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DeShaun is an above-average guy always trying to win. He has made top eight of two SCG Opens and one Legacy Grand Prix. He also has a PTQ win under his belt. He's a Spike of all Spikes.

Metagame Breakdown, Part Uno

Currently Standard is just a big ole mess. Right now the options are endlessor so we believe. After a couple of weeks of tournaments, the metagame has been broken down and it seems you can’t just play what you want. Let me tell you why.

[deck title=B/g Devotion, Andrew Tenjum, 1st Place, SCG Open Cincinatti]
[Creatures]
*4 Pack Rat
*4 Lifebane Zombie
*4 Desecration Demon
*4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Thoughtseize
3 Devour Flesh
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Hero’s Downfall
4 Underworld Connections
1 Vraska the Unseen
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Temple of Malady
2 Golgari Guildgate
4 Mutavault
4 Overgrown Tomb
11 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Dark Betrayal
2 Erebos, God of the Dead
2 Pharika’s Cure
1 Devour Flesh
2 Golgari Charm
2 Doom Blade
4 Duress
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

New formats mean new cardsor again, so we thought. This list contains four new cards, and they are wonderful lands. I was wrong. Mono-Black Devotion is still the best. All hail the king.  In all seriousness, if you don’t have a good matchup against this deck, don’t play in tournaments if you are trying to win.

I love almost everything about this deck. But now that the metagame is fully developed, we can be a little bit more aggressive about our card choices.

-1 [card]Vraska the Unseen[/card]

+1 [card]Abrupt Decay[/card]

The reason this is correct is [card]Abrupt Decay[/card] has almost the same effect as [card]Vraska the Unseen[/card]. And in most matchups, Vraska tends to come down, kill one [card]Detention Sphere[/card] or similar card, then sit around doing nothing. We aren’t talking about corner caseswe are talking about what happens most of the time Vraska comes down. [card]Abrupt Decay[/card] has mostly the same effect, except it doubles as removal and allows you to gain a couple percentages in your not-so-good matchups. Going forward, I believe this is a four-of in any devotion decks.

[deck title=U/W Control, Eric Rill, 2nd Place, SCG Open Cincinatti]
[Creatures]
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Azorius Charm
1 Syncopate
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Negate
2 Celestial Flare
4 Dissolve
1 Banishing Light
4 Detention Sphere
4 Supreme Verdict
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
1 Jace, Memory Adept
4 Sphinx’s Revelation
[/Spells]

[Lands]
4 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Temple of Deceit
1 Temple of Silence
4 Azorius Guildgate
3 Mutavault
4 Hallowed Fountain
5 Island
5 Plains
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Nyx-Fleece Ram
1 Deicide
2 Celestial Flare
1 Aetherling
1 Blind Obedience
1 Dispel
1 Negate
1 Pithing Needle
2 Gainsay
3 Last Breath
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

Blue and white! [card]Jace, Architect of Thought[/card] and [card]Elspeth, Sun’s Champion[/card] are still the tag-team masters of the world if you ask me. This deck is very, very good. Once you stop everything that your opponent has tried to do, you value them out with Jace or just ultimate a Elspeth and end the game. You can’t be greedy and you need to play very tight. If you think that’s something that you are into, I recommend taking this list and not putting it down till the end of the season. This deck now has access to a lot of card’s that allows you to have game in every matchup.

The changes i would make to the list are very subtle. With the metagame being this defined, you don’t need to make a lot of change to be successful.

-3[card]Last Breath[/card]

+1 [card]Nyx-Fleece Ram[/card]

+2 [card]Reprisal[/card]

Blitz decks are coming and every single game that I have played against them with [card]Nyx-Fleece Ram[/card] hasn’t been close. Every aggro deck must overextend to have a chance to beat this card. If they don’t, they can’t win. And if they do…well, they still can’t win. This card doesn’t allow aggro to nickel and dime you out of a game.

As for the others, I don’t know if people have forgotten about [card]Reprisal[/card], but this card is the real deal. With the Junk deck seeing more play, you need a way to deal with all the troublesome cards in that deck. It is threat dense and you can’t rely on being able to counter everything that they do.

[deck title=Junk, Jeff Hoogland, 3rd Place, SCG Open Cincinatti]
[Creatures]
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
1 Lifebane Zombie
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Archangel of Thune
2 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Hero’s Downfall
2 Banishing Light
2 Underworld Connections
4 Advent of the Wurm
2 Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Mana Confluence
1 Swamp
2 Forest
3 Temple Garden
3 Godless Shrine
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Temple of Malady
4 Temple of Plenty
4 Temple of Silence
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Bile Blight
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
2 Lifebane Zombie
2 Sin Collector
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council
1 Underworld Connections
2 Golgari Charm
2 Thoughtseize
2 Putrefy
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

This deck is a nightmare for the top two decks in the format. That being said, I don’t know how it fares against the random decks in the format. If you know you are going to a tournament with a ton of Spikes in attendance, this deck should be in the forefront of your mind. The threat count of this deck is off the charts. Almost any one of the creatures in this deck can swing the game in your favorand that’s why the top two decks have trouble executing a game plan against this one.

-1 [card]Lifebane Zombie[/card]

+1 [card]Abrupt Decay[/card]

Looking at this deck, it seems well thought out and very strong in the current metagame, so you don’t need to change much until the format shifts. [card]Lifebane Zombie[/card] is a fine card, but I don’t think this is a deck that wants a ton of this type of effect in the 75. [card]Archangel of Thune[/card] is the number one reason i don’t believe you need Lifebane versus RG Monsters. The deck is set up very well. It has plenty of game versus every single midrange and control deck in the format. You really just want to be able to start deploying your threats before you die.

Knowing the Format

This format is about knowing your deck and playing well. This isn’t a format where you just choose a deck and go to a tournament and win. You need to know what the cards your deck can’t deal with and find ways to not lose to those cards. You may believe that these decks are old, but I believe that you don’t need to fix what’s not broken. After some research, I think these are the best decks for this metagame.

Let me know what you think about this series. My plan is that about every two weeks, I will be doing a breakdown of the Star City Games Standard series. Many people consider me to be an expert in the Legacy community, so if you guys want to hear about that format, let me know. I will also be in the Reddit comments replying to everything I get a chance to. Thanks for reading and don’t be afraid to follow me on Twitter—I try to respond to every question.

@Deshaunbaylock3

Journey Into A New Standard

To start things off, my name is Deshaun Baylock. I recently started devoting myself to this game called Magic: The Gathering and the payoff has been huge. I started playing around the time of [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card]. Within a year of trying to go “pro,” I have scored a GP Top Eight, a GP Top 32, a GP Top 64, one PTQ win, and 10 pro points since PT Valencia, and I am currently qualified for PT Portland. I believe with hard work and a will to learn, you can do anything in this game. It’s not about how long you have been playing, it’s about how you approach every opportunity to get better.

This weekend, a new set is going to be introduced into Standard: Journey into Nyx. New decks are going to be made and a lot of old decks are going to be no longer playable. I am going to break down the three best archetypes and go into detail about how they are going to change with cards from the new set. I will not be talking about sideboards, as the metagame is currently unknown. Advice on what to bring in and take out would be basically lying to you. Sideboards depend on the metagame you expect to see.

Let’s start with my favorite archetype: control. Right now, there is a debate going on about whether going Blue-White or Esper is correct. With the new set fully spoiled, I believe 100% that Blue-White is strictly better.

Here is an example of an Esper list. Kyle Boggemes ran this list at Grand Prix Cincinnati. It went OK.

[deck title= Esper Control – Kyle Boggemes, 1st place at GP Cincinnati]
[Creatures]
*1 Aetherling
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Dissolve
*2 Doom Blade
*4 Sphinx’s Revelation
*4 Supreme Verdict
*4 Detention Sphere
*2 Thoughtseize
*2 Syncopate
*2 Azorius Charm
*1 Last Breath
*3 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
*4 Jace, Architect of Thought
[/Spells]
[Land]
*4 Temple of Silence
*4 Temple of Deceit
*4 Temple of Enlightenment
*2 Mutavault
*2 Plains
*5 Island
*4 Hallowed Fountain
*1 Godless Shrine
*1 Watery Grave
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*1 Thoughtseize
*1 Duress
*1 Pithing Needle
*2 Negate
*1 Revoke Existence
*4 Nightveil Specter
*2 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
*1 Ultimate Price
*2 Archangel of Thune
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

The cards that can be cut from this list without any hesitation are [card]Last Breath[/card], [card]Thoughtseize[/card], [card]Doom Blade[/card], and [card]Azorius Charm[/card].

I would add two [card]Banishing Light[/card], two [card]Syncopate[/card]s and three [card]Deicide[/card].

The reason the cards I cut are no longer needed is because we don’t need to have answers that are not universal. We don’t know what the metagame is going to be so we want to have cards that can pretty much answer anything our opponent does. [card]Deicide[/card] and [card]Banishing Light[/card] allow us to play more universal answers without leaving us with a lot of dead cards.

Blue-White Devotion has been on the rise and I only think it’s going to get better. This deck was played by Jeffery Pyka at Grand Prix Cincinnati.

[deck title= Azorius Control – Jeffery Pyka GP Cincinnati]
[Creatures]
*4 Cloudfin Raptor
*4 Judge’s Familiar
*4 Tidebinder Mage
*4 Frostburn Weird
*4 Thassa, God of the Sea
*4 Nightveil Specter
*4 Master of Waves
*1 Ephara, God of the Polis
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Detention Sphere
*2 Bident of Thassa
*1 Rapid Hybridization
[/Spells]
[Land]
*4 Hallowed Fountain
*4 Temple of Enlightenment
*4 Mutavault
*1 Godless Shrine
*11 Island
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*2 Glare of Heresy
*1 Revoke Existence
*2 Jace, Memory Adept
*2 Domestication
*2 Pacifism
*3 Gainsay
*2 Negate
*1 Rapid Hybridization
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

This deck is going to be able to run a lot more smoothly. The addition of Mana Convergence to this deck is huge. This deck was giving up tempo to be a little bit more resilient by playing four [card]Temple of Enlightenment[/card] and [card]Detention Sphere[/card]. You now have a more stable mana base and the ability to play what I believe is going to be one of the best rares in the set.

Start By removing the Ephara, [card]Godless Shrine[/card], two [card]Temple of Enlightenment[/card], two [card]Island[/card]s, four [card]Detention Sphere[/card] and the [card]Rapid Hybridization[/card].

I would add two [card]Dispel[/card], two [card]Deicide[/card], four [card]Mana Convergence[/card], one [card]Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx[/card], and two Hypnotic Siren.

[card]Detention Sphere[/card] no longer will be safe with people playing [card]Banishing Light[/card] and [card]Deicide[/card]. It is no longer the [card]Vindicate[/card] that we were used to in the old format. This build of the deck is very lean and efficient. Tempo is the new face of Mono-Blue. [card]Dispel[/card] will protect your Thassa from Deicide and the Siren will allow game-changing plays while still being a decent one-drop because of its evasion.

Mono-Black Devotion has had a stranglehold on the format but now I believe that it is the worst of the tier-one decks. Here is an example build from Lauren Nolen played at SCG Detroit.

[deck title= Mono-Black Devotion – Lauren Nolen SCG Detroit]
[Creatures]
*4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
*3 Lifebane Zombie
*2 Nightveil Specter
*4 Desecration Demon
*4 Pack Rat
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*2 Bile Blight
*3 Temple of Deceit
*4 Hero’s Downfall
*3 Devour Flesh
*1 Ultimate Price
*4 Underworld Connections
[/Spells]
[Land]
*4 Mutavault
*4 Thoughtseize
*18 Swamp
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*2 Dark Betrayal
*2 Erebos, God of the Dead
*3 Staff of the Death Magus
*4 Doom Blade
*4 Duress
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Mono-Black did not get a lot of tools in the new set, and a lot that it did get are situational.

I would remove one [card]Ultimate Price[/card] and four [card]Underworld Connections[/card].

I would add three [card]Read the Bones[/card], one [card]Whip of Erebos[/card], and one [card]Tormented Thoughts[/card].

[card]Underworld Connections[/card] may end up being unplayable in the new format because [card]Deicide[/card] and [card]Banishing Light[/card] will give more decks access to enchantment removal; [card]Read the Bones[/card] is a nice replacement to help with card advantage.

The last card I want to briefly talk about is [card]Tormented Thoughts[/card]. Playing this card allows you to turn the tide of games very quickly against all non-counterspell decks; forcing them to discard their whole hand is backbreaking. The reason I cut cards that are no longer good and switched them with situational cards is because with access to [card]Pack Rat[/card] and scry, you can discard the cards that aren’t good in the matchup or choose not to draw them unless you need them.

Summing Up

The power level of the format has increased and you should plan accordingly. If you don’t have a spell that interacts with the opponent on turn two, you must mulligan. No longer will the game start on turn three. This is what i believe the top decks from the old format should do to adjust and stay relevant.

Have comments? Please share below!