Pro Tour Austin Standard-What Are You Playing?

[managerman]

For more info on the dates and locations, check out http://www.graymatterconventions.com/

So if there is one clear lesson we've learned about the Standard format right now, it's that there are about six popular decks that rotate in and out of popularity every...oh...two days or so. One of them gets hot, so everyone plays it. Then everyone decides to run a deck that performs well against it. Then everyone goes back to the old deck since no one is playing it anymore and therefore no one has meta-gamed against it. Lather, rinse, repeat. Yay.

So I prefer being a rogue player, hiding on the periphery of all this nonsense, making a deck that is at least partly MY idea, testing it until I know it backwards and forwards, and keeping my metagame worries in the sideboard. It's not what 'pro' players do, but I have no illusions about being one of those smarmy folk. And I love being one of the players that they aren't prepared to face, that they curse and dismiss as jank as they work out how many points they just lost in their energy drink-addled minds.

Anyway, here's what I've decided on. Anyone who knows me knows I have a weird obsession with elf decks and mono-colored decks with unnecessary amounts of card synergy, so this should come as no surprise. What can I say, I'm a simple creature.

4 nettle sentinel
4 twinblade slasher
4 wren's run vanquisher
4 wolf-skull shaman
4 imperious perfect
3 wren's run packmaster
3 masked admirers
3 garruk wildspeaker
4 snakeform
4 tower above
4 mutavault
19 forest

There you have it. Play elves, make tokens, smash face. It deals with mass removal rather nicely, applies pressure early, and can even take down a pesky bomb creature or two in its own tricksy way. I'm still pondering the sideboard, though it will most likely be enchantment destruction and flyer hate.

So feel free to share your thoughts and especially your own deck builds, and come on in to the store to playtest-there's regulars looking for a game pretty much all day long.