HI everybody! With the arrival of the standard PTQ season

about me:
Samuele Estratti – a 26 year old Italian .

Studying Economy

First Place on PT Philadelphia 2011 (Modern)

GP top 8 – 4 (Malmo, Verona, Utrecht, Milan)

Italian Nationals top 4 : 2 (2008/2009)

HI everybody!
With the arrival of the standard PTQ season, together with the WMCQ, I’d like to talk about standard , focusing on a particular deck : Naya Blitz!
I hope this can help you for the next events.
Let’s start by analyzing the format: standard is a complete format , you can find combo, control, midrange decks and aggro ones; for each of those strategies there are more than just one archetype.
So many decks involve many and different strategies, but what’s the best one?
For sure, this question doesn’t have an objective answer but I can give you my own idea!
First place for……AGGRO!
Second for…COMBO!
Why? Let’s try to explain it :
– Keep your hand: when you start playing you don’t know what deck you are facing, so if your deck has a linear strategy , like aggro or combo , choosing to mulligan or not depends on the quality of your own hand and doesn’t involve your opponent’s deck, so you have almost all the variables just in front of you!
But if your deck is midrange, a strong one like Jund , some of your hands gain power or lose it depending on your opponent’s deck and this can be really bad, sometimes you keep and you think “I hope it’s…..” never happened?
Let’s try a sample hand!

It’s a really good hand , how can you mulligan?
But look :your opponent is playing an agro deck like Naya Blitz or JundAggro→you are a deadman walking if you are OTD (on the draw) and not the favorite OTP (on the play).

Let’s see another one:

It’s a good hand too, is it not? The best one against aggro decks but probably the worst one against control, and quite bad in midrange mirror!

-Useless cards: this is an advantage that comes from the previous point, every card in your deck is useful and serves your strategy “ kill him before the fifth land” while cards of other decks are really bad against you , Garruk? Rakdos’s return

-Advantage from strange hands: an aggro deck takes 100% advantage from any bad sequence of lands , if your opponent starts with only Shocklands , Checklands or misses a land drop or draws too many of them.

Every Coin has two Sides, if in the first game you gain advantage for easier keeps and almost every card is good against everything , the sb will upgrade your deck less than others.
It’s true that sb games are more common than md ones but it’s true that you probably start in the third game too.
Do you know what’s the advantage of starting with Naya Blitz?
Have you ever played Naya Blitz?
Let’s see the list:

20 Lands

4 Cavern of Souls

4 Sacred Foundry

4 Stomping Ground

4 Temple Garden

2 Sunpetal Grove

1 Rootbound Crag

1 Clifftop Retreat

36 Creatures

4 Experiment One

4 Flinthoof Boar

4 Frontline Medic

4 Lightning Mauler

4 Mayor of Avabruck

4 Champion of the Parish

4 Burning-Tree Emissary

4 Boros Elite

3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

1 Ghor-Clan Rampager

4 Instants and Sorceries

4 Searing Spear

0 Other SpellsSideboard

2 Flames of the Firebrand

2 Nearheath Pilgrim

2 Fiend Hunter

2 Boros Reckoner

4 Boros Charm

3 Pacifism

A super aggressive deck, explosive and really quick; this means that starting in a game makes the deck pretty dangerous against every deck, including the ones with really good sb cards: first of all there are few removals that cost only one mana (tragic slip and pillar of flame) while you are playing 12 1-drop , plus 4 cards that allow you to play 2-3 creatures on turn 2 (Burning-tree emissary) plus 3 Thalia that makes 2-mana removals slow, buying time and damages!

So this is the advantage:
-having an edge in first games thanks to inefficient hands/cards of your opponent
-having a possibility to start a game after sideboard improving your % of winning

That was my list from GP Verona, the first time I played this deck was with the list of Nico Christiansen 1st at GP Quebec :

Creatures (33)

4 Boros Elite

4 Burning-Tree Emissary

4 Champion of the Parish

4 Experiment One

4 Flinthoof Boar

4 Frontline Medic

1 Ghor-Clan Rampager

4 Lightning Mauler

4 Mayor of Avabruck

Lands (20)

4 Cavern of Souls

1 Rootbound Crag

4 Sacred Foundry

4 Stomping Ground

3 Sunpetal Grove

4 Temple Garden

Spells (7)

3 Giant Growth

4 Searing Spear

My first question : why Giant Growth and not Rancor
After a few games I realized, you have no time at all to cast Rancor during the first 2-3 turns because you always have to play creatures, this makes Rancor strictly worse than Giant Growth especially if your opponent plays instant removals such as searing spear or abrupt decay
After some other games I couldn’t find the utility of Giant Growth as well , honestly I didn’t like them at all : they improve your bad hands, together with Searing spear you can open hands with too many spells and few creatures; that’s why I preferred Thalia, Guardian of Thraben thanks to Calvetto’s (one of my teammate) suggestion.
I tried some games and that’s it, it was an upgrade: on the play against Jund midrange, UWR, esper and some other midrange it is simply a 2/1 first strike with “time walk” in it, against other aggro is still good at beating and can easily stop many creatures from trying to race.
It’s useless telling you that a Thalia with a Mayor goes through Thragtusk and allows a 1×1 against reckoner right?

The other change was a land: Clifftop over Sunpetal, to improve the red mana base.

Now let’s see some side in/out: in general it is quite important to leave a high amount of creatures so don’t side too many spells if you don’t side out Spears!

-Jund Midrange: OTD-2 boros elite +2 boros reckonerOTP: no changes
Why not Boros Charm? You can’t side out Searing Spear because Huntmaster and Olivia need a quick response, as I have already told you I don’t like to reduce the number of creatures especially against a deck full of spot removal like Jund.
The indestructible effect is ok but you need to assemble white and red mana to prevent a removal, which is strictly worse than a creature, the real advantage is against a bonfire.
The 4 damage effect is not that good at all, only decent if you topdeck it in the right moment.

-UWR FlashOTD Boros elite, -4 Searing Spear +2 Boros reckoner +4 Boros Charm
OTP:-4 Searing Spear + 4 Boros Charm
Why not Pacifism or Fiend Hunter to interact with their Reckoner?
Against Reckoner, Boros Charm is really good and strictly better than Searing Spear, a Pacifism against a deck with restoration angel is dangerous.
Fiend Hunter is worse than Pacifism: it dies easily to a Searing Spear, raises your manacurve, improves his restart after Supreme Verdict and can’t attack because of Azorius charm and Restoration Angel

-Mirror: OTD: -3 Thalia -4 Boros elite +2 Flames of the firebrand, +2 boros reckoner,+1 pacifism,+2 fiend hunter
OTP: -1 boros elite,-3 Thalia + 2 Flames of the firebrand ,+2 Fiend hunter

-Naya “big”: OTD: -3 Thalia -4 Boros Elite +2 fiend hunter +2 Boros Reckoner +3 Pacifism (depends on the versions, if he plays Restoration or not)
OTP: -3 Thalia +3 Pacifism (depends on Restoration, otherwise 2 Hunters)

-JundAggro: OTD:-4 Boros Elite, -1 Thalia +2 Reckoner +3 Pacifism
OTP:-2 boros elite , +2 reckoner

-Humanimator: OTD/OTP: no changes

-Junk Reanimator :OTD:-2 boros elite, -2 spear +2 reckoner +2 flames
OTP:-2 spear + 2 flames or nothing
If it’s the Sam Black list (with Lotleth troll and not restoration) put Pacifism over other cards

-Esper: OTD/OTP: – 4 searing spear +4 boros charm

I hope I included almost every deck , if something has been missed please tell me!

Playing this deck is not so easy as it seems , take your time to choose a mulligan , to decide what drop is better or if an attack is positive: you have to optimize damage!

That’s all folks, oops I almost forgot , this deck sometimes opens “nut” hands, I will show some of them , in particular the ones during the tournament, enjoy!

T1: Cavern of souls – Champion of the Parish
T2: Sacred Foundry- Champion of the parish and Boros Elite –>hit for 3
T3: Stomping Ground- Experiment One, Burning –Tree Emissary, Mayor of Avabruck –> hit for 17

T1: Stomping ground tapped
T2: Cavern of souls – Burning –tree Emissary x 3 , Lightning Mauler →hit for 4
T3: Mayor of Avabruck →hit for 12
T4: Mayor of Avabruck →GG

T1: Cavern of souls –Champion of the parish
T2: Sacred Foundry- Burning-tree emissary x2 + Lightning mauler → hit for 8

T1: Sacred Foundry – champion of the Parish
T2: Sunpetal Grove –Champion of the parish x2 →hit for 3
T3: Burning-tree Emissary, Mayor of Avabruck→hit for 15

Not so many if you consider that I played 15 rounds and almost 35 games, but still a 11% of easy games so….try it, play it and enjoy the humans’ fury!

Samuele Estratti

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