Essential Magic Articles

Hey everyone! Today I will go over some of the standard metagame. Lets start with the “dominate” deck, Caw-Blade! If you haven’t seen a Caw-Blade deck, here is a pretty standard one:

4 Squadron Hawk
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Gideon Jura
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Day of Judgment
1 Deprive
2 Mana Leak
4 Preordain
4 Spell Pierce
2 Stoic Rebuttal
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
1 Arid Mesa
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Island (1)
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Plains (1)
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Tectonic Edge
Sideboard:
2 Baneslayer Angel
1 Deprive
2 Divine Offering
2 Flashfreeze
4 Oust
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Sword of Body and Mind
 
How it works: The deck mainly uses Stoneforge Mystic to fetch Sword of Feast and Famine, and then they will equip Sword of Feast and Famine to Squadron Hawk. After that’s done (the deck usually can attack on turn 4 with the equipped Squadron Hawk), they can play their Jace, the Mind Sculptor and/or Gideon Jura on their pre-combat step, then attack with the equipped Squadron Hawk, untap, and then have the mana to counter spells!

Strengths: It is a semi fast, consistent control deck with many win conditions and the most powerful card in standard, Jace, the Mind Sculptor. The deck is also not very hard to use if you know how to play control.

Weaknesses: The deck has difficulty with Boros, Kuldotha Red, and I think UB control has a good matchup against caw-blade.

Summary of Caw-Blade: A really good, constant deck. Many pros call it the best deck in standard. If you want to spend 600+ dollars on a deck, this deck is the way to go!