I'm sure most of you are here to see the deck list and get on with your lives. So I will refrain from commenting about it until after you have had a chance to go through it. Well here you go:
Maindeck:
Creatures
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Birds of Paradise
1 Dauntless Escort
4 Fauna Shaman
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Vengevine
Instants
3 Path to Exile
Legendary Creatures
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
Planeswalkers
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Basic Lands
4 Forest
1 Plains
Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Murmuring Bosk
4 Razorverge Thicket
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Sunpetal Grove
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard:
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Cloudthresher
4 Great Sable Stag
2 Sun Titan
1 War Priest of Thune
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
3 Oust
-As designed by Brian Kibler
As you can see there are some interesting card choices. But, to be honest I really don't think I would change much with his deck. I have been experimenting with trying to come up with something along a similar line for standard. I figured this would be a good place to start. This deck makes the most use of Knight of the Reliquary. She (yeah that's right Knight of the Reliquary is one *** kicking girl) is an absolute power house in this deck. Why? Because of the 6 fetch lands and multiple basics, Knight needs those forests and plains.
Squadron Hawk is both one of the most useful and least powerful cards in the deck. The card advantage you get from Squadron Hawk is amazing. A great thing that Squadron Hawk let's you do is overfill your hand to discard Vengevines so you can rebuy them later. Maybe you don't have a Vengevine but you do have a Knight of the Reliquary in play and you are absolutely flooded with mana. Cast the Squadron Hawk discard some Lands and make the Knight huge. But, there are some drawbacks. At the end of the day Squadron Hawk is a 1/1 flyer for 2. So, don't expect that casting a few Squadron Hawks alone will win you the game.
I like that the mana base is much more stable than Naya and that you get access to great removal with Path to Exile which is just really underrated right now. Dauntless Escort is a nice 1 of and I like the synergy it has with Sun Titan coming out of the Board. Qasali Pridemage is a great on curve aggressive threat that can offer some disruption against Faeries by taking out those pesky Bitter Blossoms. However, it is not as great against the Primastic Omens decks as they will usually be able to play around it and the R/G version will go off without it.
Speaking of these decks, I would not recommend Kibler's deck to anyone who expects to face a lot of Valakut the Molten Pinnacle in Extended. Their combo is usually just plain faster than you. Kibler's deck has good match ups against Naya, Mono Red, and Faeries isn't impossible but you have to play smart. However, the Valakut decks in almost all of their incarnations are simply a nightmare. Kibler said he would have to make several changes to the deck if he was going to play it again. Honestly, I'm not sure what he has mind but I am certainly curious and will let you know as soon I find out.
So, what might Kibler's deck look like in Standard? Here is a brew I am toying with (that means it not done):
Creatures:
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Signal Pest
4 Squadron Hawks
4 Accorder Paladin
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Vengevine
3 Hero of the Bladehold
2 Moltentail Masticore
Sorceries
4 Lead the Stampede
Lands:
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Sunpetal Grove
3 Stirring Wildwood
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Arid Mesa
4 Forest
6 Plains
2 Contested Warzone
This deck capitalizes on being big and being fast at the same time. It hit for 11 on turn 3 with:
Turn 1: Razorverge Thicket -> Birds of Paradise
Turn 2: Razorverge Thicket -> Signal Pest, Accorder Paladin using the Birds for mana
Turn 3: Plains -> Vengevine attack for 11
Obviously this deck pretty much folds to a sweeper. That is why Lead the Stampede is there to help refill your hand and put noncreature cards on the botton of your Library so you don't have to draw them. But, relying on Lead the Stampede to pull out a win isn't a good strategy. So, this is where the sideboard is going to be very important for this deck. You don't want to be blown out by a Black Sun Zenith, Pyroclasm, Slagstorm, or to a lesser degree Arc Trail. Unfortunately, I don't have a sideboard for you (I said it wasn't finished remember) because there is a fine line between being a swarm deck, a midrange deck, and a creature deck that plays too slow and just loses. What I mean is that I need to find ways of being resilent without sacrificing too much speed. Some cards to consider will be Garruk Wildspeaker, Obstinate Baloth, and Thrun, the Last Troll.
Thanks for Reading.
-Mark
The Strategist
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