Hello and welcome to my first article for Ultimate Guard. Ultimate Guard is one of the most supportive companies in the realm of Magic for the competitive scene and I am incredibly thankful for the work they do and continue to do. And I am very proud to be a member of TeamCFB-UltimateGuard.

Today I want to show you what decks I've found to be the best and most successful in early Duskmourn Standard. I got my hands dirty and tried a lot of the new cards. My focus was on decks that hadn't existed before, so for example I didn’t play Domain with the obvious new inclusion of Overlord of the Hauntwoods. When I explore a format right after release, I find it more engaging and interesting to figure out which of the brand new archetypes can actually hold its own in Standard. And sometimes a successful discovery of such a deck takes a little longer, especially in an already big, high-powered Standard, but luckily we’ve just had a rotation and Duskmourn House of Horrors turns out to be offering plentiful powerful archetype-defining cards that are clearly pushed and demand to be tried. 

The Overlords are incredibly pushed. The Enduring Cycle is clearly strong. There are many obvious aggressively-slanted Auras cards in the set. Pyroclasm is a very big deal as a sideboard card. In my nine years of playing Standard, there has never been a sweeper in Red that dealt two damage for two mana, while subtle, this is a historical step into a higher powered Standard. In any case, Duskmourn is offering lots of new toys to play with. May it be new combo decks, Reanimator shenanigans or loading up your 1-drop creature with Ethereal Armors. 

Boros Auras

Boros Auras is the first deck I am going to cover that impressed me. As of right now, I believe this deck to be the best home for the four clearly pushed for Constructed level Aura cards out of Duskmourn - Ethereal Armor, Sheltered by Ghosts, Shardmage’s Rescue and Optimistic Scavenger. 

Sheltered by Ghosts is one hell of a Magic card. Lifelink, Ward 2 and exile your opponent’s best nonland permanent for a cheap price of two mana is pretty wild. This card might not only establish Auras in Standard as a force to be feared, but even revive Auras in Pioneer. That’s how good I believe it to be. Optimistic Scavenger is also absolutely bonkers for a 1-drop creature in a deck filled with enchantments. 

And what else to combine these four amazing white Auras cards with other than the red Valiant Mice that we’ve seen dominate Standard recently via Gruul Prowess.

This deck packs an incredible punch and with Sheltered by Ghosts you can get out of tricky situations when behind in a racing situation. Suit up one of your creatures, best served on a Slickshot Show-Off that you plotted earlier to set up that devastating combination and it doesn’t matter any longer if you lost the die roll in the aggro matchup you are facing off against. 

Optimistic Scavenger works neatly together with Valiant. You can trigger Valiant with its ability and distribute counters as you like between your creatures to make removal less effective against you. 

The one big downside of this deck compared to Gruul Prowess is the manabase. Not having that red/white land to support your mana is a bummer. Having to resort to a card like Thran Portal isn’t where you want to be, but you have to cast your spells somehow.

The worst Aura in the deck is Hammerhand, there aren’t many great other options though. You could play Demonic Ruckus, but I don’t like the two mana cost on that one. It reads better than it actually plays out. And with Hammerhand you have a pseudo-removal for a turn to push through the last points. But it is the card I side out first in most matchups. 

Invasion of Gobakhan has impressed me out of the sideboard. You can plot a Slickshot Show-Off, cast it on turn 3 and play an Invasion right after to flip it without anything else needed. The protection the Invasion provides is of course much appreciated when you are loading up your one or two creatures in play with a bunch of Auras. Main antagonists for that type of plan are Sunfall and Temporary Lockdown, but perhaps your Invasion trigger can delay those effects enough to deal twenty points of damage before they come down.

Taking a look at the sideboard, I am not entirely convinced Urabrask’s Forge is the way to go. It is effective against removal, but fairly slow at killing the opponent. I could see that you rather want to play Case of the Crimson Pulse in that slot, cause your hand empties rather quickly in this deck and with twelve haste creatures you can deal a lot of damage out of nowhere each turn you draw three. Bonus points for being an enchantment and, therefore, triggering Optimistic Scavenger.

Otter Storm

Next up on Decks that impressed me is the new combo deck reminiscent of Splinter Twin - Otter Storm!

The combo is having Enduring Vitality plus Stormsplitter in play plus enough mana to play an instant or a sorcery. From there, you chain your cantrip spells by producing mana with the freshly made copies of Stormsplitter. After casting six instants/sorceries you’ll have 32 Stormsplitter copies with haste and that should do the trick. But usually when going off you can get even more of them if need be. This combo can easily kill on Turn 4, especially if the Enduring Vitality is alive to tap for mana. Both sides of the combo are surprisingly good against removal, as Vitality will just come back as an enchantment still sticking around and Stormsplitter doesn’t need to survive to combo. You can just play another Instant in response to a Go for the Throat and continue with the combo.

The original list I “netdecked” from Autumn Burchett had four copies each of Cache Grab and Say Its Name, but after bricking completely a couple times, I made the switch to Moment of Truth and Impulse. The reason to play self-mill is mainly to enable the Collect Evidence 8 on Analyze the Pollen. That didn’t seem to be reason enough to run the more lackluster cantrips to me. Speaking of Analyze the Pollen, the card is a true all-star in this deck. It finds both combo pieces and is a cheap spell to cast that can find you Picklock Prankster to chain spells on your way to 32 Stormsplitters.

The sideboard felt decent to me. Pyroclasm is great, as it is a spell you can cast during the combo as well of course a great play against aggro. 

Abhorrent Oculus is a try-out alternative threat. Seems reasonable to have some card that can win games on its own. Autumn had Fecund Greenshell in that slot.

UW Oculus

And last, but not least. The deck that impressed me the most ouf of all - UW Oculus.  Credits to Ashlizzle for the original list that I only made very little changes to. 

Abhorrent Oculus is an absurd creature. And here you can put into play as early as turn two (Meticulous Archive Turn 1, Turn 2 Helping Hand/Recommission), which is going to win you the game easily. Considering that removal that doesn’t exile is not very effective against the recursion effects you have in UW Oculus, this deck is very hard to play against. Graveyard hate seems very solid against it, but I didn’t see any on the ladder in the matches I played. 

A silent MVP for me was Into the Flood Maw, with so many players on Auras and Prowess, the one mana bounce lines up well to disrupt Tricks or just bounce a suited-up creature. 

Don’t forget that Abhorrent Oculus is easily hardcastable in this deck. I think we are going to see a lot of this flying monster in the future, especially as long as Picklock Prankster is legal in Standard.

Temporary Lockdown is a lifesaver and crucial to this archetype's success. Works perfectly with your eight powerful 3-drops. Your opponents are forced into a race, have to overcommit and Lockdown will do some serious work at that point.

And those are my top three new Standard decks. I hope you enjoyed the read, until next time!