We’ll start this week off with a quick analysis of the top four decks or so and how they’re situated in the current metagame, beginning with my current favorite deck – Blightning Beatdown.
Blightning Beatdown
Matt Nass — Top 8 Superstars 1k Standard
4 Ghitu Encampment
4 Auntie’s Hovel
4 Graven Cairns
4 Sulfurous Springs
8 Mountain
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Goblin Outlander
4 Shambling Remains
4 Blightning
4 Incinerate
4 Flame Javelin
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
Sideboard:
3 Unwilling Recruit
4 Vexing Shusher
4 Demigod of Revenge
4 Volcanic Fallout
Goblin Outlander is strong in the current metagame, and not just as an offensive bear… he doubles as effective Figure of Destiny and Knight of the Meadowgrain protection in the midgame. Sure, you can just go and burn these men away, but that takes additional cards, while just switching your Outlander to defense mode* doesn’t give back the four or six points you got in for early on. For everyone except Marijn Lybaert, the memo got passed around a few weeks ago, and in large part every single R/B deck I’ve seen runs at least three of these guys, if not the full set.
For an offense-only creature, Hellspark Elemental is just the nuts, and I underrated how efficient the guy really was. Unless he eats a Path to Exile or Condemn, Hellspark pretty much always gets in there for at least three, and almost always six damage against Faeries, Five-Color Control and most non Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender decks. This guy is the Ball Lightning descendant everyone was looking for from Hell’s Thunder, and I would definitely run him as a four-of in my future Red decks.
I still think Demigod of Revenge is a holdover from a past era, and isn’t really worth the maindeck slots over Siege-Gang Commander, or even just throwing out more two-drops or Banefire. I’d rather have the four damage in burn form than five damage in highly removable and easily chumped creature form. Where is Demigod really shining anyway? It certainly isn’t against Faeries, B/W Tokens, or R/W Lark. What’s left? The Red mirror? Sure, Demigod will get in there 99% of the time or eat a Flame Javelin, both are noble causes and can end the game in about two swings if he isn’t dealt with. Five-Color Control though? If you get in for more than five damage without chaining them, I will be highly impressed. Nearly every single time I got Demigod into play against Five-Color Control, it either ate a spot removal spell, traded with Broodmate tokens, or was met by a subsequent Cruel Ultimatum. Not even worth going into detail about the misery the White sideboard cards rain down on you. Regardless, it’s fine as a sideboard option against slower more controlling decks, simply because when you do chain Demigods it becomes very hard to lose.
Boggart Ram-Gang got surprisingly better in the metagame, simply due to the fact that Firespout is being replaced in every deck by Volcanic Fallout. In a twist, the Red deck can now effectively play the sweeper since it only kills 8 of the relevant guys in the deck (Figure too, but only if the opponent is playing it), and four of those happen to be Mogg Fanatic. Ram-Gang not only benefits from living a lot longer, but the three-drop has proven its worth by being able to swing past Knight of Meadowgrain or Knight of the White Orchard, both of which are now seeing more play than Kitchen Finks.
Although my own personal build is a bit slower with Siege-Gang Commander, I like this set-up without Bitterblossom and the amount of aggression in the deck. I also want Mutavault somewhere in there, but I guess that would mean going up to 26 lands to make sure you still can see RRR by turn 4. Last thing before we move on, Unwilling Recruit is really good in this deck. Matt told me it was pretty ridiculous for him during the day, and I believe him. Stealing Figure of Destiny, Reveillark, Demigod of Revenge, and even just clearing the way for your attackers against one large blocker are all great uses for three mana, and the pump ability can actually make a difference in a close game.
R/W Reveillark: At the moment, this is one of the top dogs in the format based off popularity; amount of card advantage and recursion the deck features; and the sheer number of ‘best’ cards in the Standard format it runs. If you take into account the searching from Ranger of Eos and recursion properties of Reveillark, not to mention the power of each individual threat, this deck has roughly the same number of card advantage options as Five-Color Control, and many more than other decks. Other than being the best deck at using Figure of Destiny, R/W Lark also features a capable burn set-up with Flame Javelin, Siege-Gang Commander, Volcanic Fallout, and Murderous Redcap.
The mirror is one of the more annoying I’ve played, usually coming down first to the mana supply and then to the sheer amount of recursion / Siege-Gang Commanders available. Mana is highly overlooked for this deck, as it needs five mana to use its best threats. This is why Fulminator Mage ends up being surprisingly good, despite being told the original purpose was purely against Five-Color Control. Turns out the R/W player that can’t play five-drops loses pretty much every single game, and Fulms helps that quite nicely. Although at this point I really like Scepter of Dominance, since if things get dicey it has more value than just being a 2/2 chump blocker. Being able to shut down a giant Figure of Destiny or keep Reveillark dealt with while not killing it are nice bonuses while still having the ability to keep the opponent one mana down.
Although people have argued both ways, I’m reasonably sure Faeries has a slight edge on R/W Lark. The main problems occur when R/W Lark can’t get any early game pressure or Figure of Destiny eats a Terror early in the game. After that the Lark deck is essentially forced to get through a five-cost threat to stay in the game, Reveillark itself being the most annoying to deal with. Even Ranger of Eos fetching Fanatics and Figures won’t be enough to deal with an active Blossom or Mistbind Clique, you really need to power through a Siege-Gang or Lark to have a big enough impact on the board. Part of it is the R/W deck sacrifices so much early game damage that decks like Blightning can get in for, even just hitting a Fanatic or Figure and following up with either Knight (Meadowgrain or Orchard) makes the game play out completely differently against Faeries.
So the key to the match seems largely to be whether or not R/W can stick anything early that’s imposing against Faeries, while the Fae player generally just wants to stay ahead on tempo until it’s too late for R/W to make up the difference in board position. Seems simple enough to dictate terms either way, yet people argue quite a bit about why each deck is winning. Much maligned Path to Exile would certainly help keep Sower of Temptation and Mistbind Clique in line, while Volcanic Fallout would obviously help keep the board from becoming so overloaded that you can no longer stabilize.
A match that’s a little harder to understand is the R/W mirror. From my understanding and testing on Magic Online, there are three basic ways to gain an edge and win the match. The first is the classic big man game with full Siege-Gang Commander — Reveillark sets, where you simply overwhelm them with must-handle threats and recurring those threats. Figure of Destiny has value, but it drops dramatically in this match due to the number of random flyers that can block and the value of Path to Exile on 4/4 or larger Figures. Balefire Liege is along these lines as well, making all of your men better in combat, giving an insane clock with token generators and allowing you to win if you untap with him in play simply by getting free Lightning Bolt / Helices thrown at the opponent’s creatures.
The second path is the Cheatyface way of winning; breaking the ability of the opponent to play those major threats talked about in option one. Fulminator Mage, Ajani Vengeant, and Scepter of Dominance all fall under effective ways to keep the opponent off five mana until you’ve gained a dominating edge on board. Note that this option gets worse the more likely it is the opponent is to hit his land drops, which gives rise to the question of how many basics and how many lands (even with a set of Mind Stone) are really necessary. For example, this is a build configured around this plan.
Scepter Lark
3 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Reveillark
3 Ranger of Eos
4 Fulminator Mage
1 Flamekin Harbinger
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Volcanic Fallout
4 Ajani Vengeant
4 Scepter of Dominance
4 Mind Stone
6 Plains
4 Mountain
3 Ghitu Encampment
4 Rugged Prairie
4 Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]
4 Reflecting Pool
Sideboard:
3 Icy Manipulator
4 Banefire
4 Celestial Purge
4 Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender
Note the deck has 29 total mana sources, 25 being actual land. It also features maindeck Volcanic Fallout as an easy way to deal with opposing swarms of birds, goblins, and whatever other tokens exist. The full set of Fulminator Mage, Scepter, and Ajani Vengeant give it legitimate anti-mana options, and from the board you can take it a step further against something like Five-Color Control. Though if the Manipulators suck, I blame Matt Nass entirely for the suggestion, and would then replace it with Chandra Nalaar.
Finally, the third way involves taking control of the board and setting yourself up to win an attrition war. Whether that’s a fight over board presence where running full sets of Reveillark, Volcanic Fallout, and Path to Exile can drain the opposing creature sets, or a fight over life totals largely involving Flame Javelin, Quenchable Fire, and Banefire. You set yourself up in such a fashion that you know exactly what value you get out of each attack and all the creatures you play, while many opponents aren’t necessarily clear on the value of your spells or their opening hand strength depending on the mode of attack. Sure, if they pay attention, most of this advantage is gone by game 3, but a surprisingly high number of players simply treat this match as a normal Red mirror when there are a number of nuances to it.
Five-Color Control: Moving onto the control spectrum of things, Five-Color Control is still a fine choice, although statistically match-wise I’m unsure if it’s better than just playing Faeries. The two biggest problems I have with the deck are the weak Fae match-up, which Volcanic Fallout helps but not enough to make a huge difference percentage-wise. Second, the deck can just lose supposedly solid matches against decks like Blightning and R/W Lark by virtue of these decks having legitimate end-games in addition to some strong early pressure. Blightning can deal so much damage over the first four turns that it can keep Five-Color Control on the back foot for the rest of the game, and eventually just win off topdecks, late Banefire or manlands. R/W Lark has its namesake and Ranger of Eos, which can just overload a board that’s already been cleared multiple times via Fallout and Wrath of God. The early game can also be precarious, since Figure eventually demands an answer and a Fulminator Mage or active Ajani Vengeant can completely hamstring Five-Color Control for multiple turns. Even with 27-28 lands and multiple three-mana draw spells, hitting all of your land drops can be a challenge at times, and even if Five-Color Control can do so, they cannot necessarily play four-drops on turn 4 due to Vivid land drawbacks.
Even though these aggro decks are supposed to be great matches, and hence the reason you want to play control in the first place, they both have valid game plans to knock you out before half the spells in the deck come online. Both can force a late-game showdown without any special pre-conditions or odd cards attached if you don’t resolve Ultimatum or well-defended Broodmate Dragon. This is rather obnoxious to have to deal with, since it creates enough variance in small game sets that it could lower the value of playing the deck. Given enough matches and data, I’m reasonably sure any well-built Five-Color Control will be favored in the long-run of the match, but if I’m playing it for 7-8 rounds I worry about dropping a ‘gimmie’ match when the other natural enemy of the deck is likely to be in the Top 4 decks* in terms of popularity. Throw in a mirror where half your cards are invalidated simply by the nature of the match, and where silliness like Banefire, Swerve, and Ajani Vengeant suddenly become very critical, and there are valid reasons to look elsewhere.
* Moreso when divvying up by player skill.
Of course, then you’d be giving up the only deck with a notable amount of card draw available to it and the ability to literally play any answer in the format from Swerve to Plumeveil to Story Circle.
Faeries: Blah blah blah, best deck in the format, you should play this and feel comfortable with your choice since you’re probably the statistically favored person in the room and so on. Despite the number of anti-Fae cards that were printed, and the fact that Blightning and Red Deck Wins are actually legitimate choices, people immediately tuned their decks away from all the anti-Fae stuff they had for the past decade. When I originally said Faeries was going to take a big hit from people playing all these obnoxious cards, I figured they would be in addition to what hate was already seeing play, supplementing it rather than out and out replacing it. Instead, what’s seemingly happening is the exact same problem that existed for months: people would have 4-8 cards that were good against Fae, and the rest of their deck strategy was horrific against the deck.
Another thing that hasn’t changed is the poor Red match, and there’s seemingly no answer in sight coming from Faeries. Hellspark Elemental, Volcanic Fallout, and Banefire have only added to the number of problems Fae has dealing with the Red hordes. This is offset with the deck being able to beat the W/R midrange versions and generally slap down every other deck in the metagame. Like I said, Fae is probably the best choice in the abstract, but decks like W/R, B/W Tokens, and Five-Color Control can still steal games with the proper plan and sideboard against you, and the pure Red decks are just concessions most of the time.
One of the cards I was actually considering was Royal Assassin in the sideboard, against decks like WR Lark and even potentially against normal Red decks. Having a repeatable way to be able to kill any attacking creature is pretty amazing, especially when certain annoyances are Terror-proof. Of course, the Assassin dies quite easily which makes him a liability, but surprisingly enough, most W/R decks only have eight ways to deal with him (Fanatic and Flame Javelin), and some run Incinerate as well… even Blightning decks have twelve, and that’s it. Flame Javelin is trading at full mana value anyway, and Fanatic is the only annoying weapon against him, but he’s always been that way. Plus some W/R lists don’t even run the full set of them, instead choosing for a more varied set of answers. Obviously Green decks have problems with this guy as well, but who plays those?
Reveillark can also be a pain, but if you aren’t willing to run with Relic of Progenitus, you could always go back to the Stone Age and run a real Control Magic effect in Persuasion. Not removable by many decks, it can gank a Lark and make sure that he isn’t attacking or dying quite that easily… unless you want it too, of course. Sower of Temptation is certainly fine in the same way, but tends to explode a lot easier by much of the same removal that tagged Assassin. Of course, these spells have such a big impact on the game that if they don’t have the removal spell in hand, it can quickly turn around a board position.
The big takeaway is Faeries is still a very valid option, and you’re most likely under-prepared for it. Be careful at the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open or it could sneak up despite opponents having more weapons against the deck than ever before.
Good luck to those attending the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open, and to everyone PTQing this weekend. I might post additional wackiness deck-wise in the forums later, so watch for that if interested.
Next week: Legacy. Yes, finally.
Josh Silvestri
Team Reflection
Email me at joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom