A total of 349 Standard decklists were submitted for the Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour Aetherdrift event this weekend, but a few truly stand out. The most exciting ones feature creative card synergies, introduce a fresh archetype, or pull off an unexpected strategy that catches everyone by surprise.

Today’s blog article features one of these spicy Standard deck builds and it is called Esper Paragon by Jason Ye. Check out the decklist below as I explain the deck’s main strategy.

First of all, what does the creature Serra Paragon do?

The second ability shines as to the various card advantages that it can do, making your graveyard sort of your extra hand of cards and spells. Overlord makes sure that it can be filled as early as turn two, and later on, can become a threat itself.

The initial list looks to be similar to that of the Esper Pixie deck, even having a playset copy of the card. Bouncing various cards with ETB effects such as Helpful Hunter to draw cards, and Momentum Breaker to ‘edict’ opponents are your main strategy options early on. It gets more spicier with Scrollshift to blink them out for more value. Late-game scenarios will surely be dominated by this deck.

Overextending aggro can be punished by Day of Judgment and Lockdown, and Pest Control in the sideboard. It is also open to the variance of discard spells against control and other midrange decks, and graveyard hate only for opponents.

As of this posting, the deck played by Jason Ye qualified for the Day 2 of the Pro Tour and I hope to see a featured match coverage tomorrow. If it can perform pretty well at that time, I can say that this deck will see followers on future Standard tournaments after this weekend.

That’s pretty much it for now for this spicy Standard deck feature. Thank you for reading and until the next blog post.