5 New Standard cards that won the SNC Champs
The SNC Championship has just ended. Jan Merkel took first place with Jeskai Hinata in Standard and also won Historic with Rakdos Arcanist. As is customary after every major tournament, we’ll analyze what we learned. Today we’ll look at Standard and the tournament’s most impressive cards, specifically the five new cards that made a great impact.
5. GALA GREETERS
This card was present in the top 8 decks of Shota Yasooka (Jund Midrange) and Hisamichi Yoshigoe (Naya Midrange). It’s versatile and lends itself to many synergies and uses. If it’s accompanied well in the early game, it can put significant pressure on your opponent and give you useful treasures to speed up your plays. I like the synergy it has with Jinnie Fay, which allows you to turn virtually any treasure put into play into a 2/2 or a 3/1, thus allowing the ability to trigger again so you can either gain life or put a +1/+1 on itself.
Versatile cards in Magic have always been highly valued, and this one seems to represent this category at its best
4. WORKSHOP WARCHIEF
This card is also present in the aforementioned standard decks and is important in a midrange-rich meta where generated resources are always crucial.
It’s a 5/3 that gives you 3 life when it comes into play. When it dies it gives you a 4/4 and is able to trade with virtually all creatures. It’s a good card to play in these types of decks. The most important synergy is with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, the most played card of the tournament, which creates a copy of this rhino every turn and gives you an advantage that is hard to overcome.
3. EVELYN, THE COVETOUS
We change the deck but not the card type. This card is capable of creating an advantage, and Mike Sigrist decided to play this legendary creature in two copies in his Grixis Vampires.
Exiling two cards from each player’s library every time a vampire comes into play (the deck was playing 12 vampires) and being able to play them for mana of any color is an important advantage in long games.
That it’s a 2/5 and not killed by Voltage Surge, the most played removal of the format, makes it even better.
2. RAFFINE,SCHEMING SEER
Simon Nielsen and Zachary Kiihne have brought Esper Midrange to the top 8. It’s a solid deck that, in addition to The Wandering Emperor and various high power level cards, owes its fortunes to Raffine.
This sphinx has multiple functions in this deck and that is why it’s so important. The first makes card quality thanks to the connive ability that is triggered every time you attack. The second function is board control due to its 4 toughness that blocks most of the format’s creatures. It can also put pressure on your opponent because it becomes quite complicated to manage after 2/3 rounds of attack or together with the Aspirant.
1. TENACIOUS UNDERDOG
Present in five out of eight decks of the top eight, the Tenacious Underdog is the Streets of New Capenna card that above all has found space in this Standard format.
It was played that much because of the synergy between the fact that it can be played from the graveyard for its blitz cost (which will make it cycle at the end of the turn) and the many cards in the format that require you to discard cards, such as Blood tokens, Raffine‘s connive triggers, Kaito Shizuki‘s draw/discard, and the second chapter of the Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. In short, all things that allow you to discard without losing resources.
Playing Flame-Blessed Bolt was a smart move that allowed Jan Merkel to have a good advantage over his opponents, and if the card continues to be played like this, I’m convinced that many players will follow his example.
The SNC Championship was interesting to watch. The meta is currently varied, and the games are all enjoyable. Although the power level of some cards is higher than that of others, the meta is balanced.
We just have to wait and see how the balance will evolve.
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