Last weekend heralded in a new Standard era. Get out of here Return to Ravnica Block. Get in here, Khans of Tarkir.
I guess you can stay, Theros Block, but I’ve got my eye on you.
It was the first event of the new Standard format. There were two Opens being held simultaneously in Indianapolis and New Jersey. That means lots of new
decks and decklists. It also means that we get our first taste of an established metagame and the kinds of decks that rose above the common muck to perform
well.
So I guess that means I’m going to talk about these early frontrunners and what makes them so powerful?
Hell no. Why would anyone want to actually play one of those decks? That’s just madness. Let’s talk about how to beat them instead. Let’s talk about what
cards and strategies are good against these titans of Tarkir. Let’s make it so that your opponents will rue the day they decided to bring that deck against
your over-prepared deck.
Green Devotion
This deck is annoying! Playing against Green Devotion as they start to spiral out of control with Nykthos and lots of things to do with their mana is not a
fun experience. Believe me. At the Open Series in New Jersey, I played against a Green Devotion variant rounds 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Yep. Five rounds in a row
of nothing but green creatures and planeswalkers. It was the opposite of a delight. It was misery.
It didn’t help that I was completely unprepared for the deck. That may seem weird, as Green Devotion was the most powerful starting strategy for the
format, and a very high number of players played the archetype. It was all over the place. I just blanked on that completely. During testing, most of our
decks were beating Green Devotion, so we just kind of shelved the deck and moved on. As a result, I forgot the deck existed, and the Abzan deck I played
didn’t have a very good gameplan against it. Huge mistake. Green Devotion is the most powerful strategy coming out of the gate, and ignoring it was fatal.
No surprises that Green Devotion is what gave me my two losses.
Green Devotion is built to utilize a lot of ramp creatures alongside a lot of powerful threats to provide a homogenous playing experience of ramping into
big threats every game that trump your opponent’s gameplan. However, this plan does have some holes, so let’s go ahead and examine those.
First, however, some decklists.
Creatures (33)
- 1 Hornet Queen
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Polukranos, World Eater
- 1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 1 Arbor Colossus
- 2 Boon Satyr
- 1 Nylea's Disciple
- 4 Voyaging Satyr
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Eidolon of Blossoms
- 1 Doomwake Giant
- 1 Pharika, God of Affliction
- 1 Reclamation Sage
Lands (23)
Spells (4)
You can play Mono Green.
Creatures (35)
- 2 Hornet Queen
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Polukranos, World Eater
- 1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Voyaging Satyr
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Eidolon of Blossoms
- 4 Doomwake Giant
- 4 Genesis Hydra
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (24)
or G/B.
Creatures (29)
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Polukranos, World Eater
- 2 Nylea, God of the Hunt
- 3 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Arbor Colossus
- 4 Voyaging Satyr
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Genesis Hydra
Planeswalkers (7)
Lands (24)
or even G/R.
Creatures (31)
- 3 Hornet Queen
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Polukranos, World Eater
- 1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 2 Arbor Colossus
- 2 Voyaging Satyr
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 3 Genesis Hydra
- 4 Rattleclaw Mystic
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (23)
Spells (2)
You can even play the full four copies of Hornet Queen in your 75 and you probably wouldn’t be wrong.
Hornet Queen sure beat the crap out of my Abzan deck, since I had a whopping zero ways to profitably deal with it. It’s pretty good in the green mirror
match. Without any real control decks existing, Hornet Queen locks the board down pretty well against just about everything.
So how do we beat this deck?
The easiest way to combat Green Devotion is to attack their hand and also attack them on an axis they are poorly equipped to fight on. The thing about
green creatures in general is that they are these super big ground pounders. Green’s all about those fat bears and monstrous boars and enormous beasts.
These big old bruisers can’t jump too high.
That’s where flying comes in.
Green Devotion is ill-equipped to deal with cards like Stormbreath Dragon, Butcher of the Horde, and Ashcloud Phoenix. These are powerful, evasive threats
that end the game extremely fast. Green Devotion isn’t packing any removal, so they are left to the plan of putting blockers in front or trying to race.
Reid Duke had four copies of Arbor Colossus in his list, so he understands the threat of flying creatures and was set up to fight on that axis. Thankfully,
you get to play more cards in your deck besides just the flying creatures.
May I suggest Thoughtseize and Hero’s Downfall? Despise as well?
The Green Devotion deck is built with a lot of redundancy. They have a bunch of ramp creatures and a bunch of high end threats. However, if your deck only
cares about some of those threats, like Arbor Colossus and Hornet Queen, then it becomes easy to disrupt their gameplan with Thoughtseize.
Additionally, a lot of Green Devotion’s cards scale greatly depending on the way the game is playing out. Genesis Hydra doesn’t do much if they are stuck
on mana, but the card is nigh unbeatable late game. Elvish Mystic is super scary on turn 1 but does nothing on turn 9. With hand disruption, you can throw
them off their game long enough for a few powerful fliers to take things home.
This gets a lot stronger if you also have access to cards like Hero’s Downfall and Crackling Doom. You can use Thoughtseize and Despise to take things that
generate advantage like Genesis Hydra, Hornet Queen, and planeswalkers. Then use Crackling Doom and Downfall to handle threats like Arbor Colossus and
Polukranos.
All told, when I think of a deck to smash Green Devotion with, I think of a deck that looks suspiciously like this:
Creatures (14)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (25)
Spells (17)
Disruption. Removal. Flying creatures. The ball’s in your court Green Devotion.
Jeskai Tempo
Creatures (11)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (22)
Creatures (12)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (20)
Sideboard
This deck outright won the tournament in New Jersey in the hands of Kevin Jones and also put Jadine Klomparens into the top 8. The deck looks very
well-built and is likely to be a real contender in the Standard format.
Cheap, aggressive, and evasive creatures paired up with some card draw and removal spells that can also just end the game in a hurry when flung at the
face. This deck has a lot of power and attacked the format in a way that people weren’t expecting or ready for. Green Devotion decks struggle to beat
Mantis Rider paired up with a faster clock, and aggro decks are going to have problems with Seeker of the Way and lots of cheap interaction.
So how do we go about beating this deck?
The gameplan is to play enough removal spells to prevent yourself from taking excessive damage from their creatures alongside resilient threats that aren’t
going to bite it from a burn spell. Having access to random lifegain doesn’t hurt either. Green Devotion has half of the equation down. They have creatures
like Polukranos and Genesis Hydra that don’t care about Lightning Strike or Stoke the Flames.
They are lacking an easy and efficient way to handle a card like Mantis Rider though.
Creatures (20)
Planeswalkers (7)
Lands (24)
Spells (9)
I think a deck similar to the one I played at SCG New Jersey has a lot of positives against Jeskai Tempo. For one, the deck has enough removal to handle
Mantis Rider every game. They might connect once, but you can usually keep them off connecting a second time. The deck also has lifegain in the form of
Courser of Kruphix, Siege Rhino, and Sorin, Solemn Visitor to help prevent you from getting burned out.
Lastly, threats like Nissa, Worldwaker, Sorin, and Siege Rhino are all hard to handle with burn spells or present an easy two-for-one in the face of one.
These are threats that are resilient to burn spells and are going to be tough for the Jeskai deck to handle in an efficient manner.
Removal, planeswalkers, and creatures with high toughness. Sounds like the perfect ticket to fight this Jeskai menace.
Abzan Midrange
Besides Green Devotion variants, this was definitely the next most popular deck amongst decks that performed well at the two Open Series events last
weekend. There were a number of ways to build the deck. I posted my list above with Nissa and Sorin.
You can also play things like Wingmate Roc and Elspeth.
Creatures (22)
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Fleecemane Lion
- 3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 3 Wingmate Roc
- 4 Siege Rhino
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (10)
There were around ten different lists among the top 32 of both Opens for this archetype. It is a powerful strategy and also popular. So how do we go about
beating a deck that looks like this? It has resilient threats, disruption, and removal.
The easiest way by far is to play a similarly midrange strategy that can just go over the top of this deck. Exhibit A is Green Devotion. Green Devotion has
many of the same midrange cards, but it can trump this deck going long with things like Nykthos, Polukranos, Hornet Queen, and Nylea. The junk deck is
forced to take the aggressor role in the matchup, but it is hard to quickly kill a Polukranos deck with a Siege Rhino deck.
Another way to go over the top is with a deck similar to what Brad Nelson and Todd Anderson played.
Creatures (22)
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Satyr Wayfinder
- 1 Soul of Innistrad
- 3 Necropolis Fiend
- 4 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
- 2 Rakshasa Deathdealer
Lands (24)
Spells (14)
Their deck had a number of flaws, making it weak to opposing planeswalkers, but this style of strategy is capable of going over the top of a deck like
Abzan Midrange and grinding them out in the long game with things like Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and the power of the delve mechanic. I was scared to play
against this deck when I got paired against Todd, and I was surprised to come out victorious, since their deck is much better equipped to grind in grindy
matchups.
Monsters
Creatures (24)
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Polukranos, World Eater
- 1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Stormbreath Dragon
- 1 Boon Satyr
- 2 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Goblin Rabblemaster
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (25)
Spells (9)
Creatures (20)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (25)
Spells (12)
Creatures (29)
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Polukranos, World Eater
- 4 Stormbreath Dragon
- 4 Boon Satyr
- 4 Goblin Rabblemaster
- 4 Rattleclaw Mystic
- 4 Savage Knuckleblade
- 1 Surrak Dragonclaw
Lands (23)
Spells (8)
Sideboard
There were a lot of Monsters decks that performed well, whether they were Jund, G/R, or Temur. Chris VanMeter, surprisingly enough, took the plunge with me
and played Abzan Midrange, but I am sure he felt something rumble deep in that dark heart of his when all these Monsters decks put up performances.
I played four copies of Hero’s Downfall alongside two Murderous Cut in my Abzan list. Banishing Light would have made the mana better, and Murderous Cut
wasn’t fantastic because I wasn’t using my graveyard that much.
With that being said, I knew that I wanted those cards in my deck at all costs because there’s still one thing that people kind of overlooked.
Yeah, that guy. You might think that SBD is NBD, but you’d be wrong. Stormbreath Dragon is still as powerful as ever. He is probably even more powerful now
than he ever was before. Don’t sleep on this card or you will die. I can’t even begin to imagine how many people lost to these Monsters decks with their
sweet new brews because they didn’t bother to plan enough for Stormbreath Dragon and the eventuality he provides. Death.
Stormbreath will mess you up. Be prepared.
So how do we go about beating this deck?
Step one: have ways to kill Stormbreath Dragon. If you don’t have those in your deck, then you’re already behind.
Once you’ve passed the “I don’t auto fold to Stormbreath” test, then you can move on to figuring out how to actually combat this deck.
The next step is to play cards like Despise and Thoughtseize. Monsters is similar to Green Devotion in a lot of ways. It plays ramp and big payoffs at the
end of the ramp tunnel. Green Devotion is a lot more linear, but Monsters still employs that same basic strategy. Despise and Thoughtseize can mess up
their curve and make it hard for them to resolve Dragons, or it can strip their Dragons and push them into a game where they just have a bunch of mana
dorks and no top end threat.
The last step is to be proactive. Monsters preys on decks by being the aggressor. When you’re trying to play catch up against a deck with cards like
Xenagos, the Reveler or Goblin Rabblemaster, you’re fighting a losing battle. Trying to beat this style of deck by just having a bunch of removal rarely
works. You need to actually put threats on the board and make the Monsters deck play reactively.
Cards like Polukranos or Siege Rhino are great against this style of deck. They brick the ground creatures Monsters plays and they also apply pressure
quickly. Having a creature in play that is capable of eating the goblin token from Goblin Rabblemaster the turn they play it is pretty clutch as well.
Frequently, playing against this style of deck, I would lead on Fleecemane Lion on turn 2 over Sylvan Caryatid to play preemptive defense against
Rabblemaster. Keeping that card from going Roast Beef is quite important.
These were the top performing archetypes the past weekend. Hopefully these tips helped provide some insight in how to go about beating them. Is there one
unified deck that can beat all of these decks? That’s unlikely, but I am still working on finding it. The Pro Tour strikes in Hawaii in a week. It’s the
last Pro Tour I am qualified for, and I am hungry to qualify again. I am doing my best to try to break Standard. There is a lot of power in Khans of
Tarkir.
According to the Khans of Tarkir storyline, all the dragons are gone. Somehow, I don’t believe that. Stormbreath Dragon doesn’t seem like he’s gone
anywhere. And if you can’t beat them…