Owen Turtenwald, while dancing about as the metagame breakdown for the very first Mythic Championship was tweeted out.
The bulk of both Team KMC-Genesis and Ultimate Guard selected Mono-Blue Aggro as their deck choice and that decision felt like the best possible one we could have made. It wasn’t always the front-runner, but through good decision-making during testing, we found ourselves in a great position to do well in the event.
I’ll be the first to admit that my testing preparation for Mythic Championship Cleveland was all over the place. Ravnica Allegiance brought so many cool new toys to Standard that it was very difficult to sift through all the cards and information. Obviously my first love was Sultai Midrange, as it’s difficult for me to stray away from casting Vivien Reid, but it didn’t take long for me to find a new love.
Creatures (6)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (27)
Spells (24)
I played a ton of Magic Online and Arena in preparation for Mythic Championship Cleveland before I met up with the rest of the team. I knew time would be an issue right at the end, as I was going to spend four days working for Wizards of the Coast at the New York Toy Fair. Much of my testing was with Bant Flash, as I was one of the first to realize the true power of Kraul Harpooner. I was so impressed with this deck’s transitional sideboard that I stopped playing it in random queues and just played against other members on the team.
The one Nexus of Fate was a nice addition to help against Esper Control, Sultai Midrange, and other Nexus of Fate matchups. The power behind Bant Flash is you’re able to draw so many more cards than your opponents, as you have a lot of interaction in the form of counterspells. The downside is sometimes it’s difficult to actually win the game without decking yourself. The fix for that was to play one Nexus of Fate to make sure you never deck. Late-game sequencing can get weird, but I found having just one copy of Nexus of Fate would win you a lot of games the deck was losing.
Sadly, the world caught up and Kraul Harpooner was everywhere. Bant Nexus began picking up in popularity thanks to a creature-based sideboard and I realized this deck was just not strong enough to continue working on once I got to Cleveland. It was a difficult one to let go, as I believe Growth Spiral; Wilderness Reclamation; Teferi, Hero of Dominaria; and Hydroid Krasis are some of the most powerful cards in the format. I just didn’t think it was a strong enough deck to take to such an important tournament.
I didn’t let this deck go with bad results, though. I just didn’t think we had enough time to perfect the strategy and it didn’t seem like anyone else was interested in it. Sometimes you just have to go with the tide, and I’m a firm believer in the fact that everyone working on the same deck is better than half the team working on one strategy and the other half on something else.
Bant Flash is an extremely fun deck to play, though, so if you’re interested in having something fun for Friday Night Magic this week, here’s a sideboard guide!
VS Mono-Blue Aggro
Out:
In:
VS Azorius Aggro
Out:
In:
VS Sultai Midrange
Out:
In:
VS Esper Control
Out:
In:
VS Simic Nexus
Out:
In:
VS Izzet Drakes/Izzet Phoenix
Out:
In:
Moving on to Sultai Midrange
I didn’t really know what to do with my time once I gave up on Bant Flash. There were a few players on the team starting to really like Mono-Blue Aggro, and the data behind the deck were impressive. I decided that my time would be best served working on a Sultai Midrange list that had the best chance to beat Mono-Blue Aggro and also fight against the rest of the field.
That endeavor quickly failed, as I went a combined 13-17 against Mono-Blue Aggro in two different sets. I just knew there was no way I would play Sultai Midrange at this event, as I was pretty sure Wildgrowth Walker was a bad card but didn’t know how to properly build the deck without it. I also thought four Hydroid Krasis was too much and was starting to think that maybe just Golgari with a ton of Carnage Tyrants wouldn’t have been a bad choice. I couldn’t see the forest through the trees, though, so I just gave up and jumped on the team deck.
One person did seem to crack the code, though!
Creatures (21)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 3 Hostage Taker
- 1 Jadelight Ranger
- 4 Thief of Sanity
- 4 Hydroid Krasis
- 1 Frilled Mystic
- 4 Incubation Druid
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (25)
Spells (10)
Piotr said that Wildgrowth Walker and Merfolk Branchwalker were deckbuilding inertia and it’s really hard to argue with him. I was in love with some of the things he was doing with this list, as I even tried playing a single copy of Frilled Mystic in the maindeck of some of my lists. It makes sense, as sometimes you just need one piece of interaction against decks like Bant Nexus and it can be found with Vivien Reid.
The biggest sacrifice this deck makes is against Azorius Aggro. Wildgrowth Walker is good against Mono-Red Aggro, but I don’t think it’s that impressive in the matchup. In fact, I’m pretty sure Mono-Red Aggro is favored against any Sultai deck and personally would concede the matchup if I were playing the deck.
I’m confident that this is the new face of Sultai Midrange and something I will be looking into on my future streams. Too bad my next tournament is Duo Standard, though!
Settling on Mono-Blue Aggro
It’s still difficult for me to believe that I registered Mist-Cloaked Herald last weekend. Me! You know, the guy who plays green creatures all the time! But there were just too many reasons why I had to pick this deck for the Mythic Championship. It wasn’t even the fact that I didn’t have anything I really liked. There were so many people in the house starting to love Mono-Blue Aggro and it’s tough to not want to get in on the action; you don’t want to be the one person not playing the team deck when it’s good!
Mono-Blue Aggro was also winning a lot in our testing. It had around a 57% win percentage in our in-house testing, which is kind of absurd when you think about it. Most of the time, when two good players sit down to play a close matchup, the data will come back 4-6, 5-5, or 6-4, which means very little. When good players find a deck that is winning 57% of the time, that’s pretty big news, especially when we weren’t playing the deck’s good matchups like Simic Nexus and Esper Control. We were focusing mostly on Sultai Midrange, Azorius Aggro, and red-based aggressive strategies.
Another big pull to playing Mono-Blue Aggro was that it was a single-color deck. That usually doesn’t mean a lot in Magic, but when the deck doing the best in testing is also monocolored, you should take that very seriously. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t play a monocolored deck that also so happens to have the best win percentage out of all the decks tested. Consistency is important, but sometimes you must give up smooth draws to infuse more power into your strategies. That’s where we find balance in deck construction. Sometimes it’s correct to play three-color decks and other times two or one. It all depends on how much you can get done with the colors you’re playing.
It’s why we see decks like Mono-White Aggro splash blue for Negate or Mono-Red Aggro splash for Cindervines. These decks want to give up consistency for access to spells their base color doesn’t have access to. Sometimes they’ll just draw Rootbound Crag or Glacial Fortress and be forced to have a slow draw or mulligan. These things happen, but it can be worth that risk.
It didn’t take me long to just go all-in on Mono-Blue Aggro. I remember saying, “I give up, I’ll just play your stupid blue deck!” after William Jensen beat me senseless with it for the last time, and within 24 hours thinking the deck was unbeatable. I was crushing Leagues, going 50-50 in bad matchups, and slowly learning all the intricacies of the deck.
I was ready to take down the Mythic Championship!
Mono-Blue Aggro Sideboard Guide
This is what we did in Cleveland, but I would compare our plans with those of our Mythic Champion, Autumn Burchett, if there are any discrepancies between them when their article comes out tomorrow.
VS Mono-Blue Aggro
Out:
In:
VS Sultai Midrange
Out:
In:
VS Mono-Red Aggro
Out:
In:
VS Gruul Aggro
Out:
In:
VS Azorius Aggro
Out:
In:
VS Simic Nexus
Out:
In:
VS Esper Control
Out (on the draw):
In (on the draw):
Out (on the play):
In (on the play):
VS Temur Reclamation
Out:
In:
VS Izzet Drakes
Out:
In:
Unfortunately, I didn’t take down the Mythic Championship. I went 2-4 in Limited, which kept me from winning it all, but I did go 7-3 with Mono-Blue Aggro. I also lost eight of my Constructed die rolls and mulliganed at least fifteen times during the tournament. I rarely had the “god draw” and usually had to rely on technical play to get me out of some sticky situations.
Now, I’m not saying all this to make you think I got unlucky. I might have gotten the worse side of variance in a lot of my matches, but that didn’t stop me from beating them badly. Bringing this up is simply a way to express to you that I think Mono-Blue Aggro is a damn good deck and one you must respect. Maybe enough to consider it the best deck in the current metagame? Things will change, but for now, this is the deck that’ll make the metagame shift.
Moving Forward
I don’t think continuing to play Mono-Blue Aggro is a bad choice. In fact, there are very few decks that prey on it capable of fighting against the rest of the metagame. Decks like Azorius Aggro and Mono-Red Aggro just aren’t good enough in this format. Mono-Blue Aggro is the best monocolored deck in the format, which means two- and three-color decks must focus their attention on them.
Pascal Maynard’s Temur Reclamation deck interests me the most. I’ve been playing with it on stream for the past couple of days and have to say it’s a serious contender for best deck in the format. It has great matchups against Sultai Midrange and Esper Control, and it plays Niv-Mizzet for the Mono-Blue Aggro matchup. I haven’t played enough with the deck to make serious changes to it, but I’m not even sure it needs any. The deck has been very good!
Creatures (2)
Lands (26)
Spells (32)
That’s all I have for this week. I actually have to rush to dinner now and then prepare to run blocks for my little brother. There’s one day left for him to try to get into the Top 8 ranked players on Magic Arena, which gets him to Boston for the Mythic Invitational. I’m already qualified, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help try to push others out of the race!
It’s going to be a pretty intense 24 hours as we try to get to Boston together! At the very least, it will be an interesting episode of the Bash Bros Podcast when we record it after an entire day of playing Magic.
I sure hope our special guest is ready to carry us for an entire episode!