Welcome, PTQ grinders! Now that Modern PTQ season is over, it’s time to prepare for the Standard season that’s about to start. I’m usually not in a great position to give advice for PTQs since the pro schedule often doesn’t line up in such a way that I’ve played anywhere near as much of a format as the average PTQ grinder. But it just so happens that Standard is a format I’ve played a fair amount of lately, and I’m guessing some of you are probably looking for a crash course.
I should note that my most recent experience comes from Grand Prix Verona and the nine-round Standard Super Sunday side event at Grand Prix Utrecht, which means that what I’ve seen in person is the metagame in Europe. I have no idea if or how that will differ from the American PTQ metagame.
Let’s talk about what to expect.
Aggro Decks
Naya Blitz
Creatures (36)
- 4 Champion of the Parish
- 4 Mayor of Avabruck
- 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
- 4 Lightning Mauler
- 4 Flinthoof Boar
- 4 Boros Elite
- 4 Burning-Tree Emissary
- 4 Experiment One
- 4 Frontline Medic
- 1 Ghor-Clan Rampager
Lands (20)
Spells (4)
Sideboard
This is the most aggressive deck in the format. It’s a Human deck with four Cavern of Souls, and its best draws involve Champion of the Parish and/or Burning-Tree Emissary. Each of those is the heart of other aggressive decks in the format, and the reason this deck is the most aggressive is that it gets to play both. It also makes excellent use of Frontline Medic, which makes plans based on blocking relatively ineffective.
The best ways to fight it are cheap removal spells, defensive creatures, and sweepers, and cheap removal is probably the most important. The deck relies on synergy with Champion of the Parish, Mayor of Avabruck, and Boros Elite, so they can be left with some below-average creatures if you can kill the important ones, but you can’t rely on expensive removal since Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Boros Charm can make it far too slow.
Also, little creatures like Snapcaster Mage, Augur of Bolas, and Lingering Souls can block and trade with a few of their creatures sometimes but are not particularly effective on the whole since so many of their creatures are 3/3s and they can power through with Ghor-Clan Rampager on the other ones.
Good sideboard cards against this deck include Tragic Slip, Mutilate, Abrupt Decay, Rhox Faithmender, and, if you’re really worried about this deck, maybe even Human Frailty.
Jund Aggro
Creatures (31)
- 4 Mogg Flunkies
- 4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
- 4 Flinthoof Boar
- 3 Dreg Mangler
- 4 Rakdos Cackler
- 4 Burning-Tree Emissary
- 4 Experiment One
- 4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
Lands (22)
Spells (7)
Jund Aggro gives up the speed of Champion of the Parish for the power of Falkenrath Aristocrat. It shares the Burning-Tree Emissary / Flinthoof Boar G/R Aggro shell, but Jund goes bigger with more haste, including Dreg Mangler in addition to Falkenrath Aristocrat.
This means sorcery speed removal is even worse, especially Supreme Verdict, and Blind Obedience, which is solid against Naya Blitz, is outstanding here. Tragic Slip is also even better because of Falkenrath Aristocrat.
Because Jund Aggro has bigger and more evasive creatures, most blockers are also worse, although the fact that they don’t have Frontline Medic means that high-toughness blockers on the ground can shut down most of their forces if they don’t have a Ghor-Clan Rampager or other removal spell.
In sideboarding, Jund Aggro is better positioned to change gears. It may try to become more controlling and bring in Olivia Voldaren in creature mirrors, while Naya Blitz is locked in on trying to be the fastest deck.
The Aristocrats
Creatures (28)
- 2 Skirsdag High Priest
- 4 Champion of the Parish
- 4 Doomed Traveler
- 4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
- 1 Restoration Angel
- 3 Silverblade Paladin
- 2 Zealous Conscripts
- 4 Knight of Infamy
- 4 Cartel Aristocrat
Lands (24)
Spells (8)
I haven’t seen many people play The Aristocrats after Pro Tour Gatecrash, but it did well in Brazil, which might be regional. The Aristocrats gives up Burning-Tree Emissary and Flinthoof Boar to have Champion of the Parish and Falkenrath Aristocrat in the same deck.
Losing the R/G engine means it has less haste and is generally a little slower, but it attacks from a wide variety of angles and has access to a lot of good removal.
Midrange creature decks need to have a plan to beat Skirsdag High Priest, and control decks need to have good answers to Falkenrath Aristocrat and Obzedat, Ghost Council.
Curse of Death’s Hold and Izzet Staticaster are better here because the deck gives you more time and relies more heavily on one-toughness creatures than the green aggro decks.
It should go without saying that creatures like Thragtusk, Boros Reckoner, and Huntmaster of the Fells are still good against all the aggressive decks.
Reanimator
Junk Reanimator
Creatures (24)
- 3 Arbor Elf
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 4 Restoration Angel
- 2 Craterhoof Behemoth
- 4 Thragtusk
- 3 Angel of Serenity
- 4 Centaur Healer
Lands (23)
Spells (13)
This is the deck (archetype, not the build listed here) I’ve been playing and my pick for best deck in the format. I firmly believe that the Lotleth Troll / Lingering Soul version is dramatically better than the Restoration Angel version despite the fact that it seems to be less common at the moment.
The deck is a midrange Thragtusk deck that uses Mulch and Grisly Salvage to generate card advantage and randomly spike extremely unfair effects that steal games. It pays a relatively trivial cost to include the graveyard engine, and Angel of Serenity can realistically be cast from its hand, giving it a very powerful late game against decks that are trying to grind it out without going absolutely huge.
After sideboarding, aggressive decks should think of the match more like they’re playing against Jund than like they’re playing against a graveyard combo deck, as the Reanimator deck will sideboard to be a deck based on removal and Thragtusks.
Midrange decks need to fight the graveyard to stop the Reanimator player from getting too many free cards, but if they spend too many cards fighting the graveyard, they’ve already given that card advantage and might just lose to the powerful creatures. This matchup is very hard for decks like Jund; they have to lean heavily on trying to trump with Olivia or potentially Garruk, Primal Hunter, but I haven’t generally found that to be enough.
The best way to fight Junk Reanimator is with a small number of effective graveyard hate cards (especially Deathrite Shaman, but Rest in Peace also works) and, more importantly, with a proactive game plan that can beat several Thragtusks. Frontline Medic is good, Falkenrath Aristocrat and Olivia are good, and Assemble the Legion is good as long as the Reanimator list isn’t overloaded with Acidic Slimes, which they sometimes are.
Aside on Assemble the Legion: Assemble the Legion is rapidly moving from techy sideboard card to mainstream staple, and more decks are playing it main. It’s outstanding against every midrange and control deck, and most people who aren’t prepared just fold to it. It’s an easy card to prepare for if you’re willing to play enchantment removal, Curse of Death’s Hold, or have some other real plan and you can definitely punish an opponent for paying five mana for a card that doesn’t do anything right away, but it is extremely powerful and should be respected.
Human Reanimator
Creatures (20)
- 4 Fiend Hunter
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 4 Angel of Glory's Rise
- 4 Burning-Tree Emissary
- 4 Undercity Informer
Lands (22)
Spells (18)
This is a legitimate graveyard combo deck. Its game plan is non-interactive. The plan is to live to do its thing and win on the spot, and this works against basically everyone in game 1. In fact, it’s almost impossible to beat this deck going long in the first game, even with Sphinx’s Revelation, without dedicated answers in your maindeck because the deck generates so much card advantage from its graveyard and the Cavern of Souls into Angel of Glory’s Rise into deck the opponent on the spot plan offers so much inevitability. The only way to win game 1 is to outrace this deck, which is why decks like Naya Blitz and Mono-Red Aggro (not listed in this article because I don’t have a lot of respect for the deck compared to other aggressive choices and it’s not widely played) are Human Reanimator’s worst matchups.
The most popular version of this deck uses Burning-Tree Emissary, Fiend Hunter, Undercity Informer, and Angel of Glory’s Rise to create an infinite loop that can deck the opponent and can deck the opponent again at instant speed at any time if the opponent has a way to put more cards back into their library. Earlier versions didn’t use this combo—they instead just made an arbitrarily large number of Wolves and gained twice as much life—but I think this version is a strict improvement since it actually kills the opponent even if they have a string of sweepers or Fogs and the combo pieces play very well in the deck anyway.
Burning-Tree Emissary manages to do an impressive job as a blocker in this deck when it comes down and makes mana to cast Mulch, Farseek, or Faithless Looting from a hand that doesn’t have other red mana. The free blocker is particularly appreciated because the deck is so good at spending all of its mana every turn thanks to Faithless Looting and Grisly Salvage.
Undercity Informer is a borderline-serviceable blocker that often manages to do impressive work as an enabler by milling its controller until the graveyard is ready for a lethal Unburial Rites.
The only problem with this deck is that because its creatures are weak and it uses the graveyard more than Junk it is therefore more vulnerable to graveyard hate. It fights hate by sideboarding out a lot its more graveyard-dependent cards for midrange creatures like Thragtusk and Restoration Angel, and it plays its second and third games as a deck that looks more like Junk. But it’s nice to almost always win game 1.
Fighting Human Reanimator is a little more straightforward than fighting Junk Reanimator. You need to have graveyard hate since your opponent will leave in enough of the combo to punish you if you don’t have it, particularly if you’re playing the kind of deck that’s unlikely to have hate, but again, you need a plan that can beat a parade of Thragtusks. A few cards, such as Witchbane Orb, are good in this matchup but not good against Junk, but even that is only good if you have sweepers since all it does is stop them from decking you.
It’s worth noting that almost any instant speed removal spell can break up the combo by killing Angel of Glory’s Rise or Fiend Hunter in response to Fiend Hunter targeting the Angel of Glory’s Rise (but if it’s something like Abrupt Decay or Searing Spear that can only kill Fiend Hunter, this isn’t useful if they target the Angel with two Fiend Hunter), but this will only help if you can beat the random assortment of creatures your opponent is left with. Since they probably have Undercity Informer and a lot of creatures, they’ll almost certainly just try to combo again next turn.
This deck has an extremely difficult time winning game 1 if you have maindeck Slaughter Games and name Angel of Glory’s Rise; Slaughter Games also turns them into an extremely weak midrange deck after sideboarding.
Midrange
Jund
Creatures (12)
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (25)
Spells (17)
Jund is still an extremely powerful collection of good cards with a solid game plan against every opposing deck. Plan A is to ramp into midrange value creatures like Huntmaster of the Fells and Thragtusk to stabilize and then put the game away with some combination of Rakdos’s Return, Garruk, Primal Hunter, and Olivia Voldaren. Aggressive decks have to beat a large removal suite backed by life gain creatures and Olivia, and control decks have to beat Rakdos’s Return and several planeswalkers. It’s easy to accidentally build a deck that just completely folds to a few of Jund’s cards, and it’s hard to build a deck that can favorably combat all of them.
Jund also has access to a wide variety of extremely good sideboard cards and can morph its strategy substantially depending on its role in the matchup.
If people find a good way to beat the Unburial Rites decks (either with Jund or with enough other decks that they’re pushed out of the metagame), then Jund will probably become the best deck in the format.
There isn’t a single great plan or sideboard trump card against Jund. Witchbane Orb is a good start for a lot of decks, but it still leaves Jund player with a lot of powerful cards and only works for some strategies. I definitely think it’s the best thing a control deck can do against Jund though, and it’s pretty good in the mirror.
Going bigger with creatures like Angel of Serenity is a good plan if you can beat Rakdos’s Return. I imagine that there’s a reasonably reliable way to win a good number of games against Jund by being aggressive, but I’m not sure which aggressive deck has the best chance of doing this.
U/W/R Flash
Creatures (14)
Lands (24)
Spells (22)
U/W/R Flash is basically a midrange deck. It’s not super aggressive, and it doesn’t trump every end game. It’s trying to win in the midgame, and it’s definitely a deck where both players’ life totals are usually relevant. Most of the time this deck will not have Geist of Saint Traft in the maindeck because there are too many creatures than can block it in Standard. Instead, the deck tries to play a normal game with Snapcaster Mage, Augur of Bolas, Boros Reckoner, and Restoration Angel and then either set up a situation where it can Sphinx’s Revelation to get far enough ahead on cards that the opponent can’t compete or finish the opponent off suddenly with burn spells like Searing Spear and Boros Charm or big, hasty fliers like Thundermaw Hellkite.
As mentioned above, Assemble the Legion is becoming a much more common part of this plan, giving the deck a potential way to steal games with a single card in the mirror or against a deck like Jund or even Esper.
It’s important to note that despite being a blue deck that largely plays at instant speed, they generally can’t afford to play very many counterspells, so it’s usually correct to just cast your best spells into them and hope they resolve. Game 2 you’ll need to be significantly more careful if you’re playing the kind of deck they’d want additional counterspells against because their sideboard will have more of them.
In my experience, the early removal and good blockers make this deck extremely difficult for most aggressive decks to beat, but trying to go bigger than them isn’t as hard as you might expect it to be against a deck with Sphinx’s Revelation because the cards they draw with Sphinx’s Revelation aren’t that powerful. When trying to go big against them, it’s critical to be careful not to just lose to their five-drop, which could be Thundermaw Hellkite, Jace, Memory Adept, or Assemble the Legion.
Control
Esper Control
Creatures (8)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (26)
Spells (24)
Esper Control is the most popular control deck at the moment. It wins almost exclusively through Nephalia Drownyard but has Jace, Memory Adept to speed things up. It can sometimes happen to win a game with Restoration Angel and its little creatures, but that’s never plan A.
Like U/W/R, Esper can’t afford to play that many counterspells main because the aggressive decks are just too popular and too fast. Esper is mostly a wide variety of removal spells and card draw. This makes it extremely weak to the graveyard decks in game 1, but games 2 and 3 improve a lot with the addition of more counterspells and graveyard hate.
Esper Control is probably best against creature decks that aren’t quite fast enough and midrange and control decks that don’t quite have enough power. I know that I’d hope to play against a lot of U/W/R and Bant Control if I played Esper and I imagine most of aggro matchups are pretty good, but I’m not sure exactly which are best or how good they are.
Trying to play a control game against them is almost certainly a bad plan. The best way to beat them is to catch them off guard with a card they don’t have an answer to like Assemble the Legion, the right planeswalker, Obzedat, Ghost Council, or Sands of Delirium. Their deck has answers to all of these, but any given hand often won’t. Witchbane Orb can also make it very difficult for them to kill you, but if you don’t have way to kill them, they’ll Detention Sphere it eventually.
Wolf Run Bant
Creatures (14)
Lands (25)
Spells (21)
This deck is less popular than Esper Control but is still around. The basic plan of the deck is to ramp into defensive creatures and sweepers, then cast Sphinx’s Revelation for a lot, and eventually win by using Kessig Wolf Run on whatever random guy they happen to have or just attacking with a lot of Thragtusks.
The way to approach this matchup is fundamentally very similar to Esper—they have a very powerful late game that most random decks can’t beat, but you’ll know if you can. They have a lot of cards that are very good at slowing down most threats, but some threats will be much more effective than others. Falkenrath Aristocrat is a prime example of a threat that can be excellent against them, but any of the cards that are good against Esper can also happen to work here (although I wouldn’t want Witchbane Orb).
Basically, you’re trying to do the same thing though: find the kind of threat they’re not prepared for and steal a game or just have a good aggressive draw if they stumble at all.
That’s not all of the decks in Standard, but it should definitely be enough to give you a good idea of what’s going on in the format if you’ve been away for a while.
Thanks for reading,
Sam
@samuelhblack on Twitter