Two bits of note on this deck. Commune with Spirits is great turn 1 tech for smoothing out land-lite vs. enchantment-lite hands. Second, placing a pause on upkeep when sagas are about to flip is a good idea - even when you don't have a Rite of Harmony in hand. If you topdeck one, you can then play it in the paused draw step before the sagas flip. I've been playing this deck since the previous standard, and it's my favorite deck by far.

17:55 for those wondering, Safron had 73 power on board (8 spirits and 1 baby spirit)

39:20 Because your Naya deck is actually working and beating a lot of those black based decks, it feels diverse enough. Like, sure, you're facing a lot of decks running the same core of good black cards, but you're playing a deck that seems good at picking them apart, which means in a month we could see a somewhat more diverse meta that includes this Saga list floating around in the mix, and then maybe some blue-based deck that is good at handling Sagas but not so good at handling black decks, etc. If you were getting stomped by black decks over and over, it would feel like the meta is stale, but since you're doing fairly well, it feels more like a "we broke it" kind of thing that indicates a meta shift, and I'm happy to see that.

52:32 Game was probably lost anyway, but you could have blocked the bloodtithe harvester for free with the Protection from Vampires.

I wonder what Chatterfang and Rite would do in other formats

Seeing Seth...not play naturalist multiple times into saga hurt. Seemingly forgetting it reduces the cost of fable every time

This deck looks hella fun! And it'll look even better on my brand new MTGGoldfish "Ebb and Flow" playmat that just arrived today!

Seeing Seth play this deck singlehandedly got me back into playing on Arena. Loving the Naya Saga Storm.

Can't believe I didn't know about rite of harmony. It was the missing piece for enchantments to really go off. Had tried literally everything else in every color combo. Rite of Harmony + jukai naturalist + hallowed haunting with selesnya sagas is crazy effective, consistent and resilient

You can tell Safron is excited about the deck when you have to check if you are accidentally playing the video at 1.5 speed :)

I'm with you. Most standard decks feel like Mono black and friends. (with the occasional mono blue)

48:26 Seth: "We can probably win here, but I would rather draw a lot of cards." Opponent: Immediately scoops

Dude, I have been waiting for you to play Rite of Harmony for the longest time. A couple of things about Rite of Harmony, you could also put a stop on your first main phase instead of upkeep, not that that actually matters much. Also, if you have Weaver of Harmony on the battlefield you don’t have to set a stop.

This deck ABSOLUTELY needs The World Spell as a way to get some finishers

a few cards I found helpful in consistency: Love Song of Night and Day can do the draw duty pretty well, and Commune with Spirits can be a great digging piece.

The prevalence of black decks likely comes from the fact that black has almost every effect you could possibly want amongst its cards, sometimes even just incidentally. Card draw, reanimation, removal, graveyard hate, sweepers, and really efficient threats. So, most random piles of mono-black cards will be reasonably functional and flexible, something that can't be said about your average random pile of other mono-colored cards. It also splashes really well, because there just happen to be a lot of good multicolored cards with black in them (Ob Nixilis, Harvester, Raffine, Zur, Windgrace, Anvil), and it shores up whatever weakness that particular color might have. It also helps that basically every other dominant deck archetype lost most of their staple cards while black got to keep a few of its best ones, with really good cards to replace the ones that it lost.

Rite of Harmony: better than I expected. Edit: I never thought I'd say this, but gods I am bored of Meathook Massacre.

love this build so durpy its good its a perfect deck for you seth!!!

Black isn't even that much of a problem for me anymore. It's still heavily prevalent, but now that I've adapted my decks to deal with it, it's usually favorable for me to get matched up vs black. Blue tempo is the TRUE scourge of this (as well as every other) format. I legitimately don't understand how you're supposed to combat a perfect turn 0 transformed Delver. Cancerous Curious-Obsession-wannabe into unlimited card draw; leading to unlimited counterspells which they always have mana for because they never need to play a single card to advance beyond their turn 1/2 curve. But Djinn and Tolarian Terror sure make their presence known despite never needing to hit the field. Too much bounce, too much card draw, too much protection, too much effortless counterspells, too much damage. Absolutely maddening archetype.

Saga tribal. Very nice to jank them out.

This was awesome! ...I'm really disappointed that I'm missing 19 Rares from this list.

Set the stop on main phase so you can respond to the triggers if you desire

I saw storm and must watch 👀

Upkeep stops aren't as good as 1st main phase stops bc you can topdeck Rite of Harmony and the Sagas don't flip until the main phase anyway

So many tenacious underdogs

Answering Seth's question from 39:10. The thing is Black is very strong in this rotation. The same thing can be said when mill was the strongest archetype in the previous rotation. I'm not sure if it's a blatant pattern, but it seems like every rotation there's at least one meta in Standard.

That Kiki is adorable in the thumbnail ❤️

41:25 that's MTGA for you all! Where is the surprise?

there is a black combo that makes your oppoent draww half their deck in explorer, but it was used with an enchantment. i think it was dogged persuit or something. sheildred is a much better version but i want to see an explorer deck that uses the "give you cards to burn you alive" combo

The more varieties of black there are, diverse it gets.

Didn't think of rites but I had a very similar build idea with vorinclez which is fun

For your question at ~39:10 No, these decks don't seem diverse. They all have the exact same base and some of them just come with a twist. Invoke, Tenacious, Liliana, Meathook, and cemetery. Then you can either go full black or splash another color for what you want. White - anointed -- Blue -- Counterspell ... it's all the same every single time. This standard rotation has not been fun to me. I've seen less and less janky decks since rotation. It's just all the same cards.

Incredible thumbnail

39:28 i feel that black is currently seeing the "Lurrus Effect" modern did just before the ban. Lurrus was great, almost broken, so everyone played it. You had a bunch of archetypes that didnt feel diverse because "oh look, another lurrus deck" But hey, meathook is banned now so let's see how it changes :3

39:22 it’s better than just seeing rouges every match like it was last standard rotation 🤷‍♂️

Ah yes, Naya storm. Just another normal day at the table.

Seth, an upkeep stop at 24:20 wouldn't have helped, because I think you technically drew it after the saga transformed To add: if you could have cast it, the game would have given you the opportunity instead of passing.

39:00 I think too many people are playing black. It is annoying to be playing against the same 6 cards (Lilly, Underdog, Meathook, Trespasser, Sheoldred, Invoke). It's not like Black is OP either. Mono white control, this deck; there's a ton of cool powerful decks in standard right now. I've had a ton of success with Bant Superfriends.

Salty rope? No Salty scoop? No Salty geometric calculation? Yes

In Match 3 you drew 9 lands in 13, one plains was tutored out by a restoration

I notice that we're in Red solely for Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. How much would it shave off our budget it was replaced with, I dunno, Michiko's Reign of Truth?

If you call “restoration of EIGANJO” restoration of ejano one more time I’m cursing you to flood all your hands

I love Sheoldred, but that card is making standard so stale that I haven't been logging into Arena. Every streamer I watch, plays against a Sheoldred so to answer your question any black combination is the same. lol This deck is bringing me back though, can't wait to try it :)

I wonder if this is workable with 5c for The Kami War...

I've played against this deck a couple times now. The first time I saw it, I thought "what the.... hey, that's cool!"

Seth is just so completely unhinged. You can see it in his eyes. He's spent so much time playing against the odds decks, he's lost all grounding to reality or truth. It's wonderful to see. "meeting of the five? what a crazy good card, loved it"

Hey Seth! quick question.. why do you cast rite of harmony on your upkeep? you could cast it in response to the saga's flipping and then you have more information (for example the card you draw on your draw step, relevant for example min 55:41)

I knew Dennick would get him because I did the same thing

Mono black and life gain is just pain

Would Brilliant Restoration be viable one or two of in a deck like this? It’s expensive but it could be a late game hand refill with rite of harmony and is at least a board rebuild

41:20 oh, arena shuffler. When you have a good deck and have a decent win streak, Arena will give you either the flood or the screw. It sucks, though.

No wonder I ran into this twice tonight in ranked bo3... Went 1-1

Could this work in pioneer???

I'll play against any variety of black over another Haughty Djinn any day

at 7:40 you didnt need to draw a land no? Because you could have played the naturalist and that would have made Kiki cost only 2 mana?

Ohh, I have a fun against the odd deck. its a dollhouse of horrors and a value engine deck using karn, scion of urza, oni cult anvil, sokozan smelter, thought monitors, and combustible gearhulks

How come you didn't include that card that brings back all enchantments?

How would Jugan defends the temple fare in this deck?

Petition to start calling all BR sacrifice decks Sackdos since it’s such a common archetype.

If the meta is heavy black, it's not your fault. We need a black deck killer!

Eye-Gone-Joe

Shouldn't the sagas put a +1/+1 counter on the token at 43:53?

Is this deck better than Naya Runes was?

The first time I saw someone play this was CGB 12 days ago, then LVD 10 days ago. You're a little behind the times but Crim will play it in another month and complain its not grixis enough for him 🤣🤣

"We're getting punished for discarding two lands..." We? You got a mouse in your pocket? XD Tell your mouse it's fine to keep a land when you've got a grip of four other midpriced cards!

7:30 Uh, why didnt you naturalist first?

Why didn’t you naturalist before fable?

26 lands ... with mtga's shuffler ... geeze thats some risk.

Maybe it's because I'm not as good as Seth but um... he's not taking advantage of the Pro Vampires line on Katilda could have gained so much life

I've tried this deck, it sadly doesn't hold up to the blue black mid decks or the jund mid decks. It's great at beating up on Sac and any Invoke Despair (as long as you answer Sheoldred) deck you run in to, but it's too fragile to having a few key pieces answered (even if they are harder to answer). It's a shame because the deck is fun, but according to goldfish's meta percentage (at the time of me posting this) you're bad against 37.8 percent of the meta, all of which are towards the top of the meta)

Seth properly pronouncing Eiganjo instead of Ejano challenge. Difficulty Impossible

You'd make a very fun voice actor.

at 23 16 if seth had played that land drop he would've been able to pay for the syncopate. big yikes

7:28 idk why it bothers me so much when someone misplays like this (jukai reduces enchantments by 2 he could play both safely)

It's not eijano, eiganjo has 2 g/j sounds hahaha

23:00 playing the land first beats syncopate. Almost always correct to play land first.

Great, you've ruined my standard games lol

Standard is super diverse right now, but you can only see it when playing BO3 matches. Despite being black the dominating color, there's so many variarions and combinations around it that you trully never know what deck you're going to face against. I like this black standard meta.

Why not touch of the spirit realm on the wedding announcement to shink their dudes?

am I the only one confused as to why he doesn't play naturalist before other enchantments ? he could've saved so much mana

Before Matches start, Me: Huh...I already invested in a playset of *Hallowed Haunting* .... I hope this 4-1s or better. I'll build this, no problem. After Matches, Me: [Check Reply]

Besides the fact this was before Brothers War and Soldiers becoming a top tier deck, it definitely wasn't diverse. It was the same package of black cards with a small package of how to better utilize them. It was essentially a bunch of mirror matches with different tech. BUT Meathook getting banned I think really crippled black decks? Again besides the fact soldiers is now top tier and cheap, I feel like I don't see black decks nearly as much. You still see them because Invoke, Sheoldred, Lili, and a suite of removal is always going to be good... but black decks have become much more defensive and get beat out pretty well against the aggro decks they can't keep up with now that the life gain from meathook is gone

Black is super pushed this standard and it makes the play experience suck.

Eye jano

It's I- GAN-JO WITH A FUCKING G AND NOT A J FFS! HOW ARE YOU EVEN GETTING "EIJANO" OUT OF IT?!?! Ahhhhhhhhhh

@MTGGoldfish saffron! Play me on arena so I can show you this standard deck I built called 16 blob

I just hate rakdos at this point, you see it every match in standard, every other match in modern, even brawl is full of it

Eijano

I wouldn't expect you to play like 100 matches to find the one bant or gruul deck lol it's definitely diverse enough and I don't think people mind watching black decks get stomped

I've heard rumblings that Mirror Breaking may be facing the ban hammer next week. If this happens, what would be the best thing to replace them with? It'll almost certainly make the deck worse, but it might at least improve the mana base.

So...no storm...just enchantres...

When it comes to standard meta I feel like it's really stale and uninteresting right now. The 20 black cards are almost always there, and the number of people not playing black is really low. All the rakdos/dime/orzhov decks also play the same spells with just 3 to 4 differences each time. And when it comes to Modern, I'd say it's the other way around. Sure, you see a lot of Ragavans but honestly I don't think they are too strong for the format. There's a huge variety of playable decks - Hammer, Murktide, both versions of Death's Shadow, Amulet, Scam, Living End, Rhinos, Merfolk, 8 Rack and so on. Most of these do use some MH2 cards but they don't all share a 20-card package with one another.

I'm not a fan of a format practically REQUIRING you to play a specific color even if the cards of that color are significantly different in each deck

Im really sick of the back-based decks. ALL of the current standard best cards are black, and people just swap around some components. I just cant play anymore and have given up totally on this standard format after so many of the same black based decks.

Seth's pronunciation of Eiganjo is especially driving me up the wall today. Normally it's tolerable, but I'm considering clicking off while I'm down here in the comments.. Seth, if you're reading this, it's AYY-GONE-JOE. Not "Ejanno".

So it's not storm at all because you don't gain mana ok

i had all the cards for this deck, built it. its absolutely disgusting

Meathook, Lili, underdog... boring boring boring

MH2 is my least favorite set because of how it killed modern's diversity

This dude definitely still has little hugs drinks in his fridge and has no children. 😂