Well, here we are. This is a thing - writing a Magic: The Gathering article about a Standard format - that I did not anticipate myself doing again, but here we are.
          For those of you who don't know me, my name is Frank Lepore, and I was a Magic pro for about a decade. I started writing articles for TCGplayer in 2009 before leaving in 2016. I've written for nearly every other site as well, along with having a Pro Tour and a Grand Prix Top 8. In the past few years I've evolved into a game designer, but I was laid off in 2023…along with thousands upon thousands of others, if you've been keeping up with the industry news.
          I've known Jake, who owns the site, for probably around seven years now. He had some things at his store that I wanted, and he asked me if I wanted to write an article or two for them.

         So here we are.  It's kind of like riding a bike in that it's both painful and awkward, but you never really forget how to do it, I guess.  I'm going to post a decklist now, so buckle in.

          This is a list I found that went 5-0 in a League on Magic Online. Yes, I still play Magic Online over MTG Arena both because I'm a boomer, and because I think it's a better, less flashy interface. It's also infinitely easier (and cheaper) to acquire cards in my experience. And when I'm done, I can sell those cards for real money. I also like older formats, like Pioneer and Modern, but I digress.  The point is this deck went 5-0 in a Standard League.

          But not in my hands.  In my hands it went a frustrating 1-4.  I was about to give up on it, thinking that its winning record was a fluke, but I knew that the deck had been putting up decent results on occasion. I also knew after playing the deck for five rounds that there were a good amount of things I wanted to change.  This was the deck I eventually played.

          I'll go over all the changes in a minute, but here are some matches of the deck in action!

          While I touch on some changes while describing the deck in the videos, I'll go over some of the larger ones here.

-IN-

           Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor  - I was actually shocked this wasn't in the first version. It turns every one of your creatures in a Phyrexian Arena trigger, and after a turn one bat, it's chef's kiss. If Gix isn't better than Preacher of the Schism, he's at least on par with it. Activating his “ultimate” with a handful of duds is also a very real thing.

          Sharp-Eyed Rookie  - Every time I played with Mosswood Dreadknight, I just wasn't pleased with it. I never wanted to cast it as a creature without drawing a card first, even when I knew that was the better play. I also didn't like that, when it died, I had to draw the card within one turn.
         In my experience, Sharp-Eyed Rookie could regularly find itself as a 4/4 that granted two clue tokens, which just feels better to me. If the Rookie survives to turn three, it's almost impossible to not “draw a card,” since every creature above it will trigger its ability.

           Sheoldred, the Apocalypse  - I also don't know why this card wasn't in the deck. She's one of the best cards in Standard, and we can certainly cut Archfiend of the Dross to fit in a couple of Sheoldreds. She also has the added benefit of offsetting some of the life loss from Gix as well.

           Sheoldred  - I think this Sheoldred just seems good. Making them sacrifice a creature or planeswalker can be backbreaking against the right deck, and there are tons of decks in Standard that end up having eight cards in their graveyard, so transforming her isn't impossible.

           Nissa, Ascended Animist  - This Nissa just takes over games, and I felt like the deck just wanted a more expensive card to sink your mana into. Nissa is a great one to cast on turn five, six, or seven, and she can even get rid of an artifact or an enchantment, doing a great Tranquil Frillback impression.

           Cavern of Souls  - In the updated version of the deck, there are a surprising amount of Phyrexians. Nine to be exact. There are also six bats as well.

-OUT-

          Mosswood Dreadknight  - I mostly described the issue with this guy above.

          Tranquil Frillback  - This guy was good, but I don't think it's worth a maindeck slot. Sometimes you just don't need one of its modes. That being said, I did move up to three in the sideboard, because being able to kill an artifact, enchantment, or graveyard, or multiple, can be super useful.

          Gix's Command  - Every time I had this in hand, the modes just never solved my problems. I would either have one creature in the graveyard, or my opponent would have a bunch of three power creatures, or I would. Heck, 16 of our 24 creatures get killed by one of the modes! The stars just never aligned with this card. I think it is versatile enough to keep it as a one-of, but having three was far too slow and clunky.

          I tweaked some of the other numbers in the deck as well, like swapping out one Go for the Throat for an additional Bitter Triumph to deal with planeswalkers, but a lot of the skeleton is the same. I also cut a good number of Forests to add more black sources. There are only 10 green cards in the original deck, none of which have GG in their costs. Meanwhile, there are 26 black cards, not including the adventure half of Dreadknight. Yet there were six Swamps in the deck and five Forests. The numbers just seemed off. So now we have seven Swamps and two Cavern of Souls, all of which should help with the sheer number of black cards in the deck, as well as the BB cards.

          I thought this version of the deck was much more fun to play, and it felt a lot more powerful as well. It has a few more forms of card advantage in the main deck, which I felt like it was missing. Making Map tokens is great, but they're definitely not a form of card advantage.

          Hopefully you guys can try it out and let me know what you think! Thanks a ton for reading/watching, and I'll see ya around!

Frank Lepore
Twitter, Twitch, YouTube: @FrankLepore