There's a new terrifyingly quick deck in Magic: The Gathering's Standard format, one that can easily claim the win by turn three if you're not prepared to face it. This monocolored aggro deck relies on one of the most busted red cards from Avatar The Last Airbender, and it's triggered a 500% price rise for the Foundations card Bulk Up.
This newly premium uncommon was previously selling for just 30 cents, but now a copy will net you $1.80, so go check your bulk (ha) boxes.
The key to this deck is Firebending Student, a little two drop with big dreams of crushing your opponents life total. Firebending Student has prowess and firebending X, where X is equal to its power.
That means if you play some buffs before combat, you can generate a ton of mana with Firebending Student, and then reinvest that mana to cast even more pump spells. The spiking card Bulk Up is particularly great in this deck because it can double your beater's power and then be recast with the firebending mana for an even bigger hit.
Turn 2 Firebending Student, Turn 3 Dreadmaw's Ire and Bulk Up. By the time you enter combat you have a 10/6, making you 10 mana. That's more than enough to recast Bulk Up from the grave to make the student a 22-power trampler. In fact, you'll have enough to play some burn spells or additional combat tricks besides, to really secure the win.
This line is powerful but admittedly, pretty risky. All it takes is one removal spell to cause a massive upset. Fortunately, there's plenty of other stuff this deck can do, using other aggressive creatures like Slickshot Show-Off. And since Dreadmaw's Ire grants haste, you can just wait until a turn when your opponent taps out to pull off the one-hit KO later in the match.
Casting my mind back, I think red right now is starting to look very reminiscent of the ultra-fast decks that were popping off around Duskmourn's release and which contributed to Monstrous Rage catching a ban. Just like before, we see Callous Sell-Sword being used as a Fling equivalent to burn the opponent out and Leyline of Resonance making it into decks to double up combat tricks.
We'll have to see how the new meta and best MTG Arena decks respond to this trend, but one things for sure, we're very, very thankful for certain additions to the MTG banlist this year. Firebending Student would be an absolute menace alongside Cori-Steel Cutter and Vivi Ornitier; Izzet Prowess would be disgusting right now.
Given how far in advanced WotC designs sets, we can assume that Firebending Student was designed long before the bans were decreed. It's hard to believe that WotC could want all these pieces in the same Standard! Are they still doing testing over there?
What decks are you playing in Standard right now? Let us know on the Wargamer Discord.