Right now, it’s pretty clear that Standard is an Aggro player’s format. Last weekend’s RC in Bologna proved this further, with Izzet Prowess barreling headfirst into the top deck spot. Even before this, Mono-Red and Gruul Aggro lists have been sitting on top of the format for months. In a format like this, even blue and white are moving in an aggressive direction. Over a number of recent MTG events, an Azorius Flash deck, with a spicy Reanimator edge, has been making a name for itself.
Azorius is typically known for playing Control, but every color has to adapt to survive in the brutal wilderness of current Standard. By pairing cheap, reactive creatures with powerful value engines, this deck is doing just that. It hasn’t quite wormed its way into the top tiers yet, but early results are very promising. If you want to play Standard without succumbing to the allure of red, this may be one of your best bets.
Azorius Flash/Reanimator MTG
The most recent success for Azorius Flash/Reanimator was in Monday’s MTG Online Standard Challenge, where Sapoa piloted the deck to a third-place finish. That’s not exactly a knockout result, but it’s also not the only one this deck has put up recently. Levunga21 went 5-0 in a Standard League with a near-identical list last week, and GiuseppeG made the top 16 of Sunday’s Ultimate Guard Standard Open in Bologna with it. It’s a contender, in other words, if not a top-flight one just yet.
In terms of what the deck actually does, that’s a much bigger question. Looking at Sapoa’s list above, you’d be forgiven for dismissing it as just a jumble of decent blue/white cards and nothing more. Dig a little deeper, however, and two distinct game plans emerge: a tempo-driven Reanimator plan and an Aggro plan.
To look at the former first, this is a deck running Raise the Past. While it’s mainly been used in Aristocrats decks so far, this is a very flexible and powerful card with a ton of potential elsewhere. In this deck, it resurrects all but four of the creatures Sapoa is running for just four mana, so the potential value swings here are huge.
This goes double when you consider the pedigree of the creatures you’re resurrecting. Novice Inspector and Spyglass Siren offer value on entry, as does Floodpits Drowner. You can also nab Regal Bunnicorn, which will likely present a chunky threat when you factor in all the other permanents entering at once.
Notably, there’s no self-mill package here, which you usually see with Raise the Past decks. As a result, the card is clearly a backup for long games, not a primary plan.
A New Angle On Aggro
The other major aspect of Sapoa’s Azorius Flash/Reanimator MTG deck is how well it plays the Aggro game. This is an incredibly low-to-the-ground list, capable of establishing a terrifying board presence very early on. Those one drops we mentioned earlier both come with artifact tokens, which turn Regal Bunnicorn and Warden of the Inner Sky into monsters. This is a deck capable of matching the likes of Monio-Red and Izzet early, in terms of board presence at least.
Moving on up to two drops, the Flash angle really starts to come in. Being able to run out Cathar Commando and Floodpits Drowner at instant speed really gives the deck a lot of options. Commando is a super-clean answer to Cori-Steel Cutter if you can catch them without a response, which makes it ideal in the current Izzet Prowess meta. The deck doesn’t run much to hold up alongside these creatures other than Spell Pierce, but it does go heavy on Enduring Curiosity with three whole copies.
Curiosity is one of the most important cards in the deck, alongside Raise the Past. While this list can tussle with other Aggro decks early on, it needs ways to break parity and pull ahead. Curiosity offers exactly that, on a well-statted body to boot. Flashing this in alongside even just a couple of unblocked creatures is likely enough to end the game in a tight matchup.
One of the biggest concerns you might have looking at this deck is a lack of interaction, especially for an Azorius list. While it’s true that the deck barely plays instants and sorceries, it does play interaction in other forms. Sheltered by Ghosts is fantastic high-tempo creature removal, and Floodpits Drowner can get rid of threats in a pinch.
Mixing Up The Meta?
There’s clearly a ton of play to Sapoa’s list, and the others like it that have been snagging solid tournament results recently. That said, Azorius Flash/Reanimate is still a very young strategy, and is yet to put up real top-tier results in a big MTG event.
That doesn’t mean it won’t, of course, as the meta is evolving by the day. Izzet Prowess is still very young, but it’s now the most popular deck in Standard according to MTG Decks. We’re in a period of flux right now, where big breaks like this can happen easily.
The deck is pretty well-positioned, too. Typically, the biggest problem newcomers to Standard face is speed. Mono-Red is so fast right now that any deck that durdles in the early turns has a hard time. Azorius Flash/Reanimator doesn’t do that. It’s just as fast as Mono-Red when it comes to building a board, and probably faster than Izzet.
The deck also has very positive matchups against other big decks in the format right now, like Esper Pixie and Omniscience. Curiosity’s raw card advantage helps outpace the former, while raw speed gets to the latter. These are both high-tier decks currently, so good matchups here are huge pluses for Azorius.
On the other hand, the deck struggles against Domain Overlords and Jeskai Control, both of which are also high-tier lists at the moment. These decks simply generate too much value for Azorius to keep up with, even with Curiosity in tow. No deck is perfect, however, and even with these flaws, Azorius Flash/Reanimator looks to be a solid contender in the new Standard meta.