Welp. Let’s just get this out of the way, shall we?
1. G/B/W Reanimator is still the top dog of Standard. Oh fudge, right?
2. Jund Midrange beats up on almost everything because Sire of Insanity doesn’t take no guff from no one.
3. Almost nothing new arrived on the scene, but basically every existing archetype was enhanced by Dragon’s Maze.
4. Voice of Resurgence didn’t cause people to stop playing instants. Hooray! Islands forever!
It’s like the old saying goes: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
This statement rings particularly true in the wake of one of the most important tournaments of the year: the first SCG Standard Open after Dragon’s Maze was released.
You kids nowadays don’t know how great you have it. Years ago, in the dark ages before StarCityGames.com was on the cutting edge of tournament technology, players like me figured out what deck they were going to play in one of three ways:
A) We playtested a lot, usually with bad decks that were from several week (or month) old tournaments. We were pretty much like a bunch of blind squirrels trying to find a nut. Occasionally, we’d hit pay dirt, but more often than not it was a nutless endeavor.
B) We waited for the next Grand Prix, Regionals, or States to tell us what kinds of decks we could expect in our local metagame for the next few months. Keyword: months.
C) We read about something that could potentially be good from one of the four websites that were out there. These pieces, however, were rarely written by people we would consider "pros" and were mostly just shots in the dark by people who loved Magic.
Now, with the advent of the SCG Open Series, Standard changes constantly and evolves at an even more rapid pace. Like I said, you’re all a bunch of lucky little devils.
The reason why the Standard Open at #SCGNJ was such a huge deal is because it’s essentially the beginning of everything you can expect for the coming weeks of Standard. Each event after that comes up (in this case, #SCGCHAR) gives new pieces to solve the puzzle of what decks out there you should be playing. Information on a constant basis? Sign me up! I can totally get drunk on the material overload.
What we learned is that, quite simply, every deck that we’ve come to know in the last few months has gotten new tools that make it better. Aside from the Bant Flash deck piloted by Matt Costa (which you can see his deck tech here), almost nothing new emerged from the tournament except for stronger versions of existing archetypes. This, of course, doesn’t mean that there’s not plenty of room for innovation and fresh decks to pop out of the woodwork, but traditionally tried and true beats out unexpected in a blossoming field. That’s why this tournament is something you should pay very close attention to: it’s the framework that we need in order to skeleton what we can expect in the coming tournaments.
For me, this weekend I will be stepping into the PTQ arena once again (pray for me, children). Like thousands of you out there, my dream is to play on the Pro Tour. I’ve come so close so many times to realizing this goal, only to be swallowed by the jaws of defeat. I’m entering this upcoming event as prepared mentally as I’ve ever been and with the fire that we’ve always read about but never really understood.
If I want to do as well as I think I’m capable of, I have to know what decks to expect, what incarnations of them I could potentially be facing, and how to go about defeating them. Sounds easy, right? Hell yeah it is! I’ve got charts!
Let’s first discuss the main decks that are out there.
Patrick Chapin, who is a personal hero of mine (long story), devises an awesome weekly chart to show us all what the breakdown of the Top 32 of the most recent big tournament and what percentage of it is taken up by certain decks. It’s worth the price of Premium alone to have access to his breakdowns, and this week’s chart can be found here. This week, New Jersey offered us an almost 56% share from both Jund and G/W/B Reanimator, meaning that these two decks encompassed over half of the top tables.
Going into my PTQ, I know that if I’m going to be successful, I have to be able to beat these decks. There are no ifs, ands, or buts, and it’s unavoidable. As players, it is our job to give ourselves the best chance to win, so identifying our enemies is paramount to winning. Period.
Further down the list, we see that decks like Esper Control, U/W/R, Naya Humans, and other aggressive variants like R/G, Bant Hexproof, and The Aristocrats are all represented in smaller numbers, meaning either they were played by a much smaller percentage of players and just so happened to have done exceptionally well or that they simply weren’t as well positioned as the two juggernauts of the tournament. What can we surmise from all this?
Despite the other 44% of the Top 32 being very, very diverse, the meat and potatoes of the next few weeks is going to be beating Jund and G/W/B Reanimator. Staying ahead of the curve against them is going to mean the difference between winning a tournament and cheering your friends on from the sideline.
First, let’s look at the two big winners from #SCGNJ:
Creatures (13)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (25)
Spells (19)
Creatures (26)
- 3 Acidic Slime
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 3 Fiend Hunter
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 4 Restoration Angel
- 3 Thragtusk
- 3 Angel of Serenity
- 2 Sin Collector
Lands (23)
Spells (11)
Know your enemy, children.
Besides having the sweetest abbreviations possible for their names, CVM and BBD have done arguably the most work in the world customizing and driving the current force we know as G/W/B Reanimator. Each week they bring something new and powerful to the table, and it constantly forces the metagame to adapt to their changes. But as it would seem, they’ve been far ahead of the curve given Chris’s victory in the Standard portion this past weekend along with Brian winning a PTQ as well as Top 8ing the recent Invitational. Whether it’s Garruk Relentless one week or Sin Collector and Voice of Resurgence the next, whatever these two are doing is paying out savage dividends.
Owen Turtenwald and Reid Duke have done an insane (my attempt at a pun) amount of work on tailoring Jund to be the powerhouse of the new format by harnessing Sire of Insanity. Since being spoiled, the Sire has been lauded as one of the best answers to Sphinx’s Revelation out there, and his capabilities were on full display as his entry onto the battlefield meant the end of almost every single game I saw him. Both of these players, who have been championing Jund for a very long time, proved that their version of the deck, which rid itself of Arbor Elf in favor of vastly superior gameplay against all other aggressive and midrange decks, might be the best possible answer to the rest of the metagame.
Going into this weekend, it’s very hard for me to resist the urge to pilot one of these masterpieces. I’m usually the kind of guy that tries to beat the best decks rather than play them, but the magnetic appeal of them is simply too great to ignore. Jund has always been in my wheelhouse, giving me multiple PTQ Top 8s as well as my 2012 State Championship. There are a few changes from Owen’s list that I would make:
Maindeck:
-1 Rakdos Keyrune
+1 Abrupt Decay
Sideboard:
-1 Mizzium Mortars
-1 Deadbridge Chant
+1 Underworld Connections
+1 Devour Flesh
Gerard Fabiano made a comment about Underworld Connections, which was something I identified as soon as I saw the list that I would change. Deadbridge Chant is a very, very powerful card, but I feel like it is a little out of place in Jund. Because you run so few creatures, it’s not often that you will hit one, and if you do it’s entirely possible to hit your own Olivia Voldaren, which could be suicide in some games.
Underworld Connections will always net you cards if you have the life to pay for it and can generate a potentially huge swing in the same matchups you would usually bring the Chant in for. I love the way it works in conjunction with Sire of Insanity since any card extra that you can draw and potentially play on your turn with it in play can get you miles ahead of your opponent and let you put the game away much, much faster. It can, however, be worse in the mirror if our opponent is still packing Deadbridge Chant because heads up it feels like the Chant would just be better against an Underworld Connections, but I could be wrong.
Devour Flesh is just my hedge against Bant Hexproof. Alex Mitchell list looks very streamlined, and I can see it being the new gold standard by which people construct their decks, so the extra sac effect goes a very long way in making that matchup much more in your favor regardless of the presence of Voice of Resurgence. Think of it like this: would you rather two/three-for-one them and give them a 1/1 Elemental or die? I’ll take my chances with the Elemental token, thank you very much!
In regards to taking out the Rakdos Keyrune for a second Abrupt Decay, I think that just comes down to personal preference. Yes, it can help you power out your high-end faster, but I usually think of one-ofs as cards you don’t want to draw all the time or early in the game and that have a pretty big effect once they are in play. In the case of Rakdos Keyrune, it just seems a bit awkward. Abrupt Decay shows promise in almost every matchup that I can think of and can give us a lot of mileage against so many potential threats. It also lets us deal with things in the early game, meaning that our heavier hitters have much more room to flourish. Basically, I’d rather have consistency over the occasional mana ramp.
Even though Jund is my go-to deck, that doesn’t mean I’ve been just testing that. My first forays into heavy testing with Dragon’s Maze yielded a very good version of Esper that I’ve been experiencing success with (just X-0ed an FNM, yo—best back up).
Creatures (8)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (26)
Spells (25)
Despite the calls of some people that Far // Away is too expensive, I’ve found it to be exceptional in most capacities. It never feels like a dead card considering that even in control matches I’ve used it to great effect to return my Augur of Bolas or Snapcaster Mage to my hand to dig deeper or rebuy an important spell and then used the sacrifice part to kill off one of their creatures. Renounce the Guilds has been spectacular and shines in several matchups like Bant Hexproof, Jund, and against U/W/R Flash as an out to Assemble the Legion and Boros Reckoner.
The sideboard is mostly meant to fill in the blanks in certain matchups. We play Oblivion Ring because it is monocolored, and despite being a little worse than Detention Sphere, the fact that it doesn’t interfere with our Renounce the Guilds gives it the edge. The rest is primarily for aggressive decks, control decks, and G/B/W Reanimator. Three Rest in Peace might be the standard going forward for this deck because you want to make sure that the best deck in the format is one that you can effectively beat most of the time.
I’m trying to decide between this and Jund for my PTQ—leave a comment and let me know what you think my best bet would be!
Quick Hits: How Do We Beat These Decks?
In this Quick Hits, I’d like to give you a fast breakdown of how to handle some of the biggest decks out there. Sometimes the easiest information to digest is the kind that you can ingest rapidly.
G/W/B Reanimator – Counterspells and graveyard disruption help, as does attacking their somewhat unstable land base. Dissipate, Syncopate, Acidic Slime, and multiple forms of graveyard hate can sometimes make them stumble until you overtake them.
Jund – Creature-heavy decks that can flood the board by turn 2 through turn 4 can usually overrun Jund, whose removal setup is based on one-for-ones. Speed is key before they’re able to setup their powerful endgame. Also, going way over the top of them with cards like Angel of Serenity can be devastating, setting up a game that will just drain them of resources.
Esper Control – Aside from Cavern of Souls being excellent against them, disrupting them is a very easy way to create a bad situation for Esper. Forms of land destruction, hand disruption, and permanents that effect how they use their cards (Sire of Insanity, Staff of Nin) can all throw off Esper’s game plan. At the heart of it, Esper is a very delicate deck. If you exploit one of their weaknesses early on, it’s hard for them to power through it.
U/W/R Flash – Since U/W/R Flash plays a much different game than Esper with superior single target removal spells, decks like Bant Hexproof can give them fits, forcing them to have a Supreme Verdict or die. They pack counterspells, so Cavern of Souls is very effective against them. Bigger creatures have a great way of invalidating their burn, too, so cards like Loxodon Smiter and Angel of Serenity can cause them to go into panic mode.
Bant Hexproof – The "all-in" deck of the format suffers from mass removal and sacrificial effects worse than any other deck out there. Supreme Verdict, Terminus, Liliana of the Veil, Devour Flesh, etc.—all of them can ruin this deck’s day. All of that hinges on whether you live to cast them, though.
Naya Blitz – There’s a reason that decks like Jund are so good against Naya, and that’s because they pack a plethora of removal. This deck, which is usually made up of all creatures, can’t function without guys on the board. If you’re able to kill their first two or three creatures and stabilize with something like a Thragtusk or Huntmaster of the Fells, the game is almost over for them. Mass removal dampens their chances of winning as well.
R/G Aggro – It’s all about being smart with your removal against them. Domri Rade is something that has to be killed on sight, and the scariest cards they pack are Thundermaw Hellkite and Wolfir Silverheart. Once you run them out of those cards, they are a worse Naya Blitz deck. Olivia Voldaren is a nightmare for them too.
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I think the best way to get better at Magic is to always try to keep an equilibrium with your environment. When you understand exactly what is going on around you, you’re able to make the best judgment calls regardless of the situation.
If we take these tips to heart and actively work on gaining an understanding of the metagame around us, I think it’s pretty tough to not go into a tournament feeling like you have the best chance to win.
Hopefully all my preparation will yield some pretty positive results. If I make it on the Pro Tour this weekend, I’ll eat my hat.
Catch ya on the flip–
Mark