This deck takes advantage the Best of 1 matchmaking system and gives us one of the strongest "weak" decks in the game. We want to be cheap, quick, efficient and we want the overall deck strength to be considered low so we avoid the tier 1 decks and keep ourselves in the lower tier deck. It is a tempo deck meaning we fall into the category between aggro and midrange, we want to be quick while denying our opponents the opportunity of blocking by either sneaking past them or disabling their blockers.

Source for how matchmaking works: Chris clay Interview
Note: this is only in the Best of 1 Free mode and not in any events or BO3 queues.

The deck is great for beginners and very easy to craft, we will go through the philosophy of the card choices and how it differentiates from the Jungle Secrets starter deck which it originated from. But first, what the goal is, the goal is to grind quick while it is not invincible it is very powerful in the right hands. It might seem easy to just play out creatures and hit but it's all about the correct sequencing and playing around your opponent's deck. This makes it the perfect deck to train with if you are a beginner, it will matchmake you mostly with similar decks of lower power but at the same time, it will give you the advantage of being one of the stronger decks if played correctly. While we will go through how to play all the cards, I will leave that up to you to learn and experience as it is super fun and a better experience to just play it yourself, we will go through the main differences between this and the Jungle Secrets starter deck.

First, Get rid of the tap lands as they are way to slow. The Hinterland Harbors is nice but it upgrades the power level of the deck. Just to make it clear on how it works; Cards are assigned a power level based on how many times they are Crafted with wildcards. The more non-crafted cards you but it the deck the weaker it will be rated. We only use basic lands

Too slow and not too much impact. While we do put counters on stuff we do risk it just being removed and rather than using time on setting this up we just go for the throat right away. I found Kumena not doing anything in the deck, we want to hit the face and do not have time for tapping stuff for value. Control decks should die quickly without getting into the long game. Remember that there is no sideboarding here.

Great creature, hard to play turn 3 which often makes it a turn 4 play. Also a popular card to craft, get out of my deck.

Seafloor Oracle can stay as the one value card for drawing, I found him being far more valuable than the Herald of Secret Streams. We cut one Tempest Caller and put in another Sleep instead as that is far stronger card.

To slow, with this strategy, we would rather have a quicker card.

There is already three in the starter deck so one more does not matter and it is the best card in the deck.

Full Kumena playset and in with three Mist Heralds lowering the curve significantly.

Great card as a 2-drop as it has evasion, might even run more of this card too so dont feel bad if you want to put more of her in the deck.

Nuts and Bolts Spike spends his energy looking within. He tries to understand his own internal flaws and works to improve them.

I run Team Aether and stream MTG Arena on Twitch.tv/andreliverod, playing both Standard and limited. Stop by and say hello!
Connect with us on discord.aetherhub.com