After two tournaments, the Singleton metagame is starting to take shape. We're seeing not only what decks people are playing, but which are actually succeeding when put to the acid test of a tournament setting. And the decks are good, too - better than you might perhaps think would be possible in this format.

So far, here's what's winning:

Aggro
Goblins
White Weenie

Aggro-Control
Red/Green Beats
Blue/Green Madness

Control
Blue/Black

Combo
Mind's Desire

Note that list is not meant to catalog all of the good decks one can play in Singleton. Rock decks show up often on MTGO, and I've been told there are plenty of other mono-Blue decks out there like the one I described last week. The decks above are the ones that have enjoyed tournament success so far.

Here's a quick description of each deck and some of the key cards each plays. Because Singleton decklists are so long, it's more fruitful to focus on the cards that form the core of each deck than to list out a full decklist for each archetype.

Goblins
Goblins is as quick as it gets in Singleton. Similar in many respects to the Red Deck Wins deck we looked at last week, Goblins plays more tribal cards, like Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader, and Goblin Burrows. It also eschews most mana control in favor of more burn, like Violent Eruption and Spitting Earth. Goblins relies on posing more problems than the opponent has solutions, assuming it can win before the opposing deck ever presents a problem of its own. So far, it is easily the most common deck to make Top 8 in Singleton tournament play - but it hasn't yet won a tournament outright.

Some typical cards:

Goblin Piledriver
Sparksmith
Goblin Warchief
Goblin Matron
Goblin Goon
Clickslither
Flametongue Kavu
Blistering Firecat
Siege-Gang Commander
Shock
Firebolt

Spitting Earth
Pulse of the Forge
Skullclamp

White Weenie
The much-reviled White Weenie may or may not have a permanent place in the Singleton tournament scene, but it made last week's Top 8, so don't count it out. Featuring some of the best two-mana creatures in the game - White Knight, Silver Knight, Whipcorder, and Samurai of the Pale Curtain - it typically attempts to shore up its lack of good removal by relying on equipment to make its creatures extra-scary, and throwing the opponent's game off with spells like Worship.

Key cards:
Lantern Kami and Suntail Hawk
White Knight
Silver Knight
Whipcorder
Samurai of the Pale Curtain
Exalted Angel
Glorious Anthem
Worship
Bonesplitter
Skullclamp

Red/Green Beats
Red/Green Beats takes the best burn and creatures from Goblins, then adds the best fatties and utility of green, giving up some of Goblins' speed in order to do so. It has good game against Goblins because it tends to win creature combats, efficiently removes small creatures with a range of burn, and poses difficult problems for other control decks with cards like Troll Ascetic.

Key cards:
Birds of Paradise
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Troll Ascetic
Eternal Witness
Call of the Herd
Thornscape Battlemage
Nantuko Vigilante
Flametongue Kavu
Ravenous Baloth
Arc-Slogger
Kumano, Master Yamabushi
Volcanic Hammer

Blue/Green Madness
Blue/Green Madness looks a little bit like your mama's Madness deck from back in Odyssey block, but doesn't have quite the focus of that deck - one each of Wild Mongrel, Arrogant Wurm, Roar of the Wurm, Circular Logic, and Wonder does not quite add up to a deck. However, the deck benefits from a number of newer cards that compliment the basic theme quite well - cards like Eternal Witness (to get back the best card you've discarded), Gifts Ungiven (to tutor while filling up of your graveyard for Threshold effects), and Birds of Paradise (not that this is a new card... details, details). Packing just enough countermagic to keep the opponent off balance, Blue/Green Madness has good game against many decks, except perhaps Mind's Desire, against which it is too slow to win before the combo is assembled, and too lacking in countermagic to disrupt much of anything.

Key cards:
Birds of Paradise
Wild Mongrel
Aquamoeba
Thought Courier and Merfolk Looter
Circular Logic
Basking Rootwalla
Roar of the Wurm
Arrogant Wurm
Eternal Witness
Wonder
Fact or Fiction
Gifts Ungiven

Blue/Black Control
Blue/Black Control resembles the old Psychatog decks, but only barely. The skeleton of Psychatog, Upheaval, Circular Logic, and Chainer's Edict is there. However, it's filled in with a motley collection of the best control spells Blue and Black have had to offer over the years, particularly when those spells can help fill up the graveyard. That means Exclude and Repulse, Recoil, and Smother, plus card draw from Concentrate, Deep Analysis, Future Sight, Gifts Ungiven, and, of course, Fact or Fiction. And then there's Morphling - playable on MTGO - who finally finds his home in a deck right here. It's a slow deck, dedicated to keeping the opponent from establishing his or her game while getting out one or two unstoppable threats, and riding those threats to victory. The heavy removal suite gives it a surprisingly good chance against even the super-speedy Goblins.

Key cards:
Psychatog
Shadowmage Infiltrator
Morphling
Recoil
Repulse
Counterspell
Circular Logic
Exclude
Concentrate
Deep Analysis
Future Sight
Chainer's Edict
Smother
Ghastly Demise
Persuasion

Mind's Desire
The single deck in the format which doesn't rely on creatures to win, Mind's Desire is a deck that requires some explanation if you haven't seen the combo before. Basically, it tries to build up mana quickly, lay a mana-doubler like Heartbeat of Spring or Mirari's Wake, tap for a bunch of mana, untap that mana with Early Harvest or Rude Awakening, regrow the untapping card with one of many graveyard recursion spells, and use all the mana to cast enough spells for a gigantic Mind's Desire or Tendrils of Agony. If it sounds complicated, it is, and even more so in practice. If you wonder how the deck can make the combo work in Singleton, well, all that can be said is that the deck plays a ton of tutoring and library manipulation spells - enough that the deck can sometimes go off on turn 4, and pretty reliably do so by turn 6. However, a suite of counterspells can really ruin its day.

Key cards:

Birds of Paradise (sense a theme?)
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Harrow
Kodama's Reach
Early Harvest
Rude Awakening
Nostalgic Dreams
Eternal Witness
All Sun's Dawn
Restock
Opt
Sleight of Hand
Sensei's Divining Top
Gifts Ungiven
Fact or Fiction
Opportunity
Heartbeat of Spring
Mirari's Wake
Mind's Desire
Tendrils of Agony

If you are looking to build a tournament deck for Singleton, you would be well-advised to look carefully at these archetypes - either to use one as the basis for a deck, or to know what you'll be up against when you decide to go rogue. Particularly when thinking about a sideboard, consider how that sideboard can shore up your deck against each of the archetypes above.

***

Last week's article generated some interesting comments from readers interested in the Singleton format. On the one hand, people who hadn't played much Singleton seemed generally enthusiastic - excited to learn more about the format, and feeling a little better equipped to build a decent deck. On the other, more experienced players had a more mixed reaction, typically taking issue with one particular assertion: that this format is all about creatures, and so you ought to play creature-control spells maindeck.

So I decided to put my money - well, money cum tickets - where my mouth was, and took the article's mono-Blue deck out for a ride at MTGO's second Singleton tourney. Truth be told, I was going to play regardless, but wanting to check my assertions was certainly in the back on my head. Wary of the speedy Red decks littering the Top 8 of last week's tournament, I trimmed some of the more expensive, controlling spells, in favor of a bit more early game defense:

20 Island
1 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
1 Boomerang
1 Bribery
1 Chromeshell Crab
1 Complicate
1 Concentrate
1 Condescend
1 Confiscate
1 Counterspell
1 Echo Tracer
1 Echoing Truth
1 Exclude
1 Future Sight
1 Hinder
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Jushi Apprentice
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Mana Leak
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Memory Lapse
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Morphling
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Opportunity
1 Opt
1 Peek
1 Persuasion
1 Quicksilver Dragon
1 Repulse
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Serum Visions
1 Sleight of Hand
1 Syncopate
1 Temple of the False God
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Voidmage Prodigy
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Willbender

Shoreline Ranger got the axe in favor of another Island, as there's no time to cycle against speed Red. Decree of Silence found a new home in the sideboard, coming in versus other control decks. And Fact or Fiction... well, I don't own one. And it's hard to justify paying 15+ tickets for an uncommon. Of course, this is poor reasoning, considering that there are pretty few of them in existence online (side note: it would sure be interesting to know how many cards have been "printed" online in each of the releases, wouldn't it?), and the price just keeps going up; nevertheless, no FoF for me, as yet.

The removal of these cards made room for Voidmage Prodigy and Meloku the Clouded Mirror. Voidmage gives you a cheap creature early that will get you a trade, and an extra counter late. Meloku is simply really, really good - decent even in the speed Red matchup, and a win condition against slower decks.

I also put together a real sideboard, which worked well:

1 Annul
1 Arcane Laboratory (for Mind's Desire decks)
1 Callous Oppressor (for general heavy critter decks)
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Decree of Silence
1 Discombobulate (for control matchups)
1 Force Spike (for speed Red)
1 Scrabbling Claws (innumerable uses, and likely to go maindeck)
1 Soratami Savant (for control)
1 Stifle (for Mind's Desire)
1 Stupefying Touch
1 Temporal Adept (for anybody without removal)
1 Time Stop (for Mind's Desire)
1 Trinket Mage (to fetch Claws - it's that important in certain matchups)
1 Wall of Deceit (for speed Red)

The tournament ends up with 37 players, meaning six rounds of play. Looking at the tournament roster, I see the names of some players I've been seeing playing Singleton in the tournament practice room, so it looks like there will be a high level of competition. In fact, as the tournament went on, it became clear that there are a lot of very good players playing Singleton, and that they have spent a lot of time - and money, or trading - putting together their decks. With a new tournament format, and one that sees more play in the casual room than in tourney practice, you might figure that many decks would be a little rough, a little untuned. Not true.

In round 1, I play platipus10, who is playing a Early Harvest/Mind's Desire deck that's very similar to the one which won the last tournament. I'm naively thinking that he got the deck from examining that tournament's Top 8, but he tells me later that he's been playing it for a long time, and has been playing Singleton in general for about two years.

Game 1, I quickly have two morphs beating down, with six lands in play, and a Morphling and Hinder in hand. I've countered some of platipus's early spells, leaving him with six lands of his own, a Sensei's Divining Top, and only three cards in hand. Having seen what happens if the Desire deck is given time to set up, I play the Morphling, knowing two swings with the team will end the game. This turns out to be a big mistake, as platipus finds Gifts Ungiven, plays it, and goes off.

Games 2 and 3 go much better. Game 2, I'm able to counter his key spells (Early Harvest, Rude Awakening - that sort of thing) and get in some beatdown with Meloku before his recursion spells can rebuild his combo, despite Moment's Peace buying him two extra turns. Game 3, he has severe mana problems, and my Arcane Laboratory trumps his Xantid Swarm as the sideboard cards come out to play.

platipus was a nice guy and a good sport, and spent a good deal of time between rounds talking to me about his experiences in playing the format. We discussed the common deck archetypes, and I'm indebted to him for his thoughts on what makes Singleton tick. He went on to place 10^th in the tournament, missing Top 8 on tiebreakers with a 4-2 record.

Rounds 2 and 3 (sorry, I'm missing names for my opponents here) are both against Goblin decks, and they both end in the same way: swift defeat. The decks are simply too fast; I always feel like I am one mana, one spell, one turn away from shifting momentum away from them and over to my side, but it only happens in one game of five. Having made the above changes to improve the aggro matchup helped, but were not enough, and my sideboard didn't contain enough anti-aggro cards to improve things in games 2 and 3. Arguably, my chances of winning decreased after sideboarding, as my opponents could bring in Boil, which singlehandedly lost me one of my games. Goblin Piledriver's Protection from Blue did not help either.

It was tempting to drop at this point, but given that the tournament was for research and fun as well as winning, I stuck with it. It also seemed likely that a couple of people would make it in with 4-2 records. So I prayed for good tiebreakers for my opponents, and trudged onward.

Match 4 against AlexA62 was a matchup I'd been looking forward to: U/B, as described above. This should be a good matchup for me, as I can counter and draw more consistently than my opponent, while his creature kill spells are suboptimal when I have bounce and countering for protection. And this is very much how it plays out. The games are slow grinders, dedicated to maneuvering for position, but I just have better tools for the job. This is only more the case after sideboarding, as I load up on countermagic and control the game.

Match 5 is against strand, who is playing an unusual mono-Green concoction, with decent mana acceleration, fatties, and all the Green power cards (Eternal Witness, Seedborn Muse, etc.) An early Peek in game 1 earns me a look at his upcoming Duplicant, which prevents me from walking Arcanis, Meloku, or Quicksilver Dragon haplessly into it. A Silklash Spider threatens to make things difficult, but Vedalken Shackles bring it to the proper side of the table. Now my opponent lays Seedborn Muse. Looking at the Persuasion in my hand, I'm thrilled, because there's nothing my deck likes more than having a full set of untapped mana each turn. I cast the spell, pass the turn... and realize I've made a bit of an oversight.

Do you see my mistake? Under Seedborn Muse, everything untaps - everything, including my Vedalken Shackles. This sends the Spider back home, and he takes the opportunity to destroy my entire flying team, which included Meloku, Quicksilver Dragon, and a couple of Illusion tokens at this point. Thankfully, my board position is still very good, and the Muse pulls its weight by letting me lay fatties while keeping counter mana open on his turn. Bribery also earns me a very helpful Silvos, Rogue Elemental in this game.

Game 2 is pure beatdown. I counter his fatties, then Bribery gets me Silvos again (tempting as Seedborn Muse was). Silvos spends some time in the Fog, then gets hit with a Tangle that keeps him busy for a while. Thankfully, my opponent is kind enough to lay out Seedborn Muse again, who again joins my side (probably to Persuasion, but maybe to Confiscate this game). This makes it less painful when he recurs the Tangle with a Witness, as Silvos only gets lost for one turn, and it doesn't take long to finish the beatdown.

Suddenly, I'm 3-2, and things are looking up. If I can just win this round, I might make it in, though it's far from certain as my tiebreakers are only mediocre.

Round 6 is against Zagarna_84 and his tricked-out Red/Green beats deck. I say "tricked out" because he'd made some clever and surprising choices for his deck, like Burning Wish, Living Wish, and a Wish sideboard with unusual options like Slingshot Goblin. The Goblin came out early against me game 1, leaving me thankful that most of my creatures were either morphs (and therefore not vulnerable) or beefy enough that the Goblin needed help to bring them down. Zagarna_84 also made an unfortunate error this game, misclicking after a Burning Wish and ending up with a Hammer of Bogardan that was useful but not what he wanted. He said he wasn't sure it would have mattered - I Bribed up another fatty this game - but it was still a shame to see the mistake.

Any sympathy for his plight drained away after the second game, where Zagarna got a self-described "God draw" and utterly blew me away. Turn 1 Llanowar Elves, turn 2 Troll Ascetic, followed shortly thereafter by Sword of Fire and Ice... you can see how I was not winning this game.

So it all came down to game 3. I lay an Island, to which Zagarna responds with Forest, Birds of Paradise. Great. I look at the Stupefying Touch in my hand, and think, "well, this doesn't do anything about mana abilities, does it? But I have nothing better to do with this turn, so better to cycle the card. And maybe it does work? I can't remember." One would like to know what one's cards do, but I don't in this case. Anyway, I lay the Stupefying Touch; Zagarna replies that this is really good for me, so I can only think that either it really does work, or he doesn't know better. Things are looking up; he has mounted an offense, but I'm developing my own creature base, and building towards that Bribery again. Then Sword of Fire and Ice shows up again. And it equips the Birds... so Stupefying Touch falls off, just to add insult to injury. I have no way to block a flying Protection from Blue creature, and have very few ways (Shackles, Oblivion Stone) to even touch it, so this is not good, not good at all. Bribery fetches me Rorix, which isn't great because it still can't block the Birds, but there's no option that does, and Rorix at least presents a threat that Zagarna would like to block. However, this is a temporary measure at best, as Zagarna draws a burn spell, swings with the Birds, targets Rorix with the Sword ability, then finishes Rorix off with said burn. Sigh.

Zagarna makes it into the Top 8 barely, taking the eighth spot. I'm happy for him; he was a gracious opponent, and I enjoyed his deck as well. Not that winning wouldn't have been nice, but if one is going to lose, it should be to a nice player who knows what he's doing.

So, what are the lessons from the tournament, for both my deck and for Singleton as a whole? The obvious one is that aggro decks happen, a lot, and the mono-Blue deck needs help with this matchup. All three losses were to aggro decks, and specifically, decks playing at least some Red. Something needs to be done to shore up the mono-Blue deck here.

Second, Boil sucks for mono-Blue. Right now, it utterly wrecks the deck... and the aggro decks that play them don't give you time to keep countermagic mana open. Two of my games were lost the moment Boil hit the table, and were 50/50 or better to win before the spell was cast. That's a big problem.

Third, Protection from Blue shows up every so often, and it will take mono-Blue to task. Piledriver is very bad news, and Sword of Fire and Ice is a nightmare. This means that the mono-Blue deck may want to find more colorless creatures and removal sources.

Last, while there are creatureless (or nearly creatureless) decks out there, most decks play lots of creatures and rely on them to win the game. Every deck I played except for the first relied on creatures to get the job done; I was always happy to have Bribery against these decks, and Persuasion, and Exclude and Repulse. So while people were correct to note that my previous assertion about the ubiquity of creatures was overstated, I stand by the general lesson that you should play creature-control cards in your main deck, and be happy about it.

Thinking about the deck, how do we solve the three problems above? Sadly, the best answer may be to play U/B, as so many Singleton players already do. Efficient removal like Chainer's Edict and Smother goes a long way towards bettering the aggro matchup, you get nice spells like Shadowmage Infiltrator and Recoil, and you get a whole new and frightening win condition in Psychatog. You have ways around Protection from Blue, and Boil doesn't utterly wreck you. It's a compelling solution.

Nevertheless, I like the mono-Blue build, and would like to make it work. It does extremely well in matchups with controlling decks, combo, and decks relying on fatties. Keeping the deck mono-Blue while still having a reasonable game against aggro... well, that's a tricky proposition. So tricky that I'm going to punt and see what you have to suggest. What would you do to shore up the aggro matchup without gutting the basic structure of the deck? Let's hear what you have to say in the forums! [I was actually thinking there's probably an efficient Blue/Green control deck out there similar to what you see in Standard right now. - Knut, who thinks Singleton looks surprisingly fun.]