For the most part, constructed decks in Magic evolve at a fairly slow pace. Each new set might add a card or two to established lists, but more than that is rare. It’s even rarer for a new archetype to spring essentially fully-formed from a single set, but that’s exactly what’s happened this week. In a recent Standard Challenge, a full-on Orzhov Repartee deck, composed almost entirely of MTG Secrets of Strixhaven cards, put up a stellar debut result.
Orzhov Repartee In MTG Standard
The list in question, which comes to us via Bmadman, feels almost like a thematic block constructed deck. The core of the deck consists of a bunch of Repartee creatures, starting with Lecturing Scornmage at one, and climbing through Informed Inkwright and Stirring Hopesinger. Each of these cards helps you to build a powerful early board presence as you stack up Repartee triggers.
In order to do so, Bmadman’s list runs a bunch of cheap interactive spells, which can target opposing creatures as well as friendly ones. Erode, Requiting Hex, and Tragic Trajectory are all efficient removal options, which let you generate big tempo swings. You can also buff up your own creatures with Honor and Killian’s Confidence, doubling down on the Repartee buffs they grant themselves.
Once you’ve used these two packages to develop a strong board presence, Orzhov Repartee has a few different ways to close out the game. If you end up going big and putting a ton of counters on a Scornmage or Hopesinger, then Quill-Blade Laureate can grant it Double Strike for a surprise win. If you manage to go wider, Practiced Offense can potentially push a ton of damage at once. It’s even better if you can cast and Flash it back in the same turn, netting two buffs and two Repartee triggers in one.
Ultimately, this is the entire game plan for Orzhov Repartee: you get down early, you interact to buff your board, and you aim for a swift win. It’s not the most complex strategy out there, but it’s clearly at least somewhat effective, given Bmadman managed to nab second place in the Challenge they ran it in.
A Schoolyard Fad?
While it’s certainly a good start, Orzhov Repartee needs more than one result to establish itself as a serious MTG deck in Standard. Whether it’ll get one or not remains to be seen, but it has some tough competition to overcome in any case.
The biggest obstacle in this deck’s path right now is almost certainly Izzet, in any of its three variants. With Stormchaser’s Talent as a resilient source of threats in Prowess and Spells, your removal suite is less effective here. Spellementals also easily keep you in check early on, before going totally over the top with Sunderflock later.
Against Selesnya Landfall decks, Orzhov Repartee feels much like a much better bet. Your scaling creatures can help fight against Sazh’s Chocobo on board early, and you have ample answers for Badgermole Cub when it comes around. The deck packs plenty of fliers, too, which gives you an edge in race situations.
Overall, Orzhov Repartee feels like a mixed bag in the current Standard metagame. It could continue to develop and carve out a home for itself, but equally, it could just fade after this strong debut. In any case, it’s definitely one to watch: we don’t get decks running this many new cards very often, after all.
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