Last weekend, I finished Grand Prix New Jersey in 10th place with a spicy green-white midrange deck that I’ll call G/W Two-Card Monty. Today I’ll show you the deck, how it works, and how to sideboard against each of the major matchups in Standard.

Green-White

The deck is built around two primary two-card combos: 1) March of the Multitudes and Flower // Flourish and 2) hexproof/indestructible creatures with On Serra’s Wings. The first combo, March and Flourish, was already seen pretty regularly in G/W strategies. Flower effectively counts as a land and March is a card with so much raw power that G/W essentially gets access to a two-card combo for free.

The main deck primarily leans on the March combo, but includes two copies of On Serra’s Wings to cheese your aggro opponents. Depending what the opponent is on, this deck leans harder into whichever combo is more effective. Against grindy midrange decks like Golgari? Outgrind them with your planeswalkers and combo with March. Against aggro? Pivot into a Bogles-esque strategy post-board. Against control? Leverage your sticky threats and planeswalkers.

With seven mana dorks, the deck can accelerate out your early value-centric planeswalkers, Karn and Vivien, to help ensure smooth draws while you accumulate the necessary pieces to survive and eventually combo off.

Once you stick an early planeswalker, the onus is on the opponent to attack you. With four Adanto Vanguard, two Knight of Grace, two Vine Mare, and three Carnage Tyrant, your creatures are hard to remove and your deck is full of reliable, un-Chupacabrable blockers to protect your planeswalkers until you untap and reinforce your board. The hilarity is that your 7/6 trampler is a glorified blocker in this deck. Once again, with the planeswalkers steadily putting you up on cards, the onus is on your opponent.

Your only cards main deck that function purely as removal are two copies of Seal Away and two copies of Settle the Wreckage. I love Settle in this deck. Your opponents are forced to attack in a way that plays around March, which usually means attacking with more creatures, leading to backbreaking Settles against your opponents. Seal Away punishes more conservative attacks. Lastly, Arch of Orazca further conceals the Settle and/or March.

What about the other combo? Why does your value deck have a seemingly random Bogles package? First, I already felt incentivized to play Adanto Vanguard and Carnage Tyrant as they are powerful in the current meta. When I Top 4’d the MTGO PTQ two weekends ago, I played against Jeskai decks that literally could not answer Vanguard outside of a Teferi -3.

As U/R Phoenix became optimized and included copies of Beacon Bolt and red decks continued packing Fight with Fire, I found my aggro matchup haymakers (Lyra, Trostani) dying on sight. On Serra’s Wings effectively weaponized a 2-drop that was previously embarrassing in aggro matchups. While Vine Mare isn’t perfect in this meta (See: Deafening Clarion), it’s not unplayable either. If my plan for aggro is to put some pants on a hexproof creature, I felt it was important to include Vine Mare to up my count of early game threats I could put the powerful Aura on. I came upon the Bogles package late in the week—the one change I would make to my list is to find room for the fourth Binding for Rekindling Phoenix, as that card can play defense really well against your package.

Sideboard Guide

Golgari

Out

In

You can take out one or two Adanto Vanguards and zero or one On Serra’s Wings. You do not want any enchantment removal in this matchup because you expose yourself to 2-for-1s. You lean into your value engine in this matchup and are firmly in the control seat barring any random Wings. Even though Vine Mare seems good against Golgari, you want blockers, not attackers. Wait to March until you can kill your opponent immediately with a Flourish or a Vivien emblem.

Red Aggro

Out

In

Play your Bogles package here. It may be correct to play Viviens over Karns simply because of how potent a threat Experimental Frenzy is.

Jeskai Control

Out

In

Play all your threats and value cards. Piecing together your opponent’s cards is critical in this matchup. There will be instances where you’d rather attack the Carnage Tyrant into a Settle than an Adanto Vanguard.

U/R Phoenix

Out

In

This matchup is a breeze as long as you don’t let Niv-Mizzet take over a game. They don’t have a way of blocking or removing Adanto Vanguard + On Serra’s Wings otherwise. Save your removal for Niv unless you see a path to end the game quickly. If they are playing the Maximize Velocity version, up your instant-speed interaction by adding one Settle and one more Crushing Canopy and cut both Treasure Maps.

R/W Angels

Out

In

For as powerful as the cards in Boros Angels are, they have few ways to gain card advantage when you interrupt their game plan. Your goal is to slow down their aggression and use your planeswalkers (Vivien is an 11 out of 10 in this matchup) to out-resource them. This is a bad matchup game 1, but I beat it all three times I played it because of a consistent, marked post-board advantage.

Mono-Blue

Out

In

Mono-White

Out

In

U/B Control

Out

In

You can take out zero to one Druid of the Cowl and add in zero to one Crushing Canopy.

That’s it! If you like the way the deck looks, give it a shot, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments!