Defining the standards

So Return to Ravnica is here, the dust has settled, packs have been cracked, Todd Anderson has won SCG first blowout with Rob's deck from 6 months ago and new Jace is much better than fat Jace.

I can't get used to the fact he doesn't look Emo or have a rude word across his chest.

I must apologise for cutting Mike Radford off in his prime at the end of his article last week.  He had put a sort of summing up paragraph at the end but it didn't fit with this blog so I cut it off and totally forgot to replace it with anything else!

We went and had a release weekend despite the "Launch Parties" no longer existing we went and had a bunch of them.  I went 6-2-1 over 3 drafts which was pretty good and opened my 4th Hallowed Fountain which made me happy.  I played Grixis, Jund and Bant over the 3 drafts I did and felt that all of the combinations had strength.  Cracking games with, and a nod of respect to, Andrew Vagg, Ian Richardson and Mark Smith.

I feel that this card is adding insult to injury with regards Launch Parties!

Anyway back to the whole blog thing.  So it is standard in both FNM Elite and Relax this week.  I had intended to do the whole thing with the intro decks again but when I opened the intro decks they were not as good as the previous selection and would have been very little fun to play.  So I thought I would come up with a guild based deck for each time we tackle standard or one of its derivatives.  I decided to start with Izzet as we seem to have some quite cool new wizards and I love mono purple wizards so this seems like a no brainer.  Here is the list:

4 cavern of Souls

4 Sulfur Falls

4 Steam Vents

6 Island

5 Mountain

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23 Land

4 Delver of Secrets

1 Nivix Guildmage

3 Augur of Bolas

4 Snapcaster Mage

2 Talrand, Sky Summoner

3 Mercurial Chemister

1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius

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18 Creatures

4 Izzet Charm

1 Street Spasm

4 Syncopate

1 Rewind

1 Brimstone Volley

1 Bonfire of the Damned

1 Devil's Play

3 Mizzium Mortars

3 Runechanters Pike

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19 Spells

I have not finished the side board for this deck yet so I can't put that up.  It makes me sad to run Delver in a deck but he is just the best fit for the rest of it rather than the focus of the deck.  I'm a big fan of the Izzet colour scheme and look forward to playing with some nice looking cards.

If Magic is a game of options this sure gives you some good ones.

Don't forget this Wednesday (10/10/2012) is the start of the new sealed league at Patriot Games Sheffield - £20 will get you 6 boosters to build your deck with and then battle it out each week by adding an additional booster.

How can you not love this guy - U, tap, draw two cards - don't mind if I do.

Next Sunday is the first Steel City Magic of the new era at Patriot Sheffield with a standard tournament kicking off at 12pm and a draft which starts around 2.30 - 3pm.  Good luck with your booster opening, I will be back on Friday with a new blog looking at Modern until then may you curve out with style!