Standard Deck Examination: Solar Flare

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of the emporium, today we will be looking at perhaps the most abused deck list since the rotation Black/Blue/White Solar Flare which was the most played deck at Star City's Nashville Standard open this past weekend with the top 16 having 7 different solar flare decks make the top 16 including one Jonathan Medina's list whom we are going to analyze today, so let's go.

Jonathan Medina's Solar Flare List - 4th Place [Standard] Star City Open, Nashville


Creatures
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Phantasmal Image
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Sun Titan

Spells
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Doom Blade
3 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Think Twice
1 Tribute to Hunger
3 Day of Judgment
3 Timely Reinforcements
3 Unburial Rites

Planeswalkers
2 Jace, Memory Adept
3 Lillana of the Veil

Lands
4 Island
2 Plains
2 Swamp
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Drowned Catacomb
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Seachrome Coast

Sideboard
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Stony Silence
2 Dissipate
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Jin Gitixais, Core Augur
1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Day of Judgment
2 Revoke Existence
1 Timely Reinforcements

First off when you think of Solar Flare, what comes to mind a Dragonball Z reference from the good old days when Tien used a Solar flare attack, this is different i assure you, this is a deck designed to be as devestating as possible with no drawbacks, as well as having basically 8 copies of specific spells in the deck to do the business thanks to Flashback on the Snapcaster Mage, it's also meant to control the match for as long as possible while bringing out big guns like Sun Titan and such to reuse those permanents over again after a board wipe like Day of Judgment. This means the deck to beat this year is this, but hang on we aren't done this article in fact there's a comparison i'd like to do of course with the 2nd place list of Christian Valenti

Christian Valenti's Solar Flare - 2nd Place [Standard] Star City Open, Nashville


Creatures
1 Grave Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Phantasmal Image
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Sun Titan

Spells
1 Batterskull
3 Oblivion Ring
1 Celestial Purge
3 Doom Blade
4 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Mana Leak
3 Think Twice
2 Day of Judgment
3 Timely Reinforcements
2 Unburial Rites

Lands
4 Island
4 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Isolated Chapel
3 Seachrome Coast

Sideboard
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Azure Mage
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Celestial Purge
2 Dissipate
2 Surgical Extraction
1 White Sun's Zenith
1 Day of Judgment
2 Revoke Existence
2 Sever the Bloodline

There are some serious notable differences between the two lists, for starters no walkers are present in this list. The second thing that is different is the notable change in spells/artifacts, the 2nd place list has itself a Batterskull and a Grave Titan in the mix where as medina's list doesn't, did that affect how this deck plays, yes because it got 2 places higher with the Grave/Batterskull pairing then without the two of them, meaning if you were to look at it at a perspective of something important i'd say 1 of these two make the list doable, more then likely the Batterskull since it affects the board state 2 turns earlier then the titan does. Now let's look at the primer for this deck since this deck is established and the boys over at MTGSalvation.com have come up with something in regards to this list.

Here is the primer list for the site MTGsalvation.

MTGSalvation.com Primer List - Solar Flare


Creatures
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Phantasmal Image
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Sun Titan

Spells
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Doom Blade
4 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Think Twice
1 Tribute to Hunger
3 Lillana of the Veil
3 Day of Judgment
3 Unburial Rites
3 Timely Reinforcements

Lands
4 Island
5 Plains
2 Swamp
2 Darkslick Shores
3 Drowned Catacomb
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Isolated Chapel
1 Seachrome Coast

Sideboard
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Stony Silence
2 Dissipate
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Day of Judgment
2 Revoke Existence
1 Timely Reinforcements

Now the notable differences about this primer list is that Wurmcoil Engine is a 3x in this deck 2 in the sideboard and 1 in the maindeck, while we have the obvious additions of both Surgical Extraction and Stony Silence to our sideboard for the deck, it's pretty much the same, except without Jace, Memory Adept to do the business he does so well, since there isn't a lot of black spells in this only Lillana, Unburial Rites and Tribute to Hunger in the main deck it would make sense there isn't a lot of black sources in the primer deck with 7 potential black sources in all for 3 main deck cards total, the usual creature base of Phantasmal Image, Snapcaster Mage and Sun Titan make this deck pretty damn decent with the exception of course of one Consecrated Sphinx which is only 1 of 2 draw sources in this deck, the final notable difference about this deck from the rest is the sideboard Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite to deal with the weenie matchups/tokens other then that this is one deck for the ages and i'd love to see how Dark Ascension affects this deck in the long run, perhaps a new Sorin Markov variant as a main deck card of choice or perhaps something new, we will wait and see when Dark Ascension hits in feburary of next year, till then this is vergil signing off, also i will be adding the statistics for this deck as a link below

Full List of Results ---> Solar Flare Full Results