Recently, an interesting debate on Twitter ignited on whether Standard was skill-intensive or not. I may have been the one to light the match due to my
passionate response to those who found it high variance, but I just couldn’t understand how this format isn’t one of the most skill-intensive and
interesting Standard formats to date. There is an argument that I am biased given my track record, so today I will not be focusing on personal opinion.
Instead, I will be talking about exactly what I do from preparation to participation.
Initial Process
Before I even come to an archetype, I first find the cards that should be good for the upcoming weekend. To start this process I scour the past weeks
results in order to see if there will be any trends forming. Most of the information gained will be close to useless, but there will always be something to
take away from the Top 8 decklists. Mostly, it is how the general public will react to it. It’s important to keep in mind that few players will change the
decks they play. Roughly 10-20% of the players in the room will shift archetypes depending on last weekend’s results.
You see, the art of metagaming doesn’t come from needing a good gameplan against every deck you may face, but to have a great one for every deck you may
play twice or more. This format has roughly fifteen different known archetypes and all of them will be accounted for in a massive tournament like an Open
or Grand Prix. You can’t control facing a bad matchup, but you can try to put yourself in the best possible place to succeed when you don’t play against
many of them.
With a format as deep as Standard, you must have a good grasp on how each matchup plays out. Not only on a play-by-play basis, but a general idea of what
deck will often come out on top. This will help when formulating the storyline to how the next tournament will play out.
Now this isn’t a solved science, but it will help you predict what archetypes will rise to the top. This spreadsheet is my cheat sheet for trying to
understand if there is the chance for a “hot knife through butter” weekend. If the most played decks line up perfectly for a specific archetype, I will
likely start my testing there.
Once you have a grasp on what you think the metagame will look like and what decks will flourish inside of it, you can start coming to conclusions. I’m not
going to lie and say it is easy to create a storyline for a tournament that hasn’t happened yet. There are just too many moving pieces to likely break it
down perfectly before it even happens. That’s why I always try to understand why last week’s tournaments finished the way they did. This not only helps me
understand if the information is valuable, but it gives me a foundation for creating fictional storylines for the future. Once you rationalize enough
results, you can begin to predict them reoccurring in the future.
For example, let’s take a look at this past weekend’s results and try to make sense of things.
W/U Heroic had an unbelievably great performance at the Open Series in Columbus, but it didn’t seem to shine in either of the Grand Prix. Some would say it
was due to each event having widely different metagames, and they would probably be correct. The reason for its dominance in the Open Series would most
likely be the fact that the deck was a higher percentage of the field along with more players playing Jeskai Tokens in the event compared to the Grand
Prix. Now this is just a prediction due to limited information, but it makes the most sense to me.
If Jeskai Tokens is highly played by the talented players, then decks like Mardu and R/W Aggro would most likely have a worse performance in the event
given how badly their matchups are against Jeskai Tokens. This would help the W/U Heroic decks that went deep find themselves playing against good matchups
for most of Day Two.
You see, Jeskai Tokens is the “Open Series Grinder” deck. It is very difficult to play against a strong field, but it has tons of upside in the hands of a
pilot who feels better than most of their opponents. It isn’t surprising to me that the Open Series Grinders would choose such a deck to take advantage of
the fact that most of the pros would be in Denver looking for Pro Points.
W/U Heroic is also a deck that is difficult to beat if you are not experienced in the matchup. I often find the best players beating the deck with almost
anything in their hands, but weaker players falling to it due to inexperience. It is one of the most punishing decks if you even make the slightest of
mistakes. Given this information, it also seems like a great deck choice for the Open Series, but not the deck to win a Grand Prix filled with Platinum
level pros. It is also a great choice due to the fact that most of its bad matchups have been pushed out of the metagame due to Jeskai Tokens players not
wanting to give up on the deck.
This explains why the Open Series in Columbus ended the way it did, but it doesn’t scratch the surface to why both Grand Prix finished with wildly
different results.
Going into this past weekend, I predicted Mardu and U/B Control were going to be great choices given how many of the top level players seemed to be
latching onto Abzan Aggro. When Brian Braun-Duin speaks, the masses listen, and Abzan Aggro got pushed back into the spotlight almost immediately. This
deck was great at preying on the metagame on first arrival, but there was just enough time before the Grand Prix to prepare and both of the eventual
champions did just that.
The biggest take away from this information is that both Grand Prix were won by the best-positioned archetypes in the hands of some of the only non-pros in
the Top 8s. The cream will always rise, whether that is the best players or the best-positioned decks. Excellence always finds its way to the spotlight in
whatever way it manifests.
This process helps me determine these specific things:
What decks will be under and overplayed.
By spending some free time each week on predicting metagames and then going back to see how close your predictions were, you will slowly get a better
understanding of how to metagame properly. This helps to figure out exactly what will show up in high and low numbers.
What decks will under and overperform.
The same holds true for how well the decks will perform. Once you understand what will be played, you add in your general knowledge of how the matchups
play out to get a grasp on what decks will do well on day one, as well as how they will perform on day two. This process helps you identify what decks your
opponents will most likely be playing as the tournament progresses, which gives you a better understanding of which weapon you should be wielding.
What decks the Pros will most likely play.
For the most part, the jet setting Platinum Pros will often times play the most powerful strategies the format has to offer with small tweaks for the
expected metagame. They often are the best “stock” archetypes at the given time due to the fact that these players must transition from format to format
each week. Jeskai, Green-based midrange decks, and other strategies that give them the best edge for using their play skill is what they generally lean
towards.
On the surface these decks seem like they have the maneuverability to best represent these amazing player’s strengths, which is exactly why I often times
will pick a deck suited for the metagame and not another powerful deck for the tournament. This allows me to play a deck that sacrifices matchups that I
assume will not be represented in large quantities so that my 75 will have enough cards to be able to attack the pros with powerful synergies they
(hopefully) haven’t accounted for.
High risk, high reward.
Once I have this information I will be able to make educated guesses to what cards will likely be under and overplayed/performing. The cards I am most
concerned with are those that change what the best strategies could possibly be. The most important cards on this list currently are:
Planeswalkers
The reason these cards are most important is that they are the highest indicators to what strategies will be best-positioned since they are the most
punishing to specific archetypes. For example, when planeswalkers are highly played, you don’t want to find yourself piloting Mardu due to its inability to
easily kill them. This forces the deck into always being proactive even though it has such a controlling sideboard due to the fact it has such a difficult
time with Whip strategies. The deck simply doesn’t want to play in a format filled with Whips and Abzan Midrange.
Sometimes this list will help find cards that are well-positioned. For example, I predicted the Players’ Championship would be filled with Jeskai
Ascendancy, Whip of Erebos, and W/U Heroic while having very few planeswalkers and Dissolves. This allowed me to realize that Sultai Charm would be very
well-positioned for the event, which eventually led me to Sultai Reanimator as my deck of choice.
I originally wanted to build a U/B Control deck that splashed Sultai Charm, but my previous understanding of the matchup against Jeskai Tokens allowed me
to keep away from that archetype even though it would have been well-positioned against the rest of the field.
All of this metagaming is all fine and dandy, but the truth is I don’t have a limitless range like some would think. Another part of my game is creating
rules to follow which help streamline testing when I start from scratch with new decks. The only time I change one of my rules is when I have proven them
to be false. My initial three rules in this format have held true since I started testing for Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir. They have become the backbone of my
testing.
#1 Embrace the Aggression
Standard is hyper aggressive! Almost every deck has a proactive theme that snowballs out of control if left unchecked for more than a turn. Many of those
cards are also much stronger on the play than on the draw and play well in combination with the other proactive elements in the deck. This creates a unique
stress on every deck to be able to interact with aggressive draws while also punishing the opposing deck for having too many proactive elements.
The most important part of this rule is to be as aggressive as possible on the play while being able to stem the bleeding and turn the tide on the draw.
This is the main reason why I think it is foolish to play more than three Thoughtseize in any deck. I never want them in my deck on the play unless I am
against W/U Heroic, Jeskai Tokens, or control decks, but at the same time I don’t want to flood on non-proactive spells. Against everything else, I only
want the card when I am on the draw so I have the best chance of slowing the game down long enough so the advantage of being on the play becomes
irrelevant.
This rule helped create the following two.
#2 Cheap Removal is King
If you look back at every successful deck I have played this entire season, you will likely realize I am in love with Murderous Cut and Chained to the
Rocks. Both of these cards are not removal spells that can be played on turn 2, but they allow me to cast them in combination with a proactive element in
the mid-game to give me the tempo swings needed to either catch up or close the games out. This helps me whether I am on the play or draw. They are
extremely efficient at what they do and have been the secret to my success this entire season.
#3 Be Malleable
The other most obvious thing about all of my decks is that my sideboard is always an extension of my maindeck, but with a slightly more controlling
gameplan. I highly dislike decks that always play the same game like Abzan Aggro or W/U Heroic. Now these decks are great at what they do, but I am not in
the market for linear strategies in this format. I’ve found that my win percentage is at its highest when I am able to transition my strategy whenever I
please. This has helped me win more games on the draw while still having the same win percentage on the play. It also lets me play a sub-game with my
opponent when we are sideboarding.
You can ask BBD how good I am at the Princess Bride game.
Now that the homework is finished, it’s time to actually start playing some games. I build whatever deck I initially think will be good and get to battle.
Sometimes using Magic Online, and others sitting across from close friends. The most important part of this process is I rarely care about winning in the
early games. The most important aspect to the first day of testing is if the cards line up the way I predicted. There’s no point in trying to make a deck
work if the general theory for why you are playing it doesn’t line up with factual evidence. If the deck just doesn’t feel right, I abandon and start over.
There is no such thing as a failed experiment!
The goal in finding the finished product is a deck that should lose to decks you don’t think will be there, but win against those you do. It should also
have powerful cards that overlap in two popular matchups instead of a mediocre card against the field. I find no value in hedging. Magic is a top heavy
game where winning is so much more valuable than second place. After all, we don’t keep records of top 16 finishes.
That’s really all I can think of at the moment. The biggest hurdle in writing this article has always been that I could fill a book with information about
the topic. Chapin even proved that! Feel free to ask any questions you may have on the manner, as I will do a better job than normal to be active in the
discussions since this is a topic near and dear to my heart, and no article can do the topic justice.
Thanks for bearing with me, and I will see you guys in Philly this weekend!