Goldnight Commander, Nightshade Peddler, and Chronic Flooding just won a Standard Grand Prix?! Crazy stuff! -Kai Budde
There's always more than one way to look at a situation. Take our current Standard format for instance. One way to look at it is that Rakdos put five in the Top 8 of Grand Prix Nagoya and eleven(!) in the Top 16. Between GP Nagoya and SCG Standard Open: Las Vegas, Rakdos managed to actually build on its monstrous 44.5% of the metagame at the top tables. Not only is Rakdos the most popular strategy in the format, another Rakdos deck is quickly ascending to the top tier: Rakdos Red.
With Rakdos taking the top spot, Mono-Red Aggro has been the buzz, as it has good Rakdos matchup. The problem? It's pretty bad against a number of other popular strategies, such as Bant and Naya. The solution? Fusing Mono-Red and Rakdos, using some of the Rakdos elements that are so good against these G/W/x decks while maintaining enough Mono-Red to have edge in the mirror.
So that's the format? Rakdos decks built to beat Rakdos decks?
Of course, there's always more than one way to look at things. After all, it's not every day that Chronic Flooding wins a Constructed Grand Prix...
The combination of Izzet Staticaster and Nightshade Peddler has been popping up here and there, forming a soft lock against creature decks. Adding it to an Angel of Glory's Rise Reanimator deck? Brilliant.
As if that wasn't enough savage technology, GP Nagoya champion Yuuji Okita has the community in shock from the new graveyard engine he unveiled, Chronic Flooding. Widely considered one of the worst cards of the set, Chronic Flooding was typically regarded as a really bad Psychic Venom variant. Okita, demonstrating the value of thinking outside the box, realized the potential to use it on yourself, giving you the fastest way to fill your graveyard in the format.
I have no doubt that an awful lot of people are going to retroactively remember having this idea before, but I sure didn't hear about it. It's not clear how much staying power Okita's deck will actually have, but I suspect the Chronic Flooding engine will live on.
Let's take a look at the Grand Prix winning list:
Creatures (18)
- 4 Angel of Glory's Rise
- 1 Goldnight Commander
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 4 Izzet Staticaster
- 4 Nightshade Peddler
- 1 Zealous Conscripts
Lands (23)
Spells (19)
As if Nightshade Peddler and Chronic Flooding weren't enough, Okita also packs Goldnight Commander, completing his technological tour de force! The Nightshade combo was known, and Chronic Flooding makes perfect sense once you hear it. Goldnight Commander, however, has people scratching their heads.
What does it even do here? Isn't there something better?
Well, the way it works is that it is a Human that gets Reanimated by Angel of Glory's Rise and causes many triggers that buff your squad as a result of large number of creatures coming into play. Staticaster has haste and despite a zero base power can attack. You generally aren't doing it early, but against an opponent with Supreme Verdict, you can bring back enough creatures to make a few Staticasters lethal.
They don't always have to do it on their own, however, as Zealous Conscripts coming back can give an Angel haste (both pumped by the Commander as well). In fact, Angel back a Conscripts, a Commander, a Staticaster, and a Huntmaster and you're attacking for over 20! It's not uncommon to bring back for more than that in the late game, so dealing 50 or more damage is very doable against opponents that have cast Thragtusk and Revelation more than a couple times.
Okita played a single copy main so that going long against control he could usually find it; however, he has more in the board, as this is his primary plan for combating sweepers (which can otherwise be pretty annoying for a deck that just puts tons of dudes in play like this one).
Is Goldnight Commander really the best way to do this? Unclear. After all, almost none of us knew this was even a thing to do before this weekend. However, it does look pretty decent. I like that it is sufficiently big without being too over the top. I also think the card is just a bit underrated anyway. I mean, have you ever drafted that beast?
I certainly wouldn't cut it without trying it and wouldn't be surprised if it really is the best anti-sweeper plan. That said, we do have a few alternatives. To start with, we could just Craterhoof Behemoth. Are we being too fancy by using Goldnight Commander? Well, Craterhoof Behemoth isn't a Human, so to get him back we'd have to use our Unburial Rites on him instead of the Angel. It isn't even clear we'll reliably be able to have enough guys to kill under these conditions. If you were going to go this route, you probably shouldn't even be playing an Angel of Glory's Rise deck.
What about Zealous Conscripts? After all, couldn't we just use another Zealous Conscripts? The problem is that we aren't really looking at even 20 damage with two Conscripts, let alone the 30-50 we'll need at times.
Another possibility is to go infinite by including a Fiend Hunter and a sacrifice outlet. Unfortunately, there are no Human sacrifice outlets (quite the sentence to take out of context). We could take a page out of the Block playbook and use Falkenrath Aristocrat. The Aristocrat combines with Fiend Hunter and Angel to go infinite, giving us an arbitrarily large Vampire, plus if we have Huntmaster, we can make as many Wolves and gain as much life as we want. Falkenrath Aristocrat is certainly a reasonable card on its own, but we are still encountering the problem of needing to Unburial twice. You could play lots of Aristocrats, but that's a different deck.
We'll see if someone comes up with a better anti-sweeper plan, but frankly, I think Goldnight Commander looks pretty good.
Faithless Looting and Mulch are nothing new, but it's interesting to see Izzet Charm popping up again. Izzet Charm gives Okita some much-needed interaction, letting him fight both Silverblade Paladin and Sphinx's Revelations while also fueling his graveyard strategy.
One area I am less impressed with is Okita's mana base. Obviously, I dig the Caverns and Mulch to find them. The weakness I see is in his supply of mana that can cast Mulch in the first place. With just eleven lands that turn it on, we are talking about an 82% chance of having a green mana by turn 2. That is far from the worst, but I do wonder if we can improve on it a little. It is possible that we are able to buy ourselves sufficient time as a result of the various Humans we can throw out there, but it is worth questioning.
Another choice that I am not totally sure of is the use of just one Tracker's Instincts. I definitely can see that Chronic Flooding reduces the need for dredge cards, but we want stuff to dredge into besides just the four Unburial Rites. Tracker's Instincts is a little slow, but it is a great way to set up the Nightshade/Staticaster combo, as well as find a Huntmaster to buy time or an Angel to win.
One other note on Okita's sideboard, Cathedral Sanctifier is a hot little number that is only going to get hotter. Rakdos Red is on the rise and this is a fantastic way to buy yourself some much-needed tempo. Not only is it a speed bump, it also makes your Angels much scarier threats (giving you even more life).
Something I find quite interesting is Okita's statement that Rakdos is a hard matchup for him. While he did defeat it to win the GP (ending 12-0 on the weekend), he does believe it is a challenging matchup. If the matchup was hard when the Rakdos players didn't know what was up, it is going to only get worse as they tune their lists against Okita's and get practice in against it.
It is worth reminding that Angel of Glory's Rise exiles all Zombies when she enters the battlefield. That this ability is very relevant against Rakdos is amusing, but it isn't the games where you get an Angel into play that are the real struggle. The real issue is how fast the Rakdos decks do a number on your life total while using removal to break up the Nightshade combo. Additionally, when it's time to finish you off, they rely on Thundermaw Hellkite, Falkenrath Aristocrat, and sometimes Hellrider, not Zombies.
Okita's was not the only Reanimator deck in the Top 8, knocking out Hall of Famer Kenji Tsumura and his more "traditional" Craterhoof Behemoth Reanimator. Here is Kenji's list:
Creatures (24)
- 4 Angel of Serenity
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 4 Centaur Healer
- 2 Craterhoof Behemoth
- 2 Restoration Angel
- 4 Thragtusk
Lands (24)
Spells (12)
There may be too much Rakdos to maindeck Somberwald Sage, but it does make a deadly sideboard plan against slower decks.
There isn't too much to say on this one, but it is worth noting that there will surely be another increase in graveyard hate. Part of the success of Reanimator this weekend was the near disappearance of hate. While players cut it looking to squeeze as much anti-Rakdos as possible into their boards, they are now going to be looking to put some back in.
The only other non-Rakdos deck in the Top 8 of Nagoya was Mamoru Nagai with a pretty straightforward Naya deck:
Creatures (24)
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 4 Loxodon Smiter
- 4 Restoration Angel
- 4 Thragtusk
- 4 Thundermaw Hellkite
Lands (24)
Spells (12)
Getting to play so many big monsters plus some acceleration, Selesnya Charms, and Bonfires gives us a reasonable plan against Rakdos. What we don't have is good mana. Naya mana bases have suffered ever since Return to Ravnica hit, as they only have access to one shockland. This will all change in February, but for now, we find mana bases with only ten lands that cast Bonfire of the Damned aside from Farseeks. It's hard to count on the Farseeks, though, as there are just twelve sources of green and even if you stick a Farseek, you can't get both of your other colors with it. Temple Garden or Mountain but no Sacred Foundry yet.
With GP Nagoya and SCG Standard Open: Las Vegas in the books, where does the metagame stand? Here is a breakdown of the winner's circle metagame, weighted by finish.
Remember, what the exact breakdown was last week isn't nearly as important as the perception of what next week will be like. Why do we primarily go off the Top 16s of these events? Well, these days, the Top 16 decklists are far more widely seen and discussed in coverage. If that is the most publically available information, then that is the information the public is going to base their decisions on. We weight each deck by finish since coming in first brings with it more focus than finishing second and so on. The expected metagame is mostly just two-thirds this past week's meta, one-third the previous meta.*
This chart's primary function is not to gauge how many people will enter a given tournament with a given deck but rather to illuminate how important preparing for each deck will be if you actually want to win the tournament.
As we see from the chart above, Rakdos has actually increased its presence in the metagame, assuming you count both breeds. I think that Rakdos Red is different enough to warrant its own category (as it really is at least 50% Mono-Red Aggro, and if anyone shows up with actual Mono-Red, I'd count them as being the same archetype).
*You might have noticed the math looking a little funny for Rakdos and Rakdos Red, and you'd be correct. If Rakdos Red was 11.6% of the field at the top this weekend, we have no reason to believe that it will actually drop next week (which is what we'd see if we merely averaged the columns). Really, Rakdos Red is more likely to gain popularity than lose it. The trick is that Rakdos Red wasn't "really" zero percent of the existing meta, as it is part of the Rakdos family line. To better predict next week's meta, we just kept Rakdos Red at 100%, subtracting the difference from original recipe Rakdos since they are both coming from the same parent archetype.
The biggest gainer on the weekend was Naya, a strategy that is exactly the kind of deck lots of people like to play. If it can hold its own against Rakdos, as it appears, it is likely to stay popular until control makes a comeback. Bant is being depressed as a result of its weakness against Rakdos, but if someone can turn that matchup around, Naya will probably take a lot of splash damage due to its weakness against Sphinx's Revelation.
What's missing? Well, the majority of that "other" category is made up of U/W Flash and G/W Aggro. U/W Flash just cannot compete against Rakdos, and those that still cling to the strategy have nearly universally adopted red as a third color. G/W Aggro also appears to have lost the war against Rakdos. G/W Aggro preyed on a format where no one played removal. Now, everyone plays removal. The dedicated beatdown players have switched to Rakdos, while those that just want to Loxodon Smiter have also had to resign themselves to adding red.
More than a few people have given this format grief, complaining about everything from Cavern of Souls to Thragtusk to Sphinx's Revelation. What I find interesting is the progression the format has taken:
1. Zombies, primarily with green
2. Jund
3. Reanimator
4. Bant Control
5. U/W Flash
6. Rakdos
That is a pretty diverse selection of decks that have been public enemy number one. Remember, Gatecrash previews start in a couple weeks. This format is very close to making it to the next set without being "solved."
I think it is very unlikely that Rakdos is the final step in the format's evolution. It is a straightforward attacking deck that isn't actually that fast. Besides, a quick glance at the scoreboard has a point in favor of Chronic Flooding. How much do we really know about the state of the metagame?
For reference, here is the range of Rakdos decks we need to prepare for:
Creatures (28)
- 4 Blood Artist
- 4 Diregraf Ghoul
- 4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
- 4 Geralf's Messenger
- 4 Gravecrawler
- 4 Knight of Infamy
- 4 Rakdos Cackler
Lands (22)
Spells (10)
Creatures (26)
- 4 Diregraf Ghoul
- 4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
- 4 Geralf's Messenger
- 4 Gravecrawler
- 4 Knight of Infamy
- 4 Thundermaw Hellkite
- 2 Vampire Nighthawk
Lands (24)
Spells (10)
Creatures (26)
- 4 Ash Zealot
- 4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
- 3 Hellrider
- 4 Knight of Infamy
- 4 Rakdos Cackler
- 4 Stromkirk Noble
- 3 Thundermaw Hellkite
Lands (24)
Spells (10)
What are all of the decks that have an edge over Rakdos? What deck do you expect to surge next week at the StarCityGames.com Invitational in Los Angeles? That tournament is poised to be huge, and I can't wait to see where the format goes next. I suspect plenty of anti-Rakdos decks are possible, and Rakdos is such a big part of the metagame now that I kind of think having an edge over it should basically be a requirement for being a "deck."
We might not always love the impact Sphinx's Revelation has on the format, but it would be silly to not admit that the format has been dynamic, interesting, and fun. In fact, I wonder if we are closing in on the world where we can actually play control decks without Sphinx's Revelation again...
Patrick Chapin
"The Innovator"
About Patrick Chapin
Patrick Chapin, "The Innovator," is a member of the Hall of Fame class of 2012. He is a four-time Pro Tour Top 8 competitor, renowned deckbuilder, author of "Next Level Magic," and the first player to Top 8 Pro Tours in three different decades.