Regionals looms on the horizon, and players everywhere are scrambling to cobble together a solution to one of the most complex Standard metagames in Magic’s history. How do we proceed? The true key to success lies in finding those points that truly define today’s Standard environment, and then turning that knowledge to your advantage. In this series, I’ll be looking to help you do just that. This week, we’ll start by taking a look at the metagame as it stands today, the decks to watch for, and a good starting list for each of the main contenders. In the articles that follow I’ll be focusing in on specific decks and matchups, covering the lists, strategies, and card choices that make the difference.
A Tale of Two Tiers
Standard currently enjoys one of the healthiest and most varied metagames the game has ever seen. To start, let’s look how the overall power levels break down by archetype:
Tier 1
- ‘Tog
- R/G
- U/G Madness
Tier 2
- Slide
- Beasts
- W/G Madness
- Sligh
- Reanimator variants
- Black Rogue (Graveborn, et al)
- KaiWake
- Control Black
And that’s just for starters! There are plenty of other decks (like Cleric variants, or Opposition) with power levels at least worthy of consideration. One result of this is that the gap between Tier 1 and Tier 2 becomes significantly less significant than has been the case in most previous metagames. With so many decks to deal with, it’s difficult to hate too many of them out at once. The result is a more tolerant metagame where many different archetypes stand at least a theoretical chance of succeeding, and rogue strategies stand a more reasonable chance of pulling the upset. Let’s start with some preliminary decklists and analysis for each:
‘Tog
Remember the days when they kept stripping more and more pieces out of the various Necropotence decks, and yet there still always seemed to be strong Necro decks? My vote is to give Psychatog honorary Zombie status, given the number of times he’s been declared dead only to come back and chew up all the critters (and players) that get in his way yet again. If slow and steady wins the race, this is your turtle:
Spells:
3 Psychatog
3 Innocent Blood
4 Smother
2 Chainer’s Edict
4 Counterspell
4 Circular Logic
4 Force Spike
3 Deep Analysis
2 Concentrate
2 Upheaval
2 Compulsion
2 Cunning Wish
Lands:
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground River
2 Lonely Sandbar
2 Darkwater Catacombs
4 Swamp
9 Island
Sideboard:
4 Duress
1 Compulsion
1 Deep Analysis
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Boomerang
2 Chainer’s Edict
1 Opportunity
1 Read the Runes
1 Alter Reality
1 Mana Short
1 Hibernation
That’s the list that Florian Pils recently took to 1st place, and it got him an invitation to the German Nationals. (And you could do worse than end up on the German team at Worlds these days.) Florian’s deck is a good preliminary look at the archetype because it includes all the usual suspects. Others have looked at Wish-less versions to help cope with the speedy assaults mounted by Sligh and R/G while reclaiming some badly coveted sideboard space, but the Wish version still looks to be alive and well.
Currently, ‘Tog looks good against any of the midgame decks and great against Sligh and Wake. Tog’s old problem was Sligh, which is now strangling in the sea of better creature decks that have sprung up around its success. With that, the stage was set for:
R/G Speedy Beats:
With the continued popularity (and dominance) of the toothy toggy came a rush toward fast and furious aggro decks. Early on the contender looked to be Sligh, but later events (such as the Chicago Masters) showed R/G to be a more powerful alternative. The definitive list for this archetype comes from none other than Master Kai and his Sideboard article Building for Regionals: Green-Red and Psychatog:
4 Karplusan Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Mossfire Valley
2 Barbarian Ring
6 Forest
4 Mountain
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Wild Mongrel
2 Skirk Marauder
4 Call of the Herd
4 Elephant Guide
4 Firebolt
4 Volcanic Hammer
4 Violent Eruption
Sideboard:
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Compost
2 Phantom Centaur
3 Caller of the Claw
2 Naturalize
We all know who wins when the turtle and hare race, but that’s only for storybooks as far as today’s Standard goes. Against most ‘Tog builds, R/G jumps all over them and doesn’t let up until it’s time to grab a soda between rounds. Because of that, R/G now stands as one of the favorites thanks to good matchups against many of the decks currently popular – particularly as uber-nemesis Slide sinks ever further into the”I hate Tog and nobody plays me” shadows.
Blue/Green Madness:
4 Aquamoeba
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel
3 Wonder
4 Careful Study
4 Circular Logic
3 Deep Analysis
3 Quiet Speculation
1 Ray of Revelation
3 Roar of the Wurm
1 City of Brass
10 Forest
12 Island
Sideboard:
1 Acorn Harvest
4 Compost
2 Divert
3 Equilibrium
1 Krosan Reclamation
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Turbulent Dreams
The definitive list, this one comes from Jeff Cunningham and his recent article on Brainburst Premium. Jeff’s approach to the archetype was fairly revolutionary when it first came out – but in today’s events, this increasingly looks to be the build of choice. By dumping Merfolk Looter for Aquamoeba, you get a far more reliable and durable madness-enabling package, and the inclusion of the Quiet Speculation engine means you rarely run out of gas before it’s time to shuffle up for game 2. As a bonus you get access to the single maindecked Ray as if you’re tutoring for it, and the same goes game 2 and 3 for any needed Krosan Reclamations in the board.
If Tog is the turtle and R/G is the hare, U/G is a big blunt object that you use to pound your opponent with over and over again until one of you stops moving. Relying on nothing but brawling monsters to take the win, its inability to deal with permanents can haunt it if people care – and that list of problem permanents includes such frustrations as Eastern Paladin, Intrepid Hero, Ensnaring Bridge, Silklash Spider, Worship, Withered Wretch, and more. Bounce can deal with this to a certain extent but the deck runs very quickly to dilution if allowed to do so. In a finely balanced machine of enabling, disruption, threats, and card-drawing, removing even a few cards can be very tricky business. The result is that when it comes to”answers” you’ll normally have to go with fewer than you’d like. As a blunt instrument, it will require you to wield it as such to get maximum results.
Tier 2
Which brings us to the second-stringers. Pound for pound each of these has traits to recommend them, but each also suffers from one or more significant flaws. By going this route you typically set your sites on a more narrow set of expected decks or hope that your nemesis will either not come to play – or at least not to come to play against you. In an event where you only need to make Top 8 to qualify, this isn’t as crazy as it sounds.
Slide
4 Exalted Angel
3 Teroh’s Faithful
4 Astral Slide
4 Lay Waste
4 Lightning Rift
4 Renewed Faith
4 Slice and Dice
3 Starstorm
3 Wrath of God
1 Brushland
4 Forgotten Cave
1 Karplusan Forest
6 Mountain
7 Plains
4 Secluded Steppe
2 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
Sideboard:
3 Auramancer
3 Compost
2 Dwarven Blastminer
1 Forest
4 Ray of Revelation
1 Teroh’s Faithful
1 Wrath of God
Zvi’s been playing Slide with the kind of faithfulness you’d expect for a deck that starts with Turbo and ends with Land (and a trophy)… And against most decks, Slide is a powerhouse of often unfair proportions. But there’s one catch: Having Kryptonite for a fatal weakness is fine when Kryptonite is next to impossible to find, but the problem is that Tog, Slide’s Kryptonite, is anything but. Saying it eats Slide for lunch is like saying Shaq would do”okay” against Emmanuel Lewis in one-on-one. Accepting a bad match-up against decks like (relatively uncommon) Control Black is one thing, but assuming the position every time you face a Polluted Delta is a an awful lot to give up right now. Worse, you even have trouble against Cunningham’s U/G if it’s run properly, which means that fully two-thirds of the top tier is something you want to avoid.
With that in mind, taking Slide to an event right now is mostly a bet against ‘Tog. With few enough Tog decks showing up, Slide gets to hang out with the cool kids and can hold its own or better with most. In an event where you know you can probably take at least one loss”for free” it’s not a terrible bet – particularly if Sligh and R/G can keep Tog in the other bracket and quickly.
Beasts
Lands:
4 Brushland
3 City of Brass
2 Contested Cliffs
6 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Plains
4 Wooded Foothills
Creatures:
4 Anurid Brushhopper
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Exalted Angel
3 Glory
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Wild Mongrel
Spells:
3 Beast Attack
4 Call of the Herd
4 Living Wish
Sideboard:
1 Anger
2 Compost
1 Contested Cliffs
1 Genesis
1 Glory
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Intrepid Hero
3 Naturalize
1 Nullmage Advocate
1 Silklash Spider
2 Worship
Metagames are fluid things, and Gary’s Masters deck is proof of the process. With Tog on the throne, players had to turn to Sligh and R/G for answers – and Slide was nowhere to be seen. Once that happened, the door was wide open for a true mid-game deck to step up to the plate. Sound and Fury in the form of zippy beasts and small-time burn are great when you’re racing by a turtle like Tog… But they get chumpy real fast when you run headlong into the Weight Watchers convention that this deck churns out.
The main problem with Beasts comes from the fact that it is a true mid-game deck. As such, it doesn’t do anything really unfair – and that means control decks can give it fits, including creature-hater Slide. If you expect a sea of creature decks, however, this can be one of the best options available.
Current versions often replace the Beast Attacks with Phantom Centaurs for some added game against ‘Tog which does help to a certain extent. Another common issue with the deck is the exact count on Glory and Anger main and board, something that can fluctuate wildly from deck to deck. Sideboards also have a lot of room to work with, including Gigapede for putting even more pressure on control.
W/G Beatdown
Spells:
4 Living Wish
4 Call of the Herd
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Anurid Brushhopper
3 Glory
3 Exalted Angel
4 Phantom Centaur
4 Ravenous Baloth
Lands:
3 Windswept Heath
4 Plains
4 Brushland
11 Forest
Sideboard:
3 Compost
3 Naturalize
1 Glory
1 Intrepid Hero
1 Aven Cloudchaser
1 Spellbane Centaur
1 Silklash Spider
1 Phantom Nishoba
1 Exalted Angel
1 Genesis
1 Plains
David Wiesse used this list to qualify for German Nationals just a couple weeks ago. One important thing to note in this close-cousin to Beasts is the presence of three Angels in a deck that can clearly support four. Whereas the Beasts decks often skip an Angel due to mana limitations, W/G runs three so that you can sideboard one and grab it with Living Wish as needed, giving you an effective count of seven angels rather than the”normal” maximum of four.
Sporting better mana and a more-focused approach, W/G bets on the same metagame as Beasts but takes a narrower approach. Some versions also sport Elephant Guide, but my current opinion is that this just further cements matchups you should already be winning, and at the expense of the match-ups where you need that extra help.
As with other mid-game decks, it tends to have trouble with dedicated control decks, and sticking to this particular color combination means you can’t kill creatures and you give up any true disruption. Built correctly, this is the Blunt Instrument version of Beasts – but the added focus makes for a reasonable deck that can handle almost anything with the right draw. The trade-off is a deck that can’t remove creatures at all – something that can come back to haunt you if your opponents take advantage of you with utility creatures like Eastern Paladin and friends.
Sligh
The best performance by a Sligh deck at the Chicago Masters was delivered by Jin Okamoto, who ran the following deck:
Lands:
4 Barbarian Ring
4 Bloodstained Mire
9 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
Creatures:
4 Blistering Firecat
4 Goblin Piledriver
3 Goblin Sledder
2 Goblin Taskmaster
4 Grim Lavamancer
3 Raging Goblin
4 Sparksmith
Spells:
4 Firebolt
3 Lava Dart
4 Reckless Charge
4 Volcanic Hammer
Sideboard:
3 Flaming Gambit
4 Fledgling Dragon
1 Goblin Burrows
3 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Threaten
Most lists tend to be pretty close to this main deck configuration, though Goblin Burrows shows up main in many versions for some added punch. The #1 debate for this deck right now seems to be whether to use Ensnaring Bridge or Threaten in the board, with well-practiced advocates entrenched on each side.
The main problem for this deck is that it bets on a metagame of Control and Combo. Decks that sport a bustier set of creatures, such as W/G and Beasts, can simply shove too much fat in the way of the Goblins. Slide is a nightmare. R/G can do gross things with Volcanic Eruption – and that’s before you get to the more fight-worthy monsters. In exchange, you get great mana and the most focused attack in the game, but currently it looks to be a bad trade-off.
Reanimator
Widely credited to Ben Seck (a.k.a.”TBS” or”The Ben Seck”), the BR Reanimator variants pack the most punch in Standard, but trade it for the consistency and vulnerability issues typical to non-broken combo decks. TBS was the most successful with this strategy at the Chicago Masters, packing the following listing:
4 Barren Moor
4 Bloodstained Mire
6 Mountain
11 Swamp
2 Anger
1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
4 Doomed Necromancer
1 Faceless Butcher
1 Guiltfeeder
1 Petradon
1 Phantom Nishoba
1 Symbiotic Wurm
1 Undead Gladiator
1 Visara the Dreadful
3 Buried Alive
4 Burning Wish
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
1 Last Rites
3 Sickening Dreams
2 Stitch Together
2 Zombify
Sideboard:
1 Buried Alive
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Decompose
1 Demolish
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Innocent Blood
1 Overmaster
1 Patriarch’s Bidding
1 Recoup
1 Sickening Dreams
3 Smother
1 Stitch Together
1 Zombify
This deck is a difficult one to quantify: When things go your way the deck is near Godlike in its ability to do gross things to your opponent. That can be fun. The bad news is that you really do need things to go according to plan, and this deck has a certain number of bad draws just built into it by nature. That can be less than fun.
The main problem in today’s environment is that disruption can exacerbate the issue. Control decks can also be an issue, and Sligh and RG can often be too fast unless everything goes perfectly. Even U/G can be rough now, with many decks packing bounce main and Compost plus graveyard hate (and maybe even more bounce!) in the sideboard. Finally, keep in mind that an unsettling number of opponents are suiting up for the ‘Tog match by packing in plenty of protection from black.
However, even with all that, this deck has plenty of power to offer. The real question in my mind is the presence (or non-presence) of Withered Wretch. I have yet to see a black beatdown or Graveborn Muse deck really live up to the hype surrounding it… But if people bring them anyway, you could be in for a very long day. Wretch is bad enough, but since it tends to come armed with a package of discard-based disruption, it can spell trouble very fast. Worst of all is turn 2 Wretch followed by turn 3 Unholy Grotto, something that happened to me three times in four rounds yesterday against four different opponents. Was it a fluke? God, I hope so.
And that’s before we even get to the question of other decks that have Black and may be boarding Wretch, such as Control Black. All in all, this deck represents a gamble – but built correctly, it can battle better than many give it credit for. Keep an eye out for my upcoming article on this for what I think is the best build.
KaiWake
Widely considered the most viable Wake variant in current standard, Kai covered his Top 8 deck from the Masters on The Sideboard.
Lands:
3 Brushland
3 Forest
8 Island
4 Krosan Verge
3 Lonely Sandbar
3 Plains
3 Skycloud Expanse
Spells:
1 Circular Logic
3 Compulsion
3 Counterspell
3 Cunning Wish
4 Deep Analysis
3 Memory Lapse
2 Mirari
2 Mirari’s Wake
4 Moment’s Peace
4 Renewed Faith
4 Wrath of God
Sideboard:
2 Chastise
2 Circular Logic
1 Compulsion
1 Elephant Ambush
1 Flash of Insight
1 Krosan Reclamation
1 Mirari’s Wake
1 Opportunity
1 Ray of Distortion
1 Ray of Revelation
3 Seedtime
Kai summed this deck up as follows…
The problem is that your worst matchup is Psychatog…Having such a bad matchup against a tier 1 deck is pretty bad, I have to admit that. But there is some good news as well: The Wake deck has positive matchups against pretty much all other decks.
…and he’s right.
With such a bad matchup against ‘Tog, it’s no secret why this deck ends up Tier 2. In addition to Kai’s argument, it’s important to remember that this deck is really difficult to play. There are a lot of crucial decisions to be made and very little room for leeway.
My question on this archetype is, why go this way when you can have Slide? Slide strikes me as just as good in creature matchups if not better, and is far simpler to play. Either way, you’re betting the house against a real ‘Tog showing, so the difference between the two should come down to comfort level and experience.
Control Black
I left this one for last, because I think it has the widest number of options and seems to be the hardest to evaluate correctly. Most of the time I’ve run it, I’ve had great success – at least as much as with any of the Tier 1 decks I’ve tried. Watching other players I respect has shown me similar results. So the question is:
How come nobody manages to win squat with this deck?!
Up until recently, that was exactly the issue for me. The recent round of German National qualifiers helped that a bit, though, by showing us two different Top 8 MBC decks from that event:
Staffan Enberg’s deck:
Spells:
4 Innocent Blood
4 Smother
4 Chainer’s Edict
4 Tainted Pact
1 Undead Gladiator
2 Skeletal Scrying
4 Mutilate
4 Diabolic Tutor
1 Mirari
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Guiltfeeder
4 Corrupt
1 Visara the Dreadful
Lands:
22 Swamp
3 Cabal Coffers
Sideboard:
4 Duress
4 Nantuko Shade
3 Eastern Paladin
2 Mind Sludge
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Mirari
Jocke Falk’s deck
Spells:
3 Smother
2 Innocent Blood
4 Chainer’s Edict
3 Mutilate
4 Diabolic Tutor
2 Tainted Pact
3 Corrupt
4 Duress
1 Mirari
2 Undead Gladiator
1 Visara the Dreadful
1 Haunting Echoes
3 Skeletal Scrying
1 Mind Sludge
Lands:
4 Cabal Coffers
22 Swamps
Sideboard:
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Mesmeric Fiend
3 Engineered Plague
2 Riptide Replicator
1 Mutilate
2 Persecute
1 Haunting Echoes
These two are functionally pretty similar in their main decks; the reason I listed both is to give you a good look at the range of sideboarding options available to the archetype. Staffan goes with the approach of creatures as renewable resources, using Paladin and Shade for game 2 and 3, when a resolved Compost can otherwise ruin your day. Jocke goes the opposite approach, packing his board with spells to further improve his matchups, instead using Cabal Therapy to shore up Duress in the quest to keep Compost off the table until it’s too late.
Both strategies can be effective, and in combination they force opponents with dedicated removal to make some tough choices regarding just how much to keep in.
Originally this deck seemed to go into hiding because of Sligh’s popularity, but that day may well have passed. Given that R/G is not as bad a matchup as many think, and it has typically excellent matchups against most of the other green-based decks, it seems to me that this deck is poised to make a move on the Tier 1 clubhouse. For a completely different approach through uber-card drawing, make sure to read [author name="Tomi Walamies"]Tomi Walamies[/author]‘ take on the archetype.
The Metagame as a Whole:
Now that we’ve defined (most!) of our field, it’s time to start focusing in on the brass tacks. These are things to keep in mind while we evaluate the coming decks in further detail:
1) Removal
Removal is all over the place right now. Most decks that aren’t U/G or W/G have it, and typically in significant numbers. With even most control decks sporting creatures and rush decks necessitating significant quantities of pesticide, you can expect decks able to field removal to bring it to bear in serious numbers.
Why is this important? If you want a deck with only a limited number of creatures you’re going to need a good way to buy them insurance. It also means that creatures that punish removal-light decks, such as Braids, are seeing a real drop in their stock price unless they’re specifically for boarding against removal-light decks (like Eastern Paladin).
2) Black vs. Compost
Black is everywhere right now, and so is Compost. The more your deck depends on dropping black spells into the graveyard, the more you’re going to need a plan for Compost. For very slow decks, Duress alone won’t cut it.
3) Polarized Metagame
Ultimately, the puzzle presented by today’s metagame is finding a deck that can handle the blistering starts of R/G and Sligh while also somehow slugging it out with the marathon staying power of Psychatog and Slide. Any deck that can handle R/G and Psychatog is a great starting place on the rest of the field.
4) Spread Metagame
I covered a ton of decks in this article, and I consider all of them viable options for the upcoming Regionals events. With such a spread-out field, it’s crucial that you understand your deck as well as possible. When this many decks are possible, it’s almost always best to go with what you feel most comfortable and knowledgeable with. And the better you know your deck, the better you’ll know how to allocate those precious few sideboard slots you have to work with. An open metagame is a great opportunity for the best-informed to flex their muscle.
5) Know Your Questions and Answers
With so many decks to worry about, there’s a staggering array of questions that opposing decks may present you with. At the very least, any reasonable deck needs to know the following:
- How do I deal with (or prevent) 6/6 flying tokens beginning turn 4?
- How do I stay alive against the early rush of decks like R/G and Sligh?
- How do I stay competitive with (or avoid altogether) the late-game power of the control decks?
- How do I handle artifacts and enchantments? What about game 1?
- If I’m a base-black deck, can I handle 4 Composts being boarded against me? How about 4 Phantom Centaurs?
- How reliant on the graveyard am I, and do I expect graveyard hate like Wretch?
- How resilient is my deck against disruption like Duress, Cabal Therapy, or countermagic?
Keep in mind that the slower your deck is, the more answers you’ll need and the more important they’ll be. I would keep these in mind whenever evaluating a deck for the current environment.
And so ends the”intro.” From here out, it’s in-depth coverage of specific decks and strategies. As we go along, feel free to email me with any suggestions or comments you may have, and good luck with your upcoming events!