Deck Highlight: Standard UB Rogues

Standard Dimir Rogue Deck List - Seth Manfield

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Note: This was written before the most recent Standard Ban Announcement.

Seth played an interesting deck at the Grand Finals – U/B Rogues, but slightly different than what we have been used to seeing until now. Instead of Zareth San at the top of the curve, Seth played more non-creature cards.

This is more of a U/B control deck with a couple of creatures that support the mill plan, which is your main win condition. You want to trade 1-for-1 a lot with your opponent and then refill your hand with Into the Story and Frantic Inventory.

The question is, is this kind of plan viable in today’s Magic, which seems to be more about extremely powerful threats snowballing out of control on their own? Cards like planeswalkers, Omnath and Clover almost don’t need any other support to win you the match.

Seth’s deck is very good against decks like Gruul and Omnath Ramp, where this kind of 1-for-1 trading works out, as long as he can stop the opponent from resolving Omnath and Genesis Ultimatum. (NO MORE OMNATH!)

The biggest problem for this deck is Lucky Clover. If your opponent is on the play and they have it on turn 2, there is pretty much nothing you can do and you are almost guaranteed to lose. On the play, you can stop it with a counterspell or discard, but I would still rather be on the other side of the matchup. (LUCKY CLOVER WAS BANNED!)

Should something happen to Omnath or Clover, this kind of deck will become one of the best in Standard, because it will be a lot easier to play this 1-for-1 kind of Magic. (Looks like we did it!)