There have been times in the history of Magic where being tier 1 meant one deck, and one deck only. In those experiences competitive Magic stalled to an absolute standstill. It is in these instances that I am reminded of the words by author Robert Fanney:

“Dominance. Control. These things the unjust seek most of all. And so it is the duty of the just to defy dominance and to challenge control. “

Affinity, Necropotence, and Caw-Blade were decks that defined a format, with the first relying on the synergy of all of its cards, the middle relying on but a few cards, and the latter relying also on the synergy of its cards. Thus, it is the latter’s effect on crossing formats that I will write about today. If you have been living under a rock since Scars of Mirrodin, or just haven’t played enough legacy to notice [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card], it seems it is the card of choice.

Over the last few months there has been a rise of a secular deck archetypes within Legacy. The Stoneblade deck and its off shoots. Stoneblade for all intents and purposes appears to be a rising super star in Legacy. While it has no where near the same game winning dominance as its standard predecessor of Caw-Blade, its rise shows the potential of what could be devastating deck design if given the right amount of time.

Before we continue let us first define a Stoneblade deck. In the broadest sense, which will be part of our general definition. Stoneblade is any deck that includes 4 [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card]s + [card]Batterskull[/card], and a sword package.

The great part about this definition is it can help us define instances where the metagame had a huge upswing. Luckily for you and I, we have almost weekly big events in Legacy that have broken down the numbers for each deck type. The first place we are going to start is at the Star City Games Open Series event that took place in Boston.

The decks that were ruling Legacy in Boston were no surprise at all. They were, at the time, your typical Legacy builds and offshoots of builds that remain very popular in what was still being considered a very much Openly defined metagame. We had Merfolk representing 11.11% of field position, 9.52% played Bant, 7.54% played Junk, and rounding out the top 4 archetypes of Boston was 6.75% with Affinity.

Over all Boston presented itself as the quintessential definition of how Legacy looked and then something happened a few weeks later in Louisville, Kentucky. A deck that had been making waves since Paris appeared in a Legacy. This deck was called Caw-Blade, filling a whopping 1.48% of the field, but these 3 decks looked nothing like it their Standard counterparts. Louisville was hardly defining for the format, but it is at this point in time we can see a clearer view of what would start to be a defining deck had already started to emerge.

Louisville happened exactly one week after the release of the New Phyrexia, however the hype was not set on Equipment or the danger of SFM at the time and this drew away from the threats that were taking place in Standard. When NPH was released, everyone’s eyes, myself included, were aimed at the new counterspell; [card]Mental Misstep[/card]. There wasn’t really a twinge in regards to the events that would continue to pop up in the future weeks to come. But our first stop would be Grand Prix Providence.

GP Providence was the first of two Wizards of the Coast tournaments where Legacy would be the format. Amsterdam being the next one in October of this year. At this GP many players came out and many players played the “safe” decks – What the safe decks were is pretty straight forward. Merfolk, Goblins, Zoo, Junk, Affinty, Dredge etc. Aggro seemed to be the deck of choice for many players. However, something happened that people were kind of expecting, but I don’t think anyone really had gotten the grasp of the extremity of it. [card]Batterskull[/card] + Stoneforge = Threat – People who said that others weren’t going to play that bomb were quickly eliminated while going against it. However, those that prepared for it and many did because they weren’t sure on the severity it would instill, came away with victories well in hand.

Here is the break down. I am going to use a general definition in these regards, but still shows support by the numbers.

41 People played B/W Stoneblade

20 People played U/W/R Stoneblade

16 People played U/W Stoneblade

X* People played offshoot Stoneforge+Batterskull+Sword package

Which out of all the percentages equals 8.30% playing Stoneblade, or an offshoot, which can be defined as a Stoneblade style deck. Which went on to win 52.18% of its match ups.

That is a significant growth, in the matter of a week between Louisville and the GP and has continued at a steady growth. The trend continued in the following weeks to emerge its ugly head again at the SCG Invitational Open and in Denver. The numbers, it seems, were climbing rapidly, where at the invitational 35.93% had taken up Stoneblade as the deck of choice.

From what started off at a 1.48% showing was now sitting at 39.93% and it seemed at the invitational no one was going to accept anything less than presenting a winning deck. During the invitational though, there was the open series event in the same building, many of the same players entered both, but the numbers did slightly drop by 11.18% to a total of 28.75%. Keep in mind both events were at the same building and many were still playing in the invitational at this time as well.

So this brings us to Denver, day two of the Open event, we once again saw Stoneblade and it’s variants climb above the normal contender of Merfolk with a 16.23% over the 12.82% that Merfolk was representing. However, Denver had the lowest attendance thus far with only 110 participants but it still shows a significant high even amongst the smallest crowd, and it was also the first time we really got see one of the deck lists explored.

This deck was presented by none other than Open Series Grinder Edgar Flores. It was an Esper Stoneblade deck:

[deck title=Esper Stoneblade By Edgar Flores]
[Lands]
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scrubland
4 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Dark Confidant
4 Stoneforge Mystic
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
1 Batterskull
3 Chrome Mox
1 Sword of the Meek
3 Thopter Foundry
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Mental Misstep
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize
3 Vindicate
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Darkblast
2 Disenchant
2 Dismember
2 Path to Exile
4 Spell Pierce
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

After this revelation we then go to a new city where the numbers are again increased by popularity. However, despite its dominance emerging, it still has shown many weaknesses. One of its greatest weaknesses thus far is against Merfolk. Amid Merfolk’s heavy taxation on counter and disruption is one thing that Stoneblade doesn’t have- Islandwalk! Islandwalk seems to be the bane to many Stoneblade decks. The inclusion of blue in 75% of the deck sub-archetypes leave it taking damage in record numbers.

Now after so many events and match ups we have a clearer and much more defined view of Stoneblade and what it looks like thus far.

So what do the numbers represent? Well, first let us look over all the matches we have seen. At this point in time I invite the reader to remember that Stoneblade by this article definition is any deck which includes SFM+BS+S package.

Moving forward the first deck may surprise you a little, but shows just how much the Legacy metagame is shaping up around our beloved Mystic.

Merfolk with [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] and Sword Package, represented 0.04% of the field in the last 45 days. It had a 64.29% win ratio, which was 14% higher than the your average Merfolk deck with wins between the 50-55% range.

Affinty Stoneblade, represented 0.04% of the field in the last 45 days and had zeros across the board. However, those without the mystics/swords still had the highest wins over this deck archetype. This number shows that not every deck needs to run a [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] to be competitive.

B/W Stoneblade sat with a 3.09% showing and a 51.84% win ratio

U/W Stoneblade sat at 2.72% with a win % of 55.13 – Which can be broken down into 3 sub-categories depending on the build, the strongest of said builds is actually the Generic archetype rather than those who ran [card]Ancestral Vision[/card]s or [card]Standstill[/card].

U/W/R Stoneblade decks had two variant archetypes, one being the Generic which presented itself with 1.69% showing and 53.68 win % over that of the [card]Standstill[/card] variant which had a representation of 0.04% but with only a 40% win ratio. it would seem thus far that [card]Standstill[/card] is not the card to include in Stoneblade builds.

Esper Stoneblade rounds out the lists of Stoneblade decks, again this one can be broken down into 3 sub-archtypes, the Original build which represents 1.19% of the field offers up only a 48.04%, meanwhile Thopter Combo Stoneblade offers up the highest win ratio of 55% with second smallest representation. The last showing is the Taxes variant with only 0.04% show, but with a dead even split on win to loss percentage.

Strong representation in any format is a given these days what with the strength of the decks; all depending on the card synergies and interactions but also with playability for everyone involved. Developing Tier 1 status is difficult at the best of times, let alone at a time where many things can occur. Stoneblade is well on it’s way to becoming a Tier 1 deck with such strong numbers and variants. However, it is the variants that make this deck archetype more unique as compared to other various Tier 1 decks.

I am not going to say for certain I know the outcome of Stoneblade as a deck, I think if we continue down this path with its numbers growing exponentially as they are, then serious consideration needs to be examined. It could very well be the next [card]Survival of the Fittest[/card] deck if it continues its evolution and if the numbers continue to climb as they are. So I am putting this out there, keep an eye on it.

* = undefined variable in numbers represented by rogue deck turn outs not applicable to the sums as a whole.