FNM at Home: Ikoria Standard Singleton

It is another Friday and what better way to spend it than playing some MTGA in the FNM at Home event. I hope everyone is able to keep safe during the continued COVID epidemic, so stay indoors and connect with friends with the recent release of Ikoria. Today's format will be Standard Singleton, so lets take a moment to understand what it is we are really getting ourselves into. Remember that this is supposed to be FNM themed. That is to have fun with whatever it is you play and play against. I will keep in mind the that more casual players may be interested in this and therefore might not have the largest collection available.

By the way... the current Standard Bans are in effect in addition to Lutri the Spellchaser. A card with no deckbuilding cost here.

Notes on the Singleton Format

- Obviously, since you can only play one of every card, you may be strapped for what you want to put in your deck. The biggest difference is deck consistency, especially in the mana base. If you want to play a 3 color deck, you will have to resort to adding Scoured Barrens and such to keep from getting color screwed. I recommend first looking at what lands you have access to and go from there. Mono colored decks won't have to worry, but you should play a few utility lands such as Field of Ruin.

- Overall deck consistency and speed will drop, therefore the games can go longer, provided you have the right answers. Narrow cards and typical sideboard cards like Unchained Berserker now have a home in the maindeck (though only a small amount). Cards like above,  Shredded Sails and Return to Nature might have a home as the last cards you want to slot in because of their versatility. If they are bad, at least you are only drawing one!

- Try to keep the overall theme consistent though. If you are building a ramp deck, there are many ways to add mana/lands to your battlefield that arent currently played in standard. For instance, Incubation Druid would be a card I'm excited to slot in again. When you play multiple, redundant effects, you can still achieve a similar goal to a standard constructed deck.  Remember, that many cards in standard might be considered strictly worse than many other very similar effects such as Thought Collapse and Absorb, but if you want to play multiple counters, these are still fine!

Singleton with Ikoria Standard

The Boogeymen in Ikoria are going to be the companion cards. These cards are powerful and are inherently doing what no magic card has done before, letting you draw a hand of 8! For the more competitive players, yes, you should be playing a companion deck. What is nice is that they are hybrid casting costs, letting you still see a lot of variety in the singleton field. 

These cards are nice build arounds, and similar to Commander, can easily steer you towards a deck theme. I would expect many opponents to be playing a companion style deck, meaning that you will need to either close the game out before the companion can gain value, or go even more over the top. Some sweet value generators can be stronger on their own such as these.

Closing thoughts

I included a list of cards below you should definitely try to fit in your deck, because they lend themselves very well to a slightly slower format. 

Thanks for taking the time to read and have fun on your Friday adventures!