Approach as a win condition has been a fixture of standard ever since it was printed. It has cycled through various color combinations from bant, UW, esper, and more recently even showing up in monowhite. Approach remains one of the three best finishers in standard alongside Hazoret the Fervent and The Scarab God with the trade off of being immune to exile effects and instead being vulnerable to Negate.
The biggest shortcoming of the second sun archetype has always been the over reliance on sweepers and lacking a viable alternative win condition for post board games. Today we have a new direction to take advantage of the powerful sorcery while making great leaps to solve the past issues that have plagued the archetype with the addition of black and some new toys from Dominaria. Let's begin with a mostly refined list to use as an example going forward.
As you can see, the deck is heavy on interaction and especially hostile to anybody attempting to win through the attack step. It has the typical straightforward game plan of kill every threat that is presented to survive long enough to cast approach twice. A high density of flexible removal options with an emphasis on achieving the cities blessing gives you a potent combination of answers with repeatable card advantage engines.
Why BW instead of other UWx options?
The first reason to go for a simple black and white build is that your mana is far cleaner. You aren't having to worry about getting UU on turn three for Disallow and BB on turn 4 for Vraska's Contemptand needing WW on turn 5 for Fumigate. Meanwhile you run the very high risk of all your lands coming into play tapped in the three color builds or being flooded with the wrong pile of basics in UW due to a shortage of useful dual lands for mana intensive two color decks. Your mana requirements are very forgiving as you are a base white deck with a light dip into black with most spells only requiring a single colored mana.
The primary thing you lose is counter magic to either protect your approach or to fight against an opposing one or other threats that are highly dangerous once resolved regardless of board state. However we can counter act this with a pile of discard and extraction effects that we gain from having black mana in our deck and the one card stop sign that is Profane Procession. You also have the option available to pile on more life gain effects on top of your removal depending on how much of a presence monored has which helps you avoid the biggest problem the blue based approach decks have always had.
The other thing you lose by cutting blue is the efficient and often underappreciated card draw spells like Glimmer of Genius or other various Divination effects. While we are not without quality options to pull ahead on cards, it is still worth giving a nod to the blue cards that will be missed the most. The strong burst of selection and draw of glimmer is certainly something we would like to have, but the color pie says we can't have everything we want without paying a cost.
The white cards give you a versatile set of answers to every possible threat your opponent can offer which significantly reduces the pain of simply being black and white. Sweepers are still great in the format and likely always will be while the cast out and binding combo lets you fend off any non-creature threats that can get in your way. All in all the trade off for being a nonblue deck is both minimal and subjective while the power you gain from BW and the cleanliness of your manabase cannot be denied.
Card Spotlights.
While most inclusions in the provided list are self-explanatory, there are a number that deserve some special attention. Here I'll briefly go over the most important and unique card choices specific to this archetype.
Profane Procession - This is by far the most powerful card not currently seeing widespread play. It may occasionally pop up in some sideboards of mardu decks looking to aide their late game transformational plan, but that has been the extent of it. All by itself it is a 6-for-1 by exiling three different threats and then flipping to put them into play on your side. With such a premium being placed on exile effects, having access to a repeatable one is priceless in a late game deck.
Other benefits of the card is that it can, with enough mana, start to machine gun tokens freely as they do not cause it to flip. One other powerful line of play it gives you with a pile of lands in play comes up when it already has two cards exiled. You can activate it targeting a creature and then hold priority and activate it a second time in response which gets you a fourth creature exiled and ready to be put into play on your side of the table. Even though this requires an obscene amount of mana, that is something that any approach player will have available to them.
I could write a thousand words on the merits of the card, but the TL;DR is that it is incredibly powerful. Most decks actually cannot beat the card without a disenchant effect or going under it because they definitely can't go over it.
Gilded Lotus - At first I considered this to be nothing more than a cute addition that was too unreliable to be of much value. I was wrong, so very wrong. The common problem with cards like this is that it is so difficult to build a deck that can both take advantage of the huge mana ramp and still function as a normal deck when it isn't drawn. This deck is able to hit the sweet spot by having a large number of mana sinks that function just fine on their own without any acceleration needed.
While you can't afford to play too many copies, the repeatable mana boost you get will super charge the deck by letting you do multiple powerful effects each turn. It lets you make the ten mana procession play with ease, activate the procession once and do something else or cast a fumigate while holding up instant speed interaction for the incoming Hazoret. Although it does offer up a target for the ubiquitous Abrade, the upside is so large that it is still worth the risk. Even if it does get shattered on the spot you're still able to use the three colored mana so your whole turn won't get swallowed up.
Originally I was on 3 Procession and 1 Vraska's Contempt before trying to fit in a pair of flowers. While I do miss those cards, especially the third procession, the lotus is still worth it. Whether or not those were the correct cards to trim is certainly up for debate, but after just a handful of matches with them, you'll see that the lotus inclusion is not.
Mastermind's Acquisition - Versatility defined. This one card gives you access to numerous silver bullets, including the extraction effects of Lost Legacy and Dispossess. Having these effects in game one can lead to a large number of free wins on top of the freebies you get simply from playing approach. It also acts as Approach 3-4 without being a seven drop that only acts as a win condition. Being able to dig up anything you need when you need it helps you get out of any potential situation that you find yourself holding the wrong answers to.
Seal Away - The newly printed removal spell of Dominaria is worth its weight in gold. This direct "one size fits all" kill spell allows you to be able to fine tune your removal suite without risking a gaping hole being torn into your deck construction. It is a clean two mana answer to a Hazoret, Scarab god, and Rekindling Phoenix. As these are the most dangerous threats in the format, an efficient answer that can also hit the annoying Scrapheap Scrounger is incredibly valuable.
The only real downside to having this effect is that the creature has to be tapped. This means a savvy player can hold back their scarab god and lean on its activated and passive abilities or be able to peel an extra card with a Glint-Sleeve Siphoner before you are able to get rid of it. Even though you will get burned by these disadvantages from time to time, that doesn't diminish its potency and will likely remain as a 4-of in every control deck that plays white.
Arch of Orazca - A nice value land that occasionally sees play as a one of in various mid game decks that has a special importance to this archetype. Having a high land count with light colored mana requirements on your spells lets you run a large number of these when most decks can barely afford the first copy. The majority of the removal in the deck is through enchantments which, alongside the tokens coming from treasure maps, typically gives you the cities blessing the same turn that you could first activate it. With as much mana as you will have in play you will routinely be activating this while casting another spell or using two of them at once to draw three cards per turn. Should you find yourself with an active arch and a lotus in play, you end up going from zero to sixty in a big hurry.
Treasure Map - This is your main card advantage tool, it gives you both raw card draw and a fine degree of selection while you scry before flipping it. It can be a tad awkward if you're using it on your upkeep each turn and then want to cast a Settle the Wreckage. Breaking that pattern broadcasts your intention quite loudly and most players will be able to pick up on it. Additionally, the boost you get in potential mana with the treasure tokens is not to be ignored. With gilded lotus already being a powerful effect getting three copies of Lotus Petal into play can let you make some very swingy plays, particularly if you have been missing your land drops.
Karn, Scion of Urza - Even though I elected to not include even a single copy in my list, this one still warrants specific discussion. Despite his exclusion, Karn is still a fine card to use to get ahead on resources and act as a backdoor win condition. However your opponent's hand is going to be cluttered with multiple copies of cast out and contempts without a target meaning he won't be sticking around very long. As soon as you include the Karn Father in your list you are turning those cards into meaningful interaction rather than the blank cardboard they would otherwise be. As good as Karn is, I don't think this is the right home for him.
Alternative Options.
There is no shortage of high quality removal spells in black and white and the correct configuration will likely be changing from week to week. There is also a few options for extra card advantage spells in black and with other artifacts. Based on where you think that the format is heading, here's a handful of the premier choices available.
Fatal Push - The card is great. It sees play all the way back to legacy and even without the support of fetch lands in standard, it is still a clean answer to the powerful two drop threats of the format while being a highly efficient spell when on the draw. The only downside is that it doesn't exile, so keep that in mind when deciding how many copies you want to have. Furthermore if you want to increase the number of pushes in your list consider additional copies of Evolving Wilds as well to help enable revolt.
Baffling End - Much like seal away, this is a two mana enchantment that exiles a threat with the restriction here being sorcery speed and a potential draw back. While you'll rarely see a 3/3 token sprouting out of this, it can still happen from time to time. If you find yourself needing more removal that exiles this is the next best choice.
Harsh Scrutiny - If you are wanting more cheap interaction, particularly at the one mana spot, without giving up too much against control then this is a great option. The Scry 1 means it can at least do something on turn 14 and acts as a duress against potential gearhulks and can snag a god before it comes down and gets value.
Sunset Pyramid - If you are too uneasy with the life loss from Arguel's Blood Fast and Karn isn't the man for the job then this is a legitimate, albeit janky, option that is available. Once it has been depleted you can still get a ton of value off the Scry 1 each turn and it still helps you dig to an approach quite fast. Yes the card is bad, but when you aren't in blue your card advantage options get rather limited and this one is at least playable. While you could go super big with The Immortal Sun, you can still get immediate value with a pyramid before the inevitable Abrade. The mana investment for the immortal sun is much too high to be worth the risk of not getting a card out of it.
Dark Bargain - A new card draw spell from Dominaria that gives you a fine burst of cards with minor selection at the cost of two life. Unfortunately there are no graveyard synergies to speak of which can lead to some awkward selections. Being instant speed and fitting right into the turn 4 "Settle or Draw Spell" makes it a solid choice.
Scavenger Grounds - In addition to the three copies of the arch, you do have room for another colorless value land. While Field of Ruin is great when Search for Azcanta is the most common issue you could face, having a main deck graveyard nuke (with the potential for multiple uses) is top notch with the rising popularity of UR God-Pharaoh's Gift decks. It is even possible to cut down on an arch if you feel strongly on wanting additional graveyard hate in the main deck.
Moment of Craving - A basic -2/-2 kills a large number of things, but the real prize here is the life gain. If monored swarms the metagame then you will certainly want to go up to 3-4 copies of this.
Cast Down - This is no Doom Blade, but few things are. I chose not to include any copies in the example list because there is no way to know in advance just how popular legendary creatures will be and you can find yourself with numerous dead cards in your deck. But with that being said we can easily end up in a format where this is a 4-of in every deck with black mana. Pay close attention to where the format is at (and where it might be heading) when sleeving up more than one of these.
Wishes & Alternate Win Cons
The wish/tutor combo that is Mastermind's Acquisition allows you to gain access to especially narrow, but powerful cards on demand. Here are just a few examples that you have at your disposal along with options for ways to win outside of approach in post board games.
Gideon of the Trials - A fine card in standard that works quite well with a large set of wrath effects. The main downside is that it is a singular card that is answered by a contempt without providing much value. If you want to really put your opponent in a squeeze with him and sweepers you can completely destroy any deck that plans to only offer up one significant threat at a time or just cast multiple value creatures trying to reduce the effectiveness of your fumigates.
Approach of the Second Sun - Two suns deserves two mentions. The best answer to a lethal approach outside of counter magic has always been lost legacy and the wish allows you to easily avoid this. By simply including a single copy in your sideboard you insulate yourself from being immediately KO'd by a single card. Even if your opponent is also on a wish for legacy in the first game you are still able to fight back by wishing for another.
Josu Vess, Lich Knight - While your opponent is unlikely to be able to side out all of their creature removal this guy does get around it in a way. You most likely will see a play set of vraska's contempt still in your opponents deck in fear of Gideon or Karn, but playing this with kicker avoids everything short of fumigate. Casting it for 10 mana is tough, but you will be going super late regardless and having 20 power in a single card that ignores both Negate and Duress make this a great way to win outside of approach. If you combine him with other midrange creature threats you can really catch people by surprise and run them over with a stream of solid four and five drops.
Zetalpa, Primal Dawn - The keyword soup on this legend is as powerful as it is amusing to read out loud in the middle of a match. Not to mention the priceless look on your opponent's face when you put it on the stack. Much like Josu, this is an incredibly fast clock in a single card that requires specific cards to remove. With a mess of discard and potential extraction effects it is not too unlikely to have the flappy-dino-featherless-bird-thing stick around for a mere three turns to get the job done. None the less it is still vulnerable to contempt and other exile effects so I don't recommend leaning too hard on this as a finisher.
Torment of Hailfire - While worse than approach as a way to win the game, this is another non-combat option for a path to victory. You're going to have a lot of mana once you're ready to end the game so casting this for absurd numbers isn't particularly farfetched, especially if you're able to power it out with a lotus. If you want a way to win without relying on creatures while still beating a potential lost legacy this is your go to option.
Lyra Dawnbriger - Baneslayer Angel is back! Regardless of which path you choose for alternative win cons you should always have some number of these at your disposal. It is far too easy for her to come down and just take over the game by being able to race anything but the most out of control board states. Four attack steps is not that many for a control deck to muster when you're buffering your life total with each hit. Even being able to wish for one against decks that lack a clean answer to her is a powerful option to have available. When playing against monored don't be surprised if this is your most common way of winning the game.
The final thing to note with this card is the keyword ability First Strike. I'm putting extra emphasis on this because it is much more common than you would think that people simply forget that it's there. This one ability lets you do tricky things like block a lord effect from vamps, fish, or the new Benalish Marshal and shrink the rest of their team before they hit you. It also makes the "combo turn" of GPG with Combat Celebrant far less threatening since you can freely gobble up an attacker on each additional combat step while negating a significant portion of damage that the others would deal. If you haven't played with the original Baneslayer Angel before you are in for a real treat. Great card is great!
Regal Caracal - A favorite of the blue based approach decks as a stop gap when fumigate is unreliable that can be an acceptable choice for the BW version. Multiple bodies makes it hard to attack through and the life link helps a ton against the aggro decks of the format all in a single card. If you decide to go this route, bear in mind that you'll likely need to have 3-4 copies for it to be effective as the first one typically gets depleted through combat in short order. Although seemingly worse than Lyra, the cat does have the advantage of providing you with some extra life link tokens if it gets killed immediately. While I do think that the angel is better, there can be times where you just want to ensure that you get something out of your five mana creature.
Sorcerous Spyglass - A reasonable choice for a potential wish target to get you out of an awkward situation, especially if you're still tight on mana. Being able to serve as a preemptive answer to a Gate to the Afterlife as well as value lands like an Ipnu Rivulet threatening to mill you out fits well into the incredible diversity of answers the deck is able to muster. Even though it can be a rather weak card it still is able to do something at any point of the game and is able to come down before the named card generates any form of advantage. Regardless of the meta you'll never be too wrong to include a copy in your list.
Oketra's Last Mercy - This is the epitome of the "narrow but powerful" category of wish targets. Even though cards that only gain life are considered quite bad and not worthy of competitive play, anytime you can do a bunch of a single thing all at once can change that. In this case gaining 12-15 life against monored tends to be the equivalent of drawing 5 cards because of how much time it buys you. None the less this one has such a single minded focus that you have to be absolutely certain that you want to be skewed towards beating the hyper aggressive decks before you spend a sideboard slot on it.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
Like all control decks, your game plan can not be trading resources 1 for 1 without generating any card advantage on your side.
Massing spot removal, even though you have some sweepers, will loose by definition to any deck that has a sticky threat. This is due to your opponent only needing 1 threat to kill you, when you are drawing 1 card a turn and flooding out.
I recommend you play 3-4 of Dark Bargain, which works well with settle the wreckage and the other instant spells you have.
In addition, I havent played standard at all lately, but fatal push and craving are very narrow cards without fetchlands. I would put them into the sideboard. Replace them with Cast Down.
Also Gideon of the trials is still legal I think, which does the work of a removal spell, and then more. I advice putting a couple of copies in there too.
Approach as a win condition has been a fixture of standard ever since it was printed. It has cycled through various color combinations from bant, UW, esper, and more recently even showing up in monowhite. Approach remains one of the three best finishers in standard alongside Hazoret the Fervent and The Scarab God with the trade off of being immune to exile effects and instead being vulnerable to Negate.
The biggest shortcoming of the second sun archetype has always been the over reliance on sweepers and lacking a viable alternative win condition for post board games. Today we have a new direction to take advantage of the powerful sorcery while making great leaps to solve the past issues that have plagued the archetype with the addition of black and some new toys from Dominaria. Let's begin with a mostly refined list to use as an example going forward.
4 Seal Away
2 Baffling End
2 Fatal Push
1 Moment of Craving
Specialty Interaction
3 Cast Out
2 Ixalan's Binding
2 Profane Procession
2 Doomfall
Sweepers
3 Fumigate
2 Settle the Wreckage
Durdles
2 Approach of the Second Sun
1 Arguel's Blood Fast
2 Gilded Lotus
2 Mastermind's Acquisition
4 Treasure Map
3 Arch of Orazca
4 Concealed Courtyard
1 Desert of the Glorified
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Field of Ruin
2 Ifnir Deadlands
4 Isolated Chapel
5 Plains
3 Swamp
1 Desert of the True
2 Lyra Dawnbriger
2 Josu Vess, Lich Knight
1 Approach of the Second Sun
4 Duress
1 Dispossess
2 Lost Legacy
2 Authority of the Consuls
1 Arguel's Blood Fast
As you can see, the deck is heavy on interaction and especially hostile to anybody attempting to win through the attack step. It has the typical straightforward game plan of kill every threat that is presented to survive long enough to cast approach twice. A high density of flexible removal options with an emphasis on achieving the cities blessing gives you a potent combination of answers with repeatable card advantage engines.
Why BW instead of other UWx options?
The first reason to go for a simple black and white build is that your mana is far cleaner. You aren't having to worry about getting UU on turn three for Disallow and BB on turn 4 for Vraska's Contempt and needing WW on turn 5 for Fumigate. Meanwhile you run the very high risk of all your lands coming into play tapped in the three color builds or being flooded with the wrong pile of basics in UW due to a shortage of useful dual lands for mana intensive two color decks. Your mana requirements are very forgiving as you are a base white deck with a light dip into black with most spells only requiring a single colored mana.
The primary thing you lose is counter magic to either protect your approach or to fight against an opposing one or other threats that are highly dangerous once resolved regardless of board state. However we can counter act this with a pile of discard and extraction effects that we gain from having black mana in our deck and the one card stop sign that is Profane Procession. You also have the option available to pile on more life gain effects on top of your removal depending on how much of a presence monored has which helps you avoid the biggest problem the blue based approach decks have always had.
The other thing you lose by cutting blue is the efficient and often underappreciated card draw spells like Glimmer of Genius or other various Divination effects. While we are not without quality options to pull ahead on cards, it is still worth giving a nod to the blue cards that will be missed the most. The strong burst of selection and draw of glimmer is certainly something we would like to have, but the color pie says we can't have everything we want without paying a cost.
The white cards give you a versatile set of answers to every possible threat your opponent can offer which significantly reduces the pain of simply being black and white. Sweepers are still great in the format and likely always will be while the cast out and binding combo lets you fend off any non-creature threats that can get in your way. All in all the trade off for being a nonblue deck is both minimal and subjective while the power you gain from BW and the cleanliness of your manabase cannot be denied.
Card Spotlights.
While most inclusions in the provided list are self-explanatory, there are a number that deserve some special attention. Here I'll briefly go over the most important and unique card choices specific to this archetype.
Other benefits of the card is that it can, with enough mana, start to machine gun tokens freely as they do not cause it to flip. One other powerful line of play it gives you with a pile of lands in play comes up when it already has two cards exiled. You can activate it targeting a creature and then hold priority and activate it a second time in response which gets you a fourth creature exiled and ready to be put into play on your side of the table. Even though this requires an obscene amount of mana, that is something that any approach player will have available to them.
I could write a thousand words on the merits of the card, but the TL;DR is that it is incredibly powerful. Most decks actually cannot beat the card without a disenchant effect or going under it because they definitely can't go over it.
Gilded Lotus - At first I considered this to be nothing more than a cute addition that was too unreliable to be of much value. I was wrong, so very wrong. The common problem with cards like this is that it is so difficult to build a deck that can both take advantage of the huge mana ramp and still function as a normal deck when it isn't drawn. This deck is able to hit the sweet spot by having a large number of mana sinks that function just fine on their own without any acceleration needed.
While you can't afford to play too many copies, the repeatable mana boost you get will super charge the deck by letting you do multiple powerful effects each turn. It lets you make the ten mana procession play with ease, activate the procession once and do something else or cast a fumigate while holding up instant speed interaction for the incoming Hazoret. Although it does offer up a target for the ubiquitous Abrade, the upside is so large that it is still worth the risk. Even if it does get shattered on the spot you're still able to use the three colored mana so your whole turn won't get swallowed up.
Originally I was on 3 Procession and 1 Vraska's Contempt before trying to fit in a pair of flowers. While I do miss those cards, especially the third procession, the lotus is still worth it. Whether or not those were the correct cards to trim is certainly up for debate, but after just a handful of matches with them, you'll see that the lotus inclusion is not.
Mastermind's Acquisition - Versatility defined. This one card gives you access to numerous silver bullets, including the extraction effects of Lost Legacy and Dispossess. Having these effects in game one can lead to a large number of free wins on top of the freebies you get simply from playing approach. It also acts as Approach 3-4 without being a seven drop that only acts as a win condition. Being able to dig up anything you need when you need it helps you get out of any potential situation that you find yourself holding the wrong answers to.
Seal Away - The newly printed removal spell of Dominaria is worth its weight in gold. This direct "one size fits all" kill spell allows you to be able to fine tune your removal suite without risking a gaping hole being torn into your deck construction. It is a clean two mana answer to a Hazoret, Scarab god, and Rekindling Phoenix. As these are the most dangerous threats in the format, an efficient answer that can also hit the annoying Scrapheap Scrounger is incredibly valuable.
The only real downside to having this effect is that the creature has to be tapped. This means a savvy player can hold back their scarab god and lean on its activated and passive abilities or be able to peel an extra card with a Glint-Sleeve Siphoner before you are able to get rid of it. Even though you will get burned by these disadvantages from time to time, that doesn't diminish its potency and will likely remain as a 4-of in every control deck that plays white.
Arch of Orazca - A nice value land that occasionally sees play as a one of in various mid game decks that has a special importance to this archetype. Having a high land count with light colored mana requirements on your spells lets you run a large number of these when most decks can barely afford the first copy. The majority of the removal in the deck is through enchantments which, alongside the tokens coming from treasure maps, typically gives you the cities blessing the same turn that you could first activate it. With as much mana as you will have in play you will routinely be activating this while casting another spell or using two of them at once to draw three cards per turn. Should you find yourself with an active arch and a lotus in play, you end up going from zero to sixty in a big hurry.
Treasure Map - This is your main card advantage tool, it gives you both raw card draw and a fine degree of selection while you scry before flipping it. It can be a tad awkward if you're using it on your upkeep each turn and then want to cast a Settle the Wreckage. Breaking that pattern broadcasts your intention quite loudly and most players will be able to pick up on it. Additionally, the boost you get in potential mana with the treasure tokens is not to be ignored. With gilded lotus already being a powerful effect getting three copies of Lotus Petal into play can let you make some very swingy plays, particularly if you have been missing your land drops.
Karn, Scion of Urza - Even though I elected to not include even a single copy in my list, this one still warrants specific discussion. Despite his exclusion, Karn is still a fine card to use to get ahead on resources and act as a backdoor win condition. However your opponent's hand is going to be cluttered with multiple copies of cast out and contempts without a target meaning he won't be sticking around very long. As soon as you include the Karn Father in your list you are turning those cards into meaningful interaction rather than the blank cardboard they would otherwise be. As good as Karn is, I don't think this is the right home for him.
Alternative Options.
There is no shortage of high quality removal spells in black and white and the correct configuration will likely be changing from week to week. There is also a few options for extra card advantage spells in black and with other artifacts. Based on where you think that the format is heading, here's a handful of the premier choices available.
Baffling End - Much like seal away, this is a two mana enchantment that exiles a threat with the restriction here being sorcery speed and a potential draw back. While you'll rarely see a 3/3 token sprouting out of this, it can still happen from time to time. If you find yourself needing more removal that exiles this is the next best choice.
Harsh Scrutiny - If you are wanting more cheap interaction, particularly at the one mana spot, without giving up too much against control then this is a great option. The Scry 1 means it can at least do something on turn 14 and acts as a duress against potential gearhulks and can snag a god before it comes down and gets value.
Sunset Pyramid - If you are too uneasy with the life loss from Arguel's Blood Fast and Karn isn't the man for the job then this is a legitimate, albeit janky, option that is available. Once it has been depleted you can still get a ton of value off the Scry 1 each turn and it still helps you dig to an approach quite fast. Yes the card is bad, but when you aren't in blue your card advantage options get rather limited and this one is at least playable. While you could go super big with The Immortal Sun, you can still get immediate value with a pyramid before the inevitable Abrade. The mana investment for the immortal sun is much too high to be worth the risk of not getting a card out of it.
Dark Bargain - A new card draw spell from Dominaria that gives you a fine burst of cards with minor selection at the cost of two life. Unfortunately there are no graveyard synergies to speak of which can lead to some awkward selections. Being instant speed and fitting right into the turn 4 "Settle or Draw Spell" makes it a solid choice.
Scavenger Grounds - In addition to the three copies of the arch, you do have room for another colorless value land. While Field of Ruin is great when Search for Azcanta is the most common issue you could face, having a main deck graveyard nuke (with the potential for multiple uses) is top notch with the rising popularity of UR God-Pharaoh's Gift decks. It is even possible to cut down on an arch if you feel strongly on wanting additional graveyard hate in the main deck.
Moment of Craving - A basic -2/-2 kills a large number of things, but the real prize here is the life gain. If monored swarms the metagame then you will certainly want to go up to 3-4 copies of this.
Cast Down - This is no Doom Blade, but few things are. I chose not to include any copies in the example list because there is no way to know in advance just how popular legendary creatures will be and you can find yourself with numerous dead cards in your deck. But with that being said we can easily end up in a format where this is a 4-of in every deck with black mana. Pay close attention to where the format is at (and where it might be heading) when sleeving up more than one of these.
Wishes & Alternate Win Cons
The wish/tutor combo that is Mastermind's Acquisition allows you to gain access to especially narrow, but powerful cards on demand. Here are just a few examples that you have at your disposal along with options for ways to win outside of approach in post board games.
Approach of the Second Sun - Two suns deserves two mentions. The best answer to a lethal approach outside of counter magic has always been lost legacy and the wish allows you to easily avoid this. By simply including a single copy in your sideboard you insulate yourself from being immediately KO'd by a single card. Even if your opponent is also on a wish for legacy in the first game you are still able to fight back by wishing for another.
Josu Vess, Lich Knight - While your opponent is unlikely to be able to side out all of their creature removal this guy does get around it in a way. You most likely will see a play set of vraska's contempt still in your opponents deck in fear of Gideon or Karn, but playing this with kicker avoids everything short of fumigate. Casting it for 10 mana is tough, but you will be going super late regardless and having 20 power in a single card that ignores both Negate and Duress make this a great way to win outside of approach. If you combine him with other midrange creature threats you can really catch people by surprise and run them over with a stream of solid four and five drops.
Zetalpa, Primal Dawn - The keyword soup on this legend is as powerful as it is amusing to read out loud in the middle of a match. Not to mention the priceless look on your opponent's face when you put it on the stack. Much like Josu, this is an incredibly fast clock in a single card that requires specific cards to remove. With a mess of discard and potential extraction effects it is not too unlikely to have the flappy-dino-featherless-bird-thing stick around for a mere three turns to get the job done. None the less it is still vulnerable to contempt and other exile effects so I don't recommend leaning too hard on this as a finisher.
Torment of Hailfire - While worse than approach as a way to win the game, this is another non-combat option for a path to victory. You're going to have a lot of mana once you're ready to end the game so casting this for absurd numbers isn't particularly farfetched, especially if you're able to power it out with a lotus. If you want a way to win without relying on creatures while still beating a potential lost legacy this is your go to option.
Lyra Dawnbriger - Baneslayer Angel is back! Regardless of which path you choose for alternative win cons you should always have some number of these at your disposal. It is far too easy for her to come down and just take over the game by being able to race anything but the most out of control board states. Four attack steps is not that many for a control deck to muster when you're buffering your life total with each hit. Even being able to wish for one against decks that lack a clean answer to her is a powerful option to have available. When playing against monored don't be surprised if this is your most common way of winning the game.
The final thing to note with this card is the keyword ability First Strike. I'm putting extra emphasis on this because it is much more common than you would think that people simply forget that it's there. This one ability lets you do tricky things like block a lord effect from vamps, fish, or the new Benalish Marshal and shrink the rest of their team before they hit you. It also makes the "combo turn" of GPG with Combat Celebrant far less threatening since you can freely gobble up an attacker on each additional combat step while negating a significant portion of damage that the others would deal. If you haven't played with the original Baneslayer Angel before you are in for a real treat. Great card is great!
Regal Caracal - A favorite of the blue based approach decks as a stop gap when fumigate is unreliable that can be an acceptable choice for the BW version. Multiple bodies makes it hard to attack through and the life link helps a ton against the aggro decks of the format all in a single card. If you decide to go this route, bear in mind that you'll likely need to have 3-4 copies for it to be effective as the first one typically gets depleted through combat in short order. Although seemingly worse than Lyra, the cat does have the advantage of providing you with some extra life link tokens if it gets killed immediately. While I do think that the angel is better, there can be times where you just want to ensure that you get something out of your five mana creature.
Sorcerous Spyglass - A reasonable choice for a potential wish target to get you out of an awkward situation, especially if you're still tight on mana. Being able to serve as a preemptive answer to a Gate to the Afterlife as well as value lands like an Ipnu Rivulet threatening to mill you out fits well into the incredible diversity of answers the deck is able to muster. Even though it can be a rather weak card it still is able to do something at any point of the game and is able to come down before the named card generates any form of advantage. Regardless of the meta you'll never be too wrong to include a copy in your list.
Oketra's Last Mercy - This is the epitome of the "narrow but powerful" category of wish targets. Even though cards that only gain life are considered quite bad and not worthy of competitive play, anytime you can do a bunch of a single thing all at once can change that. In this case gaining 12-15 life against monored tends to be the equivalent of drawing 5 cards because of how much time it buys you. None the less this one has such a single minded focus that you have to be absolutely certain that you want to be skewed towards beating the hyper aggressive decks before you spend a sideboard slot on it.
Massing spot removal, even though you have some sweepers, will loose by definition to any deck that has a sticky threat. This is due to your opponent only needing 1 threat to kill you, when you are drawing 1 card a turn and flooding out.
I recommend you play 3-4 of Dark Bargain, which works well with settle the wreckage and the other instant spells you have.
In addition, I havent played standard at all lately, but fatal push and craving are very narrow cards without fetchlands. I would put them into the sideboard. Replace them with Cast Down.
Also Gideon of the trials is still legal I think, which does the work of a removal spell, and then more. I advice putting a couple of copies in there too.
Give irony and sarcasm, when ignorance and stupidity is found.
The whip is kept for special occasions
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