pro tour rivals of ixalan

Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan

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Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan was the second Pro Tour of the 2017–18 season . It took place on 2–4 February 2018 in Bilbao, Spain. It was the return of the Modern Pro Tour, the first of its kind since PT Oath of the Gatewatch in 2016. The event was won by Argentina's Luis Salvatto , whose Lantern Control deck took him to victory in the final against PT Amonkhet champion Gerry Thompson .

• 5.1 Player of the Year
• 5.2 Pro Tour Team Series
• 5.3 Draft Master
• 5.4 Constructed Master

Format [ | ]

Modern had not been a Pro Tour format for two years, but the Grand Prix events featuring the format were still hugely popular, and Modern events generally had the highest viewership, so it was brought back for the 2017–18 season. The banlist had been stable since the Eldrazi Winter , having only (re-)added Golgari Grave-Troll - which did not destroy Dredge as a deck - and Gitaxian Probe - which in particular weakened Infect and Death's Shadow decks. The biggest innovation since PT Oath of the Gatewatch was the development of the Death's Shadow strategies in early 2017, creating the newest midrange deck, with powerful threats and strong disruptive capabilities. A new player in the field was 4C or 5C Humans, using Unclaimed Territory and Kitesail Freebooter for near-perfect mana as well as combo disruption.

The previous Modern GP showed a metagame development from Death's Shadow domination into big-mana Tron and Scapeshift decks, whose gameplans are difficult for Death's Shadow decks to interact with.

Day one [ | ]

The Rivals of Ixalan Booster draft followed World Championship finalists Seth Manfield and Owen Turtenwald , drafting Blue-Green Merfolk and Blue-Red, respectively. However, neither player fared well in their pod, with Seth taking one win and Owen taking none. Instead, the pod was won by the relatively unknown Colin Rountree, who drafted White-Blue. Other players who won their respective pods included Paul Rietzl , Raphaël Lévy , Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa , and Ben Stark .

The breakdown of the Modern format seemed fairly balanced, with the top represented deck of 5C Humans taking up only 9.8% of the metagame. With the format shifting to big mana decks, aggressive strategies such as Burn, Affinity, and Humans took the top tables, which left room for the control decks heavy in removal to take over. At the end of the day, Italian 2017 World Magic Cup competitor Adriano Moscato was the last undefeated player, wielding 5C Humans, with PT Aether Revolt champion Lucas Esper Berthoud barely behind at 7–0–1, also on 5C Humans.

The top eight players after day one:

Day two [ | ]

The second Rivals draft followed the undefeated Moscato and Hall of Famer Rietzl, drafting Blue-White Ascend and Red-Black removal; unfortunately, like the Day 1 featured drafters, Rietzl went 0–3, and Moscato 1–2; the pod was won by Jon Stern, who thus took the overall lead in the tournament at 10–1. Following him was Pascal Vieren of Belgium, who trailed by one point due to two draws on Day 1, at 9–0–2.

The cutoff metagame rewarded those who read the format shift accurately, with most aggro decks suffering while blue control (excluding Blue-White) flourished. Additionally, Valakut-based strategies, non-Shadow midrange, and most combo decks fared poorly, due to increased nonbasic and graveyard hate. The first lock for the Top 8 was Pascal Vieren with Blue-Red Pyromancer in round 14, with an unusual 12–0–2 record that ultimately led to a 12–0–4 record and technically undefeated. Ken Yukuhiro piloting Black-Red Hollow One landed his fourth Top 8 in the same round. Round 15 lined up the next four players at 12–3 - Reid Duke on Abzan, Gerry Thompson on Mardu Pyromancer, Javier Dominguez on 5C Humans, and Jean-Emmanual Depraz on Traverse Shadow. Luis Salvatto on Lantern Control also landed on 12–3, but had the worst breakers and was paired down against Lucas Esper Berthoud at 11–3–1. Salvatto won his win-and-in, and Andrea Mengucci defeated Matis Matsoukas for the only 12–4 spot; Jon Finkel was edged out by 2.7% on tiebreakers and finished 9th.

Top 8 [ | ]

Worlds leaderboard [ | ], player of the year [ | ].

Seth Manfield had a massive 20-point lead coming into the event thanks to winning Pro Tour Ixalan and then finishing in the top eight of three Grand Prix events. He did not make it to Day 2 of the competition, and Reid Duke , already in second place before the event, made it to Sunday play. However, Manfield's lead was such that even this left him with a sizable 5-point lead in the race going into the latter half of the season. 9 points behind Duke was the winner of the Pro Tour, Luis Salvatto , followed by John Rolf and Gerry Thompson .

Pro Tour Team Series [ | ]

After the Pro Tour, Ultimate Guard became a big winner of the event: coming into the event in fourth place, with Reid Duke 's Top 8 and one 12–4 (which is the maximum finish for non-Top 8 players in terms of Pro Points) finish, they become the mid-season leader of team series. Similarly, inaugural Team Series winners Musashi, despite a disappointing 15th-place start at Pro Tour Ixalan , made a big comeback with Ken Yukuhiro 's top 4, one 12–4, and three 10–6 finishes or better, and jumped to 2nd-place. Inaugural Team Series runners-up and previous leaders Genesis, despite having a decent outing with five players scoring a 9–7 record or better (the prerequisite for earning more than the minimum 3 Pro Points) in this pro tour, including one 12–4 and one 10–6, it was not good enough to keep the lead, and they slipped down to third place. Hareruya Latin, with the help of Luis Salvatto 's win, was in fourth place. Notably, these four teams were only separated by a 9-point margin. In fifth was Connected Company, which had two Pro Tour top 8s.

Draft Master [ | ]

Seven players went 6–0 in the Draft, most notably Elias Watsfeldt, who now had a perfect 12–0 record over two Pro Tours. Top eight members Andrea Mengucci , Pascal Vieren, and Jean-Emmanual Depraz also went 6–0, and rounding out the rest were Jon Stern , Mattia Zapparoli, and Elliot Boussaud.

Constructed Master [ | ]

Gerry Thompson posted a near-perfect record of 9–0–1 with his Mardu Pyromancer deck; he was trailed by Jacob Nagro on Eldrazi Tron, Alex Majlaton on Blue-White Control, and Immanuel Gerschenson on Traverse Shadow, all at 9–1. At 16–4, Gerschenson tied with World Champion Brian Braun-Duin in second place, but first place was John Rolf, whose intentional draw at Pro Tour Ixalan put him in the lead in the Constructed Master race at 16–3–1.

• 1 Outlaws of Thunder Junction/Commander decks
• 2 Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Weekly Update (Feb 4): Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan Modern Decklists

Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan has come and gone, and in the end, it was Lantern Control that took down the tournament in the hands of Luis Salvatto. It was a great tournament and we saw a diverse field of decks including new/recent decks such as Humans, Mardu Pyromancer, and BR Hollow One. Check out all the 6+ Win Decklists and read our tournament breakdown tomorrow!

Are there enough pieces to make Elenda, the Dusk Rose into a game-winning combo piece in Standard? Let's find out! Read more

The big news this week is the Modern Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan , which caused a few major price spikes. Coming in on top of our list is Phantasmal Image , which jumped 223% to over $10 after being adopted as a four-of in Five-Color Humans (the most played deck at the event). Meanwhile, Bedlam Reveler increased almost 1000% from near bulk to $8.99 after making it all the way to the finals in Gerry Thompson's Mardu Pyromancer deck, while Goblin Lore (part of RB Hollow One, which also reached the top eight) is up to $17 only a couple of weeks after being cheap enough to be featured on Budget Magic. If you have copies of any of these cards, sell or trade them now; cards that spike as the result of the Pro Tour almost always trend down over the following months.

The other important news to come out of Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan were our first 25th Masters spoilers. Jace, the Mind Sculptor , Azusa, Lost but Seeking , and Phyrexian Obliterator are all getting reprinted. Assuming that Wizards doesn't do something crazy like unban Jace, the Mind Sculptor in Standard, all of these cards will crash in price, especially Azusa, Lost but Seeking , which is currently close to $50 thanks to a lack of supply rather than high demand.

Finally, Pauper is continuing to make an impact on Paper prices, with Cho-Manno's Blessing shooting up more than 1500% (to just under $4) on the week. With these Pauper spikes in particular, it's important to keep an eye on buylist prices. If they start to increase, it's a good sign of continued demand rather than just a MTG finance influenced buyout without any real demand to back it up. Right now the best buylist price on Cho-Manno's Blessing is still just $0.08.

No Pain, No Gain! Tomer shows how to build around a less talked about commander, Licia, Sanguine Tribune! Read more

Wizards mentioned unbanning cards in Modern after Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan, so let's explore some of the GOAT options! Read more

The crew shows off more goodies from Rivals of Ixalan! Read more

Each day we'll be posting a short, three minute deck tech featuring some of the coolest decks that come across the site. The most popular deck will be made into videos the following week based on your views, likes and comments in the videos. Here's this week's Instant Deck Techs :

• Emeria Panharmonicon (Modern)
• Four-Color Dino-Ramp (Standard)
• Goblin Aristocrats (Pauper)
• DOOM!!! (Standard)
• Luis Salvatto took down Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan (modern) with Lantern Control .

The five most viewed cards on MTGGoldfish this past week were:

• Bedlam Reveler (Eldritch Moon)
• Rekindling Phoenix (Rivals of Ixalan)
• Goblin Lore (Tenth Edition)
• Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca (Rivals of Ixalan)
• Jadelight Ranger (Rivals of Ixalan)

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Rivals of Ixalan Prerelease Primer

Have you seen it? That shine?

It's glimmering over the horizon. It's what we have been searching for. It's the fabled location of our quest.

You see, Orazca is more than just a legend. Orazca is very much real.

The many paths across Ixalan have all led here. Vampires. Merfolk. Pirates. The Sun Empire with all its Dinosaurs in tow. Even Vraska and Jace have made their way to Orazca.

What for? Well, the wonders that no doubt lie inside.

And you can go get your hands on these prizes before anybody else gets there at your Rivals of Ixalan Prerelease!

So where exactly can you find a Prerelease, and what exactly should you be expecting at one? Read on!

Welcome to the Jungle

Prereleases are my favorite Magic events all year.

No matter where in the world I am or what time of year it is, when a new set comes out, I always try to go check out a local Prerelease. And I'm not alone; tons of Magic fans, from seasoned veterans to first-time players, do the same! Prereleases are among the most popular events we throw.

Why? Because Prereleases are just some of the most fun you can have playing Magic !

There's nothing quite like it. You get to sit down, pick up some brand-new cards, and figure out how you want to use them at the same time everybody else is. It's an even playing field in a casual environment—where everybody shares all that bubbling energy and excitement around a new Magic set!

I visited my first Prerelease when I was just eleven and instantly fell in love with them. Seventeen years later, not much has changed!

Prereleases are great because the set is new, the footing is fairly equal as everybody plays with the set for the very first time, and you're all just relaxing and enjoying the chance to explore the new cards. It's a lot of fun for players old and new alike!

If you're a Sealed Deck veteran, you may want to skip ahead to the next section where I talk about some of the differences you can expect at your local store for Rivals of Ixalan . But if you're new to the wide world of Sealed Deck, or are maybe just looking for a few extra pointers, then read on!

All right. Let's go over perhaps the most important part: finding a place to play a Prerelease! After all, you can't very well play if you don't know where to go. How might you go about that?

If you don't already have a local shop you frequent, be sure to check out the store locator to find one near you! That store may even offer preregistration. Prereleases are some of the most popular events we put on, so be sure to check and see if the store preregisters. The best time to find out an event is full is decidedly not when you show up and learn you can't play, so be sure to look ahead.

So you've found your store. Excellent! Hopefully you managed to avoid any Merfolk traps or Dinosaur ambushes on your way.

Now it's time to explore ahead and prepare for the event. While you will be building your deck for the event with cards you're given when you get there, there's plenty to do besides that.

Be sure to pack all the supplies you will need to survive en route to the Golden City! For example, you may still want to bring a Standard deck to play for fun between rounds, a trade binder, pen and paper to keep track of life, and even a water bottle.

A Prerelease event tends to take about 4–5 hours, so make sure to set aside enough time for the entire event. And you're going to need some fuel with all of that battling, so you may want to bring something like a granola bar or apple as well to snack on. (You may want to check with the local store as well; they might even sell some food there.)

Okay now, let's see. You have a store selected on your map, and you've filled your pack with everything you'll need. You've even read through the recent Magic Story , so you're up to date on Magic lore. And, of course, you've taken a look at all the awesome cards in the Rivals of Ixalan Card Image Gallery . Perhaps, if you were curious what a tournament might be like, you've checked out my article talking about your first tournament .

You're all set! Now it's time to actually go and open up some of those cards!

Into Orazca!

When you head into the Prerelease and sit down to play, you'll be handed this wonderful item! Check out the sweet deck box this time around:

Quite wonderful—a treasure befitting Orazca itself.

You'll find a couple things inside. For example, this lovely spindown D20:

You can expect an insert telling you a little about what's going on in Rivals of Ixalan —and a little about building a Sealed deck, too:

But most importantly of everything inside your Prerelease pack are the six booster packs that will give you the cards you need to build your Sealed deck, plus your shiny bonus Prerelease card. (Which could be any rare or mythic rare in the set!)

First things first: crack open those booster packs! Then you'll have a stack of cards.

So . . . what now?

It's time to build your deck, of course!

Sealed Deck is a little different from normal deck building. You get to build a deck only using the cards in front of you, plus as many basic lands as you'd like. Also, unlike a normal Constructed deck where the minimum deck size is 60, you only have to play 40 cards.

The first thing you're going to want to do is figure out a method to pick which colors you'll be playing. I recommend playing two colors.

Some things that may draw you into specific colors are:

• A really strong rare you're excited about;
• Plenty of "removal" cards that can deal with your opponent's creatures;
• A lot of playable cards in that color; and
• A good "mana curve" in that color—meaning lots of creatures of different costs.

Ideally, the colors you pick will have all four, but if two or three of those are true that's plenty good.

One key aspect of Rivals of Ixalan is that it's a " tribal " set. Tribal means that the creature types matter here. There are four primary tribes, each appearing in specific colors:

• Dinosaurs (appearing in red, green, and white);
• Merfolk (appearing in green and blue);
• Pirates (appearing in blue, black, and red); and
• Vampires (appearing in white and black).

If in doubt, you will probably be just fine picking a tribe to help narrow down your choices! If you pick one of the tribes that spans three colors, I'd recommend narrowing down to two of those three colors unless you have cards that help you fix your mana.

I will note that you don't need to play a tribe, and if you don't want to, don't feel obligated. It's just one method—there are plenty of non-tribal strategies as well.

Whatever your method, you're going to need to narrow down what you're playing. If you get stuck at the Prerelease, feel free to ask the players around you for help. (You are allowed to do this at a Prerelease; everyone is there to make sure it's a fun event!)

Now you have your colors down. From there, how do you take everything you have and figure out which 22–23 cards you're going to want to put in your deck?

Here's one process that may help.

First, lay your creatures out in mana-cost order. This helps you see what creatures you're going to potentially have to cast at each part of the game. (Don't lay your noncreatures out at this point unless they're cards you are planning to play as soon as you have that much mana—for example, you will generally cast a [autocard]Fathom Fleet Captain[/autocard] on turn two, whereas [autocard]Walk the Plank[/autocard] isn't usually a turn-two play.)

A good "mana curve" of creatures is crucial to a successful Sealed deck. You don't want to have a ton of cards at any single spot in the curve. It's important for you to be able to have a good mix so you can play your cheap spells in the early game and your expensive spells in the late game. As a very general rule for Limited, I would look to play something like this:

• 1 mana: 0–2
• 2 mana: 4–6
• 3 mana: 3–5
• 4 mana: 2–4
• 6-plus mana: 0–2

That's far from a hard and fast rule, but it's a good place to start. Cull your creatures down to these numbers by choosing your favorites.

Now that you have your core creature base figured out, it's time to add in spells! Pick your favorites among your colors to bring your deck to 22 or 23 cards, and then you're good to go from the spell side.

The spells you're going to want the most are what are called "removal spells"—these are the spells that permanently neutralize your opponent's creatures, by either dealing damage, keeping them tapped, or just straight-up destroying them. Sealed Deck Magic is all about creatures, so you'll want to play most of the cards in your colors that can get rid of your opponent's creatures.

If you want to learn more about mana curves, you can also check out my article on how to build a mana curve by clicking here .

Interested in more tips? Here are a few more things to keep in mind for deck building:

• You can play more than 40 cards, but you really should stick to 40 if possible. Every card you play past 40 just means it's that much less likely you're going to draw that awesome rare you put in your deck!
• The land ratio you're looking at should be about seventeen lands to 23 nonlands. This isn't right 100% of the time, but most Limited decks end up looking like this, and in general, it's what I would want to have.
• Play a mix of cheap-to-cast and expensive-to-cast cards. If you have all cheap, small creatures, then a single big creature can shut you down. Likewise, if you have all expensive, large creatures, you risk getting run over first. Stick to a mix that focuses on the two-, three-, four-, and five-casting-cost creatures. More games of Sealed Deck are won by casting a creature every turn starting on turn two or three than any other way.
• Evasion is important! Often, Sealed Deck games will get into stalls where both players have a lot of creatures and neither player can attack very well. Creatures with abilities like flying ensure that you can break through these creature stalls.

Two-Headed Giant

Some stores also support a version of Sealed Deck called Two-Headed Giant (often abbreviated "2HG"), where two players team up against other pairs of players. Each pair gets two Prerelease boxes, from which the players build their decks.

How does it work?

Well, the simple version is this: you and your teammate work together to build two 40-card decks. Then, you play against another pair of players in a one-game match.

How does this kind of multiplayer play out? It's simple: all your creatures and lands are separate, but you each share the same 30-point life total and take your turns simultaneously—plus you can block for each other! To do the best you can, you'll need to work together to overcome the opposition.

Curious to learn more about how 2HG works and some of the intricacies of play? Be sure to check out the page all about it by clicking here .

Open Dueling

If the idea of spending a day playing a tournament doesn't fit into how you prefer to play Magic , or if you have less time and just want to experience the adventure of Rivals of Ixalan on your own time, you can get involved in Open Dueling!

You get a ready-to-play 60-card Intro Pack and use it to do battle against others participating in Open Dueling, including players participating in the main tournament who are between rounds. This is a great way to dip your toe into the water if you aren't sure the Prerelease is something you want to do or if you can't commit 5 hours to a Prerelease event. You can just play games in Open Dueling at your own leisure. Plus, it's fun!

Ask your local store about Open Dueling at the Prerelease, and prepare to battle!

Rivals of Ixalan Mechanics

Rivals of Ixalan has all the mechanics you know and love from Ixalan , plus a new one. But the new one is a doozy, and you're going to want to check it out —make sure to take a look at ascend!

Receiving the City's Blessing

The set may be called Rivals of Ixalan , but I hope you go out there and make some friends, rather than rivals. Prereleases are a truly fantastic time.

How you play every set is a little bit different, and Rivals of Ixalan is no exception. You'll learn a lot by just going out and playing! But here's one tip: if you have a lot of ascend cards in your deck, you don't want to trade off creatures (meaning have them destroy each other in combat) because you want to hit ten permanents. If you don't have a lot of or any ascend cards in your deck, then try to aggressively trade with your opponent's creatures! You don't want them to ascend, after all.

I'll let you all discover the rest.

Take another look through the Card Image Gallery , make sure you're preregistered at your local store, and get ready to come out to the Prerelease and have fun!

Have any thoughts or questions? Wondering what to expect? I'm happy to hear from you! Feel free to send them my way. You can always get in contact with me by sending me a tweet or asking a question on my Tumblr . I'll be around!

May your adventures inside the city of Orazca be bountiful—and perhaps, if you look in the right places, you'll even find the Immortal Sun.

Gavin @GavinVerhey GavInsight

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Four Standard Decks with Rivals of Ixalan

Rivals of Ixalan is finally here, and Standard will never be the same. Craig breaks down the biggest upgrades for four decks you need to know about.

By Craig Wescoe | @Brimaz4Life | Published 2/7/2023 | 10 min read

Rivals of Ixalan has finally been completely revealed, so that means it's time to start building decks for the new Standard format. Ramunap Red and Temur Energy are the default best decks in the format until proven otherwise, but the four decks I will discuss today are the ones I think have the best chance at competing against them. Each deck gains some powerful new weapons from the new set. As we all know, there are four tribes in Ixalan, so today I'm going to share with you my take on Merfolk, Vampires, Dinosaurs, and Artificers.

Wait, Artificers?

What, arrrrrrrrrrrre you expecting a different fourth tribe?

This is a deck I built with Chris Fennell leading up to the last Pro Tour. We went 9-1 with it across two leagues and I wrote about it here . The deck was not quite there, so neither of us played it at the Pro Tour. It felt like it was missing a payoff card to really tie the deck together, so we ran Glorybringer as our payoff card even though it didn't really synergize in any meaningful way with the rest of what the deck was doing. It was just the best available card for that slot. Rivals of Ixalan provides us with that payoff card in the form of Storm the Vault .

The basic premise of this deck is to play Inventor's Goggles on the first turn and then ramp out with Artificers that get equipped with the goggles. This makes it difficult for opponents to block or attack profitably, and we also make Thopters and Servos along the way. Maverick Thopterist often comes down on the third turn to start pushing us further ahead, then Freejam Regent is our big finish. With Storm the Vault , we get an additional way to make Freejam Regent better while also making our Walking Ballista s into big finishers.

The Tolarian Academy side of Storm the Vault allows us to kill with Freejam Regent in a single swing and also makes our Walking Ballista twice as big and able to grow by about three counters per turn for the rest of the game (which probably won't be very many turns). It also makes Pia Nalaar into a win condition by proving us with twice as much mana to pump into her activated ability.

I'm excited to try out Storm the Vault and see if it's enough to put the deck over the top and into the realm of the top tier of competitive decks in the format.

The next deck didn't just get one key card but rather several cards that together may be enough to make it viable.

One of the first decks I worked on for the last Pro Tour was Naya Dinosaurs. Commune with Dinosaurs was great and the mana in the deck felt good enough. The problem was that there weren't enough playable Dinosaurs, so you had to play the Humans that set up for the Dinosaurs. At that point it felt like Temur Energy with worse creatures. With Rivals of Ixalan , however, we get some upgrades and a synergistic aura to help push the deck into the realm of playability.

Dinosaurs finally have two-drops! That's the best news for the tribe since that was the most glaring spot on the curve. The two that they got both seem very good. Relentless Raptor will sometimes be forced to attack or block at times we don't want it to, but a 3/3 vigilance for two mana is quite the rate in this style of deck. And it is likely that our removal spells can clear the way for it early on. The other two-drop is Siegehorn Ceratops . This one starts out slightly smaller and doesn't come with the drawback, but it also has a built-in way to pump itself that works exceptionally well with Savage Stomp . If we lead with turn-two Ceratops and our Temur Energy opponent leads with Longtusk Cub or Servant of the Conduit , we can Savage Stomp the Cub/Servant and immediately attack for five with our 5/5 dinosaur! It doesn't get much better than that, right?

Well, actually it can. Since Savage Stomp only costs one mana when playing it on our dinosaur, we still have two extra mana to work with. And you know what costs two mana? Tilonalli's Crown . So after we fight down the cub/servant, our ceratops is a 5/5 with 2 damage on it. This means we could put a crown on it with our remaining two mana, making it an 8/5 trampler. But wait, there's more! When the crown resolves, it deals a damage to our ceratops, which triggers its ability again. This makes it a 10/7 trampler with three damage on it. So we're killing our opponent's turn two play and attacking for 10 with our turn two play on the third turn. I don't know about you, but sign me up!

Another cool Dinosaur we get from Rivals of Ixalan is Trapjaw Tyrant . It's a great way to Wreak Havoc on an opposing board. If we Savage Stomp it to fight our opponent's creature, we get to exile another creature as well. This basically means we get to take out their two best creatures for a single card (Save Stomp) for just a single mana. We also get a few other cards that I'm not sure what to do with yet but they seem sweet: Ghalta, Primal Hunger , Cherished Hatchling , Thrashing Brontodon , and Reckless Rage . For now they are in the sideboard, but I could easily see some of them making their way into the main deck.

I expect people to build Dinosaurs in several different ways. I wanted to highlight the most aggressive version and I'll let everyone else figure out how to make the best midrange versions.

Another tribe that was sorely lacking in the creature department was Merfolk. They really only had a handful of playable creatures and not nearly enough to make a full deck, given the nature of Merfolk being such that you want to play a high density of Merfolk creatures and only few spells since the Merfolk get better the more you have. Fortunately, Rivals of Ixalan delivered and gave us several powerful new Merfolk, including a few big payoff creatures and a nice tribal spell.

Kumena's Speaker and Merfolk Branchwalker are great early plays, but we needed more. Rivals of Ixalan now gives us Mist-Cloaked Herald and Silvergill Adept to go alongside them as powerful early plays. We also get a powerful two-drop Merfolk lord in the form of Merfolk Mistbinder as well as a pseudo lord in the form of Deeproot Elite . The hits don't stop there, either. At three mana we get Jungleborn Pioneer and Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca . Pioneer works especially well with the lord since both creatures get pumped up. Kumena is a way to break creature stalls by drawing cards or pumping the team, whichever is more beneficial. Finally to top the curve we get Seafloor Oracle , a Coastal Piracy on a stick that allows us to draw cards for each Merfolk that connects. This works especially well with our unblockable Mist-Cloaked Herald and our sideboard Tempest Caller or with Crashing Tide to bounce their best blocker.

There are a few different directions this deck could go. Jadelight Ranger is a bit tougher on the mana, but may be worth it as it is a powerful card on its own. If we stay with the four Seafloor Oracle s, I could see playing River Sneak , which might be correct anyway. Unsummon might also be worth it as a tempo play in the deck since we can Recoup the lost card with Seafloor Oracle . This is the build I would start with, though. I'll leave it to Corbin to refine the deck and figure out the optimal build of Merfolk as that is his area of expertise. As we all know, my area of expertise is the aggressive white creature deck, which happens to be Vampires in Ixalan.

As with the other tribes, the biggest difficulty with playing tribal Vampires was the lack of playable creatures. I played it anyway at the Pro Tour, but I stretched my mana a bit too far trying to play Gifted Aetherborn , and I also had to play some non-Vampire creatures such as Crested Sunmare just to be able to break through in the later turns. My creatures would also get outclasses pretty quickly and my removal was glutted at four mana. All of these things improved with Rivals of Ixalan .

The biggest upgrade is that my creatures will no longer get outclassed so quickly since we get four Legion Lieutenant and four Radiant Destiny . This means my creatures will be able to hang toe-to-toe with the larger creatures that come down after mine, forcing trades instead of unprofitable attackers. The other big upgrade is that we get better Vampires to attack with, some of which are built for trading such as Martyr of Dusk to go along with our old friend Adanto Vanguard . We also get a powerful new one-drop to go alongside Legion's Landing – Skymarcher Aspirant . It's basically Savannah Lions on tribe that gains flying later in the game when flying becomes important. So it's great early and late in this style of deck, which is about as much as you can possibly ask from a one-drop.

We also get Famished Paladin and a few others that are worth experimenting with. I don't know which Paladin is better, but my inclination is to go with the one that starts out larger. We also get a great new removal spell in the form of Baffling End , which clears out the opponent's creature for cheap while also getting us closer to the city's blessing. The last card I want to mention is Squire's Devotion – it seems like the best answer to Ramunap Red. It provides us with multiple lifelink bodies and permanents to build us toward the city's blessing. Putting it on Adanto Vanguard seems pretty unbeatable.

These are where I would begin my testing for Standard. We already know what the Energy decks and Ramunap Red look like. Neither of those decks seem to gain much, aside from maybe Fanatical Firebrand in the Red deck. The tribal decks, however, get much better. So figuring out how to optimize those decks seems like the best way to gain an edge in Standard. Metallic Mimic was a big question mark for me. It may be good enough to put in every deck. It may be good enough in some decks and not others, or it may not be good enough in any of them. I left it on the sidelines for now, but I could easily see it being worthwhile and it will stay on my radar as I test each of the decks. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the new set and what it offers for each of the tribes. Which one will end up being the best? I'm sure you know which one I'm most inclined toward.

Craig Wescoe @Brimaz4Life