The Grand Prix in Paris this weekend was Standard and illustrates a fascinating evolution of the format. Pull up the Top 8 and we'll go for a trip down these results.

La Vie en Rouge

I want to start off with the most exciting part for me, Kyoungsoo Kim's Mono-Red Aggro. While another traditional mono-red deck top-eighted, Kim's deck is fascinating to me, since I've been very curious about whether mono-red would survive rotation. This is important because there are plenty of good mono-red cards, but huge elements of that deck rotate. So why is mono-red important to track?

Mono-red is often the first deck people reach for when a format rotates. What happens without Stoke the Flames and Foundry Street Denizen?

Kim's deck suggests that it gets a little bigger on the mana curve with Thunderbreak Regent and Flamewake Phoenix. He's got the dragons and a firebreathing Lightning Berserker to trigger ferocious. He's skipped the Foundry Street Denizens so he doesn't have to run Dragon Fodder into a Bile Blight. At three mana, his Phoenixes replace Hordeling Outburst and manage to get in flying damage on the same turn. It's a heck of a topdeck.

Actions: I like Phoenix a lot here. It's about $0.60 and can easily form the core of a new mono-red deck that goes over the top. I expect mono-red players to pick up the cards to make Kim's deck, knowing that they've now got another option if they think their field is going to be full of Esper Dragons.

Megamorphosis

Deathmist Raptor and Den Protector are proving themselves fine on their own, deadly in combination. The dino has been stable at $22, rising up from about $17 a few weeks ago on a steady incline. Still a bad place to park your money, but these guys are in demand and people want to trade for them. Den Protector is at $8, a price I thought unsustainable (but then, I thought $5 was high). MTGO redemptions are going to start pushing prices down a bit.

The fact remains that these little morphs are going to keep coming back, harassing Esper Dragons and nonrecursive decks alike. Frank Karsten wrote an article on the nine different archetypes he saw; read it carefully. He describes how the decks trigger it (like Ashcloud Phoenix and Whisperwood Elemental) and how other decks beat the Raptor (fly over it, hit with Abzan Charm and more). If you're set on beating the Raptor, Frank wrote about seven strategies to kill them as well. Many of his suggestions are fanciful, but he rightly points out cards like Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Anafenza, the Foremost as cards to hack down the recursion.

Actions: Understand that this combo is going to be part of Standard for a long time, whereas we are losing many answers to it.

I like Anazfenza at $3.75 as a long-term addition to Abzan lists. She hits darned hard and stops ridiculous loops. Unfortunately, she almost demands you one-for-one the Raptor to exile it. Abzan has no first-strikers, after all. She's also from Khans, the world's most popular set. She could see $5 in a few months, but this is mostly a call for you to pick them up for your Abzan list now.

Esper Dragons Cannot Stop the Deathmist Loop Profitably

Big pounders like Ojutai and Silumgar are about all you can rely on against Deathmist Raptor and Den Protector. The rest of Esper Dragons is set up to one-for-one the opponent and then recharge with a Dragonlord's Prerogative or other large spell.

That doesn't work as well when they're hitting Den Protectors that have already rebought another Den Protector, for instance. It doesn't give much of an edge against an opponent who sneaks an end-step Collected Company through.

Esper Dragons is a list that doesn't respect the megamorphs enough and it will suffer until it does. I predict that this means less Foul-Tongue Invocation and more Encase in Ice on the sideboard. I also expect more Elspeth and Ashiok, since both cards generally avoid the megamorphs.

Mardu Dragons Shows Up... Barely

In 16th place is a Mardu list that I'm pleased to see. Patrick Dickmann also sleeved up Mardu but failed to make it far enough. I still love this deck. It's up to four Soulfire Grand Master now, which gives an insultingly powerful lategame against durdly Deathmist decks. "Let's see," says the Mardu player, "I can kill you with Dragons in the air; I have ten of them." Looking at the Masters, our dragonlord says, "or maybe I can just recur Draconic Roar and gain six life every turn."

The combination especially with Draconic Roar is insane with Soulfire Grand Master, by the way. It'll kill all sorts of morphs and flipped megamorphs, and the six life points means that you can straight-up ignore the opponent's attacks. In fact, a 4/4 Raptor is probably better because it gives you a persistent target each turn!

On top of all that, Mardu Dragons gets access to Anger of the Gods off the sideboard. That sweeps away all the token trash, cleans up against Mono-red, even kills Caryatids if you're interested in keeping an opponent off of Ugin mana. I love this deck going into the summer. Let's hope it gets good tools from Origins to further power it up.

Collected Company on the Rise

This green instant has put on $3 to its pricetag over the weekend. It lets you get out Raptors and Den Protectors (no Regrowth on 'em though) and a host of other cards if you want to be specialized. I think the four-color Company decks look thrilling and bad. Flipping two Mantis Rider from Collected Company looks crazy good, but I also expect some number of games to involve staring at Savage Knuckleblade in hand and the wrong Temples in play.

Craig Wescoe showed us last week what this card looks like in White Weenie. This week, we're seeing it show up in even more decks. I've also seen Warden of the First Tree show up with it. That unimpressive mythic is probably going to take over for Fleecemane Lion as soon as the cat and first-turn "Temple, Go" plays rotate out of the format.

Plus ça Change, Plus C'est la Même Chose

Abzan wins again.

Four weeks ago, Abzan was laughing at Den Protectors and Raptors. It has begun to integrate them this week. What lost out? From what I can see, Tasigur is Sir Not Appearing in This Top 8. Investing heavily in that guy seems rough when a deathtoucher can sit back and block him from the other side. There were only two copies in the whole Top 16.

Abzan has been looking particularly aggressive lately. Full sets of Rakshasa Deathdealers with Fleecemane Lions make this deck swing in fast. They've been playing a few copies of Elspeth, Sun's Champion on the board, but the Ugin of a month ago is nearly absent.

Actions: As mentioned above, Warden of the First Tree is getting more play. He's dropped from $4.50 to $2.50 these days and I like it. Playable mythics tend to quickly snap back up in price and he's seeing play in the Collected Company decks as well. Furthermore, Wingmate Roc is also attractively priced at $3.

I'm also seeing Hidden Dragonslayer come up as a one- or two-of, shooting down dragons and flipping up for Deathmist value. He's $0.75 currently--that's pricey for a bulk rare but he has promise. He's no Den Protector, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a deck running four of these just cruise through stacks of dragons.

Quick Hits

• Tasigur continues his downward trend; they can be had for $5.25 now. This upcoming metagame looks very hostile to him and I'd trade out of mine now.
• Mastery of the Unseen is $1.25 and I'm perplexed why it isn't $3. This card is going to cause problems from all sorts of sideboards.
• There's a weird outside chance that Garruk, Apex Predator is the best answer to Deathmist Raptor and company. You get to match it with deathtouch creatures every turn and eventually overwhelm an opponent.

If it happens next week, you can read about it here!

-Doug