Two weeks ago I wrote about Sultai in Standard.
I brewed the deck and ended up playing it at the Mythic Point Challenge that weekend. The deck is now in the Standard pantheon and more and more people are picking it up. I decided to try it again and found out some of the main flaws it had.
The main reasons why I added these two cards was to fight Temur Reclamation, Temur Clover and UW Control. Now these decks are seeing way less play and the dominant decks are RB Sacrifice, Jeskai Fires and Bant Ramp.
Discard spells are bad versus Aggro decks, like Mono-Red and RB Sacrifice, and aren’t the best against midrange strategies, so I think they’re better off being cut entirely from the main deck.
Voracious Hydra is the card that impressed me the most since I added them to the deck, it started as a two-of but then got upgraded to the full playset.
I needed ways to deal with Priest of the Forgotten Gods and Mayhem Devil, as well as having threat density in the Simic mirror match-ups, where decking was a reality and having four large threats that were must-answer, as well as not dying to Elspeth Conquers Death was a really big upside.
Polukranos, Unchained, while it started as a meme, ended up being better and better, mainly against RB Sacrifice where it was killing creatures and was immune to Claim the Firstborn.
Although the biggest upside to the deck is clearly Cavalier of Thorns, which will fuel your six escape cards and will help you to defeat the best deck in the format at this point: Jeskai Fires.
Sultai Ramp - Andrea Mengucci
Planeswalker (3)
Creature (18)
Sorcery (3)
Land (28)
Sideboard Guide
In the sideboard you’ll see less tools to fight Mono-Red than before, no Lovestruck Beast mainly, and the reason is that I don’t have to cut Thought Erasure anymore in that match-up, so I can focus more on winning other match-ups.
Vs MonoRed
In
+2 Aether Gust +2 Disfigure +2 Enter the God Eternals +1 Cry of the Carnarium
Out
-3 Nissa, Who Shakes the World -3 Casualties of War -1 Atris, Oracle of Half Truths
Vs Bant Midrange
In
+2 Noxious Grasp +1 Epic Dawnfall
Out
-2 Tyrant’s Scorn -1 Voracious Hydra
Vs Jeskai Fires
In
+2 Aether Gust +1 Epic Downfall
Out
-2 Voracious Hydra -1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
Vs RB Sacrifice
In
+2 Aether Gust +2 Cry of the Carnarium +1 Sorcerous Spyglass +2 Disfigure
Out
-3 Nissa, Who Shakes the World -1 Atris, Oracle of Half Truths -1 Casualties of War -1 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath -1 Growth Spiral
Vs Temur Reclamation
In
+2 Aether Gust +3 Negate +2 Noxious Grasp
Out
-1 Polukranos, Unchained -2 Tyrant Scorn -2 Voracious Hydra -2 Casualties of War
Vs Temur Clover
In
+2 Negate
Out
-1 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath -1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
It isn’t often that a content producer says their deck is 45-55 against the field. Why would you ever say the deck you are recommending isn’t the best deck? We’re used to a world where people only play the best deck, and the content producers advertise it as so. But last week, I started brewing a Sultai deck that got to my heart. It was incredibly fun, and I had a blast tuning it until its final form after seven days of streaming on Twitch, that you can check out on my YouTube Channel. At the end of this seven-day stretch, I played in the Mythic Point Challenge, where I faced 3 Mono-Red decks—the worst matchup—and was quickly eliminated. Despite that, I still like sharing the information I have about the deck, because I believe it is highly entertaining to play, and (almost) all of us play Magic to have fun. Also, despite my failure, there is one brave soul who picked up my Sultai deck and ended up going 10-1 with a slightly different build, so congratulations Patrick for your success! https://twitter.com/ZinxPandt/status/1233813130746191872?s=20
45/55 Sultai (Standard)
Planeswalker (3)
Creature (12)
Land (29)
This was the deck I played in the Challenge, and it was built to outgrind the various midrange decks that were popping up, and I’m happy to play against Bant Midrange, U/W Control, Temur Clover, and Jeskai Fires with this deck. We have hand disruption and a plan to go bigger than them thanks to Nissa + Hydroid Krasis, and most of all Casualties of War. The deck has a terrible matchup in game 1 against Mono-Red, almost unwinnable, even with maindeck Enter the God-Eternals. We sideboard in 10 cards and I’m confident that the post-board matchup is positive, but that usually isn’t enough given the game 1 win percentage. I tried many versions, and over time the deck evolved as I replaced Tyrant’s Scorn with Erebos’s Intervention, Eat to Extinction with Aether Gust, and slowly increased the number of lands to 29. I cut Growth Spiral down to two copies, and never had Arboreal Grazer. This deck wants to grind its opponents out and can’t afford to play Mox Diamond (Arboreal Grazer) or have a bad draw in the late game like Growth Spiral. Plus, in the ideal curve, I want to go turn-2 discard into turn-3 Uro and Growth Spiral just doesn’t fit well in this plan, and serves as copies 5-6 of Uro, while being worse in the late game. I would never cut an Uro, because it’s critical for the deck’s success and for the combo with Enter the God-Eternals, which started as just a few copies in the sideboard, and ended up in the main deck. I have hours and hours of content about this deck on my Twitch and YouTube Channel, so if you want to explore the deck, those are definitely the places to go.
Sideboard Guide
Mono-Red
-2 Agonizing Remorse -4 Thought Erasure -2 Casualties of War -1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World -1 Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths +2 Disfigure +2 Aether Gust +4 Lovestruck Beast +2 Enter the God Eternal You want to ramp up and cast your powerful spells as early as you can—don’t be afraid of losing life in the process. Tibalt and Claim the Firstborn are the best cards against you. Play around them as much as you can.
Bant Midrange
-1 Erebos’s Intervention -2 Enter the God-Eternals +2 Mystical Dispute +1 Casualties of War This is the matchup I love to play against the most. It’s a grindfest and we often come on top of thanks to Casualties of War. Mystical Dispute could be a dead draw against a Teferi, but your Atris does a good job of killing it, and you can use an early Dispute on a Growth Spiral or an Uro just to buy some time.
Temur Clover
On the play: -2 Enter the God-Eternals +1 Casualties of War +1 Disfigure On the Draw: -2 Agonizing Remorse +2 Lovestruck Beast It’s a blast playing against Clover, and it’s super fun when you get to snag the card they fetched with Fae of Wishes with your discard spell. Remember that holding discard spells isn’t as bad in this matchup as it is elsewhere. On the draw, they can aggro you, so I like to have a couple of Lovestruck Beasts just to prevent against their plan B, as you are usually ahead against plan A.
U/W Control
-2 Enter the God-Eternals -2 Aether Gust -1 Erebos’s Intervention +4 Mystical Dispute +1 Casualties of War This matchup is another grindfest. I used to have Thought Distortion, but I ended up cutting it because I needed slots for Red and I wasn’t playing against U/W Control much anymore. Dream Trawler is the only problem for you, but I’ve been able to deal with it using Polukranos, Unchained and a large Hydroid Krasis.
Temur Reclamation
-2 Erebos’s Intervention -1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World -2 Enter the God-Eternals -1 Polukranos, Unchained +2 Aether Gust +4 Mystical Dispute This is another deck that basically disappeared from the ladder last week, but I do believe you have an OK game thanks to your discard spells and your interaction.
Jeskai Fires
-2 Erebos’s Intervention -2 Enter the God-Eternals -1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World +4 Mystical Dispute +1 Casualties of War Casualties of War is the best thing ever here, as with Fires of Invention in play they can’t counter it. Just make sure you don’t die to their hardcast Cavaliers and fight the good fight.
Jund Cats
-3 Nissa, Who Shakes the World +2 Aether Gust +1 Casualties of War Another super grindy matchup where Casualties of War is king. Nissa isn’t great because they use to bring in multiple copies of Noxious Grasp, which aren’t great against you. Enter the God-Eternals doesn’t let you gain life if they sacrifice their creature, so play accordingly. That is all for this week of Standard by Mengu. See you on the ladder and on stream!
