With States and Grand Prix Brisbane in the books, the Standard format is finally starting to shape up. Gone are the wild west days of a new format, and
in their place we have a real metagame. Practically, what this means is that we’ve progressed beyond the stage of building decks by jamming a
bunch of sweet cards together and seeing what we can do with them to that point when we’re building decks to beat a specific range of strategies.
The earliest tournaments in the new Standard were dominated by linear aggressive strategies, to the surprise of no one who has paid attention to trends
in Magic history. When everyone has untuned control decks trying to fit in all of new hotness without enough regard to what their deck really needs to
be able to deal with, aggro is king. The Indianapolis Standard Open saw a pair of Mono Red decks face off in the finals of a Top 8 that was jam-packed
with beatdown decks. By Nashville, however, things had turned around dramatically, and it was Solar Flare that took half of the slots in the
elimination rounds. Despite their numbers, however, the Solar Flare players were knocked out one after another by eventual champion Brian Sondag,
playing his format-changing Wolf Run Ramp deck.
Creatures (15)
- 3 Solemn Simulacrum
- 1 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Acidic Slime
- 3 Primeval Titan
- 3 Wurmcoil Engine
- 4 Viridian Emissary
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (26)
Spells (15)
I can personally speak to the impact Sondag’s victory had on the shape of the Standard metagame. At California States, I played against nothing
but green ramp decks for the first four rounds of the tournament! It wasn’t just in Cali that Primeval Titan and friends made their presence
known—at Grand Prix Brisbane halfway around the world, Wolf Run Ramp was the most popular deck in Day 2 by a sizable margin, and took down a full
half of the Top 8 slots.
Wolf Run Ramp not only looks similar to the Primeval Titan-packing boogeyman of yesteryear, but plays a similar role to Valakut in today’s
metagame. One of the major ways Valakut impacted deckbuilding during its time in Standard was by effectively obsoleting the other “big
spell” decks in the format. While there were some outliers like Genesis Wave last time around, the reality was that very few decks could
realistically compete with Valakut’s high end.
We’re seeing the same thing this time around. Solar Flare, probably the most hyped deck leading up to Innistrad’s release, is an example of
a deck that relies on its plan trumping its opponent. Against most strategies, Sun Titan into an Image of Sun Titan into Oblivion Ring or Liliana is
enough. Not so against Wolf Run Ramp, which both plays more threatening Titans and plays them faster. Tapping out for a Sun Titan is often just asking
to be eaten alive by the very angry Inkmoth Nexuses big daddy Primeval brings with him.
Brian Sondag tore through the Solar Flare decks in the Top 8 of Nashville, and only a week later we see zero copies of Flare in the GP Brisbane Top 8.
While that’s a small sample size to be sure, and we’ll have to see more when the results from States are all in, it’s still a huge
shift over the course of a single week. Wolf Run Ramp is clearly here to stay—the same can’t be said of Solar Flare.
We’ve already started to see variations on Wolf Run Ramp decks. Just before the Grand Prix, Martin Juza posted one to our team Facebook list,
saying “This green deck is awesome.”
Creatures (20)
- 1 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Solemn Simulacrum
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Acidic Slime
- 4 Primeval Titan
- 1 Wurmcoil Engine
- 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 4 Dungrove Elder
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (12)
While Martin didn’t have much success with the deck himself, Shuhei posted a Top 16 finish in Brisbane and Owen Turtenwald piloted the deck to
win in his State Championships. This deck eschews red—or at least much of it—in favor of Dungrove Elder, a card that I’ve personally
had my eye on for a while. Dungrove Elder started to make an impression at the end of the last Standard season, but never quite hit it big—now
might be his time. Not only is Elder a great cheap threat in the green mirror that can eventually outgrow anything else on the table—plus draw a
hell of a lot of cards with Garruk—but it’s also an excellent stopgap creature against red decks that can’t be burned out and an
untargetable threat against control decks. That’s a feature sure to become much more important as the metagame adapts to the GP results.
Creatures (9)
Lands (27)
Spells (24)
Remember what I was saying the about clunky, untuned control decks that people make in the early stages of a format by trying to jam all the sweet new
cards into the same deck? Yeah, this isn’t one of those decks at all. In fact, I love just about everything about Jeremy’s deck. This is a
control deck that deals in efficiency and synergy and isn’t afraid to kill sacred cows and make tough choices.
You know what my favorite thing is about this deck? It doesn’t play Liliana of the Veil! Liliana is one of those cards that everyone saw
on the spoiler and tried to jam into every deck that could afford the mana cost, and many that realistically could not. And yet in so many of those
decks, Liliana is rarely going to be better than a sorcery speed edict that costs three mana. Sure, maybe you have some flashback spells you’re
happy to discard and you can get some value with the +1 ability, but the vast majority of the times I’ve seen Liliana cast she hasn’t been
all that impressive at all. I’m certain that there are decks in which Liliana will be impressive and environments in which she’s awesome,
but I’m not convinced that those decks have been found or that environment exists right now in Standard.
What’s particularly awesome to me about Neeman’s decision to avoid Liliana is the fact that he plays Geth’s Verdict in his deck!
He’s obviously interested in the edict effect, but recognizes that the mana cost and instant speed are more important than some ephemeral
potential upside from a planeswalker. Efficiency matters, and Neeman’s choice of Geth’s Verdict over Liliana emphasizes that.
The other thing that Geth’s Verdict does that Liliana does not is play well with Snapcaster Mage. Snapcaster is in the same boat as
Liliana—it’s a card that people are jamming four copies of into every single deck that can support it and rarely is it nearly as good as
they hope. I don’t understand all of these Solar Flare decks that I see with a bunch of Snapcaster Mages (alongside Lilianas, of course). What
are you hoping to flashback? Mana Leak and Doom Blade, sure, but after that? Many of these decks run out of instants after Forbidden Alchemy and Think
Twice—which I’ll get to in a moment—and only have Day of Judgment for sorceries. Is that really worth playing four copies of
Snapcaster for?
Not so for Neeman’s deck, which is a lean, mean, flashbacking machine. Every single card that isn’t a land or creature in the deck is an
instant or sorcery. That’s a full twenty-four choices for Snapcaster Mage! Now that’s a deck built to maximize Tiago Chan
Invitational card. Not only that, but his spell choices are clearly made with Snapcaster Mage in mind. In addition to that Geth’s Verdict, I love
the two copies of Wring Flesh Neeman played. Snapcaster Mage is at his best with cheap instants, since he effectively adds two to the casting cost of
whatever you want to play again and mana costs are progressively more prohibitive in real game play situations as they go up.
Wring Flesh also makes Forbidden Alchemy and Think Twice so much better in this deck. So many decks I’ve seen play a bunch of flashback card
drawing spells, but far too few cheap spells that actually buy them the time to cast them. Who do you really expect to beat if all you do in the early
turns of the game is manipulate your deck? Neeman’s deck is set up to use cheap removal to buy time for his flashback spells to build him those
incremental advantages that will ultimately lead to victory.
Victory for this deck can just mean sitting around and waiting. Unlike Solar Flare (can you tell I don’t have much respect for this deck yet?),
Neeman’s deck doesn’t have to try to get in a pissing contest of whose six-drop wins in a fight. He can just sit back, relax, and wait for
his opponent to drown. Nephalia Drownyard is an awesome bit of technology that can not only serve as a pseudo-card drawer when used on oneself to mill
flashback cards, but is Millstone reborn in land form.
I’m not sure how many of you played in the days of the actual card Millstone, but there was a time when decks designed to run their opponents out
of cards were commonplace and even debatably the best strategy—such that Feldon’s Cane , a card that did nothing but shuffle your graveyard
into your library, was actually restricted and in nearly every deck! The very first Pro Tour was won by Michael Loconto and his Millstone deck. One of
the scariest things about Millstone was that it only cost two mana to play, so it could easily come down on the second turn before the other player had
Counterspell (yes, actual Counterspell) mana available, and then all the Millstone player had to do was sit back and not die while grinding away the
opponent’s deck two cards at a time.
Drownyard has that same impact. It gives the U/B player a kind of inevitability in any control matchup that is hard to equalize. Sure, the Drownyard
may mill a few flashback cards in the Solar Flare player’s graveyard, but that marginal value is hard to capitalize on when the U/B player
literally never has to tap mana on his own turn to win the game. I especially like the two additional Drownyards in the sideboard. Neeman’s deck
is set up to turn into a streamlined counter-mill deck against other control players in games 2 and 3, boarding up to a whopping twenty-nine lands to
ensure it will never be the one short on mana or on win conditions, as four of those lands can win the game on their own.
This isn’t a love song for U/B control, however — as much as I’m impressed by Neeman’s deck, I’m more interested in
beating it. More to the point, I’m interested in how to beat both it and the Wolf Run Ramp decks that are sure to make up a huge percentage of
the field over the next few months.
There are two cards that jump to mind that are extremely good against both of these decks—Sword of Feast and Famine and Mirran Crusader.
Protection from green is awesome against the ramp decks, especially those that eschew Slagstorm for Dungrove Elder, and protection from black is quite
clearly awesome against a deck packed with black spot removal. My inclination is to look toward these cards as the backbone of what I’m looking
to do to beat these two decks.
My first attempt to brew up a list for the new metagame was mostly a reimagining of my RUG deck:
Creatures (18)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Inferno Titan
- 2 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 2 Consecrated Sphinx
- 4 Viridian Emissary
- 1 Azure Mage
- 4 Skinshifter
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (25)
Spells (13)
Sideboard
I just recorded a video with this deck, which you can check out here. It clearly still needs some
work—and I need to work on playing it better!—but I like some of the general directions it’s going in. The basic idea of the changes
from my old list is that the format is moving more toward control and ramp decks and away from beatdown, so I wanted to bias my main deck against what
I expect to be a larger portion of the field. Birds of Paradise made its way back into the list as a result—a world in which red isn’t the
most popular deck is one where I’m much happier playing mana creatures, and Birds are particularly awesome at powering out fast Swords and even
carrying them!
I’m not sure if RUG is where you want to be once you start cutting the cheap removal from the maindeck, though. Right now I’m just playing
red for Brimstone Volley, Inferno Titan, and sideboard cards, and while those are all pretty awesome cards, it’s possible that I’d rather
just be U/G. I haven’t really done enough brewing to know what that would look like, but Frost Titan seems somewhat attractive right now if
there’s a lot of Primeval Titans out there. Then again, you can still just lose to Wolf Run plus Nexus from the Primeval resolving the first
time, so it’s not clear shutting him down with big Frosty is the best answer. It’s certainly better than Inferno Titan, though!
I haven’t done much work on a Mirran Crusader deck of my own, but Tim Fondum’s list from the finals of Grand Prix Brisbane seems like a
reasonable shell to fit him into.
Creatures (22)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Wurmcoil Engine
- 4 Hero of Bladehold
- 2 Viridian Emissary
- 4 Blade Splicer
- 2 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
- 3 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 2 Geist-Honored Monk
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (24)
Spells (8)
I definitely like this list, but I think it may go a bit overboard with the token theme. I’m a big fan of Garruk and Elspeth as ways to refuel,
but it would be easy to fit a bit more aggression in here alongside some of the serious problem cards for the top decks.
Creatures (21)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Mirran Crusader
- 4 Hero of Bladehold
- 2 Viridian Emissary
- 4 Blade Splicer
- 3 Avacyn's Pilgrim
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (24)
Spells (9)
Keeps much of the core intact, but lets us play some of the best weapons against the top decks out there. This is totally untested and untuned, mind
you, but I’m particularly excited about the ease with which this deck can actually cast Mirran Crusader on turn 2. Four Birds and three Pilgrims
means you only need an untapped green source and a single white mana to power the Crusader out ASAP, and that’s sure to put a hurting on a lot of
people in this world full of ramp and U/B control decks.
That’s all I’ve got this week—by the time you’re reading this, I’ll be in Essen giving people the first look at the new
Ascension expansion, Storm of Souls. That means I likely won’t have an article for you next week unless I feel particularly inspired and
write one on my flight, but don’t fear—I’m sure I’ll have quite a bit to talk about when I get back.
Until next time,
bmk