Hello, and welcome back to Metagame Mentor, your weekly guide to the top decks and latest Constructed developments on the path to the Pro Tour. This weekend marks the start of the next round of Regional Championship Qualifiers (RCQs) in Standard, a format that just underwent a massive upheaval with the banned and restricted announcement on August 10.

With Badgermole Cub, Stormchaser's Talent, and Gran-Gran all banned, Standard has been cracked wide open. Its most powerful one- and two-mana engines are gone, and that leaves considerably more room for slower and previously suppressed strategies to breathe.

In this article, I'll walk through what these bans mean for the format and suggest four decks as the defining early pillars of the upcoming RCQs. I'll also offer three more speculative options, including one where several new cards from Magic: The Gathering® | The Hobbit™ have a genuine chance to shine.

The Impact of the Bans

Based on my Standard format primer from two weeks ago, the three most prominent decks right before the bans were Izzet Prowess, Selesnya Offense, and Jeskai Lessons. Together, they made up over half of the winner's metagame. However, all three lost a key card on August 10.

Badgermole Cub

Selesnya Offense, along with other green decks such as Mono-Green Landfall and Bant Rhythm, lost Badgermole Cub. These decks leveraged Cub to accelerate their mana production and deploy powerful threats ahead of schedule. Now, their ability to do that has been significantly weakened. Badgermole Cub was particularly potent alongside cards like Llanowar Elves, Spider Manifestation, and Earthbender Ascension, but Standard players won't be adding eight mana on turn three anymore. Badgermole Cub's earthbent land also amplified the board-wide boost from Practiced Offense and effectively turned Fabled Passage into ramp. Those synergies are now removed as well.

Before the bans, most successful decks in Standard carried efficient one-mana answers just to keep Badgermole Cub in check. With that pressure eased, players now have room to tweak their interaction suites toward control decks instead.

While pretty much every green deck has been weakened, and Nature's Rhythm in particular took a big hit, Llanowar Elves remains eminently playable. Ramping into Icetill Explorer or Mightform Harmonizer is still a perfectly reasonable plan. Leatherhead, Swamp Stalker with Practiced Offense can still steal games out of nowhere.

In place of Badgermole Cub, alternative two-drops such as Keen-Eyed Curator; Environmental Scientist; Tifa Lockhart; Jackal, Genius Geneticist; Frenzied Baloth; or Bristly Bill, Spine Sower might find a home. Nevertheless, green decks will have to be rebuilt from the ground up, and that adaptation won't be trivial. I wouldn't call any green deck an immediate pillar of the post-ban metagame just yet.

Stormchaser's Talent
Gran-Gran

To prevent one of the established decks from taking over after the banning of Badgermole Cub, Wizards of the Coast also banned Stormchaser's Talent out of Izzet Prowess and Izzet Fling, and Gran-Gran out of Jeskai Lessons and Temur Lessons.

This considerably weakens those strategies. Izzet Prowess might pivot toward Elusive Otter, Drake Hatcher, and Ancestral Anger instead of Stormchaser's Talent and Boomerang Basics, but it will be weaker than before. Instead, building around a creature base of Hearth Elemental, Eddymurk Crab, and Sunderflock may make more sense going forward.

Jeskai Lessons, meanwhile, could swap Gran-Gran for additional interaction and perhaps a few copies of Thor, God of Thunder; Wan Shi Tong, Librarian; or Quantum Riddler as card-advantage creatures. The deck might survive without Gran-Gran, but without a powerful one-drop enabling a one-mana Accumulate Wisdom, a Four-Color Control build that drops the Lessons package entirely might be the more natural path.

While decks like Izzet Prowess or Jeskai Lessons might remain viable in weakened forms, they will be a little slower and easier to overcome. I wouldn't expect them to become pillars of the new metagame.

Instead, I selected four decks that I think could rise to the occasion: Four-Color Control, Izzet Spellementals, Dimir Excruciator, and Mardu Discard. While it's always difficult to predict how a new metagame will crystallize, I would expect to see all four of these decks at upcoming RCQs. None of them lost a card this week, all were relatively popular before the bans (per my metagame snapshot from July), and together they span the spectrum from aggro to midrange to control. Let's go over them, followed by three more speculative options.

Pillar One: Four-Color Control

4 Tablet of Discovery 4 Inevitable Defeat 4 Jeskai Revelation 4 Great Hall of the Biblioplex 4 Stock Up 4 Blood Crypt 3 Firebending Lesson 3 Consult the Star Charts 3 Riverpyre Verge 3 Bleachbone Verge 2 Sacred Foundry 2 Sear 2 Shattered Sanctum 2 Flashback 2 Nowhere to Run 2 Starting Town 2 Undercity Sewers 2 Deadly Cover-Up 1 Plains 1 Steam Vents 1 Island 1 Duress 1 Together as One 1 Cori Mountain Monastery 1 North Wind Avatar 1 Gloomlake Verge 2 Flashfreeze 2 Duress 1 Outrageous Robbery 1 Disdainful Stroke 1 Riverchurn Monument 1 Petrified Hamlet 1 Day of Judgment 1 Return the Favor 1 Thor, God of Thunder 1 Ancient Vendetta 1 Day of Black Sun 1 Pest Control 1 Strategic Betrayal

Four-Color Control seeks to dictate the pace of the game through a carefully balanced mix of removal, sweepers, and card-draw spells. The list above is based on an aggregate of successful Magic Online lists from the two weeks before the bans. There's more than one way to build it, depending on whether you shape the mana base around Deadly Cover-Up or Day of Judgment, but every version shares the same core package: Tablet of Discovery, Jeskai Revelation, Stock Up, Inevitable Defeat, and Great Hall of the Biblioplex.

Tablet of Discovery serves as the deck's central engine, generating card advantage, accelerating your mana production, and enabling a devastating turn-five Jeskai Revelation. Once you start chaining Jeskai Revelation into Flashback or another Jeskai Revelation, the deck snowballs quickly.

After the ban, the Tablet-into-Revelation line may emerge as one of the strongest engines in the format. Nevertheless, the metagame now has more room to build interaction against it, since players are no longer forced to warp their decks around cheap removal just to answer an early Badgermole Cub or Gran-Gran.

Four-Color Control made up 7.5% of the winner's metagame in July. It was already a genuinely successful deck before the bans, and it lost nothing. Based on an analysis of round-by-round results from Regional Championships and Spotlight Series events in May, Four-Color Control is heavily favored against Izzet Spellementals, slightly unfavored against Dimir Excruciator, and heavily unfavored against Mardu Discard. That spread makes the post-ban metagame all the more intriguing.

Pillar Two: Izzet Spellementals

6 Island 4 Eddymurk Crab 4 Hearth Elemental 4 Sunderflock 4 Opt 4 Prismari Charm 4 Riverpyre Verge 4 Spirebluff Canal 4 Steam Vents 4 Sleight of Hand 3 Burst Lightning 3 Flow State 2 Get Out 2 Traumatic Critique 2 Spell Snare 2 Impractical Joke 1 Stormcarved Coast 1 Multiversal Passage 1 Spell Pierce 1 Winternight Stories 4 Colorstorm Stallion 2 Annul 2 Ghost Vacuum 1 Disdainful Stroke 1 Flashfreeze 1 Broadside Barrage 1 Slagstorm 1 Spell Snare 1 Spell Pierce 1 Negate

Izzet Spellementals runs on a high density of cheap instants and sorceries that draw cards, interact early, and fill the graveyard for Eddymurk Crab and Hearth Elemental. Because both creatures are Elementals, they can reduce the cost of Sunderflock to just two or three mana, allowing you to reset your opponent's board and swing the game dramatically in your favor.

If you want to build a deck that combines cheap card-draw spells with powerful payoffs, then Izzet Spellementals is the natural pick after the bans. It never used Stormchaser's Talent or Gran-Gran. The list above is based on an aggregate of successful Magic Online lists from the two weeks before the bans.

That said, Izzet Spellementals takes an indirect hit from the Badgermole Cub ban. The main reason to play the deck was to prey on Cub decks, since bouncing their earthbent lands with Sunderflock was devastating. With its best matchup removed, Izzet Spellementals may struggle in a more control-heavy metagame, though it remains an excellent answer to go-wide creature decks.

Izzet Spellementals accounted for 10.5% of the winner's metagame in July. Based on an analysis of round-by-round results from Regional Championships and Spotlight Series events in May, Izzet Spellementals is heavily unfavored against Four-Color Control, slightly unfavored against Dimir Excruciator, and slightly favored against Mardu Discard.

Pillar Three: Dimir Excruciator

9 Swamp 4 Deceit 4 Requiting Hex 4 Gloomlake Verge 4 Restless Reef 4 Watery Grave 4 Duress 4 Superior Spider-Man 3 Doomsday Excruciator 3 Bitter Triumph 3 Stock Up 2 Emeritus of Ideation 2 Day of Black Sun 2 Winternight Stories 2 Undercity Sewers 2 Hidden Lair 1 Cavern of Souls 1 Strategic Betrayal 1 Deadly Cover-Up 1 M.O.D.O.K. 3 Preacher of the Schism 2 Flashfreeze 2 Qarsi Revenant 1 Strategic Betrayal 1 Deadly Cover-Up 1 Quantum Riddler 1 Doomsday Excruciator 1 Negate 1 Emeritus of Ideation 1 Disdainful Stroke 1 Ghost Vacuum

Dimir Excruciator is built around the devastating potential of Doomsday Excruciator. After it exiles both libraries down to six cards, a single attack with Restless Reef is usually enough to force the opponent to draw from an empty library. Emeritus of Ideation's prepared spell, Ancestral Recall, can also target the opponent, providing another way to finish the game. To set everything up, Superior Spider-Man plays a crucial role, preserving the cast triggers from Deceit or Doomsday Excruciator.

The deck was untouched by the bans, and it already won Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed earlier this year. I anticipate it will emerge as one of the pillars of the new Standard metagame.

Dimir Excruciator represented 5% of the winner's metagame in July. It used to struggle against Izzet Prowess and Mono-Green Landfall, but that shouldn't be a problem anymore. Based on an analysis of round-by-round results from Regional Championships and Spotlight Series events in May, Dimir Excruciator is slightly favored against Four-Color Control and Izzet Spellementals but heavily unfavored against Mardu Discard.

Pillar Four: Mardu Discard

1 Cecil, Dark Knight 4 Marauding Mako 4 Moonshadow 4 Hardened Academic 4 Iron-Shield Elf 4 Bloodghast 2 Carnage, Crimson Chaos 2 Casey Jones, Vigilante 1 Tersa Lightshatter 4 Cool but Rude 3 Practiced Offense 2 Erode 2 Requiting Hex 4 Blood Crypt 3 Godless Shrine 3 Sacred Foundry 3 Inspiring Vantage 2 Concealed Courtyard 4 Starting Town 3 Blazemire Verge 1 Mountain 3 Strategic Betrayal 2 Doorkeeper Thrull 2 Duress 2 Sheltered by Ghosts 2 Voice of Victory 1 Leyline of the Void 1 Case of the Crimson Pulse 1 Dawn's Truce 1 Get Lost

So far, the pillars I've proposed include control and midrange decks. But what if you'd rather be the aggressor? Mono-Red Aggro and Naya Delirium are viable options as noted in my Standard format primer from two weeks ago, but I believe the best-positioned aggro deck will be Mardu Discard. It's cohesive, synergistic, and holds a strong matchup against slower control decks. This makes it my pick for the fourth and final pillar of the new Standard metagame.

Mardu Discard uses Iron-Shield Elf and Hardened Academic to discard cards at will, transforming what would normally be a drawback into a source of powerful synergies. These discard-enablers grow Marauding Mako and Moonshadow, trigger Cool but Rude for additional damage, and place Bloodghast into the graveyard, ready to return to the battlefield. The combination of hard-hitting one-drops, enchantment-fueled damage, and a Bloodghast that keeps coming back is a persistent headache for slower control strategies.

Mardu Discard was only a sliver of the winner's metagame in July, but it emerged from the bans as a clear winner. It used to struggle against Badgermole Cub decks; that obstacle is gone. Now, it's heavily favored against Four-Color Control and Dimir Excruciator and only slightly unfavored against Izzet Spellementals, an excellent matchup spread by any measure. And if Standard decks start trimming their one-mana removal now that Badgermole Cub is gone, Mardu Discard stands ready to punish them for it.

Speculative Pick One: Temur Omniscience

4 Ashling, Rekindled 4 Kona, Rescue Beastie 4 Omniscience 4 Cavern of Souls 4 Kavaron, Memorial World 4 Uthros, Titanic Godcore 3 Formidable Speaker 3 Marang River Regent 3 Stock Up 3 Winternight Stories 3 Opt 3 Prismari Charm 2 North Wind Avatar 2 Breeding Pool 2 Multiversal Passage 2 Steam Vents 2 Stormcarved Coast 2 Starting Town 2 Lost in the Maze 1 Dreamroot Cascade 1 Island 1 Stomping Ground 1 Mountain 3 Spider-Sense 2 Pyroclasm 2 Origin of Metalbending 2 Voice of Victory 1 Marang River Regent 1 Omni-Changeling 1 Terror of the Peaks 1 Stock Up 1 Dracogenesis 1 Fire Magic

The four pillars I've proposed span aggro, midrange, and control, but there may also be room for a dedicated combo deck. Since the bans removed one- and two-mana powerhouses, the speed of Standard has slowed down. That gives decks a bit more breathing room to assemble their pieces and perhaps survive an extra turn, which bodes well for combo strategies.

If you like combo decks, the one that has found the most success in premier Standard tournaments over the past months is Temur Omniscience. This plan is to play Kona, Rescue Beastie; tap it via Uthros, Titanic Godcore or Kavaron, Memorial World; and put Omniscience onto the battlefield for free. From there, the typical win condition is North Wind Avatar. You grab Marang River Regent from your sideboard, use it to bounce North Wind Avatar, replay the Avatar, and fetch Omni-Changeling. You then use Omni-Changeling to copy Marang River Regent, creating an infinite loop of Marang River Regent triggers and North Wind Avatar triggers. Terror of the Peaks from the sideboard turns that loop into infinite damage.

It's a powerful plan that does not use the graveyard, unlike alternative combo options such as Sultai Reanimator. Given that Standard players may start loading their sideboards with cards like Rest in Peace to put pressure on Izzet Spellementals, I would rather sidestep that kind of hate entirely with a combo strategy that doesn't need its graveyard.

Speculative Pick Two: Dimir Midrange

4 Floodpits Drowner 4 Spyglass Siren 4 Requiting Hex 4 Gloomlake Verge 4 Swamp 4 Watery Grave 4 Kaito, Bane of Nightmares 4 Hidden Lair 4 Dream Beavers 3 Enduring Curiosity 3 Island 2 The Wondrous Wasp 2 Nowhere to Run 2 Bitter Triumph 2 Shoot the Sheriff 2 We Say Thee Nay! 2 Restless Reef 2 Soulstone Sanctuary 1 Elektra, Daughter of the Hand 1 Spell Pierce 1 Spell Snare 1 Tishana's Tidebinder 3 Duress 2 Day of Black Sun 2 Flashfreeze 2 Strategic Betrayal 1 Disdainful Stroke 1 Ghost Vacuum 1 Spell Pierce 1 Tishana's Tidebinder 1 The Ooze 1 Wan Shi Tong, Librarian

Plenty of decks that were once a big part of Standard fell off over the past year, worn down by Stormchaser's Talent, Badgermole Cub, and Gran-Gran. Now that those cards are gone, some of them might make their way back. In particular, midrange strategies with poor matchups against Prowess and Landfall, like Dimir Midrange, Golgari Midrange, and Four-Color Elementals, could all be due for a comeback.

Dimir Midrange, for example, represented 4% of the field at Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed at the start of the year. It might be time to dust off your copies of Enduring Curiosity and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares. The deck's game plan hasn't changed: disrupt opponents with a mix of removal, discard, and countermagic while pressuring them with cheap, evasive creatures. Once Enduring Curiosity hits the board, those creatures can refill your hand, and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares adds even more card advantage on top of it all.

The list above is based on an aggregate of successful Magic Online lists over the past two weeks before the bans, but now that one- and two-mana engines are gone, the interactive suite could probably use some tweaking. Trading several copies of Requiting Hex and Nowhere to Run for additional copies of We Say Thee Nay! or Tishana's Tidebinder might give you exactly what you need to efficiently answer Tablet of Discovery and take down Four-Color Control.

Speculative Pick Three: Boros Dragons

Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit provides a wealth of powerful new tools for Standard deck builders. It also supports some of the same creature types as Lorwyn Eclipsed, which might finally supply the critical mass to make Elves or Goblin competitively viable. I might be tempted, for instance, to sacrifice Mudbutton Cursetosser from Lorwyn Eclipsed to Bolg's Company or Azog, Moria's Ruin from the new set. I might also enjoy using Lorwyn Eclipsed's Bloom Tender to reduce the cost of Cantankerous Keepers or to trigger Elrond, Moon-Reader.

There are options aplenty, but the deck that excites me most is all about a massive Dragon's hoard. Here's the list I put together.

4 Momo, Friendly Flier 4 Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant 2 The Queen of Dale 2 Magda, the Hoardmaster 4 Clarion Conqueror 4 Magmatic Hellkite 4 Smaug the Magnificent 4 Nova Hellkite 1 Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest 3 Burst Lightning 2 The Eagles Are Coming! 2 Twinmaw Stormbrood 3 Mountain 1 Plains 2 Multiversal Passage 2 Demolition Field 4 Sacred Foundry 4 Sunbillow Verge 4 Inspiring Vantage 4 Maelstrom of the Spirit Dragon 4 Price of Freedom 4 Desolation of Smaug 3 Rest in Peace 2 Mjölnir, Hammer of Thor 1 Demolition Field 1 Decadent Dragon

Smaug the Magnificent

As a 4/3 with flying and haste, Smaug the Magnificent is a formidable option for any aggressive red deck. I think he fits best in a Boros Dragons shell that can play Smaug as early as turn three thanks to Momo, Friendly Flier and Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant. If you curve turn-one Momo into Magda, the Hoardmaster and Smaug the Magnificent, Magda will create a Treasure before Smaug's attack trigger resolves, letting you deal 1 damage to an opposing Llanowar Elves or another 1-toughness creature.

The Queen of Dale
The Eagles Are Coming!

The main deck also features a pair of exciting new white cards. The Queen of Dale is a value engine that floods the board with tokens while letting you discard extra copies of your legendary creatures. You can eventually convert all those tokens into 4/4 fliers through a kicked The Eagles Are Coming! This instant doubles as ideal protection against removal, can return a warped Nova Hellkite to create an undercosted 4/4 or help you reuse the enters ability of Magmatic Hellkite.

Given that Four-Color Control looks like one of the pillars of post-ban Standard format, I'll note that the deck commonly runs only two basic lands. That means Magmatic Hellkite's ability can run them out of lands quickly. I supported this strategy with Demolition Field and Price of Freedom as sideboard options. To make room for them, you can board out Twinmaw Stormbrood and Burst Lightning against control decks.

Desolation of Smaug

Sideboarding shifts many other matchups, too. Rest in Peace effectively neutralizes Eddymurk Crab and Hearth Elemental, giving you a strong game plan against Izzet Spellementals. Burst Lightning might also be worth sideboarding out. And against aggro decks full of small creatures, such as Mardu Discard, you can cut Magda, the Hoardmaster; The Queen of Dale; and The Eagles Are Coming! to make room for Mjölnir, Hammer of Thor and Desolation of Smaug. Those two powerful sweepers synergize perfectly with Smaug.

Against Dimir Excruciator, no major changes are needed, though I added a spicy Decadent Dragon to the sideboard for that matchup. If they resolve Doomsday Excruciator, you might be able to fetch it with Maelstrom of the Spirit Dragon in response, then cast the Adventure to deplete their library and deck them. That's admittedly a stretch, but it's theoretically achievable through Treasure tokens, and it would be a memorable story worth telling if it ever comes together.

Whether this deck ultimately proves competitive in Standard remains to be seen, but it's always exciting to explore new cards and strategies. There are numerous other decks enabled by Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else the spiciest deck builders come up with.

What's Next for Standard?

The next round of Regional Championship Qualifiers begins this weekend, August 15, with Standard as the designated format for in-store Constructed events. With the bans now in effect, we've entered a genuinely new chapter for the format. As its pillars are re-established, old favorites may return alongside fresh possibilities with Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit. The format will no doubt keep evolving rapidly over the coming weeks, which only makes the RCQs more exciting.

RCQ participants in this upcoming round will receive a Sunpearl Kirin promo card, and Top Finishers will also take home a Pinnacle Starcage promo card, both available while supplies last. These RCQs award invitations to the Standard Regional Championships in early 2027, which in turn feed into the second Pro Tour of 2027 at MagicCon: Tokyo. With the Pro Tour returning to Japan for the first time in years, there are even more reasons to begin your journey toward an invitation.

If you'd like to put your Standard skills to the test, you can find an RCQ event near you through your local game store or your regional organizer's website. And if your aspirations extend beyond becoming the hero of your local shop, be sure to check out Magic Spotlight: Fracture, a massive open-field Standard tournament held at the end of October in both Hartford and Beijing. With a fresh metagame and so much high-level Standard competition on the horizon, the coming months promise to be an excellent time to dive into the format.