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Good Game: What Goes, What StaysBy Andrew Hanson on September 18th, 2009 · Filed in Good Game, Standard (Type 2) · 19 CommentsGood Game: What Goes, What Stays?
We will finally be free from her tyranny! Then M10 brought us the Great Sable Stag. Can't be countered. Hates on both of the Fae's colors. Weighs in at a muscled 3/3, which means he takes on Mutavault and wins. This was a good anti-control card, so good in fact that control decks ran it for the mirror and to fight Faeries, and he put a dent in the Faerie armor. But the deck didn't die. It didn't stop seeing play. In fact, it still kept winning tournaments. Sometimes it morphed a little, and people would add red for Earthquake, Lightning Bolt, and Firespout, all cards that could kill the Stag as well as ruin any aggro creature deck's day. But with the rotation, all the Faeries, all of them, are out. No longer legal. No more Fae. Not in Standard. But Extended season is just around the corner, so don't think you've seen the last of the little blue men yet. 5CC More applause, I'm sure, for this one. The five-color monstrosities are out of Standard, which includes 5-Color Cruel Control. Why are these decks dead? Well, let's take a look at a sample land base for 5CC.
The Vivid land cycle, the filter land cycle, and, thank God, Reflecting Pool are all leaving Standard. No longer will you be able to splash green for the  of Cloudthresher. No longer will Cryptic Command be able to sit along side Hallowed Burial, Volcanic Fallout, and Great Sable Stag. Why not?From what has been released in Zendikar so far, the multi-color land support is going to be for two colors, not three or more. The only lands that will be in Standard that could make more than two different colors of mana (and see play) are the Shards of Alara triple lands; and Exotic Orchard, which relies upon your opponent playing three or more colors. Maybe they could enable five-color decks, but, without the filter lands, you won't be able to turn that random  into double  via Sunken Ruins, or filter a through your Cascade Bluffs to get the  for your Volcanic Fallout. Although Zendikar is giving us another cycle of friend-color dual lands (at uncommon, to boot) and the enemy-color fetches, we won't see the kind of ridiculous variance in casting costs that we have for the past year. At best, with a five-color deck, we could play cards that only have one instance of any specific color in the cost, not three to four. Color discipline may actually be a factor in Standard once again. All Other Tribal Decks Retiring to a more seasonal employment. Now, some of these decks...er, well, one of these decks may still see some play in Standard. That deck is Elves. It still has Llanowar Elves and Elvish Archdruid, and is about to gain a new planeswalker in Nissa Revane, who brings with her a constant stream of Elvish Warriors, now known as Nissa's Chosen. Depending if Zendikar brings a few more playable Elves, the green tribal aggro deck may not be gone. Now, one might say the same for all the tribes listed above. "But what if they make more X creatures? Then the tribe can still be played." Sure. But does anyone out there believe that more Kithkin are on their way? Or that Warriors or Elementals will get the kind of tribal support to make them a truly tribal deck? I seriously doubt there will be any new tribal lords for those creature types. Nothing like Bramblewood Paragon, no tribal support like Smokebraider. Even Merfolk, my pet deck for the past two years, isn't going to survive. Sure, I would still have Merfolk Sovereign, and Merfolk Looter is definitely a playable fish, but it loses Merrow Reejerey, Silvergill Adept, Stonybrook Banneret, it's best beater in Wake Thrasher, and all-star Sygg, River Guide. That kind of tribal mother lode isn't going to be reprinted. Even the one Merfolk that they've previewed that seems tribal, the Lullmage Mentor, seems more like something for the older formats or the casual formats, and certainly won't replace the loss of something like the Adept. Anything Reveillark Of course, any deck that relies on Reveillark as an engine or source of card advantage is hosed. He's going away. Does anything else need saying? What Stays? So what decks survive the change? What looks forward to the coming of Zendikar as a source of new toys and tools? White Weenie I want to start with this deck type. Why? Because I just said Kithkin were going to die, and Kithkin is the White Weenie deck of choice right now. But there is another Skywalker, a twin to the Kithkin that, though it may not be as strong, could still defeat Darth Vader and overthrow the Emperor. Er, I mean compete in Standard. Of course, I am referring to Soldiers. Let's see a decklist.
Losing him is pretty rough. What, then, could it replace those loses with? Well, out of Shards of Alara block, possible acceptable creatures include Akrasan Squire, Aven Squire, Martial Coup, and, especially if the extra one-drops are added in, Ranger of Eos. Martial Coup isn't a terrible replacement for your Spectral Processions, as the later in the game you draw it, the cooler it is. Out of the officially spoiled Zendikar cards, we have the buzz-generator Kazandu Blademaster. He's a 1/1 first strike, vigilance Human Soldier Ally for  with a killer ability. The ability? When he or another Ally enters the battlefield, he gets a +1/+1 counter. That means de jure he's a 1/1, but de facto he's a 2/2. A 2/2 first strike, vigilance Soldier that can grow, all for . Yeah, that gets put in the deck.And we haven't even seen what kind of landfall cards might get put in the deck. Between Martial Coup and Captain of the Watch, the deck will need to run a fair amount of land. Maybe there'll be an awesome landfall card to run, and Emeria, the Sky Ruin seems really good if it's resurrecting a Captain of the Watch. As for the board, Harm's Way is a shoo-in for the Forge-Tender, and White Knight will do a good job of hosing all those monoblack decks that are already beginning to crop up and will probably become intensely popular with some of the new stuff (here's looking at you, Vampires). Bant Exalted This is a deck that took a hit with the M10 rotation because of losing one card: Treetop Village. Well, that, and the M10 duals haven't been the best replacements (no Yavimaya Coast equivalent). As such, it hasn't been seeing much play lately, which is really sad because the deck can be insane. Rafiq of the Many or not, a turn-two Rhox War Monk will ruin a lot of days. So what does this deck look like? Something like this:
What's the deck losing? Not much. Shorecrasher Mimic? A few cards out of the board, too, but that's it. Finding a card to replace the Mimic won't be hard. You just need something with evasion, preferably a two-drop. Heck, even an Aven Squire could go in there. But what does this deck stand to gain? A metagame shift. White Weenie decks won't be as sturdy as they used to be once Spectral Procession leaves, and the eight pieces of removal the deck runs will be awesome against them. Without Faeries haunting the format, it seems likely that Volcanic Fallout will see less play. Certainly, it won't fall out (get it?) of the format, but will you need to mainboard it? It won't be that good against White Weenie thanks to Honor the Pure plus Veteran Armorsmith. Really, without the blue menace anymore, it's just going to be an instant speed Pyroclasm. I mean, Pyroclasm is good, but it hasn't really been ubiquitous like the Fallout has been. Also, with Zendikar, the deck is going to pick up some good things, like kick-ass color-fixing. Misty Rainforest? Hell yes. Really, with what the few surviving archetypes will be, I expect Bant to make a bit of a comeback. In fact, it's one of the few decks I'm thinking of running come October 2nd. Jund Aggro One of the strongest decks in the current format, this deck doesn't stand to lose many cards with the rotation, but some of the lost cards will certainly be mourned. Like Kitchen Finks. He teemed up so nicely with Putrid Leech. Here's a list (this is my version of Jund Aggro, and is a little different from the version made popular during the U.S. Nationals):
Where're you going? No where! But unlike the 5CC decks, this deck doesn't really need to see triple of a single color, especially with the Ram-Gang and the Demigods leaving. And with the addition of whatever the black/green enemy fetch land will be called, it can start shoring up those mana issues easily. It can use the M10 duals and/or the new Zendikar lifegain duals to also shore up its issues. What I visualize is running a good amount of basic Swamps and Forests, fetching whatever one you don't draw with the enemy fetch, and running M10 duals for your red source as you can start guaranteeing them to come into play untapped more reliably with the fetches. "But isn't making red a splash color bad, especially if you need double red for Fallout?" You forget, this deck also gets to lose Volcanic Fallout. "Huh?" That's right. Without Faeries to terrorize Standard, this deck really won't have to run the Fallout. It could just run Jund Charm instead, which I like more as it's more versatile and is therefore better off a Bloodbraid Elf cascade. On that same note, the Great Sable Stag could probably get shifted to the board, if not removed from the 75 entirely. Removing it, of course, depends on what the post-rotation metagame looks like. Also, the deck could probably ditch Infest as the Forge-Tender is leaving, though that will depend ultimately on the prevalence of Harm's Way. "So the deck's land base probably won't get screwed over, and it'll free up some of it's seemingly wasted space on an excessive number of board sweepers, but the deck is still losing twelve creatures. Sixteen if you count the Stags getting the bump to the board. That's got to be a problem, right?" Wrong. Who is this guy talking to me, anyways? He seems woefully uninformed. Jund, for whatever reason, as gotten some of the best creatures in the last three expansions. But some of them have been neglected because, hey, you can only run so many creatures, and Kitchen Finks always makes the cut. What kind of creatures am I talking about? Well, Sprouting Thrinax for one. He's a 3/3 for 3, which is totally acceptable. And he makes a horde of goobers when he dies. In our current Standard, that often gets overlooked because you can get three 1/1 tokens with flying for 3, and you don't have to jump through the hoop of killing one of your own creatures. Also, the Thrinax makes green tokens, which are hard to pump and die easily to Fallout. Neither of those will be issues post rotation (well, the Fallout thing will be less of an issue). And let me tell you from the wrong side of a nearly mirror-match: Sprouting Thrinax can muck up a board and steal tempo like a boss. Like a boss. He hopes this isn't the extent of his 15 min. And, as anyone who's played Magic long enough knows, sometimes that 1 damage is the difference between your opponent packing it in with a frowny face or a smiley face. Of course, I'm not advocating 1 damage spells, but a 1 damage spell attached to a fairly efficient creature is something else entirely. These two just scratch the surface of possibilities. There are a bunch more two- and three-drop creatures that have seen constructed play that might be worth looking at, like Anathamancer, Goblin Outlander, and even Vithian Renegades, who saw a tiny bit for Block Constructed. But that's just replacing the lost three drops. What about the Demigods? Well, thankfully, there are finishers aplenty in Jund's colors. A few Mycoloths could easily replace the Avatars and work really well with the Thrinax and Sojourners. Or you could just run a couple Broodmate Dragons. Worried about the Dragons getting trumped by a Baneslayer Angel? No problem. Maestrom Pulse is in the main, and Deathmark is certainly not leaving the board. And keep in mind, I haven't even tried to mention creatures that are coming out in Zendikar. Who knows what could happen then. The deck might even speed up, as if it weren't fast enough already (here's looking at you again, Vampires). Time Sieve Now, I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about this deck. I've never played it, I've only gone up against it in a tournament once, and a friend wanted me to run Merfolk at him a few times when he first made the deck. That's the entirety of my real experience with it. But looking at lists online, it seems that the only cards it's losing are Pollen Lullaby, Cryptic Command, and Elsewhere Flask. Now, I know the Lullaby can be replaced easily, and nothing can replace the Command. But Cryptic didn't seem to be a major component of the deck (of the few lists I looked at randomly, none of them ran the full four). What about Elsewhere Flask? I'm not sure what will replace that, but I doubt the entire deck will die over losing that. Plus, landfall is a cool mechanic when you team it up with the Borderposts. Others Decks based around this aren't going away. Also, I fully expect some of the top Block decks from Pro Tour-Honolulu to be big on the scene for the first few weeks, especially the Esper Thopter Foundry deck. I'm not saying they'll stick around, but some people refuse to try building the next deck and instead will fall back to something old that they know works until, that is, new winning decks start making it online. So be ready for those at the first couple FNMs. Until Next Time. Thanks for tuning in and I hope you enjoyed my take on the fate of existing Standard decks. My next article will post on the day of the Zendikar release, and I'll have the whole set to look at and conjecture about. Join me then for a look at the new stuff and (I hope) some brand-spanking-new decks. By Andrew Hanson on September 18th, 2009 · Filed in Good Game, Standard (Type 2) · 19 Comments |
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