Welcome to another edition of Too Much Information! Today we’ll cover the first two events in the post-M13 world, SCG Standard Opens in St. Louis and Las Vegas.
In my previous installment, I was quite certain that Delver would continue being the most played deck as it has been for a good number of weeks. After all, the core set only contained a few new cards to play with. But it turns out that a lot of players thought that was reason enough to drop U/W Delver. Take a look:
St. Louis Standard Open
Not only did the amount of Delver decks drop by half from previous weeks, but U/W Delver wasn’t even close to the most played deck. Three decks that have been seeing reasonable play surpassed it and one that we haven’t seen much of as well (Mono-Green Dungrove, presumably due to Rancor being printed). Delver’s win percentages remained roughly the same at 54.8%.
Naya Pod, whose percentage of the field didn’t actually differ much from previous weeks, was the most played deck in St. Louis. Its win percentage saw a slight increase at a strong 56.5%
G/R Aggro showed very similar numbers to Naya Pod in both field percentage and win percentage, both of which have increased from previous weeks.
Zombies saw a decrease in play by a few percentage points and its win percentages suffered across the board except in the case of B/R Zombies, which saw about a 5% increase from the last two events but was not played by a significant number of players this week.
Mono-Green Aggro went from being relatively unknown to being played as much as Zombies. Its win percentage was also considerably higher than it has been in previous weeks.
G/W Aggro surpassed the dwindling Solar Flare players and boasted a much higher win percentage than in previous weeks, though still only at 48.8%.
Mono-Black Control showed up in reasonable numbers (3.6%), especially considering that before M13 it didn’t exist at all. The version with Trading Post was only played by two players. Their overall win percentage was 51.7%.
Mono-Blue Talrand (listed as a variation of U/W Delver) has started making waves. Its win percentage is only 1.5% lower than U/W Delver.
A version of Naya without Birthing Pod has shown up at 2.6% of the field and actually has a strong win percentage (61%).
The Top 8 of this event did in fact feature eight different decks, and none of them were U/W Delver. Naya Pod ended up winning the whole thing. Three of the Top 8 decks were played in insignificant numbers including Esper Midrange, Naya Humans, and Bant Pod. The remaining Top 8 decks and win percentages were: G/W Aggro (48.8%), Mono-Blue Talrand (54.4%), Mono-Green Dungrove (54.8%), Naya Aggro (61%), and Naya Pod (56.5%).
Las Vegas Standard Open
You might notice that the list of archetypes is longer this week. That is due to the release of M13, which has had a handful of players picking up brews and seeing if they work. Clearly none of them were played a significant amount, but the best performing ones were Wolf Run White (St. Louis) and Wolf Run Blue (Las Vegas). These aren’t exactly new archetypes, but they are the ones that showed the most promise so far.
SCG Las Vegas saw U/W Delver reclaim its title near the top of the most played decks, but it narrowly lost out to Naya Pod, which jumped by 5.4% to make up 12.8% of the field after its win in St. Louis. But with its jump in popularity, Naya Pod’s win percentage decreased by 6.4%.
U/W Delver’s win percentage has stayed consistently near 55% throughout events, which makes a pretty good explanation for its continued popularity. Other decks have shown better numbers occasionally, but none of them stand up to Delver’s consistent win percentage.
Of all the most played decks, Zombies has easily been the most volatile from week to week. This is in part due to the data including a bunch of different versions of the deck. If we look at look at the last five events, this is what each Zombies deck looks like:
(Grixis Zombies was not played a significant amount.)
This gives us a better look into which Zombies decks have been doing the best. It turns out that the third most played Zombies deck (Zombie Pod) actually has the highest overall win percentage. The most played one (B/U Zombies) has the next highest win percentage and the only other one that remains above 50%.
Mono-Green Dungrove showed up again this week, though in slightly less numbers. Its win percentage dropped by 5.7%, which puts it below the 50% mark.
G/R Aggro did much the same, dropping by 2.4% in decks played and 5.8% in win percentage. But it did manage to stay above 50%.
G/W Aggro dropped out of the top six most played decks while also dropping its win percentage down to a miserable 37%. In its place is Wolf Run Ramp, which jumped by 2.9% from St. Louis. Its win percentage was 50.7%.
Mono-Black Control surprisingly got less popular this week, but its win percentage saw a slight increase to 52.5%.
Mono-Blue Talrand jumped to 4.3% of the field, but its win percentage dropped by 3%.
The Top 8 once again was very diverse. There were six different decks with two of them being U/W Delver and two being B/R Zombies, which also ended up the eventual winner of the event. We also saw another Mono-Blue Talrand deck breach the Top 8.
Top Deck Stats
M13 has given us a nice new list of most played decks. It’s interesting to note that the list is now six aggro decks. A lot of players (including myself) are in agreement that control decks are basically dead, and it is really showing.
Naya Pod has slowly been creeping up in popularity, and now that U/W Delver has seen a huge drop, Naya Pod has come out on top, though U/W Delver now boasts the highest win percentage among the top played decks.
Zombies has dropped slightly from last time but still remains a consistent stay near the top of the list. It also happens to have the worst win percentage on the list.
G/R Aggro crept a bit in both popularity and win percentage, proving that it’s still a solid deck choice.
Wolf Run Ramp and Solar Flare have dropped off the list and have been replaced with Mono-Green Dungrove and Naya Aggro. The two new decks on the list have the second and third highest win percentages among the group.
Naya Pod Matchups
Wow. Naya Pod’s win percentages for these two events are astounding. In the past, the deck has been weak to G/R Aggro, but not this time. It’s possible that the changes/improvements that have been made to the deck (a la Caleb Durward) are responsible for its high win rates. Still, it’s really hard to believe that Naya Pod isn’t weak to any of the other top decks but that’s what the numbers say. We’ll see if that changes in the near future.
U/W Delver Matchups
Another surprise! U/W Delver only fared well against one of the top played decks. Not only that, but its overall win percentages are also not looking good. Considering that these decks make up 35.6% (and mirrors are 9.2%) of the field, Delver must have some pretty good game against the rest of the field to be keeping up the win percentage that it has been.
Zombies Matchups
Zombies still seems to be capable of beating Delver, but its numbers are dwindling in other matchups. Both of the new decks are making trouble for Zombies, particularly Naya Aggro.
Mono-Green Dungrove Matchups
As one of the decks brought to life by M13, there’s not a lot of data for Mono-Green Dungrove yet. I would think that an X/X hexproof creature would be responsible for good matchups against most of the top played decks, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The deck only boasts winning records against two decks, and it’s not by a wide margin.
G/R Aggro Matchups
Oddly, where G/R Aggro was favored (Naya Pod) and weak (U/W Delver) are no longer the same. Bonfire and other removal from G/R Aggro have generally been the bane of Naya Pod, but that hasn’t stopped them from overcoming the matchup it would seem.
We’ll see if this continues to hold true, but G/R Aggro has a serious problem with Naya Aggro. If the matchup is truly that lopsided, we’ll probably see a drop in G/R Aggro and a rise in Naya Aggro popularity soon.
Naya Aggro Matchups
And here we see another incredibly strong performance from Naya, the only poor win percentage being against the Naya deck that preceded it. Besides that one weak spot, those are some seriously high win percentages.
Wrap Up
Last time I wasn’t sure that M13 would actually make a difference in the format. I was certainly wrong. Sure, there are not a lot of new decks that are doing well, but there are ones that have been revitalized by the printing of new cards. And most importantly, Delver is no longer the top dog of the format.
It would seem that various Naya decks are poised to take over the format. At the same time, Day of Judgment seems to be the weakness to some of these top performing decks, but will someone find the right home for it? As I mentioned earlier, control decks are pretty much agreed to be dead in this format.
Delver continues to post the most consistently strong win percentages against the field but not against the top played decks. Delver is quite good at adapting, so we shall see if it can overcome the hold that Naya seems to have on it.
Wolf Run Ramp dropped off the radar at these two events but might be well positioned to make a comeback. A few variations of the deck are still being played and performing reasonably well.
All this and no one has made Top 8 with Battle of Wits yet. Who will be the first? I can’t wait to find out!
See you next time, and thanks for reading!
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