At the time of writing, I can only find results for eleven States, but the results seem to be pretty consistent, so I think it’s enough to draw some reasonable conclusions. First, let’s look at the results. To show my process, these are the notes I took while reading through the results:
Connecticut:
Jund no Rise
Mythic Conscription 25 land
no invite top 4:
Time Sieve
Mono Red
Hawaii:
Mythic Conscription 25 land
R/b Summons splashing Sarkhan and Blightning w/Sparkmage Collar sb
top invite top 4:
Jund with 3 Sarkhan
Jund no Rise
Kansas:
Mythic Conscription 25 land
Jund with Nest Invader and Vengevine
top 4 no invite:
Mythic no Conscription, 7 planeswalkers 25 land
Geopede Jund, md Specter
Maryland:
UW everything (Chalice, counters, creatures, planeswalkers)
Mythic Conscription (Ajani Goldmane, 23 land)
top 4 no q:
Mythic Conscription 26 land
Mythic Conscription 25 land
NC:
Jund 2 Sarkhan
Super Friends
Mythic Conscription 25 land
Jund 2 Sarkhan
top 8 no q:
Mythic Conscription 25 land (3 conscriptions)
Mythic Conscription 25 land
Mythic Conscription 25 land
Jund no Rise
ND:
UW Tap Out
Mythic Conscription 25 land
top 4 no q:
Esper Control
Jund 2 Sarkhan
NY:
UW Tap Out
Vengevine Naya
Runeflare Trap
Jund no Rise
Jund 2 Sarkhan
Grixis
Goblins (Quest for the Goblin Lord!)
Super Friends (Mind Spring)
OH:
Super Friends / UW Tap Out hybrid
Super Friends Beleren and Negate
Geopede Jund
Mythic Conscription 24 land, 2 Birds, many spells
Mythic Conscription 25 land
Jund Eldrazi
UW Tap Out
Geopede Jund
OR:
Mythic Conscription 25 land
Jund 3 Sarkhan
Mythic Conscription 25 land
Emeria
top 8 no q:
no 5th place deck
Mythic Conscription 26 land
Jund 1 Sarkhan
Mythic Conscription 25 land
Penn:
Bant
Mythic Conscription 25 land
Mythic Conscription 25 land
UW Tap Out
UW Tap Out
Jund 2 Persecutor 1 Sarkhan
Mythic Conscription 25 land
UW Tap Out
RI:
Jund 1 Momentous Fall, 1 Sarkhan
Naya Allies
top 4 no q:
W/u aggro
Now to compile this by archetype:
Mythic Conscription: 13q+8
Jund: 12q+6
UW and friends:11q+1 Esper
Everything else was basically a one of. Seriously. This is the format. It looks to be very roughly 30/30/30/10 Mythic, Jund, UW, everything else this weekend in Top 8s or Top 4s of small events. I can’t imagine the field looked like that in these tournaments, which means all of these decks have been winning more than their share. It looks bad for the Tier 2 decks.
While I’ve heard some debate about old Mythic being the way to go (and I can almost believe it), Conscription has some seriously dominating numbers behind it, so you’d better be pretty confident in your own results or theory if you’re not playing the package. Another interesting note on Mythic is the land count. It seemed very odd to me at first that the way to change Mythic was to cut 2 lands while increasing the curve, so I tracked the number of lands people were playing, and 25 was the consistent number. I honestly believe that this happened mostly as a result of copying decks that have come before it rather than most people putting that much thought into it, but, seeing that it works, I decided to try to make sense of it, rather than stubbornly sticking by the number I had played.
When we first played Mythic, the man lands were a serious part of the plan. We had extra lands because we were counting several of them as creatures, and it was important to curve up to enough mana to attack with them, and to be able to attack with a second one when a first one died. Man lands don’t play well with Sovereign. You need a creature that can attack the same turn you play a mana spell, so basically, Wildwoods have to become real creatures. I get it, and that makes me feel better about the deck. There are a lot of planeswalkers, but that’s just because there are different opponents now, and planeswalkers are good in the mirror and against UW, and that wasn’t much of a concern when the deck was first built.
Jund decks haven’t really found themselves after Rise of the Eldrazi yet. There’s a lot more variation there than there was in the Mythic decks. Sarkhan is slowly making his way in, having gained popularity first in Japan. Personally, I have faith in him. I think the numbers will keep going up, and ultimately Jund will play 2-4 of him, or go the more aggro Geopede route, where I’m less sure he’s good. The Momentous Fall actually looks like it might be really good. It’s a weird kind of card that’s hard to make the leap to play, since you have to play a deck that wants to have a big creature in play, but then you have to choose not to have that big creature anymore, and to spend time drawing cards, but Jund is the perfect deck for that kind of plan, and it is very powerful. I think it might be a realistic card to put more effort into building around.
I don’t the Geopede Jund is the direction I’d want to go when Mythic is the deck to beat. I don’t think Plated Geopede actually outraces Sovereigns. Based on what I know of Mythic versus Jund in the past, I assume that Jund wants to play as a control deck, ideally with a bit of pressure from Leech, but mostly just killing all their guys. Removal heavy builds seem best positioned against Mythic, which I’m willing to take as the deck to beat at the moment. Sarkhan can give you an edge in the mirror, a way to get further ahead after playing a lot of one-for-ones, and a good planeswalker against control. Maelstrom Pulse for planeswalkers and instant speed removal need to be what Jund is about at the moment.
UW is mostly sticking with Chalice and Baneslayer, but as I wrote last week, I still don’t think that’s the way to go, regardless of these results. I know, with Mythic I tried to be flexible and understand what’s going on, but I just don’t understand how it can be right in this case. I could be wrong, as I haven’t put in the work to be sure, but I’m skeptical of the UW lists I’ve seen so far.
As for the one of decks, Time Sieve is very happy to gain Prophetic Prism, but I have no idea how it can exist in a format dominated by Mythic. The R/b deck splashing Sarkhan is interesting. He’s very good at drawing cards there, and the creatures are mostly much worse than dragons. None of the other decks look that exciting to me, except for Vengevine Naya.
I haven’t played with Vengevine Naya. I haven’t seen it play a game. I don’t know any of its matchup percentages. That said, I’m reasonably sure this is the deck of the future. GerryT is solidifying himself as one of the best deck designers these days, and this deck likely represents the second PTQ format in a row he’ll be defining the metagame in America. This may be taking things a step too far too quickly, but it looks so well positioned to me right now. The format was narrow enough for creative deck design to attack all the major decks at once, and that looks to be what he did, while building an internally powerful deck at the same time.
The problem with Naya was that it lost to Jund. So the removal, which was the worst part of the deck against Jund, is gone, and Vengevine, which is now the best card against Jund, comes in, and suddenly I expect that matchup to be pretty good. Meanwhile, the Cunning Sparkmages, which were the best part of the deck against Mythic, get to come into the main deck because we’ve picked up percentages against other decks where he’s bad, and Mythic is popular enough to deserve the maindeck hate. At the same time, we can replace Ajani as our four-mana answer to control with Vengevine, another hasty way to kill a planeswalker, but this one generally puts them on a faster clock and helps an all creature deck a lot at fighting Day of Judgment.
This deck plays Vengevine so well that it becomes the best card against everything that’s trying to kill your creatures (I assume) and completely dominates any attrition game. You even have Basilisk Collar to help against Mono Red.
So, let’s assume you’re going to play in Grand Prix: DC, since I can’t really think of a better reason you’d be interested in exactly where the National Qualifier results put us. The first-level look at the results says that you should play one of the big three decks, tuned to beat those three decks (for me, that would be removal heavy Jund, since there’s very little space to modify Mythic Conscription). The next level, to me, is to pick a deck designed to beat those decks, which to me is Vengevine Naya. It could easily be worse than I think it is, since I’m just looking at how it looks on paper, and it could easily have mana or curve issues that I’m not aware of. It might generally not play out as well as I imagine, but for now, I’m going to assume it’s an extremely good deck, based on the results I’ve heard and how it looks.
The next level is to assume that this deck will be widely adopted, given that, in general, GerryT’s decks tend to be very popular, and BDM, among other well connected people, qualified for Nationals with it. I think this will be the hot new deck, and it should jump dramatically in percentage. If that’s the case, the next step is to play the deck that beats that deck. The problem with this is that a significant number of people will still be on the first level, or they’ll want to play the deck they have experience with or own the cards for, which will function the same way, or they’ll have done well last week with something and they’ll be in love with it and want to play it again. Regardless of exactly why, new decks take a bit of time to pick up momentum, and no matter how good a call it might be, a lot of people will be playing something else. Also, it may be like Super Friends (or Boss Naya for that matter), which dominated the week it came out, but became just another deck once people knew about it.
What this means is that if you play Vengevine Naya, the format will still contain a lot of the decks that it beats, but people will have adjusted somewhat to be prepared, or they’ll at least know what you’re doing, and the loss of surprise value is going to cost you some percentage against the field. Whatever percent of its matches that deck won this weekend, it will not win as many at the GP, but it might be able to afford to take that loss and still be the best deck. (Given what happened with Seismic Swans last year, I’m a little surprise that Gerry chose to have people play it in Nationals Qualifiers rather than saving it for the GP, but that’s not really relevant.)
This also means that if you choose to play something that beats Vengevine Naya, you may be playing the best deck for next week, but not the best deck for this week, and if you’re not careful you may lose to the old decks. But if you decide to go this route, what beats Vengevine Naya?
Well, it’s all creatures, so I think that means you’d want to play something that kills creatures, or something that punishes its lack of removal. This means you either need creatures that trump theirs (and answers to Collar + Sparkmage) or you need mass removal. Honestly, I think this means old school 3 Day of Judgment, 4 Path to Exile, 4 Martial Coup UW Control like I played before Rise of the Eldrazi is the best deck against them. They have no good answer to Martial Coup or Baneslayer Angel (it could be Gideon, but Baneslayer Angel is better in this matchup). Vengevine is good against you, but with 4 Path to Exile and 3 Oblivion Rings, it’s not particularly significant, and Martial Coup lets you block it long enough to get too far ahead with Mind Spring. This deck is also awesome against Mythic and Jund. The problem is its matchup against other UW decks, where it is going to be inherently unfavored because it has fewer slots dedicated to the matchup – fewer Planeswalkers, and fewer counterspells. Also, Knight of the White Orchid and Divination probably want to become Wall of Omens and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but at that point, the general way in which that deck is constructed makes less sense. Somewhere in there, though, there is a Martial Coup deck with enough ways to exile Vengevine that has an extremely good matchup against Vengevine Naya, I’m sure of that. I’m less sure that it can simultaneously beat Jund and other UW decks.
In conclusion, the most powerful deck with the most consistent results seems to be Mythic Conscription, but I think that deck is well known enough, and has enough of a target, and is beatable enough that that’s not where I’d want to be next week. The best decks for the format seem to be Vengevine Naya or a properly built Jund or UW deck. I’m hoping to play something new next weekend, but I’m not sure that I’ll get a chance to do enough testing, since preparing for San Juan is still a priority. Regardless, good luck, and I’ll see you in DC!
Thanks for reading…
Sam