We’re nearing the end of preview season for Innistrad: Midnight Hunt. We’ve seen some incredible cards be printed, and many are very excited for it’s release. It’s coming out on Magic Arena next week on the 16th, so now’s the perfect time to brew up some decks for the new Standard format. Luckily, we do have some baseline decks to work with since we have the Standard 2022 queues and tournaments to look at. Today we’ll give you 3 new brews for decks to try in new Innistrad: Midnight Hunt standard.
Gruul Aggro
Our first deck is Gruul Aggro. We’re leaning a bit into the Werewolf creature type a bit with new cards like
Tovolar, Dire Overlord
Tovolar, Dire Overlord
Whenever a Wolf or Werewolf you control deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control three or more Wolves and/or Werewolves, it becomes night. Then transform any number of Human Werewolves you control.
Daybound
,
Arlinn, the Pack’s Hope
Arlinn, the Pack’s Hope
Daybound (If a player casts no spells during their own turn, it becomes night next turn.)
+1: Until your next turn, you may cast creature spells as though they had flash, and each creature you control enters with an additional +1/+1 counter on it.
−3: Create two 2/2 green Wolf creature tokens.
and
Kessig Naturalist
Kessig Naturalist
Whenever this creature attacks, add {R} or {G}. Until end of turn, you don't lose this mana as steps and phases end.
Daybound (If a player casts no spells during their own turn, it becomes night next turn.)
. We also get
Werewolf Pack Leader
Werewolf Pack Leader
Pack tactics — Whenever this creature attacks, if you attacked with creatures with total power 6 or greater this combat, draw a card.
{3}{G}: Until end of turn, this creature has base power and toughness 5/3, gains trample, and isn't a Human.
and
Ranger Class
Ranger Class
(Gain the next level as a sorcery to add its ability.)
When this Class enters, create a 2/2 green Wolf creature token.
{1}{G}: Level 2
Whenever you attack, put a +1/+1 counter on target attacking creature.
{3}{G}: Level 3
You may look at the top card of your library any time.
You may cast creature spells from the top of your library.
to help our density of werewolves. While that is a focus, we can’t ignore the other incredibly strong cards in the format.
We have the
Jaspera Sentinel
Jaspera Sentinel
Reach
{T}, Tap an untapped creature you control: Add one mana of any color.
and
Magda, Brazen Outlaw
Magda, Brazen Outlaw
Other Dwarves you control get +1/+0.
Whenever a Dwarf you control becomes tapped, create a Treasure token.
Sacrifice five Treasures: Search your library for an artifact or Dragon card, put that card onto the battlefield, then shuffle.
combo to help get a bunch of treasure tokens. We can follow that up with all-stars
Esika’s Chariot
Esika’s Chariot
When Esika's Chariot enters, create two 2/2 green Cat creature tokens.
Whenever Esika's Chariot attacks, create a token that's a copy of target token you control.
Crew 4
and
Goldspan Dragon
Goldspan Dragon
Flying, haste
Whenever this creature attacks or becomes the target of a spell, create a Treasure token.
Treasures you control have "{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add two mana of any one color."
.
Kazandu Mammoth
Kazandu Mammoth
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, this creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
and
Dragon’s Fire
Dragon’s Fire
As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may reveal a Dragon card from your hand or choose a Dragon you control.
Dragon's Fire deals 3 damage to target creature or planeswalker. If you revealed a Dragon card or chose a Dragon as you cast this spell, Dragon's Fire deals damage equal to the power of that card or creature instead.
round out this list. Aggro is generally a very powerful strategy in the early days of new formats, so this is the deck I’d go to first.
There are some new cards previewed that I think should definitely go in this deck somewhere.
The Green Adversary,
Primal Adversary
Primal Adversary
Trample
When this creature enters, you may pay {1}{G} any number of times. When you pay this cost one or more times, put that many +1/+1 counters on this creature, then up to that many target lands you control become 3/3 Wolf creatures with haste that are still lands.
is a really aggressively costed body and has the ability to flood a board out of nowhere in the late game, and it synergizes with the wolf cards nicely as well. This is probably a rival to Kazandu Mammoth, and I’d be happy to make that switch
Izzet Delver
Next up is Izzet Delver. This deck looks to take advantage of
Delver of Secrets
Delver of Secrets
At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top card of your library. You may reveal that card. If an instant or sorcery card is revealed this way, transform this creature.
in a tempo oriented game plan. There is a new card that was previewed today that isn’t in the list that really ties the deck together.
Fading Hope
Fading Hope
Return target creature to its owner's hand. If its mana value was 3 or less, scry 1. (Look at the top card of your library. You may put that card on the bottom.)
, while it’s an upgraded [/tooltips]Unsummon[/tooltips] is a dirt cheap spell to remove our opponent’s early game plays, and allows us to scry 1 to set up Delver flipping. This takes up the remaining 3 cards in the deck.
The other creatures in the deck are
Poppet Stitcher
Poppet Stitcher
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token with decayed. (It can't block. When it attacks, sacrifice it at end of combat.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control three or more creature tokens, you may transform this creature.
, which generates us some power on the board to pressure our opponent’s life total, and
Goldspan Dragon
Goldspan Dragon
Flying, haste
Whenever this creature attacks or becomes the target of a spell, create a Treasure token.
Treasures you control have "{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add two mana of any one color."
which is the definitive top end creature card for this deck.
Our remaining cards are cheap spells that involve some amount of removal, card draw, and a small amount of counter magic. Our real goal here is to be able to flip Delver of Secrets easily, and make a bunch of zombies with Poppet Stitcher.
READ MORE: “Fan Favorite” Planeswalker Makes A Return in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt
Simic Ramp
The last deck we have is actually one from Ross Merriam. He played this on VS Live, and I really liked this deck list a lot. I wrote about how the Simic Ramp deck was incredibly strong in the Standard 2022, and with some great additions in Midnight Hunt, the deck gets a lot better.
Wrenn and Seven
Wrenn and Seven
+1: Reveal the top four cards of your library. Put all land cards revealed this way into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
0: Put any number of land cards from your hand onto the battlefield tapped.
−3: Create a green Treefolk creature token with reach and "This token's power and toughness are each equal to the number of lands you control."
−8: Return all permanent cards from your graveyard to your hand. You get an emblem with "You have no maximum hand size."
is a great ramp planeswalker, and
Augur of Autumn
Augur of Autumn
You may look at the top card of your library any time.
You may play lands from the top of your library.
Coven — As long as you control three or more creatures with different powers, you may cast creature spells from the top of your library.
allowing you to power up through playing lands off the top of your deck feels quite strong. You can actually see this deck in action by checking out the most recent VSLive episode
I think definitely could be a top contender in the format, as
Koma, Cosmos Serpent
Koma, Cosmos Serpent
This spell can't be countered.
At the beginning of each upkeep, create a 3/3 blue Serpent creature token named Koma's Coil.
Sacrifice another Serpent: Choose one —
• Tap target permanent. Its activated abilities can't be activated this turn.
• Koma gains indestructible until end of turn.
is one of the best top end boss monsters in the format, and
Alrund’s Epiphany
Alrund’s Epiphany
Create two 1/1 blue Bird creature tokens with flying. Take an extra turn after this one. Exile Alrund's Epiphany.
Foretell {4}{U}{U} (During your turn, you may pay {2} and exile this card from your hand face down. Cast it on a later turn for its foretell cost.)
is the best top end spell, and this deck can take advantage of both of them.
READ MORE: Do Zombies Really Need Another Lord?
It’s a very exciting time for Standard players. The meta should be nice an healthy with this set’s release. Let us know what decks you’re looking to play when Innistrad: Midnight Hunt releases.
Innistrad: Midnight Hunt is the first of two new Innistrad sets coming to Magic: the Gathering. It’s being released in tabletop on September 24th, 2021, and online on September 17th, 2021. Previews start on September 2nd, 2021. Be sure to check out our Preview Gallery to stay up to date with all the new previews.