by Noah Long
Noah Long will be representing Team Mana Deprived at Worlds. Since a good amount of that tournament will involve Standard, Noah has been paying attention to all the Champs results that have been rolling in. In this article, he displays his number-crunching skills and specifically singles out two decks that have caught his attention.
Robin – “Gee golly Batman, Standard looks swell!”
Batman – “Well it’s about %*#&ing time Robin… about %*#&ing time…”
Yes! Standard is finally a healthy format again!!! I say that wishfully as the format could still obviously take a turn for the worse with the next set. (Crossing fingers…) Other then Primeval Titan and Jace , the Mind Sculpter there isn’t a gross number of single cards in every winning deck a.k.a, Bloodbraid Elf or Bitterblossom.
Champs this year gave birth to 30+ different archetypes that all made the top 8! That’s an amazing number which indicates that the format is very healthy giving lots of room for innovation and improvement. Here are all the top 8 archetypes I could find in North America broken down into Top 8s, then Top 3-4, then 2nd, then the eventual Winners:
Champs Top 8 archetype breakdown:
UW Control – 68
Eldrazi Green – 60
Valakut Ramp – 55
RDW Variants – 27
Elf Aggro – 25
UR Control – 14
UGR Titan Force – 12
UB Control – 9
UWR Control – 9
UGx Fauna/Vengevine – 9
Kor Weenie – 8
Vampires – 5
Turbo Wave Variants – 4
Overwhelming Stampede Variants – 4
MBC – 4
Bant Control – 4
UGR Tempo – 4
UBG Tempo – 3
Big Red – 3
Mimic Vat Control – 3
BR Control – 2
Esper Control – 2
Bluecraft – 2
Fauna Quest – 2
White Weenie – 2
Pyromancer’s Ascenesion – 1
Goblincraft – 1
4C Control – 1
Turboland – 1
Boros Deck Wins – 1
GW Beastmaster – 1
3rd and 4th place decks:
UW Control – 23
Eldrazi Green – 17
Valakut Ramp – 12
RDW Variants – 9
Elf Aggro – 5
UWR Control – 4
UR Control – 2
Turbo Wave Variants – 2
Bant Control – 1
UGR Titan Force – 1
UB Control – 1
4C Control – 1
Kor Weenie – 1
Vampires – 1
UGx Fauna/Vengevine – 1
UGB Tempo – 1
UGR Tempo – 1
Bluecraft – 1
Big Red – 1
Fauna Quest – 1
Overwhelming Stampede Variants – 1
Pyromancer’s Ascension – 1
Boros Deck Wins – 1
2nd place decks:
Eldrazi Green – 12
Valakut Ramp – 7
UW Control – 7
RDW Variants – 5
Kor Weenie – 3
Elf Aggro – 2
UB Control – 2
UGR Titan Force – 1
Big Red – 1
BR Control – 1
MBC – 1
Overwhelming Stampede Variants – 1
Winning Archetypes:
Valakut Ramp – 6
UW Control – 5
UB Control – 5
Eldrazi Green – 4
Elf Aggro – 4
UR Control – 4
UGR Titan Force – 4
UWR Control – 2
UGR Tempo – 2
RDW – 1
Kor Weenie – 1
Goblincraft – 1
Big Red – 1
Vampires – 1
Naya Shaman – 1
Bant Control – 1
As you can see the big guns are still UW Control, Valakut Ramp and Eldrazi Green but that at least provides stats for the rest of the field to metagame around for future events. The thing that surprised me the most was the consistency of the Champs meta. All the top 5 decks from each level of Playoff advancement stayed the same except for the Winning decks where UB Control basically switches with RDW as far as win % goes. With that said I think UB Control is going to be a big player if its number starts to increase. Out of the 9 that made top 8 across North America 5 won, 2 second, 1 finished 3rd/4th and 1 didn’t make it past the first round. Those are some very solid top 8 numbers! If more Pros take their time and give the archetype some good TLC, I think it may be one of the top decks by the time Worlds comes along. Let’s take a look at the list that I liked the most:
U/B Control
A Standard Magic deck, by AJ Fields
1st place at a States/Champs tournament in South Carolina, United States on 2010-10-10
Artifacts
1 Mimic Vat
Creatures
3 Frost Titan
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Grave Titan
4 Vampire Hexmage
Enchantments
2 Mind Control
Instants
4 Doom Blade
1 Jace's Ingenuity
4 Mana Leak
Planeswalkers
3 Jace Beleren
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Sorceries
1 Consuming Vapors
Tribal Sorceries
1 All Is Dust
Basic Lands
4 Island
5 Swamp
Lands
2 Bojuka Bog
4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Darkslick Shores
3 Drowned Catacomb
2 Halimar Depths
3 Tectonic Edge
Sideboard:
2 Consume the Meek
2 Flashfreeze
1 Consuming Vapors
3 Deathmark
3 Memoricide
4 Sadistic Sacrament
This guy took down a top 8 that had 2 Valakut Ramp, 2 Eldrazi Green, 2 RDW and a UGR Fauna Shaman/Vengevine deck! That’s a pretty scary top 8 for a control deck without White. I really like the approach he took for this list. AJ takes advantage of the best Vampire beaters which do multiple functions against all the popular decks and also cause early bleeding in the control mirrors. AJ also includes some of the games best finishers in the Titans. I would probably cut the Grave Titans for Wurmcoil Engine but that’s just my preference. Some lists were running other creatures that didn’t do anything but block and attack but every creature in this deck has multiple functions and provides some sort of purpose when they resolve.
The removal suite is also very nice as AJ includes some strong early defenses with a full set of Doom Blades and Mana Leaks which are complimented very well with 2 Mind Control for all those annoying Titans as well as a couple 1 ofs in Consuming Vapors and All is Dust. As you can see all of these cards also provide card advantage which makes it even harder for the opponent to keep up.
Lastly we see the real advantages to playing blue, 6 Jaces, 1 Jace's Ingenuity and a Mimic Vat for added flavor. I’m not sure how good the Vat is yet but we all know how ridiculous the Jaces are.
So much card advantage it’s scary…
The mana base seems fine as I’d need to play with the deck to see if I’d want to change anything. I do like however the Bojuka Bogs. Vengevine is a scary critter and this land renders your opponents Fauna Shamans kinda useless.
I have nothing bad to say about the SB. AJ looks like he tested this thing to a certain extent as every card looks like it belongs and has a specific purpose. Each card also looks very strong against multiple match ups except for maybe the Sadistic Sacraments. Those might totally swing a matchup post-board though so they might be needed.
All and all I like the deck a lot and will be including it into my Worlds testing gauntlet.
Before I go for this week, here’s another deck that really caught my eye:
Metal Red
A Standard Magic deck, by Chris Cannon
1st place at a States/Champs tournament in Georgia, United States on 2010-10-10
Artifacts
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Darksteel Axe
1 Infiltration Lens
3 Panic Spellbomb
Artifact Creatures
4 Memnite
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
Creatures
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Guide
2 Spikeshot Elder
Instants
3 Galvanic Blast
4 Lightning Bolt
Legendary Artifacts
3 Mox Opal
Sorceries
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
Basic Lands
11 Mountain
Lands
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Smoldering Spires
1 Teetering Peaks
Sideboard:
3 Goblin Ruinblaster
3 Tunnel Ignus
3 Shatter
3 Arc Trail
3 Mark of Mutiny
This list was the only list of its kind that made top 8 and took down another heavy load of top performing decks from the 2010 Champs metagame. He eventually beat UW Control in the finals, which says a lot for a Red aggro deck. Most of the time the UW player loves these matchups but this deck is different. This deck has an extremely fast clock and an extremely consistent way of providing such a clock even after a sweeper. Kuldotha Rebirth is such a crazy card it makes me scared to play against it. The fact that it produces 3 Goblin tokens is insane for 1 red mana regardless of its minor draw back. Imagine this god draw:
2 Kuldotha Rebirth
2 Memnite
1 Mox Opal
1 Mountain
1 Goblin Bushwacker
Turn 1: 2x Memnite, Mox add R, Mountain add R, 2x Rebirth sacrificing 2x Memnite for 6 guys.
Turn 2: Draw Memnite, cast Memnite, cast a kicked Bushwacker, attack for 16.
Turn 3: Win if they don’t have a Pyroclasm or Ratchet Bomb for their turn 2 play.
I know that was a god draw but it happens the odd time. The turn the deck wins is probably more consistent at turn 4 which is still faster then a Day of Judgement.
Anyways, I will be talking about my testing for Worlds in the upcoming weeks. For those of you going to GP Toronto, good luck!
Noah
Questions you wanna ask? Send them here: baba_baba_33@hotmail.com.
Kar Yung Tom (KYT) is the Digital Content Manager for Face to Face Games. He oversees the F2FTour.com and Magic F2F websites.