answer for that. The two Garruk, Primal Hunter is your switch cards for decks like Jund Midrange wherein a few of your spot removals might be irrelevant.

To conclude, the current deck archetypes in Standard are somewhat customizable and can be tuned for a metagame call. I can say though that maindeck Burning Earth is a good meta call.

Until next time.