Top 4 Things to Know About Standard This Week - Episode 16
In the week of May 18 - 24, many high-caliber tournaments were held:
- the CAMS Regional Championship – T12 in Mexico City,
- theANZ Super Series Cycle 12 Regional Championship in Adelaide, Australia,
- the MIT (Master Invitational Tour) in Taipei,
- theMTG SEA Championship Final 2025-26 Round 3 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Here we provide an overview of the salient aspects and most exciting decks from each of them.
1) Mexico City Regional Championship
FINALIST - Dimir Excruciator
- 4 × Deceit
- 4 × Superior Spider-Man
- 3 × Doomsday Excruciator
- 2 × Emeritus of Ideation
- 2 × Quantum Riddler
- 4 × Requiting Hex
- 3 × Bitter Triumph
- 1 × Shoot the Sheriff
- 3 × Duress
- 3 × Winternight Stories
- 2 × Day of Black Sun
- 2 × Stock Up
- 1 × Strategic Betrayal
- 9 × Swamp
- 4 × Gloomlake Verge
- 4 × Restless Reef
- 4 × Watery Grave
- 2 × Cavern of Souls
- 2 × Undercity Sewers
- 1 × Multiversal Passage
- 3 × Flashfreeze
- 3 × Qarsi Revenant
- 2 × Deadly Cover-Up
- 2 × Oildeep Gearhulk
- 1 × Disdainful Stroke
- 1 × Duress
- 1 × Ghost Vacuum
- 1 × Quantum Riddler
- 1 × Strategic Betrayal
Excruciator is certainly the deck that gains the most, despite the continued strong performance of 
Control, Prowess, and Landfall decks.
Francisco Avila won the tournament with a version of Excruciator that I personally find very clever. You can also find it online under the name Superior Excruciator.
Deadly Cover-Up is no longer in the main deck, but only in the sideboard. The main deck only includes fast wraths, namely Day of the Black Sun. The deck seems to be moving in the opposite direction from the orthodox approach that Excruciator is taking. Here, the goal is to go straight for the combo, while the current European development line is to be able to win even without the combo. Hence, the removal of Doomsday Excruciator post-side to circumvent graveyard hate. A play we often see in the community.
Francisco thought differently: 3 Duress in the main deck, one in the side, Cavern of Souls to avoid counters on Superior Spider-Man, and that's it.
This paid off in the tournament, but I'm not sure how much it would pay off in general. The only direct answer to Rest in Peace remaining between the sideboard and main deck is Deceit. Deadly Cover-Up post-side could remove it from the graveyard and other zones, but it has to get there first.
Let's say the list is excellent, but it causes me some unease in the current meta. I would probably remove a Quarsi Revenant from the side and add an Ancient Vendetta in its place. This card is too underrated. In the current metashare, it steals games. E.g., casting it on the play, after the turn Control taps out, to name Jeskai Revelation, most likely means winning the game.
Other good ideas are found at position 31. An attempt to make Bounce competitive again, similar to Samuele Estratti's at the RC in Turin in March 2026. There's something to review in the deck, starting with the sixty-first card which seems unjustified considering the hypergeometric calculations of the mana base.
However, I like the integration of Aang, Swift Savior, Dream Beavers, and especially Skycoach Conductor into the old decklist. The latter, with Flash, can create some pretty good combat flicker effects.
For example, if we have Sunpearl Kirin on the battlefield and it's our opponent's attack step, we can cast Skycoach Conductor, move to blocks, block two creatures, blink Sunpearl Kirin with Skycoach Conductor's All Aboard ability, then bounce Skycoach Conductor back to our hand thanks to Sunpearl Kirin's ETB ability which triggers when it returns to the battlefield.
We blocked a potentially gigantic attack and didn't lose a single creature.
2) Adelaide Regional Championship
Completely different from the previous one, this all-Australian meta features big creatures. Aggro predominates.
Riley Beck wins with a 
Aggro deck. A classic list without the Rhythm package. It includes Surrak, Elusive Hunter for protection and card advantage, and a Lumbering Worldwagon to positively modify the deck's statistics by removing lands, activating additional landfall effects, ramping, and creating a second synergy line with Earthbender Ascension.
Sheltered by Ghosts in the side is already more unusual. I don't like it too much, as current black-based decks use spells that force sacrifices, negating the aura's ward, and the format has enough one-mana removals that, even if you pay three for a 2-for-1, they are worth it.
More peculiar is Scott Aitchison's Discard, which uses the classic creature package (Hardened Academic, Iron-Shield Elf, Moonshadow, and Marauding Mako) combining it with a good and gentle Tersa Lightshatter, which helps rummaging and buffs other creatures.
Practiced Offense, we've understood, gives a great boost to the deck, while Leyline of the Void in the side makes for unexpected matches. It's atypical as graveyard hate and probably the worst in the format, but getting around it isn't easy since there aren't many ways to remove enchantments from the battlefield.
For personal taste, I don't like it. I'm not a big fan of Leyline effects that force aggressive mulligans if you don't see them in your opening hand, especially in a format where you mulligan quite frequently. However, I recognize that against some matchups, especially mirrors, it's a key card.
Its effectiveness should be tested over a very extensive sample of games, because, at first glance, I wouldn't trust siding in a Leyline against to slow them down when they can cast Boomerang Basics on it for just one mana.
One essential difference is noteworthy: compared to the CAMS, where the top Prowess decks played without Elusive Otter, probably to improve the mirror matchup, here everyone uses it to protect themselves from Landfall decks.
This seems like a clear indication that green-based decks are played much more in that hemisphere than we might think.
3) Taipei Master Invitational Tour
A very diverse tournament, full of surprises.
Dimir Demons
- 4 × Deceit
- 4 × Superior Spider-Man
- 3 × Emeritus of Ideation
- 3 × Wistfulness
- 2 × Oildeep Gearhulk
- 2 × Overlord of the Balemurk
- 4 × Requiting Hex
- 3 × Bitter Triumph
- 1 × Shoot the Sheriff
- 3 × Day of Black Sun
- 2 × Stock Up
- 2 × Winternight Stories
- 1 × Deadly Cover-Up
- 4 × Deathcap Glade
- 4 × Gloomlake Verge
- 4 × Watery Grave
- 3 × Restless Reef
- 2 × Cavern of Souls
- 2 × Overgrown Tomb
- 2 × Swamp
- 2 × Undercity Sewers
- 2 × Wastewood Verge
- 1 × Opulent Palace
- 4 × Duress
- 2 × Doomsday Excruciator
- 2 × Flashfreeze
- 2 × Qarsi Revenant
- 2 × Strategic Betrayal
- 1 × Disdainful Stroke
- 1 × Ghost Vacuum
- 1 × Sunderflock
Contrary to the CAMS, the winner, Samuel Chang, plays a deck that is effectively a midrange deck, where Doomsday Excruciator as a combo plan is kept in the side. So, while in the first game it goes slow, setting up an Overlord of the Balemurk, removing, drawing, forcing discards, and playing Emeritus of Ideation to cast Ancestral Recall on ourselves; in the second game, we aim to surprise the opponent with a lightning-fast finish in a single late turn.
The most interesting things, however, are found elsewhere. In eighth place, for example, we find a very interesting deck named Lessons. It's technically a Jeskai Control, but the player replaces most spells with Lessons to benefit from the Ancestral Recall effect generated by Accumulate Wisdom without having to play Granny for the ramp effect of Tablet of Discovery.
As in the previous two tournaments, the classic Lessons with Monument is at an all-time low, thus proving true the prediction made in previous issues of this column that branded it as a deck in crisis, destined to slowly disappear. But perhaps the Lessons package can find another home.
Also worth noting is Tseng Yu Chun's Tempo list, which placed tenth. A tempo deck definitely worth studying, where there are some rough edges to smooth out, but it's full of good arguments.
Eclectic is the use of Dark Leo & Shredder in synergy with Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, which generates excellent value plays against control decks. All aided by The Last Ronin’s Technique. This could be the first Standard deck where the Ninja tribe makes sense.
Also spicy are the single copies in the main deck of Oroku Saki, Shredder Rising, and Sygg, Wanderwine Wisdom. It seems the player thoroughly studied a way to integrate the TMNT edition, which was the only one almost totally neglected by Standard, into a competitive deck.
4) MTG SEA Championship Final in Kuala Lumpur
Here, the tables turn again, and there's a greater predominance of Decks with the Prowess mechanic.
WINNER - Izzet Bounce
- 4 × Slickshot Show-Off
- 3 × Drake Hatcher
- 2 × Colorstorm Stallion
- 4 × Burst Lightning
- 4 × Opt
- 3 × Secret Identity
- 2 × Vibrant Outburst
- 1 × Into the Flood Maw
- 4 × Boomerang Basics
- 4 × Sleight of Hand
- 3 × Flow State
- 1 × Wild Ride
- 4 × Stormchaser's Talent
- 7 × Island
- 4 × Riverpyre Verge
- 4 × Spirebluff Canal
- 4 × Steam Vents
- 2 × Multiversal Passage
- 2 × Get Out
- 2 × Roaring Furnace
- 2 × Soul-Guide Lantern
- 2 × Spell Pierce
- 2 × Sunspine Lynx
- 1 × Colorstorm Stallion
- 1 × Drake Hatcher
- 1 × Into the Flood Maw
- 1 × Ral, Crackling Wit
- 1 × Slagstorm
Justin Chin wins the tournament with the version that plays Colorstorm Stallion. There are no major upheavals in the library, except that in the side, two slots are dedicated to Sunspine Lynx.
Sunspine Lynx kills control, after forcing it to wrath, if it has no response on the stack, and puts all three-color decks in serious difficulty, except for Kona decks, which operate on a combo line that doesn't fear this type of threat.
More innovative is the Dragons deck that made Top 8, which successfully coordinates Lorehold, the Historian, Puring Stormbrood, and Twinflame Tyrant. A list that aims to have many protection effects, like the first mode of Spectacular Tactics, but on cards that do other useful things in the game pattern, such as removing threats and going on the offensive.
A Boros Charm in the main to snatch a win after an opponent's imprudent block, and a copy of The Legend of Roku to grind if the game tends to go long.
Also worth keeping an eye on is Iqbal Rahim's Aggro, which finds a way to reintegrate Warleader’s Call into the game. Dangerous with main deck Voice of Victory.
“See You Space Cowboy”
Francesco
