After weeks of anticipation that always accompanies a new set, Ixalan and all its tribal goodness were dropped on the unsuspecting city of Dallas, Texas last weekend.
Well…maybe not so much the tribally goodness. As Ari Lax and a certain other,morehandsomewriter for this website predicted, the tribal payoffs in Ixalan were unable to hold up against the raw power of Kaladesh and Amonkhet blocks. The most-hyped tribe, Dinosaurs, managed to get three players into the second day, but given that there were 133 total players, that’s not an exciting number.
Vampires managed to squeak into the Top 64 as well, although in a somewhat unconventional W/G build from a player, Jack Kiefer, who has a particular affinity for unconventional decks. Personally, I don’t see the raw power here that’s necessary to play a deck with such little interaction, although I think the commitment to swarming aggression is key to unlocking the Vampire tribe.
The reality is, regardless of your thoughts or mine on the tribal decks that did manage to make an appearance, the tribes of Ixalan on the whole failed to show up in force. Instead, the triumvirate of Energy, Ramunap Red, and U/W Approach that everyone targeted going into the tournament overcame the targets on them and thoroughly dominated the tournament.
For those hoping to see a whole new format, this is the bad news. The top decks going into the format are well-tuned and quite powerful, especially the Energy shell, which gives you access to both powerful cards and great mana without requiring much in the way of deckbuilding concessions.
The Energy shell is in fact so powerful that it spawned the most successful new archetype of the tournament, Sultai Energy, piloted by much of Team Metagame Gurus and eventually taking the trophy in the hands of Andrew Jessup, who also just happened to be one of the best players in the room.
Creatures (27)
- 4 Longtusk Cub
- 4 Winding Constrictor
- 2 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
- 4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
- 4 Rogue Refiner
- 4 Walking Ballista
- 1 The Scarab God
- 4 Hostage Taker
Lands (21)
Spells (12)
Sideboard
While not exploring the Ixalan-centric synergies, this deck does incorporate one of the most powerful cards in the new set, Hostage Taker. It’s clear that the deck is built with this card in mind, as it eschews much of the high-end you see in these decks for a lower curve so that the tempo gain from Hostage Taker, even if they have a removal spell on their turn, is significant. The lower curve also lets the deck take advantage of Blossoming Defense to protect not only the Pirate but threats like Winding Constrictor, Glint-Sleeve Siphoner, and Longtusk Cub, all of which can snowball out of control if left unanswered for too long.
My one qualm with the deck is its slim removal suite outside of Hostage Taker. I imagine those Vraska’s Contempts in the sideboard came in a lot; they certainly did in the matches I watched, and I’d be looking for space to squeeze one or both of them into the maindeck, especially as the backlash against Hostage Taker, the breakout card of the tournament, in the coming weeks will be swift.
What I’m interested in now is if one of these top decks appears notably better than its counterparts. We don’t have much data on which to make this decision, only the Top 64 lists and the Day 2 metagame breakdown. For the top six archetypes, I’ve listed the data below:
|
Archetype |
# of Copies in Day 2 |
# of Copies in Top 64 |
|
Ramunap Red |
36 |
18 |
|
Four-Color Energy |
23 |
11 |
|
Sultai Energy |
8 |
5 |
|
Temur Energy |
7 |
4 |
|
U/W Approach |
17 |
9 |
|
Esper Gift |
4 |
3 |
Every deck is hovering around a 50% conversion rate from Day 2 to the Top 64, and given that there were 133 players in Day 2, that’s just about what we’d expect. There are a couple of minor details that give me pause, though.
Among the Sultai Energy decks, the MGG list was unique in its centering of Hostage Taker and eschewing of Verdurous Gearhulk, which is normally a staple alongside Walking Ballista and Winding Constrictor. With the Jessups taking two of the top three spots in the tournament, it could be that their list is significantly better than the other decks in the metagame. However, we also have to account for the deck being a very small portion of the field, piloted by better players, and having some surprise value that is now gone.
How many players played straight into Blossoming Defense without expecting it? How many played around Verdurous Gearhulks that weren’t there? How many sequenced poorly against Hostage Taker by blowing their removal too early? The answer to all these questions is likely nonzero, so I’m hesitant to anoint Sultai Energy just yet.
That said, it’s a top-tier contender and you should be preparing against it a lot. There are two cards that come to mind as key in fighting it: Glorybringer and Walking Ballista. The former is untargetable by Fatal Push and can undo a lot of the damage done in the early-game by the cheap threats and removal. Walking Ballista matches up well against Glint-Sleeve Siphoner and won’t ever be stolen by Hostage Taker.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Ramunap Red decks start even bigger with maindeck Dragons next week, and incorporating Verdurous Gearhulk back into the Sultai deck to super-charge your Ballistas in the mirror sounds good to me.
The real wild card here is Esper Gift. The most-viewed list will certainly be Brennan DeCandio’s, since he put up the best finish and has a familiar name, and his list is significantly different from the other two that made the money.
This is another deck that uses Hostage Taker very well, as well as Walking Ballista to target Sultai Energy without even trying. We know God-Pharaoh’s Gift is powerful enough to sustain a competitive archetype from last season, but with such a small sample size, we can’t say if this is the way to build it, nor can we definitively say how to build the Esper list.
This kind of uncertainty is common for the first weeks of the format where the new set has only been partially explored, but it’s good news for anyone who isn’t enthused by the continuation of Ramunap Red and Energy decks from last season. This is only the first step, and the best-tuned decks have a significant advantage right now. Hostage Taker broke out last weekend, and it would be naive to think that’s the only Constructed-worthy card in Ixalan outside of lands, reprints, and good removal.
It’s also a good sign that the format is very well-balanced at the moment. The top tier has an aggressive deck, a midrange shell with several variants, a control deck, and potentially a combo/engine deck. No one is being completely left out in Standard right now, and there does not appear to be a single, dominant deck as we’ve seen for much of the past several years.
We’re also set up nicely for a dynamic metagame. Right now, Hostage Taker is Public Enemy Number One, and midrange decks will move to fight each other in an arms race where they get bigger and bigger, especially with planeswalkers that Hostage Taker doesn’t match up well against. That arms race will make them more vulnerable to the other top decks, since nothing is going over the top of a card that reads “You win the game,” and any higher curve or splash to gain extra power will weaken your matchup against Ramunap Red. So there’s a natural check on how far the various Energy decks can go to win the mirrors and pseudo-mirrors.
How else might we combat the rise of Hostage Taker? You can play hexproof creatures like Bristling Hydra out of the Temur and Four-Color Energy decks or Carnage Tyrant, which is likely being held back by players trying to fit it into a tribal shell when it’s just a powerful standalone threat. There is the issue of how Carnage Tyrant matches up against the aforementioned Bristling Hydra and Longtusk Cub, but those are solvable issues.
But rather than try to find specific cards that match up well, I want to look at the overall tenor of the format and see exactly what’s going on that these decks are so good. What I’m seeing is a post-rotation format with several well-established decks, which isn’t usually the case. As such, the early weeks of the format feel more advanced than they otherwise would. Brews that are untuned are being soundly punished, so it will take some time for them to be refined and emerge on the tournament stage.
I’m also seeing a format with a lot of cheap threats that snowball. I mentioned Sultai Energy with Glint-Sleeve Siphoner, Winding Constrictor, and Longtusk Cub, and the latter is found in Energy variants of all stripes. All of these threats, as well as Hostage Taker, demand an immediate answer or you’re unlikely to overcome the advantage they generate. Ramunap Red creates a similar dynamic with how many Falter effects it has. It’s often not enough to cast a threat on turns two and three hoping to block, especially because the deck has so much reach.
The result is a format where you have to interact with your opponent early and often. The Approach decks have Censor and Aether Meltdown, as well as cards like Settle the Wreckage and Fumigate that can catch them up from behind. Both lists of Four-Color Energy that made the Top 8 have multiple copies of Magma Spray in the 75, and by going Sultai, you gain access to Fatal Push.
Standard in recent years has been dominated by the three- to five-mana slots in the curve. There’s been a lot of midrange, and decks that started at the extremes of the spectrum would sideboard back toward the middle. What I think we’re heading toward is a format that is driven more by the one- to three-mana slots in the curve. We have lots of good cheap threats, cheap removal, and other pieces of interaction like Duress, Spell Pierce, and Blossoming Defense.
What does this mean for Standard? A few things.
First, it means your mana is very important. Energy decks have great fixing available, but outside of them, it’s going to be hard to make full three-color decks work. It also means that the fastlands will be much better than the other cycles of multicolor lands available, so you’ll want to prioritize colors that get to utilize them as much as possible. Unsurprisingly, Sultai Energy gets two green fastlands for Attune with Aether, as opposed to the semi-stinky Spirebluff Canal.
Second, you’ll want to be selective in which high-end cards you play. There are still plenty of options, and you’ll likely want to choose the right one for the weekend rather than running back the same ones week in and week out. Right now I think Verdurous Gearhulk is quite good, but if the metagame reacts quickly to Hostage Taker and Walking Ballista, it could be too late for that one.
The necessity of a critical mass of cheap threats and answers means there won’t be as much change from week to week in those slots, so the edge you’ll gain is in having the high-end cards that your opponents aren’t prepared for.
And finally, your in-game sequencing is going to matter a lot. There won’t be as many games where you just tap out for a two-drop on Turn 2, three-drop on Turn 3, etc. Instead, starting on Turn 3, you’re going to have double-spell options, and on Turn 4 or 5 you’ll have triple-spell options. Figuring out how to navigate these turns properly and not leave yourself vulnerable will be incredibly important.
The last time we had a Standard format that was ruled by cheap cards was U/W Delver’s heyday, with Zombies and Birthing Pod decks forming the primary competition. Many of you who were around then probably take this as bad news, but I’m a big fan of the intricate gameplay cheap spells generate and I don’t think this format has a deck nearly as degenerate as Delver was.
So if you’re disappointed with the results in Dallas, look forward to weeks of players figuring out the best homes for powerful standalone Ixalan cards and for games of Standard that are very different from what we’ve seen in recent years.