Black Magic - The Rise of Combo in Standard

This past weekend we got a much larger snapshot of Standard than we had before. Rather than needing to draw primarily from one very small PTQ, we now have several major National Championships as well as some much larger PTQs.

U/W(b) Control seems to be the deck to beat at the moment, and Jund seems to be under-performing enough that I’d be surprised if it was the most played deck at U.S. Nationals. Primeval Titan and Turboland are both continuing to post strong results, and I wouldn’t expect that to change. Mythic, Fauna Shaman, and Mono Red are all also commonly present. The decks that are most interesting to me are the ones that attack the format from a direction I didn’t discuss last week: the combo decks.

Runeflare Trap took several PTQ Top 8 slots, and one qualification, thanks to the printing of Temple Bell, and I’ll be interested to see if that’s enough to get people to start sideboarding Leyline of Sanctity, a card several of the Runeflare Trap decks simply can’t beat.

The other combo deck that emerged this weekend is Pyromancer’s Ascension, taking second place in Edison piloted by Jake Van Lunen, and second place in French Nationals piloted by Guillaume Matignon. The two lists are very similar:

Matignon’s deck:

Pyromancer Ascension

Guillaume Matignon

2nd Place at Nationals on 07-25-2010

Standard

Lands (22)

Spells (38)

Sideboard

Van Lunen’s deck:

Pyromancer's Ascension

Jacob Van Lunen

Test deck on 08-01-2010

Standard

Lands (22)

Spells (38)

Sideboard

Jake played 1 Call to Mind, 3 Foresee, and 4 Spreading Seas, where Guillaume played 4 Treasure Hunt and 4 Burst Lightning. They both had 4 Spreading Seas and 4 Burst Lightning in their 75, it was just a question of which card was in the maindeck. Guillaume played 3 Halimar Depths over 3 Islands to support his Treasure Hunts. Their sideboards were substantially different. I’m not exactly sure where Guillaume specifically used Kiln Fiend, but the idea looks very good on paper, and I think I prefer his card draw spells. I’m not sure if Spreading Seas or Burst Lightning is the better card to maindeck, because I’m not sure how much help you need in the Jund matchup, which I imagine to be one of the harder matchups even if it is less common now.

My predicted decrease in Jund in the metagame makes these very appealing choices, depending on their performance against UW (which I think depends largely on how well the specific UW deck is able to deal with the important permanents in the combo decks). As usual with combo decks, a lot of the success of these decks in the coming weeks depends on how much people are willing to adapt.

I think it’s important to understand why this deck was a good deck to play this weekend, and how it fits into the metagame, and how the metagame should shift to accommodate (attack) it. I see these decks largely as a reaction to Primeval Titan, although I think it’s possible the people building them just saw that there were a number of cards that worked together to do something powerful. To me, these decks are designed to outpace a ramp deck along an axis for which it’s not prepared. The ramp decks don’t exist because they’re fast. They exist because they’re resilient to removal, which makes them favored against midrange decks. This means that many decks that aim to ignore the opponent should have a good matchup against these relatively slow non interactive decks. A good draw from the Valakut Titan deck can reasonably expect to cast Primeval Titan on turn 4 and kill on turn 5 if it isn’t answered, but only if it draws the Primeval Titan, which it has no reliable way to do. Otherwise, it’s goldfishing at least one and possibly two turns slower. A single Mana Leak dramatically reduces its clock.

Pyromancer’s Ascension may only have 4 maindeck counterspells, but when at least 24 spells in the deck replace themselves, it plays like substantially more than 4 counters. It should reliably be able to counter the first real threat from a ramp deck, which should give it time to go off.

Other decks designed for resilience – Next Level Bant (which has basically fallen out of the format because that plan just doesn’t work anymore) and Naya – don’t have the speed necessary to outrace the combo decks to a certain degree, and have no real way to interact with what they are doing. Jund’s removal (the little that’s left) is worthless aside from Maelstrom Pulse (which, admittedly, is excellent).

Mythic Conscription and Mono Red are the two decks that seem most equipped for a direct race, and I’m not entirely clear which side comes out ahead when these decks race the new combo decks. My guess is that it’s pretty draw dependent and can go either way, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that one deck generally outpaces the other. Ascension does have the advantage that it can slow the other decks down with its burn spells without substantially hurting its own game plan.

If the format is defined by Ramp going over the top of Midrange, as it was at that small Japanese PTQ, I love the positioning of this strategy. The problem is what happens now, when those Ramp decks have been pushed back down by UW decks that can now play enough countermagic to match up well against the one big spell plan. Luckily for Pyromancer’s Ascension, it can easily beat UW as long as it can resolve and protect a Pyromancer’s Ascension, and it’s not hard to sneak a two-mana enchantment onto the battlefield. UW can play Oblivion Ring, Celestial Purge, and several other cards to answer the Ascension, and if they are splashing Black, Esper Charm becomes another real problem.

The first change I’d expect is for Pyromancer’s Ascension to find room for Dispel in the sideboard. This seems to do exactly what it wants, fighting Esper Charm, Celestial Purge, and counterspells for the minimal price of one mana. Negate is similarly effective, but when both players are playing counters, the lower casting cost can be absolutely huge. I’d still want Negate as well, of course.

Once this happens, I think, as I said before, it will all come down to whether the control deck is built to respect the combo deck.

This is how I see things as these decks enter the scene, but it’s not how I think they have to stay.

Like any combo deck, most decks have a way to specifically attack this deck that can be effective in the sideboard regardless of their plan. If a ramp deck were to sideboard Naturalize or Nature’s Claim, the dynamic of the matchup could change significantly, as neither player is really able to win quickly, especially if the combo deck isn’t expecting to be attacked in this way.

These are not the only combo decks at the moment. Open the Vaults has made a small resurgence in the PTQs, and Antoine Ruel took third in French Nationals with Polymorph. Both of these decks function very similarly in the metagame to the other combo decks and succeed for similar reasons, but both decks function a little more like control decks, generally winning somewhat slower. Polymorph feels to something like a Tinker style deck to me, playing a control game as long as necessary until it suddenly wins, and Open the Vaults is like a slightly more aggressive Turbo Fog deck (though it could probably also be looked at as a less aggressive Runeflare Trap deck).

Polymorph is doing some good things, and I like the idea of playing more, cheaper counterspells against other control decks, but despite that, I’m not sure it actually beats UW as much as I’d like. UW has a lot of ways to fight Polymorph both before and after its resolved.

Where all of this leads me to, personally, is a feeling that I’d just want to be the one playing UW. Counterspells are so powerful against ramp these days. Cascade is on the decline, so there’s less punishment there, and Wall of Omens makes Bloodbraid Elf a lot less threatening anyway.

Guillaume Wafo-Tapa deck looks excellent:

U/W Titan Control

Guillaume Wafo-tapa

4th Place at Nationals on 07-25-2010

Standard

Creatures (6)

4 Wall of Omens
2 Sun Titan

Planeswalkers (9)

Lands (26)

Spells (19)

Sideboard

Jace Beleren looks awesome here, and interacts extremely well with Sun Titan. I also love the sideboard, particularly the innovation of Gather Specimens. If I were discussing any other UW deck, I’d say that the next step is for ramp decks to follow in Gabe Wall’s footsteps and move toward Eldrazi to beat UW Control, as he did in his second place finish in Louisville:

Turboland

Gabe Walls

Test deck on 08-01-2010

Standard

Creatures (15)

Planeswalkers (4)

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands (29)

Spells (12)

Sideboard

Although I would probably go a step further and sideboard Eye of Ugin (and possibly Emrakul) for the UW matchup. However, Wafo-Tapa was prepared for that in advance with Gather Specimens, which is incredible against Eldrazi, Titans, Avenger of Zendikar, and even perfectly respectable against a late game Oracle of Mul Daya. The rest of Wafo-Tapa’s sideboard is a well rounded variety of cards for tuning any particular matchup, which is a particularly reasonable approach this early in the season when he’s less likely to know exactly what to expect.

I think a lot of people will copy Wafo-Tapa’s list in the next couple weeks, and I expect changes to be extremely subtle. The deck already looks like it’s tuned pretty well for the mirror, as it leans heavily on planeswalkers and instants, which is exactly what you’d want. I’m genuinely uncertain how I’d want to try to attack this deck, even knowing the exact list. It leans heavily on its planeswalkers, so I guess Pithing Needle would be an extremely strong start, since trapping a Jace will stop him from playing the other Jace. From there, the deck looks a lot weaker. It’s possible that Needle will be strong enough against U/W that you can play whatever you like against the rest of the metagame and just plan to Needle Jace to beat U/W, but they can always just find an Oblivion Ring.

Open the Vaults with maindeck Pithing Needle is somewhat appealing, but Jace isn’t really the card you’re afraid of when you’re playing Howling Mine.

Maybe it’s time to just attack with Green creatures and hope they don’t draw Day of Judgment.

I’ll probably be working with U/W Control and Pyromancer’s Ascension.

Thanks for reading…

Sam