First post on here on MTG Salvation. It's been a few years since I played standard. Mostly play EDH, Cube and some Modern now but I'm thinking about getting back into it with Dominaria. (Too much fun stuff in this set to pass up on it). Here's the list that I've come up with after doing a small bit of research. I'm just looking for people's thoughts on how well this will work in the upcoming meta. It feels like it has a lot of synergy and should be fast enough for standard.
For one, only seven sources of black isn't good enough even if you're just splashing. If you insist on playing black I would add a full set of Blooming Marsh. Creatures like Jade Ranger, Carnage Tyrant, and maybe soon Territorial Allosaurus are fairly staple that needs to be played. I wouldn't play Mox Amber in a mostly single color deck just to cheat things out faster when you're already in a color that does that easily, but my guess is you're trying to synergize with Traxos/Amber which I think you may be better off splashing for white instead so you can play with Lyra Dawnbringer, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, and Ajani Unyielding for card advantage. Ajani's +2 can even grab enchantments like Cast Out or Seal Away that you may have for removal.
I've been experimenting a lot with green aggro and Karn, Scion of Urza. You are going down the same path that I did with this deck. I was into the Mox Amber hype, but I found that you have to play a lot of bad cards to make it work. It doesn't color fix except for double of the same color and it's legendary. Mox will find a home or two, but you should reconsider adding a few legends to your deck to play it. Even with the mox, your deck doesn't have enough artifacts to make Karn's token ability unfair. I switched from GB to GW and axe'd the mox. Karn got much better.
Turn 1: elf
Turn 2: Servo Exhibition (not a very good card but loads of synergy in GW Karn)
Turn 3: Karn- make a token (3/3)
Turn 4: Angel of Invention, make another Karn token (both 7/7 [6 artifacts + Angel pump]).
If your opponent has Vraska's Contempt, do they target Karn or Angel or one of your 7/7's? Of course that's a great start which doesn't always happen, but there are a lot of very good starts invovling Bomat Courier, vehicles, Shanna, Sisay's Legacy, etc.
I agree on the removal of the Moxen. Only 7 cards in your entire deck enable it to tap for mana. Colorless legends/planeswalkers don't allow it to tap for mana.
Have you had the chance to test the deck?
I'm also looking at a BG deck that tries to maximise the Karn / Traxos / Ghalta axis.
Was also considering a splash of blue to allow for some negates on the side.
The artifacts (Scrapheap, Heart, ballista and Harvester) does multiple duty of providing early pressure, being resilient to sweepers, activating Traxos, discounting Ghalta and making Karn's -2 sizeable. These artifacts are great draws both early and late.
So far the added creature-based ramp (all 10 elves) allow the deck to work with 22 lands. The curve tops off at 4cmc anyway, since you're always looking to cast Ghalta at a discount. I've added 2x Field on the side if these elves gets targeted by removal from control decks.
First post on here on MTG Salvation. It's been a few years since I played standard. Mostly play EDH, Cube and some Modern now but I'm thinking about getting back into it with Dominaria. (Too much fun stuff in this set to pass up on it). Here's the list that I've come up with after doing a small bit of research. I'm just looking for people's thoughts on how well this will work in the upcoming meta. It feels like it has a lot of synergy and should be fast enough for standard.
16 Forest
4 Woodland Cemetery
3 Aether Hub
Creatures - 26
2 Walking Ballista
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter
2 Voltaic Servant
1 Thrashing Brontodon
2 Rhonas the Indomitable
4 Steel Leaf Champion
3 Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
3 Verdurous Gearhulk
2 Ghalta, Primal Hunger
3 Fatal Push
1 Cast Down
Enchantments - 1
1 Journey to Eternity
Planeswalkers - 3
3 Karn, Scion of Urza
Artifacts - 3
3 Mox Amber
For one, only seven sources of black isn't good enough even if you're just splashing. If you insist on playing black I would add a full set of Blooming Marsh. Creatures like Jade Ranger, Carnage Tyrant, and maybe soon Territorial Allosaurus are fairly staple that needs to be played. I wouldn't play Mox Amber in a mostly single color deck just to cheat things out faster when you're already in a color that does that easily, but my guess is you're trying to synergize with Traxos/Amber which I think you may be better off splashing for white instead so you can play with Lyra Dawnbringer, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, and Ajani Unyielding for card advantage. Ajani's +2 can even grab enchantments like Cast Out or Seal Away that you may have for removal.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
Turn 1: elf
Turn 2: Servo Exhibition (not a very good card but loads of synergy in GW Karn)
Turn 3: Karn- make a token (3/3)
Turn 4: Angel of Invention, make another Karn token (both 7/7 [6 artifacts + Angel pump]).
If your opponent has Vraska's Contempt, do they target Karn or Angel or one of your 7/7's? Of course that's a great start which doesn't always happen, but there are a lot of very good starts invovling Bomat Courier, vehicles, Shanna, Sisay's Legacy, etc.
To sum up- more artifacts but not mox.
I'm also looking at a BG deck that tries to maximise the Karn / Traxos / Ghalta axis.
Was also considering a splash of blue to allow for some negates on the side.
The artifacts (Scrapheap, Heart, ballista and Harvester) does multiple duty of providing early pressure, being resilient to sweepers, activating Traxos, discounting Ghalta and making Karn's -2 sizeable. These artifacts are great draws both early and late.
So far the added creature-based ramp (all 10 elves) allow the deck to work with 22 lands. The curve tops off at 4cmc anyway, since you're always looking to cast Ghalta at a discount. I've added 2x Field on the side if these elves gets targeted by removal from control decks.
4 Aether Hub
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Botanical Sanctum
5 Forest
1 Swamp
Spells (10)
2 Blossoming Defense
3 Fatal Push
2 Journey to Eternity
1 Vraska's Contempt
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
3 Walking Ballista
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Servant of the Conduit
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
3 Heart of Kiran
2 Aethersphere Harvester
3 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
3 Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
3 Ghalta, Primal Hunger
3 Duress
1 Fatal Push
2 Field of Ruin
3 Negate
2 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
3 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Vraska's Contempt