Standard: Orzhov Kirin - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Orzhov Kirin is the latest iteration of the Bounce decks that have been a role player in Standard this season. This version originally came about at Pro Tour Aetherdrift as a meta call response to an environment where both Red Aggro and Bounce were the most played strategies, and aims to capitalize on Temporary Lockdown and ways to return the enchantment to its owner's hand to reuse the ETB of its cheap permanents, while allowing for a more “Control” stance in the mirror and/or aggressive games.

The addition of Sunpearl Kirin with Tarkir: Dragonstorm was one of the elements that catapulted Orzhov's popularity today.

Before, giving up blue meant losing consistency in returning your permanents to your hand, since the only interaction possible was with Nurturing Pixie. Now, in addition to the interactions with Lockdown, the archetype has eight bounce effects to reuse the most relevant ETBs, and in the case of Kirin, even to protect its permanents from removal.

This list is the standard we find in most Magic Arena ranked games and Challenges. Variations include the exclusion of Serra Paragon, or the increase of Beza, the Bounding Spring in the Sideboard and even the insertion of Liliana of the Veil in the maindeck.

Given the need to have an efficient early game against Aggro while also needing the largest possible amount of attrition tools for longer games, the version with Serra Paragon and Loran of the Third Path — which improved with the release of Cori-Steel Cutter — seems like the safest way to make your way to the MTGArena ranked table or finish the Magic Online Leagues with good results.

Playing with the Deck

Like every Bounce strategy in Standard today, Orzhov Kirin is a proactive archetype that tries to extract value from its permanents from the first turn with Hopeless Nightmare or Grim Bauble, and even a Nurturing Pixie in the second turn by returning and reusing these cards is enough to delay the opponent's plans.

However, we are much more Midrange/Control than traditional lists. Without Optimistic Scavenger or Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, we widen our response window with Temporary Lockdown while ensuring card advantage with Unholy Annex, even having the backup of Soulstone Sanctuary to not lose as much life to the enchantment.

The endgame is when we manage to exhaust the opponent's resources and build a clock on the board. This can be done by combining Sunpearl Kirin and Nurturing Pixie with Unholy Annex to return it to the hand after unlocking Ritual Chamber, creating various 6/6 tokens.

Despite the clear game plan, Orzhov Kirin lacks flexibility. The absence of This Town Ain’t Big Enough and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares leaves it in a much fairer position than the blue variants, and makes it better suited to include Temporary Lockdown in the maindeck in these matchups, but with a potentially worse matchup against other Midranges.

On the other hand, this variant has more stability in the color combination that helps to play cards with greedier mana values ​​— and in not losing to Sunspine Lynx, in addition to avoiding some games being lost because we take too much damage from Pain Lands, or we don’t find the right color combination in the first three turns.

Maindeck

The Bounce.

Nurturing Pixie is the cheapest interaction on the list for reusing the permanents we cast, and its 2/2 body with Flying for does some work to establish pressure in the early turns.

Sunpearl Kirin costs more mana in exchange for more versatility when it comes to recasting your cards. Some common combinations involve returning Nowhere to Run, casting it, and using Kirin to block a creature with five toughness, or even returning Temporary Lockdown at the end of the opponent's turn to trigger all ETBs in the end step.

Temporary Lockdown serves a dual purpose on this list. Against the mirror or Aggro, it is a cheap and versatile sweeper that works at any point in the game, but its main role in Orzhov Kirin is to exile its controller's permanents and, with Nurturing Pixie or Sunpearl Kirin, return it to the hand and trigger all ETBs.

It is worth noting that, with Pixie or Kirin exiled with Lockdown, it is possible to reuse its ETB to return the permanent that bounced with Temporary Lockdown to the hand, allowing a “loop” between the three cards every turn.

For example, the cast Nurturing Pixie returns Temporary Lockdown to the hand, all exiled permanents return to the battlefield, and a Sunpearl Kirin that was exiled with Lockdown can bounce Nurturing Pixie — When you cast Lockdown again, that Kirin will be exiled again, and the Pixie can repeat the process as long as we have mana available. Just remember that a Nurturing Pixie cannot bounce another Pixie into the hand.

The interaction.

The main reason to bet on the above line is the possibility of burying the opponent in card advantage and board interaction through our ETB effects.

Hopeless Nightmare is potentially one of the most hated cards in Standard right now because of the interactions that Bounce decks allow with it. After all, in addition to removing resources from the opponent's hand, the enchantment also works as a Shock every time it comes into play, being one of the main paths to close games.

Grim Bauble is a Disfigure / Dead Weight in the form of an artifact that we can reuse. Three copies seems like the right number since we open up some slots for Get Lost, but if your Metagame is very aggressive, it is possible to include a fourth copy.

Nowhere to Run follows a similar mold as a Last Gasp with benefits, and the fact that it has Flash creates some powerful interactions with Sunpearl Kirin to ruin the opponent's combat math.

Momentum Breaker becomes a bit worse in this more Go-Wide-oriented Metagame, but complements Hopeless Nightmare in hand disruption against empty boards and never loses its usefulness in games against Midrange and Control.

Get Lost can't be reused, but it's the best answer we have against cards that other interactions can't resolve, like Kaito, Bane of Nightmares.

Unholy Annex doubles as a constant source of card advantage and a win condition. Ideally, we want to use it on turn three to draw cards and interact with the opponent the following turn to unlock the other room on turn five, creating the first demon token.

Then, we can reuse the enchantment over and over with Sunpearl Kirin or Nurturing Pixie to create more tokens, setting a clock that's difficult to beat.

Loran of the Third Path can be considered the 8-10 card to use Temporary Lockdown as a mass bounce effect, but its main utility is due to the rise in popularity of Cori-Steel Cutter in the Metagame, as well as being an excellent tool against Esper Bounce and Domain Overlords.

Serra Paragon offers more resilience in long games by allowing you to play permanents from the graveyard with a life gain bonus that makes it effective against aggro. Personally, it's a slot I'd consider swapping with Beza, the Bounding Spring to gain an extra sideboard slot, but its function depends on the type of metagame you expect.

In addition to the untapped duals package, we need to improve our consistency, we have a split of Restless Fortress and Soulstone Sanctuary as complementary threats. Both also have the function of mitigating the damage caused by Unholy Annex every turn on empty boards if our tokens are destroyed, and we have no way to return the enchantment to our hand.

Sideboard

Beza, the Bounding Spring is a multimodal creature that enters games where we may fall behind on some resource. It's a staple against Aggro and difficult to interact with against Bounce, and it also has a relevant body to establish a clock and help with resource parity in Midrange mirrors.

Defiled Crypt reproduces an interaction with creatures with Bounce that is well known in Pauper through Kor Skyfisher and Omen of the Dead: with the enchantment, we can return Sunpearl Kirin or Nurturing Pixie to the hand, cast it to return Defiled Crypt and play it to return another creature with Bounce, allowing for an almost endless stream of threats if your opponent doesn't interact with the graveyard.

Day of Judgment complements sweepers with a broader scope that allows it to be used in games beyond Aggro. You can add Authority of the Consuls to one of these slots if you want to respect Prowess decks, but the enchantment has a terrible interaction with Temporary Lockdown.

Get Lost complements spot removals and is useful in games where we need to complement instant-speed interactions, or in games where our main concern is Planeswalkers or larger threats that are difficult to resolve with other cards.

Duress is the main way to deal with decks that rely heavily on non-creature spells, ranging from the new Izzet Prowess lists to the traditional Azorius Control, Domain Overlords and even the Bounce mirror.

Liliana of the Veil works against Control and archetypes where we need to deal with individual threats. It's a decent card against Midrange, but avoid playing it against Golgari since the latter tends to include Obstinate Baloth in post-sideboard games.

Rest in Peace is the best answer the format has against archetypes that rely on the graveyard to execute their game plan today, which includes the combo of Omniscience with Abuelo’s Awakening, Abhorrent Oculus and the recent version of Rakdos Reanimator with Tersa Lightshatter and Zombify.

Mono Red Aggro

IN

OUT

Izzet Cutter

IN

OUT

Exper Bounce

IN

OUT

Domain Overlords

IN

OUT

Jeskai Control

IN

OUT

Jeskai Oculus

IN

OUT

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!