SCG Talent Search – An Expedition into Standard

I’m old. I started playing when Ice Age was new, and I’ve always had a thing for the older cards, even back then. My goal wasn’t qualifying for the Pro Tour; I wanted to get my hands on the Power Nine to rock Type 1 (Vintage to those of you who don’t share my age). I love chaining spells, countering stuff, and cheaply killing my opponents’ permanents. To really enjoy playing Magic, I need my Brainstorms, my Force of Wills and Swords to Plowshares, even the occasional Moat.

That doesn’t mean I don’t follow the other formats, though. I’m obsessed with this game, and I enjoy the mental exercise of trying to figure out what the current Standard format looks like, what I’d do in it. As I’m likely not going to play in any big Standard tournaments, I’m in the interesting position of not trying to find a deck
for me,
but I can instead treat the format like a huge puzzle I’m supposed to solve. I therefore spend a lot more time analyzing the metagame and jotting down rough ideas than actually playing Standard. This in turn means that I’ll probably never know the perfect decklist (actually fine-tuning decks takes time), but I’m pretty good at predicting the kind of deck likely to come out on top.

That being said, when a whole format comes down to doing nothing for two to three turns before starting to drop big creatures on the table, I quickly lose interest. Unsurprisingly, the pre-M11 Standard format seemed really bad to me, and the finals of Worlds 2009 and PT San Diego were the most boring PT live casts I’ve ever watched.

Luckily, as the developments after M11 hinted at, those dark days have ended with the rotation of Shards of Alara, and the new Standard format is one I can definitely get behind. You get to run anything from focused beatdown through various combo-ish decks to classic control strategies. Overall, the new format seems exciting, diverse, and still open to further innovation. Let’s go and take a closer look at it.

Making a Map

When I approach a new metagame, what I usually do is class the successful decks according to their underlying strategy to give myself what could be called a map of the metagame. So what does current Standard look like?

“Here there be giants” – ancient map inscription

The first strategy to make waves after the rotation was Ramp, in the form of Valakut and Mono-Green Eldrazi. Both try to use a massive amount of acceleration, in particular Rampant Growth-style acceleration, to cast high-end threats early (preferably Primeval Titan). These decks actually make me think of (Legacy) Storm combo in that their early game is completely devoted to building up resources, and once a certain threshold is reached, the game is put away in short order.

“How can there be so many of them?!” – Icatian Scout, last report

The next menace awaiting the harassed explorer of Standard is the swarm decks. Currently these exist in three distinct forms: Elves, Kuldotha Red, and Quest White Weenie. All these decks share the same philosophy: They try to get a large number of small dudes down before doing something obscene to leverage all those warm bodies into a win, be it an Eldrazi Monument/Overrun, kicked Bushwhacker/Goblin Chieftain, or equipment shenanigans.

“Roll on the floor! Roll on the floor!” – common shout, often considered to indicate the presence of a red mage

Fire raining from the sky is another time-honored problem we mages have to deal with, and the red deck is still present to deliver. While extremely aggressive, RDW occupies a very different place in the metagame from the rush strategies covered before, because like Legacy Zoo, it only relies on creatures for the early part of the game. Instead of throwing more and more creatures out to overwhelm the opponent, RDW is usually doing fine with one or two creatures in play, content to lose them to the opponent’s efforts once they’ve dealt some damage only to close the deal with burn.

“Master May I …” – favorite phrase of blue mages all over the multiverse

On the other end of the (metagame) world, we discover a species that seems friendly; after all it doesn’t do anything to actually threaten us. How dangerous this enemy truly is, only becomes apparent once they’ve sat around for a long time, content to just stop us from doing anything meaningful. Classic control decks have long been absent from Standard, but they are back with a vengeance in the form of U/B Control and Pyromancer Ascension. Sitting back on open mana to cast removal and countermagic till they get the opening to drop a Jace or their namesake enchantment to bury their opponent in card advantage, these decks are sure to frustrate those players that have forgotten how to play around counterspells.

“Mine’s bigger than yours!” – deckbuilding approach, sometimes attributed to M. Flores

Relatives to the aforementioned classic control decks, tap-out control decks don’t really try to establish true control of the game. Instead they try to stunt the opponent’s development long enough to allow them to take over the late game with bigger, better spells. Sun Titan, Frost Titan, Baneslayer Angel, and a host of planeswalkers usually fill this role. One thing to note here is that
Wrath of God
Day of Judgment has largely fallen out of favor even in these decks.

The RUG Control decks that have their origins in Zendikar-Rise Block Constructed also fall into this category, but they are somewhat special because they’re reminiscent of Accelerated Blue. They combine the stopping power of a control shell with a touch of ramp to get ahead even while slowing down the opponent. Running acceleration instead of more control elements means that sometimes these decks come out with their guns blazing, playing threats, and drawing into more of them, while at other times they are content playing a controllish game leading into one well-protected threat.

“I knew Elves were into trees, but this is getting absurd — now they’re in love with creepers!” – Voyage to the Vastwood, Traveler’s Journal

While I also don’t see why a
Fauna
Shaman should be such good friends with
angry plants,
the two still form a powerful duo. Fauna Shaman decks represent what’s left of the teeming pool of midrange decks that populated the Standard format pre-Scars, and today they usually combine a smattering of countermagic and some ramp with a large number of mid-sized creatures.

At this point, we have a general overview of which strategies are present; what we want to know next is how much of the surface they occupy (to step out of the map metaphor: how popular they are). Judging by recent tournament results, Ramp (slowly shrinking in popularity with Valakut outnumbering Eldrazi Green), U/B Control, RUG Control, and Weenie aggro (in all three forms) are the most played deck types.

Using the Map

Once I know what the decks in the metagame are capable of in general, I like to ask two pivotal questions, so as to get a little more detailed view of what’s going on. The first one is what threats you’ll often face in the format:

Common

-        hordes of 1/1s and 2/2s backed by a quasi-combo finish that is usually dependent on the creatures being in play

-        (accelerated) fatties up to and including Eldrazi

-        manlands

-        protected planeswalkers, in particular Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Rare

-        midrange creatures

-        Artifacts

-        Enchantments

The second thing I look at is which kinds of answers are in common use:

Common:

-        spot removal, mainly burn and Doom Blade

-        countermagic

-        fatties

-        sideboarded Pyroclasm

Rare:

-        mass removal

-        solid, medium-sized creatures

-        removal that can efficiently kill black creatures with toughness > 3

-        artifact/enchantment removal

This information provides us with a grid that allows us to figure out disparities between the threats and answers present in the metagame, point us to strategies that may be underused, and threats we should be using because opponents are likely to be low on defense against them.

In this case, mass removal seems to be rare in spite of the large number of different Weenie decks. The absence of midrange creatures (the quintessential 4/4 for four) also favors Weenie decks because their small creatures are less likely to be directly outclassed by the opponent’s next-turn play. As such a fast (as in “kills ramp before ramp can go off”) Weenie deck seems well positioned at the moment, as long as some way to beat Pyroclasm can be found. With all the spot removal floating around, the deck should also not be reliant on any particular creature to make its masses into a real threat.

Another kind of deck that seems to be well positioned would be a control deck that can answer weenie hordes, trump fatties, and win the card-advantage war of the control mirror. The RUG deck springs to mind here, as maindeck burn plus sideboard Pyroclasm should do a number on the Weenies; ramping out Frost Titan trumps most other big-spell threats and mana advantage is a time-honored way to break the control mirror.

Two specific cards are also likely to rise in value in this kind of environment: Mimic Vat and Abyssal Persecutor. Mimic Vat allows for decks of any color to run a potentially game-breaking artifact but is especially potent in control decks that want a late-game trump (because of both its need to be fueled with a lot of mana and a control deck’s unmatched ability to kill things). The Vat is hard to stop currently and imprinting pretty much anything on it will provide a significant advantage throughout the game with any Titan practically being game over.

Abyssal Persecutor on the other hand profits from the specific kinds of spot removal that are being played. It will never trade less than two for one against red removal, and it can’t be Doom Bladed. Combine that with its low mana cost (meaning it’s comparatively easy to protect and comes out fast enough to put a damper on any weenie assault), and you have a premiere threat for black decks.

What to Play?

Now that we have a solid idea what the metagame looks like, as well as an inkling of how it is going to develop, you’ll probably expect me to tell you what the Best Deck┢ is. Sorry, that’s not the way this works.

Those of you who haven’t just smashed your screen in rage because they wasted valuable time on an article that doesn’t even tell them what the best deck in Standard is, thank you for staying (to those that only pushed the back button — you’re missing the decklists, haw haw).

The reason I’m not going to give you the list for the best Standard deck is simple: I don’t think there is one. In addition, me giving you a 75 and telling you that it’s optimal would be dishonest in the extreme. I mentioned before that I don’t playtest Standard enough to get to tune any deck to perfection. Therefore, instead of giving you one list to copy, I’ll let you know which decks I think you should avoid at the moment and provide you with the two decks I think are best positioned in the current Standard metagame.

Decks to stay away from:

RDW: If you want to be aggressive, going with one of the Swarm decks is a better choice. Half the format is full of spot removal and countermagic, which makes it very hard to connect even once with your high impact creatures. Thereby RDW’s burn finish loses much of its potency because, while you may be able to easily burn them out from six to eight life, getting them that low is a lot harder than it might seem when looking at creatures like Geopede and Kiln Fiend. Tons of chump-blocking 1/1s create similar problems.

Ramp: Your enemies will likely be very aggressive Swarm decks and control decks prepared to fight Titan wars. Ramp has trouble surviving the former’s onslaught and runs headfirst into a fight the latter are set up to be good in. Not the kind of position I’d like to be in.

Elves: You goldfish about as well as the other swarm decks, but your clock is more susceptible to spot removal (on Archdruid/Ezuri) than that of Kuldotha Red, and you still just lose to an early Pyroclasm. Sideboard Leylines help with this, but having Bushwhackers to mount surprise attacks post ‘Clasm seems like a better plan anyway. Goblins > Elves — again.

Quest WW: The deck is somewhat slower than the other Swarm decks, and using equipment makes you really weak to instant-speed removal. Having to charge up Quest also means you simply cannot hold back to play around Pyroclasm. I’d rather be Kuldotha Red

Decks to play:

The decklists I’ll present here should be solid (I take care when I do my research), but I haven’t conclusively battle-tested them. I’d advise you to tune and tinker according to your own discretion.

RUG Control

The deck has all the qualities you want of a deck in this format. It can Pyroclasm Weenie swarms, counter big threats, tap or steal them; it accelerates nearly as well as the ramp decks, meaning your Frost Titans will likely come to the party early, and your control matchup is naturally solid because of the mana advantage. The one reason not to play this deck is the fact that it’s been winning quite big last weekend (last as I’m writing this), meaning it has quite the bull’s-eye on its forehead.

The maindeck is card for card that of last weekend’s winner Daniel Jordan, his list just seems really solid. I’ve slightly modified his sideboard because I suspect that the metagame is going to be very much about swarm aggro fighting control, so you really want to be able to ‘Clasm on two post-board.

I added two little Jaces to the sideboard to serve as Vindicates because control on control is going to be a Jace war where whoever gets to keep a Mind Sculptor just wins. The other two cards I want are Mind Controls. As I suspect to face many a Persecutor, having an early answer to it becomes important, and it’s also a great thing to hit Titans with. That being said, the Ruinblasters I cut for these cards might actually turn out to be just better because they’re more polyvalent and, in particular, far better against ramp.

Number 2: Spawn Aggro

This deck hasn’t hit the spotlight yet but has a lot of potential. The list I have access to (Josh Silvestri) seems to fulfill the requirements for the “best” Weenie deck I was looking for. Running the Spawn creatures and generally interchangeable bodies makes spot removal pretty inefficient at dealing with the deck because both its acceleration and trumps remain unaffected if your Hill Giants bite the dust.

Meanwhile the deck accelerates nearly as well as Elves and sports a similar clock (the bombs, Garruk, and Monument will be lethal thanks to the Spawn) meaning it should still be able to successfully race Ramp even though some of its spells cost four.

Instead of folding to Pyroclasm, though, the twelve x/3 guys combined with most creatures delivering multiple bodies mean you actually get to play around it without losing much. The larger bodies also provide Spawn Aggro with an edge against other swarm decks simply because they allow you to either attack while chumping with Spawn, or they’ll halt the opponent’s attacks until he can resolve one of the trumps — which you can simply match. Turns out having slightly bigger guys is really important when both of you have lots of creatures!

Playing the deck is pretty straightforward. It’s basically all dumping guys, turning them sideways, and finishing with a trump. If they don’t have mass removal, overextend as much as possible, and resolve Garruk/Monument to kill them. Against mass removal, play one or two creatures at a time. You still get to put enough men on the board to make any Overrun lethal, and if they sweep, you can just redeploy.

Sideboarding isn’t much more complicated. If they can kill small guys too easily, board into big ones. If they deal damage faster than you do, gain life. If they try to kill all your creatures, board Fauna Shaman and Garruk — Shaman may not be a fatty, but if it’s the last creature alive, it’ll still kill them with Vines.

 

My Personal Choice

Some of you might wonder which of these decks I’d play in a tournament tomorrow, and the answer may surprise you: Neither. Instead I’d probably sleeve up a carbon copy of
Nick Spagnolo U/B Trinket Control deck.
I can already hear the screams of outrage… Why would I tell you these are the best decks and not play either? Is everything you read so far nothing but a ploy so that I have something to submit?

No, far from it. As I said before, I don’t think there’s one obvious best deck in Standard, and Spagnolo’s

deck simply does everything I love doing and would fit my play style perfectly. To me, this is a far more important criterion when choosing the deck to play. Metagaming is a powerful tool, but I strongly believe you’re always better off running a deck you enjoy and are comfortable with instead of the deck that might have slightly better positioning. Making fewer mistakes because your deck plays to your strengths will decide more games than a slight edge a deck will ever give you. As such, if I had to make the choice, I’d always go with the deck that fits you over the deck that fits the metagame. Just remember to ignore this advice if the format breaks (think Affinity). At that point it’s all “damn the preferences and hope you figure out something broke before the cards skyrocket.”

And thus we conclude our exploratory voyage; maybe you found the right deck for you. If so, have fun with it, I’ll see you next week!

Carsten Kötter