“Ponder”ing the Aggro Solution…

I think I’ve played the U/G monstrosity to death for the moment, and my magic pallet is demanding I try out something new and exciting! Yes, I’m going to love testing out U/W Aggro-Geist, as well as Tokens and Wolf Run, but there has to be another few decks out there that don’t fall into such a common mold.

So what do we know about the metagame right now? What can we build to fight against what we expect to see most? Let’s build a deck that will combat aggro strategies since they seem to be all the rage lately, and who doesn’t hate getting attacked for 10 on T4 by a Geist who has a Destiny with Angels?

So I guess the question for today is: What beats aggro?

Answer: Our good buddy control, of course!

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This happens when you have 2WW open...

U/W/b CONTROL

Removal Spells:

3x Oblivion Ring

3x Dismember

2x Day of Judgment

8

Control Spells:

4x Mana Leak

2x Dissipate

3x Timely Reinforcements

9

Card Advantage:

3x Ponder

3

Creatures:

3x Snapcaster Mage

3x Sun Titan

2x Consecrated Sphinx

3x Phantasmal Image

3x Hero of Bladehome

14

Lands:

26x Of Them!

CARD EVALUATIONS!

Oblivion / Dismember / DoJ

Classic creature removal elements. The O-Ring takes care of everything, while the Dismember / DoJ clean up the creatures left behind. Snapcaster brings back Dismember to serve double duty in the removal suite, and Sun Titan is more than happy to bring back an O-Ring should it somehow end up in the graveyard.

Mana Leak / Dissipate / Timely Reinforcements

Once you start setting up your counterspells, you don’t really need to stop! T2 Mana Leak, T3 Dissipate, T4 Snapcaster into a flashbacked Mana Leak. But what if they start getting out their cretures before you’re able to get your control plan online? Oh yea, Timely Reinforcements! And believe me, there is NO better feeling than using Snapcaster on a timely reinforcements! LOL

Ponder

Made the cut because it is a 1cc spell that plays nice with Snapcaster. I’m not unhappy playing a T3 Snapcaster into ponder, and ponder is our only T1 play to get a nice setup for our future draws!

The Creature Suite

Snapcaster should go up to 4x, but I only own 3x right now L. I’ve been waiting for them to go down in price and am happy that they’re down to $20 already. Sun Titan has a large emphasis in this list so that we can re-use Snappy and the Image, and P-Image itself is very important since it can copy-kill a Geist of St Traft. Hero of Bladehome is just soooo strong that I want to squeeze it into every list that runs W that I can! Consecrated Sphinx is amazing, as always.

THE VERDICT?

Take THAT aggro! Looks like this deck should be able to lay some beatdown on most aggressive decks because of the huge removal suite, counter backup for their late game, and my bigger fat guys to seal the deal once they’ve run out of dudes. This style of deck should perform well in any aggro-Heavy environment… I may even give her a play at my next local FNM!

So if Aggro has got you down, and you spend your nights in a cold sweat dreaming about being attacked by sword wielding Myr Crusaders, put down your Rootboung Craigs and pick up your Glacial Fortresses!

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CONTEST WINNER ANNOUNCED!!

There were a meager 9 ballots in the pool this time, and most of them were for people who had subscribed to follow this blog. The lucky winner of a Maelstom Pulse (Out of Stock in NM on SGC @ $9.99!) is:

…

…

… JOHN WRIGHT!!

Congratz Johnny! Looks like you’ll have a Pulse from your Commander deck afterall!! J

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I hope this article has helped you identify how to build a deck based on your metagame and will lead you to much success and victory! I’ll leave off today with a quote from the ultimate movie. I’m sure many games of MTG have happened at kitchen tables everywhere to the backdrop of this epic… CONAN: THE BARBARIAN!

Mongol General: Hao! Dai ye! We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?
Mongol: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Mongol General: That is good! That is good.

Cheers!

Carl Szalich

Is Wolf Run Green the New Valakut?

Last week we talked a little bit about the shape of new standard here: Post Innistrad Standard Decks. We didn’t use the most competitive data, as we were just exploring possibilities.

I’d now like to introduce you to a site that I just found: http://mtgpulse.com/. This website is very close to what the old deckcheck.de used to be, in that it lists individual events and the top 8 decklists from them. I recommend you bookmark it immediately!

We’re going to take a look at the decks that have now seen competitive play and have made it into the T8 of both Grand Prix Brisbane as well as a few of the States / Provincials. Let’s see how many of each archetype are being played / winning and if there is a deck out there that is heads above the rest!

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GP BRISBANE (  Deserves its own section)

1^st = U/B Control

2^nd = Township Tokens

3-6^th = Wolf Run Green

7^th = U/B Control

8^th = Tezzeret

When we examined decklists last week I thought we’d be seeing a lot of Wolf Run decks and it looks like that has proven to be true. 4 of the top 8 decks were Wolf Run Green… something we’ve seen before with Valakut and later, Cawblade. Does this hold true for the results from states as well? Let’s find out!

In this list I have compiled the results from the first 6 lists for states that I found so as to not cherry pick for stats.

Legend:

Archetype = What kind of deck was played.

1^st = How many first place finishes the deck had.

Top 8 = How many times the deck showed up in the Top 8 EXCLUDING 1^st places.

Total = The number of T8 Finishes TOTAL (1^st + T8)

ARCHETYPE	1ST	TOP 8	TOTAL
Wolf Run Green	3	13	16
U/W Aggro	1	6	7
Red Deck Wins		6	6
Solar Flare		6	6
Tempered Steel	1	3	4
U/B Control		2	2
Township Tokens		2	2
Tezzeret		2	2
U/W Control	1	1	2
Mono Black Infect		1	1

10 different decks that made the T8 in those tournaments with the highest number of placing gong to Wolf Run Green with 40.0% of the total T8 showings. The next closest was U/W Aggro with 17.5%. That means that 55% of the top 8 placings were composed of those 2 decks, which doesn’t seem that diverse. Overall there were only 10 different archetypes that filled a possible 40 places.

Now here are the results of the first 6 lists for Provincials to see what’s happening here in Canada and if the metagame is any different:

ARCHETYPE	1ST	TOP 8	TOTAL
Solar Flare	1	11	12
Wolf Run Green	1	6	7
Red Deck Wins	2	3	5
RUG Control	2	2	4
U/W Aggro		3	3
Tempered Steel		3	3
Township Tokens		2	2
U/B Control		2	2
Shape Anew		1	1
Esper Control		1	1
Mono Black Control		1	1
Grixis Burning Vengeance		1	1
Mono Black Infect		1	1
Tezzeret		1	1
U/W Control		1	1
Junk		1	1
RUG Pod		1	1
Puresteel Paladin		1	1

In Canada it looks like the most popular deck was Solar Flare with 30%. Wolf Run Green was next with 17.5% and Red Deck Wins followed with 12.5%. There were 18 different decks that placed, which is a lot more diverse that how things looked on the American side. Is it because our Canadian meta is not as developed, or have we just been brewing more? I personally feel that where there are LESS decks making appearances that it means that we are in a more developed meta, which to me means that Canada is behind the curve as we have not optimized the best decks yet to crush all opposition.

It’s also interesting to note the lack of Solar Flare builds in USA vs. the number that showed up here in Canada. Wolf Run Green still seems to be “universally” popular, and have the most decks overall that have shown up in the Top 8’s.

Now let’s look at all of the winning decks to see if there are any trends:

ARCHETYPE	1ST
Wolf Run Green	4
RUG Control	2
Red Deck Wins	2
U/W Aggro	1
U/W Control	1
Tempered Steel	1
U/B Control	1
Solar Flare	1

While these stats are all well and good, let’s see if we can use them to see what the actual % finishing in top 8 vs. actually WINNING the events will be! This is important because it stakes the volume of decks vs. the actual wins for the deck itself.

ARCHETYPE	1ST	Total in T8	First %
RUG Control	2	4	50%
U/W Control	1	3	33%
Red Deck Wins	2	11	18%
U/B Control	1	6	17%
Wolf Run Green	4	27	15%
Tempered Steel	1	7	14%
U/W Aggro	1	10	10%
Solar Flare	1	18	6%

I really find this interesting. Some of the decks that were LEAST represented in the top 8 actually had the HIGHEST % of 1^st places! Could it be because people weren’t prepared for these underdog decks? So while the boogeyman Wolf Run Green decks took the MOST 1^st places, they were also the most represented so theoretically they SHOULD have the highest wins due to VOLUME, if nothing else.

I wish there was somewhere I could look that would show the TOTAL number of decks of each archetype that were present at the events so that we could compare that as well. If there were 1,000 Wolf Run Green decks and only 100 Red Decks, that would also affect this type of calculation on a much larger scale.

I hope this helps you better understand the metagame and what appear to be the top decks ATM!

Cheers,

Carl Szalich