Well, another week means another week of neat decks, and there are once again a lot of fun ones to talk about! I know I am only three weeks into this series, but I am actually worried about a week where we are light on decks to talk about. That isn’t this week though, as the brewers, particularly the Pioneer players, are still out in full force. 

Standard

There is nothing once again for Standard this week. The 5-0 League Dumps for Standard continue to be both small and solved. I’m still trying to find alternate ways to show off good, effective standard brews. But until I figure out the parameters, this section probably won’t have much going on. Duskmourn is on the horizon, which will give us more cards to see at least. 

Modern

As Modern continues to be overrun with RWx Energy and The One Ring, the Modern section today is also short, but I do still have two pretty cool ones to talk about.

The first one is this UB list from UnknownPlayer1, which foregoes all copies of Murktide Regent and elects for the Nulldrifter-Dress Down package, which is something I certainly like in concept. Dress Down is a very strong card in this meta, hosing a lot of creatures in Energy and Urza’s Saga tokens, and Nulldrifter is a pretty decent card advantage engine and a good threat with Dress Down. I think the copy of Shoot the Sheriff is interesting as well. Modern isn’t a format with a ton of creature variety right now, which lends itself to a Doom Blade variant like Shoot the Sheriff to be viable. I have a suspicion that Murktide Regent will continue to be the better top-end threat for these decks, but it’s nice to see some other ideas be successful.

The other Modern list I’m talking about this week is this Mono W Blink/Taxes list piloted by RodrigoNoGoCeke. I’ve long been a fan of Death and Taxes style lists in Modern and it’s nice to see that Leonin Arbiter and Ghost Quarter can still get the job done now and then, though the support of a bunch of pushed MH3 cards like Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah certainly helps. 

The most surprising thing to me about this list is not having Aether Vial, which is a decision I understand, but still one that I’m sad to see. 

Pioneer

I have a nice handful of decks on tap for Pioneer this week, and I want to start with the Boros Possilbity Storm list that is making its way around once again, as shown here by TwoSevenOff.

Possibility Storm and High Noon creates a lock that makes it so neither player can really do much once these cards are on board, and while it is vulnerable to Boseiju, a combination of these two cards with the support of Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Beza adds up to being a pretty solid game plan. I think if you’re playing Pioneer, you need some kind of combo-esque strategy or backup plan for your deck to be relevant, and this certainly combines powerful individual cards with a combo finish. 

The next two lists are each returning decks that I just haven’t seen in a while. First, we have this Bant Auras list piloted by Moyashi6498. This is a true Bant deck as well, as I originally clicked it thinking the Blue would be a light splash, but no, they’re just running all three colors. Auras was on top of the world a couple years ago and then it seemingly completely fell off the map, but Moyashi is out here proving this deck still has some game. I like Hushbringer in the meta as a sideboard call right now as well, mainly against the GB Sac/Food decks. 

Speaking of returning decks, we also have an Esper Greasefang list from Kaberb, which has six total creatures in the deck. This is very different from the Abzan lists we became used to seeing for a while, partly because of the creature count. This list is less of a Midrange/Aggro deck and more of a control-style list, which I think makes sense if you’re going to play Esper. Lively Dirge is a pretty fantastic tech for this list too, as for five mana it lets you just go full-on surprise Greasefang combo almost out of nowhere. Temporary Lockdown is also an incredibly strong card in the meta right now, so I don’t blame Kaberb for maindecking one either.

And finally, my last list for this week is yet another take on GW Company, as we see here from Season_Urb’s list.

While the name is the same and the general function of the deck is similar, this list is completely different from the ones we’ve been seeing over the last few weeks. Season_urb has fully leaned into a Soul Sisters style deck, led by Essence Channeler, a powerful new card from Bloomburrow (also illustrated by my favorite Magic artist). You know things are serious when Heliod, Sun-Crowned makes an appearance, which it does here. 

Going in this direction allows you access to the three best Ajani’s Pridemates ever printed, without even having to play Pridemate itself. Trelassra gives you some nice card selection, while Channeler and Voice of the Blessed escalate to game-ending threats incredibly quickly. Case of the Uneaten Feast also gives you some life gain turbo and recursion, both of which the deck is certainly interested in. 

I wonder if Season_urb will mess around with this deck with the new Leyline of Hope coming out in Duskmourn. That seems like a potentially pretty potent card for this list. I’m also sad to not see the fun-of Ajani, Strength of the Pride in here, but maybe that’s just me. 

– 

And there we have it for Neat-Decking volume three. Things felt a little bit lighter this week, but I’m glad there was still some stuff to talk about. I like that we keep seeing different iterations of the GW Midrange lists. There has been a completely different variation of that deck on Neat-Decking all three times and I think it’s cool to see all these different versions of what is almost the same archetype. 

If anyone has any suggestions on that or wants to offer up decks I missed, please find me in thegathering.gg’s discord server @adolce95. Other than that, I’m looking forward to sharing more lists next week!