Kaldheim Standard Week 1 and Beyond
Kaldheim came out last Thursday on Magic The Gathering Arena, and this first week of its release has seen impact on a lot of formats. From Tibalt’s Trickery in Modern, to a ton of new archetypes in Standard, Kaldheim is making its presence felt. However, for Standard, it’s impact is blunted by the Throne of Eldraine. Throne of Eldraine is a set which has polarized a lot of Magic players, and I don’t want to delve too much beyond the obvious. As a noted Throne of Eldraine fan, I admit my biases here, but we should note at the moment, six Throne of Eldraine cards are banned. Still, Eldraine has shaped Standard for what will be almost two years before it rotates. For this reason, I first want to point to what I think are still the most important Throne of Eldraine cards for Kaldheim Standard, and the squeeze they put on deck building.
These are the eight Eldraine cards which are, in my mind, central to Standard as it currently stands. In last standard, the best decks were Rogues, Gruul, and Mono-Green Food. In my mind, Mono Green food is the least changed for current Standard, although I do think it gains from Kaldheim. Gruul I believe will likely be eclipsed by Boros. Rogues I think are still likely very good, and I think Drown In The Loch and Into The Story are super powerful Magic cards. Embercleave is still a really powerful Magic card, and I think it is important to the new Boros Deck. The Adventures Cards, Brazen Borrower, Bonecrusher Giant, and Lovestruck Beast are amazingly powerful cards, and Lovestruck Beast’s stat line impacts what is playable.
The Eldraine cards are very powerful, and they have resulted in several bans. While I still believe more Magic cards from this set may need to see bans in the remaining time until Eldraine Rotates, I do not want to predict the death of Magic, nor argue for any bans. Rather, I think it’s important to see the power of Eldraine, and accept it, and use it to build better decks.
Moving on from Throne of Eldraine, I do think we are seeing a small Metagame Shift in current standard, which is a result of a few central cards. This shift is new for Kaldheim Standard, so I want to discuss the cards we have seen break out
These four cards are the ones which have become the defining cards from Kaldheim. The Izzet Flash list is, in my mind, one of the decks to beat coming out of current Standard. This card rests on the power of a few cards. The aforementioned Brazen Borrower and Bonecrusher Giant, but the stand out card here is Goldspan Dragon. You can hold up counter magic after playing it to protect your 4/4, you can counter removal that targets it off of those spells, and you can also use Frostbite and Bonecrusher to kill your opponents spells. This deck is abstractly powerful, and I have played a bit of it. I just can’t seem to get it to work. This may be a ladder vs. tournament scenario, but I want this deck to be better than my experience is bearing out.
Showdown of The Skalds is a really powerful magic card. It’s a repeatable draw four with Shepherd of The Flock, and it let’s you grow your dinky creatures.
Moving forward, I think there are a lot of cards left to explore, and a lot of decks will need to change based on Metagames. I think Gruul might still be a good deck, and I think there has been minimal exploration of a lot of cards. Overall, I am really glad we don’t have an Oko, Omnath or Uro deck running around right now. The decks I think have the new decks with the most promise right now are Boros Showdown, Izzet Flash. Beyond that, I think decks like Rogues and Mono Green Food are decks which might still be viable, even if they didn’t pick up a ton of new cards.
In conclusion, there is a lot to do in the current standard, and while I think Eldraine cards are still really important and powerful build around cards. We will have to wait and see how the upcoming weeks play out, but for now. Watch Izzet Flash and Boros Showdown. See what resurges of decks from previous Standard.
