Hey all, Strickles here. Foundations releases tomorrow, Tuesday the 12th, on MTG Arena, meaning it is time to brew and try some fun new cards and fun new decks. Foundations is basically the new core set for Standard, and as it will be legal for the next five years, we will need to get used to the best cards from the set, as we will be seeing a lot of them.

I think that Foundations will have an impact on current Standard, as there are a decent number of powerful cards in the set that will boost existing strategies or form new ones. Presented here are some of my ideas for where I will be starting on day 1 of the format.

These decks are all untested first drafts – there is a good chance that numbers or mana bases will need to be shifted around, but I think they are all good starting places, for functional, and maybe in some cases, competitive, decks.

With that out of the way, let’s dive right in!

Mono-White Blink

Fool me several times, shame on me? I feel like I have tried to make a blink deck work so many times, but this time we are keeping it simple and keeping it straightforward by just playing Mono-White.

The goal of this deck is to get one of our prototype creatures into play early, and then blink it so it comes back as the big version of the creature.

Our prototypes include Autonomous Assembler great on offense and defense, Combat Thresher to draw a card and beat down, and Steel Seraph to help us get in damage and win races. All of these creatures are fine for their prototype cost, but when you blink them and get their other side ahead of curve, they are quite powerful.

Our blinkers fall into two categories: creatures and spells. Our creatures include Charming Prince, a flexible reprint from Foundations that can also scry on turn two, or gain life later in the game if we are in desperate need, Guardian of Ghirapur gives us a blink and is also just good at beating down as a 3/3 flier, and Salvation Swan lets us save one of our creatures at instant speed, and returns them with a flying counter to keep the pressure on.

Our blink spells include Getaway Glamer and Parting Gust. These are both great because they can serve as a blink spell when we need to save one of our creatures at instant speed, or as removal when we need it against the opponent.

Tying the deck together is Helpful Hunter, our cute new cat companion from Foundations. As a 2-drop that draws a card, Helpful Hunter is a great target to blink when we don’t have a prototype around, or our prototype is already upgraded, and in general it just helps us find our pieces to establish our game plan.

Our sideboard is very straight forward. Kutzil’s Flanker serves as our main source of graveyard exile, and it can be blinked to continuously attack the opponent’s graveyard or to scry and gain life. Note that all of our blink spells return the creature at the end of turn, so you have to be proactive with exiling the opponent’s graveyard.

Elspeth’s Smite is to help against Mono-Red and Gruul aggro decks, while Exorcise is for any decks running Unholy Annex or other enchantments. Mazemind Tome serves to help us in grindy matchups when we just need access to more cards.

This deck is sure to frustrate opponents, as their removal spells are foiled again and again by our blink spells, and they find themselves overwhelmed by large robots early in the game.

Azorius Flash

We got a lot of flash cards in Foundations, and we already had a lot of flash cards in Standard, making it all too tempting to put them all together and see if it is a real thing.

Almost all of our creatures disrupt the opponent in one way or another, but we do have a couple of creatures that are just there to close out the game. 

Brineborn Cutthroat is a great early play to flash in, and then start attacking with. Every time we cast a spell on an opponent’s turn it gets a counter, meaning it is going to be growing pretty quickly and we are going to be casting a spell on each of our opponent’s turns, either disrupting their strategy or just putting a creature into play at end of turn.

Stoic Sphinx is our other just threat creature. It comes down as a 5/3 flier, which means the game is going to end very quickly. The catch with Stoic Sphinx is that it loses hexproof if we cast a spell, so the goal should be to only cast spells when we absolutely have to, or it is safe to disrupt the opponent because they are out of mana or out of cards. If you suspect your opponent is holding up a removal spell, don’t flash it in, because it counts itself as a spell that you cast the turn you cast it, meaning they will have a small window there to remove it.

The rest of our creatures disrupt the opponent and help us advance our game plan. Aven Interrupter and Fear of Impostors are all about slowing the opponent down, buying us time to establish our board and keep the pressure on.

Floodpits Drowner and Harbinger of the Tides are our removal spell creatures that buy us time against aggro decks and midrange decks alike to delay the game and get more established. While Harbinger of the Tides can be cast at flash speed for four mana, it is totally fine to use it on our turn for just two mana, and then hold up another spell.

Horned Loch-Whale is also a source of removal for us, as we can use it’s adventure early on, and then flash it in later in the game.

Plumecreed Escort can protect one of our creatures for cheap, and Errant and Giada let us cast flash spells off the top of our deck. There is a chance that we want more copies of Errant and Giada, it’s just that it is a bit clunky as it doesn’t impact the board right away, and as a 2/3 it does die to Cut Down, so I didn’t want to play too many copies.

Rounding out the deck we have Get Lost for some removal, and Phantom Interference for a counter early and another flying creature later on.

Our sideboard has pretty standard fare, such as Elspeth’s Smite for aggro decks, Destroy Evil for Unholy Annex decks, and Disdainful Stroke and Negate for when we need more coutnerspells to fight midrange and control decks.

We also get more flash creatures. Kutzil’s Flanker is our graveyard removal but can also scry and gain life if we need to, and Tishana’s Tidebinder is great in matchups where the opponent has problematic permanents such as Unholy Annex, planeswalkers, or overlords.

If you like tricky tempo decks, this build of Azorius Flash is sure to frustrate your opponent and also just over a lot of different lines of play, making it a fun puzzle to crack each game.

Boros Burn

Aggro is in a good spot in Standard right now, and most of the aggro decks are built around creatures just because of how powerful Monstrous Rage is at forcing through damage and blowing out the opponent. That being said, we got a lot of great new burn spells in Foundations, meaning that we have to at least try a burn deck.

Our deck has a variety of burn spells both old and new, to try to reduce the opponent’s life total to zero. New from Foundations we have Boltwave, a simple and straightforward way to deal three damage to the opponent. Burst Lightning is two damage early on, but if we ever flood out it can be kicked to deal four damage instead. 

Boros Charm technically has three modes, but we are almost always going to be using it to deal four damage to the opponent, but giving our permanents indestructible may come up if we have a lot of creatures in play and our opponent casts Day of Judgment.

Those new burn spells meet our existing ones, Lightning Helix and Lightning Strike, both good at dealing three damage. In a pinch, these two and Burst Lightning can take out opposing creatures if we are in danger of being run down.

Rounding out our burn spells is another reprint from Foundations, Slagstorm. Slagstorm may seem out of place here, but it gives us a main deck sweeper against the aggro decks in the format, and when we don’t need that it can deal three damage to each player, giving us some extra reach.

Our burn spells are supplemented by our aggressive creatures. Monastery Swiftspear comes down on turn one and is going to grow each time we cast a burn spell, helping us get in enough extra damage to close out games. Ghitu Lavarunner, a sweet reprint from Foundations, is not great early on, but will be a 2/2 haste from as early as turn two or three, again helping us stick a few extra points of damage here or there.

Screaming Nemesis has proved to be a player in Standard. As a 3/3 haste it is totally fine, but putting your opponent in the awkward spot of not being able to block it without taking damage makes it very scary once we have worked their life total down nice and low. If our opponent is about to gain a big chunk of life, we can target Screaming Nemesis with one of our own burn spells to deal damage to the opponent and prevent them from gaining life for the rest of the game.

Rounding out the deck we have Wrenn’s Resolve for just a little bit of card advantage.

Our sideboard is pretty straight forward as well. Abrade for creature and artifact removal, Destroy Evil to deal with big creatures or Unholy Annex, Rest in Peace for graveyard decks, and then Squee, Dubious Monarch for another sticky threat, and Jaya, Fiery Negotiator when we need to grind.

Like I said, when all is said and done, a creature deck may still be the best aggro deck in the format, but when you give me Boros Charm and other good burn spells, we have at least got to try it. It is also possible that we want a different suite of creatures, such as Slickshot Show-Off, but only testing will tell if that is true or not.

Boros Tremors

Do you like playing Convoke but want to kill your opponent with a thousand cuts instead of one or two big swings? Then do I have the deck for you.

This deck looks to combine the power of Impact Tremors and Warleader’s Call to turn all of our creatures into mini-burn spells, slowly pinging the opponent to death. To do this we are playing a lot of ways to make tokens.

For example, Resolute Reinforcements gives us two creatures, as does Dragon Fodder. Hop to It gives us three creatures. With one or more of our enchantments in play, just casting these spells will equal a lot of damage and give us a wide board to attack and block with.

Searslicer Goblin is nice in this deck because it gives us a token at the end of turn if we attacked, so we can attack with one of our other tokens, and regardless if it lives or not we are going to get a new token at the end of turn to trigger our enchantments.

Dollmaker’s Shop is another way to turn a token into another token, as we can attack to trigger the shop and get a toy token. So even on stalled out boards where we don’t have good attacks, we can send a token in to get a new token and trigger our enchantments. Late in the game we can unlock Porcelain Gallery to buff up all of our tokens and swing for lethal.

Sanguine Evangelist also gives us two bodies, but when it attacks all of our other attacking creatures get +1/+0 making our board of tokens even more scary. It also gives us a token when it dies, meaning that we can make some reckless attacks to buff up our team, because even if it dies we are going to get another token and trigger our enchantments.

Our last token maker is Heroic Reinforcements, which on top of giving us two tokens, gives our whole team a buff and haste. This is great for closing out games, once we have the opponent low and have a good amount of tokens in play.

Lastly, we have Case of the Gateway Express for removal and another way to buff up our team once we solve it.

Our sideboard includes Elspeth’s Smite for aggro, Destroy Evil for Unholy Annex decks, Rest in Peace for graveyard decks, Jaya, Fiery Negotiator when we need to grind, and Urabrask’s Forge to fight against decks like Dimir Midrange that have a tough time removing artifacts.

Overall, this deck may end up being weaker than a deck like Jeskai Convoke, but I guarantee that you will have some sweet games where you slowly cut the opponent down, one life point at a time. So if you like convoke or token strategies, give this one a try!

Mono-Green Ramp

There are going to be a lot of different ways to play with Llanowar Elves now that it is back in Standard for the next five years. This deck is just one way of doing so. The goal of this deck is to develop our mana, and then cast a big Genesis Wave to really take over the board in the mid to late game.

Our curve starts with Llanowar Elves, and we have a variety of good three drops to curve it into. Clifftop Lookout finds us a land, continuing our mana acceleration, while Loot, Exuberant Explorer lets us play an extra land, which also gives us more acceleration. Wrenn and Realmbreaker doesn’t ramp us, but it can find us more action or just help us beat the opponent down.

Tender Wildguideis the flex spot in our ramp suite. It could be any of the other two mana, mana creatures, or it could be Glimpse the Core for guaranteed ramp. What I like about Tender Wildeguide is that it can also be a four drop, giving us something to do with our mana when we aren’t quite ready to cast our big spells.

Our last ramp spell is Invasion of Zendikar, fetching two lands from our deck and giving us the option of flipping it into a creature.

Our top end includes Fecund Greenshell, which helps us put more lands into play and will eventually buff up our whole team, and Vivien Reid, a powerful planeswalker that can find us more action or take out problematic permanents the opponent may have such as Unholy Annex.

Buried in the Garden is a removal spell and gives us a little bit of ramp, but most importantly it is a permanent, which will matter once we discuss the next spell.

Genesis Wave is our big ramp payoff, letting us reveal the top X cards in our library and put all permanents with mana value X or less into play for free. That is why the rest of our deck is just permanent spells. Our curve tops out at 5, so you will want to at least cast it for X is five or more if you can.

We could have bigger things in this deck, but I figure that casting it for X=5, which is eight mana total, is a realistic goal to achieve in most games.

Our sideboard gives us access to Elspeth’s Smite for aggro decks, Pawpatch Formation for more answers to enchantments, Tranquil Frillback as a flexible answer, more copies of Vivien Reid when we need to grind, and Soul-Guide Lantern for graveyard hate.

I’m sure there are a lot of ways to build this deck, and this may not be the best way. It will take some testing and some changing of numbers or trying different ways to ramp, or even changing around the top end.

There will also be a lot of ways to build with Llanowar Elves, and this deck is just one of many that are possible for the next five years of Standard.

Wrapping Up

Foundations is a cool set that offers a lot of solid pieces for a variety of decks and archetypes. The five decks presented here are really just scratching the surface of what is possible with this set, and there is still a lot of fun brewing left to do.

I’m optimistic that Foundations will make an impact on competitive Standard as well, and hopefully shake up the current dichotomy of aggro and midrange that has taken over competitive events.

With all that said, I hope this article was helpful in getting you ready to play Foundations tomorrow. As always, best of luck in all of your matches and happy release day!