November 2010 Standard Insight
Ok, lets see. Standard. Hmm. First there are a ton of viable decks, so kudos to wizards cause wow, such a healthy format. There are a few flagship cards that are defining the metagame at the moment:
Jace, The Mind Sculptor
What can I say about this guy that hasn't already been said by someone more accomplished at this game than myself? Well I can say a lot. He's not broken. He's good. Exceptionally good. But he's beatable. Untapping with him in play is not the end of the game, but it's close. He's a 75-90 dollar card, depending on who you ask, which means I have a grand total of 0. I won't be getting these any time soon, if ever. I do however play in an environment where my opponents frequently have a full playset in their 75, so all decks I design at the moment make sure to think about how to beat Jace 2.0.
Primeval Titan
The lynchpin of some of the most ubiquitous decks in the format. Another card that generates such momentum that, like Jace 2.0 if you untap with him in play it's not game, but it's close. Some people would say that Primeval Titan should be banned and I can't agree with that, but he does create some very strong board positions simply by resolving. He's the second best Titan right now following:
Frost Titan
Called by some the "best card in standard", Mr. Frosty here certainly does trump in a metagame filled with other titans. "Cast your best card/finisher and get a cool effect? Sure, but now it never untaps again. Oh and my answer is extremely hard to target and will kill you in short order, as well." Seems good. Ironic how this was the "worst" Titan when M11 released. I have to say it, even though I don't have it immortalized in blog form somewhere, but I told you so. God, it feels good to be so self righteous.
Egotistical raving aside, this is the Titan everyone is playing currently. The fact that he pairs extremely well with Jace 2.0 doesn't hurt either. He's the finisher of choice in almost every deck running blue right now.
Decks in my metagame:
Quest White Weenie - This is a surprisingly resilient deck that has the explosive potential to take an opponent completely out of the game on turn two. Fast, and fairly cheap to build, this is a deck I see a good amount of in my metagame. Luckily it's not too hard to disrupt.
RDW - There are a lot of different variations on this mono-colored strategy, some running Koth some not. I think the hardest to deal with are probably the Kuldotha Rebirth versions as their potential to just steal games out of nowhere is really huge. Goblin Bushwhacker is the glue that holds this strategy together, but it does it well. This deck can go from 0 creatures to attacking with 8-20 hasty damage with any combination of Devastating Summons, Goblin Cheiftan or the above named duo and it can do so on turn two.
Valakut Ramp - It's the most popular deck on MTGO and pretty popular IRL as well. There aren't a ton of players who run this, but there are a few. It's a good deck. It's probably the best deck to play Primeval Titan in. However, I don't feel like this is enough of the elephant in the room to try and hate it out. It's beatable by almost every deck, main deck. Not that it has bad match-ups against the field, just that those match-ups don't seem to be to be unwinnable at all, even game 1. I always feel like I can win against Valakut. Maybe the players around me just aren't that good at playing it, and it's certainly a good deck, but I can't help but think there are better options.
U/B Control - This is probably the most popular control deck on the scene at the moment, thanks pretty much single-handedly to Nick Spagnolo. He's warped the entire US metagame around his fairly amazing spate of wins. My area has not been immune to the Warp World effects of Mr. Spagnolo, and we boast at least two different players running versions of the deck. This is one of the main decks that I focus on beating when I am designing my decks.
Random aggro - We also have a good bit of randomness in our meta, thanks to a rather large group of players who don't have access to huge card pools. They tend to bring aggressive, and in most cases, tuned but budget versions of well known decks.
Combo - There are a few combo decks in standard currently, but as far as I have seen, none of them are roaming around my little corner of the metagame thanks I suspect to the penchant of some of our better players to play a lot of counterspells. This lack of combo in the format allows me to build decks that might otherwise fall easy prey to such decks.
As the players in my meta will tell you, since I don't have proof on the interwebs, I have been playing a rather rogue (hah, who knew) deck since before states. It has seen a couple of permutations since states, the most notable move was from a straight U/W build to a less controlling U/W/G build. The deck is reminiscent of the superfriends deck of Alara/Zendikar standard, as it runs a LOT of planeswalkers.
I have a video coming soon where I talk in depth about the deck, but here's the list:
Land:
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Island
2 Celestial Colonnade (should probably be 3)
1 Seachrome Coast
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Plains
4 Stirring Wildwood
4 Sunpetal Grove
3 Forest
Spells:
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Contagion Clasp
3 Everflowing Chalice
4 Thrummingbird
4 Sea Gate Oracle
3 Jace Beleren
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Ajani Goldmane
2 Elspeth Tirel
2 Venser, the Sojourner
1 Precursor Golem
1 Gideon Jura
2 Genesis Wave
Side Board: (a definite work in progress here)
4 Obstinate Baloth
4 Day of Judgement
3 Tumble Magnet
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Sun Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine
And that's the deck I run currently. I'm out of time for today, so you'll have to wait for the video for an in depth commentary on it. Hope you like it!
- Rogue Insight
Jace, The Mind Sculptor
What can I say about this guy that hasn't already been said by someone more accomplished at this game than myself? Well I can say a lot. He's not broken. He's good. Exceptionally good. But he's beatable. Untapping with him in play is not the end of the game, but it's close. He's a 75-90 dollar card, depending on who you ask, which means I have a grand total of 0. I won't be getting these any time soon, if ever. I do however play in an environment where my opponents frequently have a full playset in their 75, so all decks I design at the moment make sure to think about how to beat Jace 2.0.
Primeval Titan
The lynchpin of some of the most ubiquitous decks in the format. Another card that generates such momentum that, like Jace 2.0 if you untap with him in play it's not game, but it's close. Some people would say that Primeval Titan should be banned and I can't agree with that, but he does create some very strong board positions simply by resolving. He's the second best Titan right now following:
Frost Titan
Called by some the "best card in standard", Mr. Frosty here certainly does trump in a metagame filled with other titans. "Cast your best card/finisher and get a cool effect? Sure, but now it never untaps again. Oh and my answer is extremely hard to target and will kill you in short order, as well." Seems good. Ironic how this was the "worst" Titan when M11 released. I have to say it, even though I don't have it immortalized in blog form somewhere, but I told you so. God, it feels good to be so self righteous.
Egotistical raving aside, this is the Titan everyone is playing currently. The fact that he pairs extremely well with Jace 2.0 doesn't hurt either. He's the finisher of choice in almost every deck running blue right now.
Decks in my metagame:
Quest White Weenie - This is a surprisingly resilient deck that has the explosive potential to take an opponent completely out of the game on turn two. Fast, and fairly cheap to build, this is a deck I see a good amount of in my metagame. Luckily it's not too hard to disrupt.
RDW - There are a lot of different variations on this mono-colored strategy, some running Koth some not. I think the hardest to deal with are probably the Kuldotha Rebirth versions as their potential to just steal games out of nowhere is really huge. Goblin Bushwhacker is the glue that holds this strategy together, but it does it well. This deck can go from 0 creatures to attacking with 8-20 hasty damage with any combination of Devastating Summons, Goblin Cheiftan or the above named duo and it can do so on turn two.
Valakut Ramp - It's the most popular deck on MTGO and pretty popular IRL as well. There aren't a ton of players who run this, but there are a few. It's a good deck. It's probably the best deck to play Primeval Titan in. However, I don't feel like this is enough of the elephant in the room to try and hate it out. It's beatable by almost every deck, main deck. Not that it has bad match-ups against the field, just that those match-ups don't seem to be to be unwinnable at all, even game 1. I always feel like I can win against Valakut. Maybe the players around me just aren't that good at playing it, and it's certainly a good deck, but I can't help but think there are better options.
U/B Control - This is probably the most popular control deck on the scene at the moment, thanks pretty much single-handedly to Nick Spagnolo. He's warped the entire US metagame around his fairly amazing spate of wins. My area has not been immune to the Warp World effects of Mr. Spagnolo, and we boast at least two different players running versions of the deck. This is one of the main decks that I focus on beating when I am designing my decks.
Random aggro - We also have a good bit of randomness in our meta, thanks to a rather large group of players who don't have access to huge card pools. They tend to bring aggressive, and in most cases, tuned but budget versions of well known decks.
Combo - There are a few combo decks in standard currently, but as far as I have seen, none of them are roaming around my little corner of the metagame thanks I suspect to the penchant of some of our better players to play a lot of counterspells. This lack of combo in the format allows me to build decks that might otherwise fall easy prey to such decks.
As the players in my meta will tell you, since I don't have proof on the interwebs, I have been playing a rather rogue (hah, who knew) deck since before states. It has seen a couple of permutations since states, the most notable move was from a straight U/W build to a less controlling U/W/G build. The deck is reminiscent of the superfriends deck of Alara/Zendikar standard, as it runs a LOT of planeswalkers.
I have a video coming soon where I talk in depth about the deck, but here's the list:
Land:
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Island
2 Celestial Colonnade (should probably be 3)
1 Seachrome Coast
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Plains
4 Stirring Wildwood
4 Sunpetal Grove
3 Forest
Spells:
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Contagion Clasp
3 Everflowing Chalice
4 Thrummingbird
4 Sea Gate Oracle
3 Jace Beleren
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Ajani Goldmane
2 Elspeth Tirel
2 Venser, the Sojourner
1 Precursor Golem
1 Gideon Jura
2 Genesis Wave
Side Board: (a definite work in progress here)
4 Obstinate Baloth
4 Day of Judgement
3 Tumble Magnet
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Sun Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine
And that's the deck I run currently. I'm out of time for today, so you'll have to wait for the video for an in depth commentary on it. Hope you like it!
- Rogue Insight
Comments
Post a Comment