Leading up to Pro Tour Gatecrash, I expected the Magic the Gathering Standard metagame to continue on an aggressive path filled with Mono-Red (some splashing for [card]Boros Charm[/card]), Naya Humans, and Saito Gruul. [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] quickly became the most influential new card in the first couple weeks of Gatecrash Standard, and I expected to see a lot of Reckoners facing off against each other throughout the Pro Tour weekend.

It turns out that [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] is good not only in aggro decks, but also against them. Saito-style Naya and UWR Flash adopted Reckoner themselves to hinder the aforementioned aggressive archetypes. UWR was the most popular archetype at the Pro Tour, and two different versions made it to the top eight. Sam Black and the SCG team’s tournament-winning “Aristocrats” deck was Human-based but still played the full set of [card]Boros Reckoner[/card]s, which also enabled the [card]Blasphemous Act[/card] combo that could steal games out of nowhere.

The Pro Tour metagame also showed a high number of Jund Midrange and Esper Control, both of which had plenty of ways to deal with [card]Boros Reckoner[/card], including [card]Abrupt Decay[/card], [card]Supreme Verdict[/card], and [card]Devour Flesh[/card]. Esper Control also gets to the stage where it can just ignore [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] by gaining huge amounts of life and milling an opponent out.

You’ve no doubt seen and heard about the ins and outs of the top-eight decks. There’s just one decklist from the tournament that I want to highlight: the player who finished with the best Standard record in the whole tournament, Daniel Ruiz Martin. He went 9-1 with a surprising Green-Red Aggro deck:

[deck title=”GR Aggro by Daniel Ruiz Martin”]
[Creatures]
4 Arbor Elf
4 Experiment One
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Gyre Sage
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Wolfir Silverheart
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
3 Domri Rade
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Increasing Savagery
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Stomping Ground
4 Rootbound Crag
8 Forest
5 Mountain
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Pillar of Flame
3 Gruul Charm
1 Volcanic Strength
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
3 Thundermaw Hellkite
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

This Saito-inspired list is heavily green-based, rather than red, allowing it to be more resilient while still putting on a fast clock. [card]Experiment One[/card] and [card]Strangleroot Geist[/card] come with their own defenses against [card]Supreme Verdict[/card], and [card]Increasing Savagery[/card] can make even an Arbor Elf into a large threat in the late game.

Martin’s GR deck has a lot of creatures in common with the Jund Aggro deck that had been doing well on the SCG Open circuit, but the flashback on [card]Increasing Savagery[/card], as well as the impending threat of a [card]Domri Rade[/card] ultimate, add some power going late against Esper Control. Being only two colors also means having a less painful manabase, which is especially important when [card]Blasphemous Act[/card] and [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] are able to deal you 13.

After sideboarding, Martin’s deck has the ability to combat [card]Boros Reckoner[/card], [card]Thragtusk[/card], and other typical roadblocks by flying over them ([card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card]) or pushing straight through ([card]Gruul Charm[/card], [card]Volcanic Strength[/card]).

Standard Going Forward

Now that Standard is slowing down after having been the featured Constructed format for the Pro Tour, we can try to predict the next evolution of the format. My first observation was that people have moved away from [card]Pillar of Flame[/card] because of its ineffectiveness against [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] and [card]Flinthoof Boar[/card], and the Channel Fireball Esper deck favors [card]Planar Cleansing[/card] over Terminus – maybe it’s time for Zombies to return from the grave?

[deck title=”BW Zombies by Andy Ferguson”]
[Creatures]
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Gravecrawler
2 Blood Artist
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Geralf’s Messenger
4 Restoration Angel
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Orzhov Charm
4 Lingering Souls
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Godless Shrine
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Orzhov Guildgate
3 Cavern of Souls
9 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Appetite for Brains
3 Nearheath Pilgrim
2 Rest in Peace
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Vampire Nighthawk
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Ferguson, who finished second at SCG Open: Cincinnati seemed to be onto this already. [card]Geralf’s Messenger[/card] has a lot of potential with [card]Restoration Angel[/card] and is just about the only good creature with an enter-the-battlefield trigger that hasn’t seen play alongside the Angel – at least, not since [card]Birthing Pod[/card] was in Standard. And, as witnessed in the Martell vs. Larsson Finals match of PT Gatecrash, Obzedat is one hell of a creature, and one that is difficult for many decks to deal with.

This is definitely the most exciting Zombies list to explore, but I think going back to BR or BG Zombies is also reasonable. Both have the ability to fight through Boros Reckoner: BR with [card]Mark of Mutiny[/card] or [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card] alongside sacrifice outlets, and BG with [card]Lotleth Troll[/card] and [card]Abrupt Decay[/card].

The Aristocrats
It remains to be seen if the Aristocrats deck has the staying power to become a pillar of the format. Given the current forms of removal and board sweepers being played, Zombies provide a more durable set of creatures compared to the Humans of the Aristocrats. Again, being only a two-color deck has the advantage of having less painful mana. Zombies still has fast draws consisting of a flurry of two-power one-drops, but with [card]Blood Artist[/card], [card]Geralf’s Messenger[/card], and [card]Obzedat, Ghost Council[/card], all draining life, you can also play more defensively and avoid attacking into a cluttered board or risk getting Azorius Charmed, while your Planeswalkers gain loyalty.

Jund Midrange
Jund Midrange was a solid choice for Pro Tour Gatecrash; it has been solid ever since the beginning of the previous Standard rotation, and, to the surprise of no one, will likely continue to be that way. This was clear when a version of Jund won the SCG Open in Edison without a single new card from Gatecrash. The reactive aspects of the deck have to keep changing to stay up to date with the metagame, but the tools are all there. For a while, [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card] was left out of the maindeck, but no longer. I think Grand Prix Atlantic City and the Hexproof deck served as a wake-up call, and she has since found her proper place in the starting 60.

UWR
As for UWR Flash, Gerry Thompson and Joel Larsson’s performances have sustained the archetype’s position in the Standard metagame. While their two decks were different, it’s easy to lump one Snapcaster Mage-Boros Reckoner-Restoration Angel deck with another and call it UWR. The core creatures probably aren’t going to change much, but the spells and sideboard will. We saw many different sideboarding plans for Delver decks last season that served to keep opponents guessing.

The biggest maindeck difference between Thompson and Larsson’s decks was between the zero and four [card]Boros Charm[/card]s, respectively. [card]Boros Charm[/card] provides at least the ability to go for infinite life with [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] and [card]Azorius Charm[/card], but I think more important is its ability to kill Planeswalkers. [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card], [card]Garruk, Primal Hunter[/card], [card]Garruk Relentless[/card], [card]Domri Rade[/card], and [card]Sorin, Lord of Innistrad[/card] are only allowed one activation before receiving a swift introduction to the graveyard. Going forward, I would maindeck at least some amount of [card]Boros Charm[/card]s.

Bant and Esper Control
Melissa DeTora and her team’s Wolf Run Bant list evolved from the pre-Gatecrash Bant Control archetype and will continue to crush any-and-all Aggro decks when built to do so. [card]Nephalia Drownyard[/card] still seems like the most reliable win condition for a Control deck going forward, but perhaps we will see a slight resurgence of Bant.

Mono-Black or Black/x Control
Everyone but Conley Woods seemed to ignore the forgotten board sweeper Mutilate, which has all sorts of things going for it. It doesn’t trigger [card]Boros Reckoner[/card], costs as little mana as [card]Supreme Verdict[/card], cleanly gets rid of [card]Falkenrath Aristocrat[/card] and [card]Experiment One[/card], and [card]Boros Charm[/card] offers no protection from it. While Mutilate does add some deckbuilding restrictions, I’m surprised that more people haven’t experimented with it now that all of the black Shocklands are Standard legal.

Various Aggro
Meanwhile, aggro decks have a lot of work to do if they want to beat this new wave of [card]Boros Reckoner[/card]s. As an aggro player at heart, Jund Aggro is the most appealing option to me. Naya and GR Gyre Sage decks are also an interesting direction, though, so it might be worth trying some mix of Jund and, as LSV calls it, the “Gyro Sage.”

[deck title=”Gyro Jund by Alex Bianchi”]
[Creatures]
4 Experiment One
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Gyre Sage
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Wolfir Silverheart
1 Zealous Conscripts
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Searing Spear
4 Increasing Savagery
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Blood Crypt
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Stomping Ground
4 Rootbound Crag
3 Woodland Cemetery
2 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Ranger’s Guile
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Golgari Charm
2 Ground Seal
3 Domri Rade
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Zealous Conscripts
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Turn-two Gyre Sage can lead to some explosive draws when followed up with an Emissary and a four-drop on turn three or a turn-four [card]Increasing Savagery[/card] on Gyre Sage into [card]Wolfir Silverheart[/card]. [card]Falkenrath Aristocrat[/card] and [card]Abrupt Decay[/card] are well worth the black splash, and the deck might also want [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] and Duress. Unfortunately, [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] doesn’t evolve Gyre Sage, but it could still serve as excellent graveyard hate out of the sideboard.

Standard continues to be an awesome format full of give-and-take, evolution, and innovation. Thanks for reading, and leave your predictions for how you think the metagame will shift!

Alex Bianchi
Gemmanite on Twitter and MTGO