Feb 132012
 

It has been a couple of weeks since Dark Ascension has released and  a standard pro tour is behind us as well.   I know I could have made all kinds of predictions about what is going to be and why it is going to do so, but I have had a lot on my plate.

With that being said we should take a look at what the face of standard held for us a few short weeks ago. The Standard environment is pretty wide open.   The main archetype decks were:

  • Delver  Blade
  • Black Red control
  • U/W illusions
  • Grixis Control
  • Humans
  • U/W Humans
  • Wolf Run Ramp
  • Birthing Pod

We will not spend a lot of time on those , but you can view them at Magic the Gathering Decks.  We will instead over the course of the next few weeks look at the decks from Honolulu and how they are changing Standard.

The top 8 decks in Honolulu were

Today we are going to take a look at Wolf Run Ramp and how it has changed with Dark Ascension.  The  only Change was adding Huntmaster of Fells.  Does this card really make that much of a difference?  Most Wolf Run decks have swapped  Thrunn or Dunegrove elder out for this guy.   It is not difficult to see why.  You take a deck that is already has strengths like synergy and card quality and make it better by adding Huntsmaster.   He brings tremendous one hell of a punch to the game.  His enters the battlefield/transform abilities bring  board control, board presence and even pushes the tempo of the game.

He brings board control with his  transform ability allowing you to deal direct damage to one player and up to one creature.   It is the source of removal this deck needed to become more versatile.

He gives you board presence with one of  the  transform abilities puts a 2/2 creature into play.   Which gives you more board control by giving you more volume.

He forces tempo in two ways.  First, you gain two life, and then you deal two direct damage when he transforms.

Huntmaster is just that good.  Your opponent hast to deal with him.  If they can’t he will back them into a corner while they are dealing with your other threats.   If they are dealing with other threats they are not dealing with him, eventually that will lead to other problems.

 

See you in about a week when we talk about the potential of black red Vamp.

 

 

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