Standard right now is being dominated by 5 main deck variants. We have the obvious Jund, Blue-White Control, Red-White-Blue Planeswalker Control (Superfriends), Naya Vengevine, and Mythic Conscription. Naya and Mythic are the fastest of the deck types here. It can be debated which of the two decks is the fastest (I would give it to Mythic b/c of the lotus cobra knight of the relquinary combo). The drawback for Mythic is that the combo can be easily broken. Jund is Jund and is all about card advantage. Blue-White plays more counterspells than Superfriends and varies in the number of creatures. It also usually has more X spells and so can have longer matchups. Superfriends splashes red for Ajani Vengeant and runs a few less than impressive draw spells like Divination. I'm not a fan RWU Planeswalkers because I don't really like Ajani. But he can control the board a little with his plus ability and can deal damage to a creature or player (damage to a player can be redirected to a planeswalker) with his minus 2. I suppose if you really have the board locked down Ajani's Ultimate becomes instant win.
What have here in Standard are two slow decks, 2 fast decks, and Jund somewhere in between. Note that because of Cascade's card advantage Jund can be just as fast as the fast decks but since it is unreliable it can lean towards the slower side as well. My solution to try to win against all these decks in Standard is to play fast and play hard. Here's the Black-Red Aggro deck that I came up with to meet these needs.
Creatures:
4x Goblin Guide
4x Vampire Lacerator
4x Goblin Bushwhacker
4x Plated Geopede
4x Hellspark Elemental
Total: 20
Spells:
4x Lighnting Bolt
2x Sign in Blood
4x Terminate
4x Blightning
3x Sarkhan the Mad
Total: 17
Land:
3x Lavaclaw Reaches
4x Dragonskull Summit
3x Arid Mesa
3x Verdant Catacombs
6x Mountain
4x Swamp
Sideboard:
4x Duress
3x Goblin Outlander
3x Goblin Ruinblaster
3x Thought Hermorrhage
2x Consuming Vapors
Total: 15
This deck doesn't run a creature with converted mana cost higher than 2, even with kicker, in the main deck. It gets a little higher with Goblin Ruinblaster in the Sideboard. The Ruinblaster and the Outlander make good additions for Superfriends and White-Blue Control. Thought Hemorrhage is also brought in against these matchups to relieve the pressure that Planeswalkers can place in these decks. Duress is crucial for taking out hard to deal with cards before they ever see play. Consuming Vapors can be brought in against Naya, Jund, and Mythic where you might take some early damage that you need to recover from while removing threats at the same time. The creatures also great at taken out planeswalkers because of their haste and the ability Bushwhacker which can give them a power boost as well as haste. Blightning is simply a great card. Sarkhan the Mad is there for late game insurance. Being able to put 5/5 fliers into play as well as draw cards and deal large amounts of damage is pretty nice. Playing one Sarkhan and using him to put dargons into play under your control and then when he dies using a second to deal damage straight to an opponent can be too much for them to handle. Terminate is there for the big creatures and Lightning Bolt for small important creatures like Lotus Cobra, Noble Hierarch, Birds of Paradise, as well as the all important Planeswalkers. The fetch lands help to fix mana and the extra Landfall for the Geopedes is also a blessing. I think this could be a competitive deck in the Standard format.
