Standard is a remarkably complex and diverse ecosystem. At least today.
(Some very minor spoiling is ahead, so be warned if that kind of thing isn’t up your alley…)
The new metagame has yet to be discovered, but there have already emerged some common wisdoms: non-allied colors have taken a huge hit being the most prominent of these. Without pain-lands, their stability seems deeply hurt; the new semi-duals (lands that make allied colors, and come into play tapped if you don’t control the appropriate allied basic land) keep at least the allied two-color decks with the same number of multi-lands, even if they do ask for more of a commitment. Looking at the full data from the Minneapolis $5K (corrected with the knowledge that one more Boat Brew was among the top finishers — a mistake in the judging staff from similar names among finishers) we get the following “Top Metagame”:
15% – Faeries
13% – Jund Cascade
13% – Black/White Tokens
8% – Reveillark
6% – Green/White Overrun
6% – Swans
4% – Five-Color Cascade
4% – Naya-Jund Cascade Control
4% – Doran Junk
4% – Kithkin
4% – Elves
4% – Red(/X)
4% – Boat Brew
2% – Five-Color Control
2% – Elementals
2% – Bant
2% – Elves!!!
2% – OTHER (Bant Tokens)
Of these, we can think about the lists that were clearly hurt:
Black/White Tokens — losing Cave of Koilos
Green/White Overrun — losing Treetop Village
Jund Cascade — losing Treetop Village
Swans — losing Seismic Assault (good luck finding a replacement…)
Doran Junk — losing Llanowar Wastes
Elves — losing Llanowar Wastes and Treetop Village, as well as Civic Wayfinder
Boat Brew — losing Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]
Bant — losing various pain-lands
Certainly, there are other losses for various decks, but one of the most fundamental is always going to be the land. This isn’t necessarily so bad for two of our plucky decks, Jund Cascade and Green/White Overrun. Certainly, the loss of Treetop Village is rough, but it is far from insurmountable. The big benefit of these cards was always, essentially, that they turned your manabase into a source for a heavier threat density, and that they gave you a huge resistance to traditional control methods. For Faeries, for example, a Treetop Village could be a truly problematic threat, but it was hardly the cornerstone of a Green/X decks arsenal in that fight. In fact, other potential means to shore up these matchups are abundant. The Great Sable Stag comes to mind.
But what about the other decks, that have lost their pain lands? What about Tokens, Junk, Elves, Bant, and Boat Brew? What can we do for these decks?
The first thing to think about is whether there are any kinds of mana fixing that we can make use of that won’t be completely wretched. I love me an Absorb Vis in Limited, but it doesn’t seem quite up to par in Constructed. Armillary Sphere gets a little bit closer, but it is slow, slow, slow… We have the Panoramas, but again, they are slow in a way that is exceedingly frustrating.
It is a fundamental problem. One of the biggest complaints about Black/White Tokens, for example, has always been the “janky mana.” With Fetid Heath, Caves of Koilos, and Arcane Sanctum, supported by Reflecting Pool, it has a very solid amount of mana-fixing. And yet, the complaints on the mana remain. A part of it is because of the comes-into-play-tapped Arcane Sanctum joining Windbrisk Heights, but another part of it is the occasional difficulty in getting the BB necessary to cast spells like Murderous Redcap or to cast any Black spell and a Zealous Persecution in the same turn. Cutting down yet another Black source requires something to help out.
What is essentially lost, for the most part, is the access to Caves of Koilos, Llanowar Wastes, and Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]. I know that when I experimented with Jund Cascade, I found a great deal of success in using Exotic Orchard as a semi-reliable black/x source, but the metagame was deeply different than I imagine it is likely to be. For a deck that was going to be RBG, only WW/Kithkin usually failed to make the Orchard a reasonable source of mana. These days, however, I suspect that that is going to be far less the case, particularly as it is likely to see an upswing in WW. If we think about the “stricken” decks, 36% of the metagame could potentially be fleeing to a less-diverse mana population. Leaning on Exotic Orchard seems like a poor call for an aggressive deck, where before it was somewhat reasonable. Other options seem even clunkier (Rupture Spire, Shimmering Grotto, and Unstable Frontier).
There is still a small array of choices for mana that are a bit restrictive because of their likelihood of coming into play tapped. Savage Lands is a potential “replacement” for Llanowar Wastes, just as Arcane Sanctum is the variant used by Black/White Tokens for their Caves of Koilos.
With the loss of Treetop Village from Elves, as well as Llanowar Wastes, it seems like the introduction of Savage Lands to future-Standard Elves, could be completely reasonable. Similarly, there are possibilities to include Savage Lands in the place of Wastes in other decks as well.
Take the following variant of Doran Junk, built for an M10 Universe:
1 Behemoth Sledge
3 Chameleon Colossus
4 Knotvine Paladin
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Great Sable Stag
4 Treefolk Harbinger
4 Wilt-leaf Liege
4 Path To Exile
4 Doran, The Siege Tower
3 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Nameless Inversion
5 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Murmuring Bosk
4 Savage Lands
2 Wooded Bastion
4 Sunpetal Grove
There are some “little” things that are different from the Grand Prix list. First of all, obviously there isn’t anything in the way of man-lands. This isn’t so terribly bad, though, because the various enemies of the deck have also lost Wrath of God. There are other ramifications of this, as well. Without Wrath of God, there is a fair amount less value in Dauntless Escort and Gaddock Teeg. Teeg still holds a lot of value, of course, but Great Sable Stag feels like a reasonable replacement. Chameleon Colossus also seems like it has increasing value in a world in which it is likely that Jund Cascade and Faeries might both be somewhat stronger.
One of the things that is particularly of interest for this deck is the way that the Sunpetal Groves are very positively employed. With Treefolk Harbinger nearly always grabbing a Murmuring Bosk at some point, if not a basic Forest, the Sunpetal Groves will often function essentially as a Savannah.
For something like Elves, the update would look like something similar, but without the use of the Groves. Losing Civic Wayfinder, as any Elves player will tell you, is a true key to the deck. Mike Flores recently covered Elves, after the LCQs for the last Pro Tour included exactly four for four qualifying lists. Each of the four ran at least three Civic Wayfinders, with Gabriel Carlton-Barnes running a full set. While there is a functional replacement in Borderland Ranger, the fact that it is not an Elf is actually quite rough.
It’s potentially possible that what the Elf list is going to have to end up looking like is an even larger merging of the Jund Elves list from the Atlanta $5k or it could look more traditional Elves list. It might look something like this:
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Wilt-leaf Liege
3 Chameleon Colossus
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Putrid Leech
4 Wren’s Run Vanquisher
4 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Nameless Inversion
4 Profane Command
4 Forest
3 Swamp
4 Savage Lands
4 Gilt-leaf Palace
4 Twilight Mire
1 Reflecting Pool
4 Mutavault
Elvish Archdruid is not Civic Wayfinder. Wayfinder is a card that is insidious in its potency. Archdruid has the potential to be far more powerful if it survives, but a Wayfinder gets its job done just by coming into play. I’d love to be playing both of them, but if I had to choose, it would definitely be a choice for the Wayfinder; sometimes slow and steady wins the race.
Many lists have been running four Mutavault the entire time (a choice I’ve never been entirely comfortable with), but without Treetop Village, I am inclined to add one to the land count, and go up to the fourth Mutavault. Profane Command is another card that I used to advocate for four copies, but as Faeries has returned to ascendancy, I’d felt like it might be more reasonable to run less. With the Archdruid, however, Profane does have the potential to be deeply powerful.
The Archdruid does create the potential for incredibly quick starts. A second turn Archdruid followed by a third turn land can easily create six-plus mana on the third turn. An alternate build of the deck, then, might be better build with Overrun, where a Mutavault plus Archdruid makes for a free activation for the Mutavault.
Boat Brew and Black/White Tokens remain truly problematic decks. While Ancient Amphitheater exists to help the mana along with Jungle Shrine for Boat Brew, Black/White Tokens really has no extra help, mana-wise. The brute force solution is to dip even further into comes-into-played tapped lands. This will get the job done, but perhaps the better solution is to merely pare back the alternate colors of mana.
Boat Brew and Black/White Tokens are both, in essence, Windbrisk Heights decks. Patrick Chapin “fix” for Tokens is to all-but-eliminate the Black. While completely reasonable, a part of me is just deeply going to miss cards like Murderous Redcap. Boat Brew can handle the loss of Mogg Fanatic (though it won’t like it), but how will the deck feel losing easy access to Siege-Gang Commander? It is definitely a rough loss. Manuel Bucher has shown us that Springleaf Drum is worth considering in a Constructed deck. Including one or two might be a way to get the mana in a better off place, but the alternative is worth thinking about: dropping down the Red to its bare minimum: perhaps just hybrid cards and Ajani Vengeant. Cards like the new Baneslayer Angel could be fit in to take the place of the old cards. Boat Brew always seemed to be a deck that was dedicated to slowly overwhelming an opponent with relevant cards. Whatever direction this deck goes, I expect it will be as different from what we know now as Chapin’s Tokens.
Overall, change is always exciting. We’ll be cutting our teeth on the new metagame soon. I know that I am excited to see, once again, U.S. Nationals happening so shortly after the introduction of a major set shift. I’ve always loved the way that U.S. Nationals has, in the past, been a place where, much like Pro Tours often are, we see tons of innovation in new decks. I know I’m hoping to find something in this new format that will prove to be very powerful.
Until next week,
Adrian Sullivan