The Millenium Calendar Finally Finds Strange Home in Standard!

Over the course of the past month, Standard has largely been dominated by a handful of archetypes. Five-color ramp, Dimir midrange, and Esper midrange have all become huge parts of the metagame. The printing of cards like Cavern of Souls Cavern of Souls As this land enters, choose a creature type.
{T}: Add {C}.
{T}: Add one mana of any color. Spend this mana only to cast a creature spell of the chosen type, and that spell can't be countered. and Deep-Cavern Bat Deep-Cavern Bat Flying, lifelink
When this creature enters, look at target opponent's hand. You may exile a nonland card from it until this creature leaves the battlefield. in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan played a big role in this development.

After that, a few more archetypes like mono-red aggro and Bant Poison largely round out the rest of the metagame. The format has seen very little innovation as a whole. As such, whenever a cool new archetype makes its presence felt, even in a more casual setting, it’s worth taking a look at. Today, we are going to do just that, examining a mono-red midrange deck that went 3-0 at a 3-round event in Japan.

This mono-red deck is nothing like the mono-red aggro decks that are looking to beat down. This deck is full of Planeswalkers, removal, and intriguing, improbable synergies that perhaps have found a home. Let’s start by taking a look at the core gameplan of the deck.

Value-Oriented Gameplan

The main goal of this deck is to keep the board clear and win over time with some strong haymakers. The only Creature in the maindeck is Trumpeting Carnosaur Trumpeting Carnosaur Trample
When this creature enters, discover 5.
{2}{R}, Discard this card: It deals 3 damage to target creature or planeswalker. , which doubles as interaction when necessary. If you can keep your opponent off-balance, you can start to pull ahead by slamming Planeswalkers onto an empty battlefield.

Chandra, Dressed to Kill Chandra, Dressed to Kill +1: Add {R}. Chandra deals 1 damage to up to one target player or planeswalker.
+1: Exile the top card of your library. If it's red, you may cast it this turn.
−7: Exile the top five cards of your library. You may cast red spells from among them this turn. You get an emblem with "Whenever you cast a red spell, this emblem deals X damage to any target, where X is the amount of mana spent to cast that spell." and Jaya, Fiery Negotiator Jaya, Fiery Negotiator +1: Create a 1/1 red Monk creature token with prowess.
−1: Exile the top two cards of your library. Choose one of them. You may play that card this turn.
−2: Choose target creature an opponent controls. Whenever you attack this turn, Jaya deals damage equal to the number of attacking creatures to that creature.
−8: You get an emblem with "Whenever you cast a red instant or sorcery spell, copy it twice. You may choose new targets for the copies." provide you with card advantage for as long as you can keep them on the battlefield. Koth, Fire of Resistance Koth, Fire of Resistance +2: Search your library for a basic Mountain card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
−3: Koth deals damage to target creature equal to the number of Mountains you control.
−7: You get an emblem with "Whenever a Mountain you control enters, this emblem deals 4 damage to any target." , despite not having a super strong set of abilities, does threaten its ultimate rather quickly. Additionally, it helps guarantee that you can hit your Land drops for Carnosaur.

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Keeping the Board Clear

One of the downsides of this style of gameplan, however, is that these Planeswalkers in particular don’t do a great job of protecting themselves. Koth can act as removal, but ideally, it’s best to try to race to the ultimate which will allow you to completely take over the game. This is where the deck’s vast removal suite comes into play.

For cheap, single-target removal, this deck makes good use of cards like Strangle Strangle Strangle deals 3 damage to target creature or planeswalker. , Invasion of Tarkir Invasion of Tarkir (As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When this Siege enters, reveal any number of Dragon cards from your hand. When you do, this Siege deals X plus 2 damage to any other target, where X is the number of cards revealed this way. (X can be 0.) , and Abrade Abrade Choose one —
• Abrade deals 3 damage to target creature.
• Destroy target artifact. . Nahiri’s Warcrafting Nahiri’s Warcrafting Nahiri's Warcrafting deals 5 damage to target creature, planeswalker, or battle. Look at the top X cards of your library, where X is the excess damage dealt this way. You may exile one of those cards. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. You may play the exiled card this turn. is a little more expensive but can help deal with more problematic Creatures like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse Sheoldred, the Apocalypse Deathtouch
Whenever you draw a card, you gain 2 life.
Whenever an opponent draws a card, they lose 2 life. . Nahiri’s Warcrafting also pairs perfectly with Invasion of Tarkir, since you can remove all of the defense counters from it at once, leaving you with a very powerful Dragon in the end.

To help further combat decks such as Bant Poison that can create wide board states rather quickly, Brotherhood’s End Brotherhood’s End Choose one —
• Brotherhood's End deals 3 damage to each creature and each planeswalker.
• Destroy all artifacts with mana value 3 or less. can clean up a bunch of small Creatures at once. This deck even goes a bit further, running Filigree Sylex which can cleanly answer a bunch of Skrelv’s Hive Skrelv’s Hive At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and create a 1/1 colorless Phyrexian Mite artifact creature token with toxic 1 and "This token can't block."
Corrupted — As long as an opponent has three or more poison counters, creatures you control with toxic have lifelink. and Crawling Chorus Crawling Chorus Toxic 1 (Players dealt combat damage by this creature also get a poison counter.)
When this creature dies, create a 1/1 colorless Phyrexian Mite artifact creature token with toxic 1 and "This token can't block." tokens in an efficient manner.

Furthermore, because this deck is mono-colored, there’s a bit of room for utility Lands. Unlike traditional red aggro decks that might use man-Lands like Mishra’s Foundry Mishra’s Foundry {T}: Add {C}.
{2}: This land becomes a 2/2 Assembly-Worker artifact creature until end of turn. It's still a land.
{1}, {T}: Target attacking Assembly-Worker gets +2/+2 until end of turn. in this slot, this archetype makes better use of Blast Zone Blast Zone This land enters with a charge counter on it.
{T}: Add {C}.
{X}{X}, {T}: Put X charge counters on this land.
{3}, {T}, Sacrifice this land: Destroy each nonland permanent with mana value equal to the number of charge counters on this land. as yet another way to help keep the board as clear as possible.

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Unlikely Synergies

Where this deck starts to get extra spicy is with its utilization of a unique build-around card: All Will Be One All Will Be One Whenever you put one or more counters on a permanent or player, this enchantment deals that much damage to target opponent, creature an opponent controls, or planeswalker an opponent controls. . All Will Be One is a bit expensive, but in this style of deck, can completely take over the game almost by itself. First of all, the Enchantment is quite strong with Planeswalkers. The turn you play All Will Be One, you can plus any Planeswalker you have in play and immediately deal some damage to your opponent or a Creature or Planeswalker they control.

From there, any Planeswalker you play will also cause All Will Be One to deal more damage, as permanents entering the battlefield with counters works in your favor. Of course, All Will Be One triggers for any type of counter. This includes defense counters associated with Battles, making Invasion of Tarkir a perfect follow-up to the powerful Enchantment.

Undoubtedly the coolest interaction available, though, is with the use of The Millennium Calendar The Millennium Calendar Whenever you untap one or more permanents during your untap step, put that many time counters on The Millennium Calendar.
{2}, {T}: Double the number of time counters on The Millennium Calendar.
When there are 1,000 or more time counters on The Millennium Calendar, sacrifice it and each opponent loses 1,000 life. . On its own, The Calendar takes a long time to end the game. In conjunction with All Will Be One, though, winning the game becomes trivial. On your opponent’s end step, you can simply tap all of your Lands, then when you untap, a bunch of counters will go on The Calendar, allowing All Will Be One to deal a bunch of damage. Then, you can double the counters on The Calendar at will and eventually dome the opponent for a ton of damage!

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Strengths and Weaknesses

This archetype definitely has a solid gameplan against Creature-heavy decks. Between Brotherhood’s End, The Filigree Sylex, and a bunch of targeted removal, this deck does a good job at preventing the opponent from gaining traction. On top of that, the Planeswalkers you have access to, along with All Will Be One, provide you with inevitability.

The biggest issue this deck has, though, is that it doesn’t pressure the opponent well. Five-color ramp seems like a disastrous matchup, for instance. Your removal spells are mostly dead, while Up the Beanstalk Up the Beanstalk When this enchantment enters and whenever you cast a spell with mana value 5 or greater, draw a card. and Atraxa, Grand Unifier Atraxa, Grand Unifier Flying, vigilance, deathtouch, lifelink
When Atraxa enters, reveal the top ten cards of your library. For each card type, you may put a card of that type from among the revealed cards into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. (Artifact, battle, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, and sorcery are card types.) threaten to out-value you. Thanks to Leyline Binding Leyline Binding Flash
Domain — This spell costs {1} less to cast for each basic land type among lands you control.
When this enchantment enters, exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls until this enchantment leaves the battlefield. , you can’t even reliably stick any of your Planeswalkers or All Will Be One to try to win the game that way.

Additionally, some threats, like Raffine, Scheming Seer Raffine, Scheming Seer Flying, ward {1}
Whenever you attack, target attacking creature connives X, where X is the number of attacking creatures. (Draw X cards, then discard X cards. Put a +1/+1 counter on that creature for each nonland card discarded this way.) , don’t die to most of this deck’s removal spells. This makes the midrange matchups a bit concerning and makes it surprising to see 0 copies of Lithomantic Barrage in the sideboard.

This archetype can definitely use some more tuning and is certainly on the casual side of things. That being said, it’s cool to see a plethora of cool, undervalues cards like All Will Be One working together in a unique shell. If you’re looking to beat up on aggro decks in a fun and amusing fashion, consider giving this deck a shot.

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