TLDR: Compiling best standard decks from the past few years.
I am setting up a small tournament with my friends to figure out which standard deck over the past few years was the best. We will put some of the titans that terrorized the format together. I want to see the meanest standard decks fight each other to figure out... kind of... what the best standard deck is.
Contenders I have found so far,
1. Cawblade - The #1 contender. Jace and Stoneforge mystic make this deck a real contender.
2. Delver - Amazing tempo and dangerous as hell.
3. Valakut - My dark horse. Destroys control and doesn't care what the other deck is doing.
4. (Alara) Jund - Meeaaan deck. BBE and Blightning will destroy some of these control decks.
5. Tempered Steel - Maybe not the best example, but I can see an insanely fast aggro deck placing high.
Besides these guys I have made a list of other powerful decks in the formats,
Naya (Alara)
White Wheeny (?)
Open the Vaults
Eldrazi Monument (Zen, green deck that played eldrazi monument and master of the wild hunt)
Soul Sisters
Eldrazi Green (Another deck I could see placing extremely high)
Quest (Can get some equipment to blow up permanents really fast)
RDW (Zen)
Big Red (Zen)
Landfall Boros (Zen)
RDW/Kuldotha Red (Mirr)
Elves (Mirr)
Splinter Twin
Pyromancer's Ascenion
Infect
Midrange Boros (Mirr)
Junk Rites (Inn)
Bant Auras
Hoof.dec
GB midrange (Rav)
Jund (Rav)
Sphinx Rev (Rav)
-
Vampires (Inn)
Twinblade
Mythic Conscription
Any other decks, deck lists or compendiums that you could show me would be amazing.
TLDR: Compiling best standard decks from the past few years.
I am setting up a small tournament with my friends to figure out which standard deck over the past few years was the best. We will put some of the titans that terrorized the format together. I want to see the meanest standard decks fight each other to figure out... kind of... what the best standard deck is.
Contenders I have found so far,
1. Cawblade - The #1 contender. Jace and Stoneforge mystic make this deck a real contender.
2. Delver - Amazing tempo and dangerous as hell.
3. Valakut - My dark horse. Destroys control and doesn't care what the other deck is doing.
4. (Alara) Jund - Meeaaan deck. BBE and Blightning will destroy some of these control decks.
5. Tempered Steel - Maybe not the best example, but I can see an insanely fast aggro deck placing high.
Besides these guys I have made a list of other powerful decks in the formats,
Naya (Alara)
White Wheeny (?)
Open the Vaults
Eldrazi Monument (Zen, green deck that played eldrazi monument and master of the wild hunt)
Soul Sisters
Eldrazi Green (Another deck I could see placing extremely high)
Quest (Can get some equipment to blow up permanents really fast)
RDW (Zen)
Big Red (Zen)
Landfall Boros (Zen)
RDW/Kuldotha Red (Mirr)
Elves (Mirr)
Splinter Twin
Pyromancer's Ascenion
Infect
Midrange Boros (Mirr)
Junk Rites (Inn)
Bant Auras
Hoof.dec
GB midrange (Rav)
Jund (Rav)
Sphinx Rev (Rav)
Any other decks, deck lists or compendiums that you could show me would be amazing.
Thanks!
Tempered Steel beat Delver. It was too fast for Delver and one of the few decks at the time that stood a chance. I feel like it was a 60/40 matchup for Steel. It was a matchup that I tested extensively because I needed to know what I was up against as a Delver player.
I've played or played against all of your top decks very extensively. My opinion is that Caw Blade was the most powerful. I know for sure that Caw Blade had an upper hand vs. Valakut ever since Sword of Feast and Famine was printed. Before that, Valakut just crushed any form of Control, Hello Summoning Trap. I actually feel like Delver is the only deck that would have a 50/50 or better win ratio vs. Caw Blade, despite Delver not beating Jund or TS. Delver was around during Prime Time (Kessig Wolf Run) and it was a close matchup, but the nod would slightly go to Delver, despite Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.
Jund was an extremely good deck at it's time and was easy to play very strongly, although a great player could maximize it that much more. It had no problems until Mythic Conscription and UW Tapout/Control emerged and even then, it was probably around 50/50 vs. those decks.
I don't think that Jund would beat Caw Blade though. Look at Modern. Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, TMS are banned while Jund only has BBE banned and more new tools. Still UWR decks probably have a nearly 50/50 win ratio vs. Jund.
Delver > Caw Blade > the rest
Tempered Steel > Delver
Delver > Valakut
Valakut > Jund (I actually played Valakut near the end of Jund and it really was too fast for Jund)
Jund > Delver, Tempered Steel
Valakut > Tempered Steel (The matchup pre board was really lopsided, with TS at 90/10; after Creeping Corrosion and Slagstorm/Pyroclasm, it went to 10/90 post board)
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Cawblade was just the nuts. First banning in standard since Affinity, and if I remember accurately only the third time ever (Memory Jar which still stands as the first and only emergency ban). And as is mentioned the cornerstones of the deck are banned in Modern.
@gereffi, thanks! This is exactly what I need to finish my research.
@Food, your analysis is exactly what I want test. It will be interesting seeing how our results compare. Kind of excited to see if there are any weird upsets.
@azura, Yea, Cawblade is pretty much the benchmark and why I want to see how the other decks fare against it.
@rath, I'm very interested in those decks too. Would Merfolk also be a contender?
Ivee never played them against each other but I think faeries could handle delver. Both ran a similar game plan, but feel like faeries had the edge in cards like bitterblossom, cryptic command, and vendillion clique. All of which cause serious fits for a deck reliant on essentially one body.
Cawblade I think would 50/50 with faeries. Bitterblossom was just so hard to get around. At that time you either played it, or played to beat it.
Cawblade ran Sword of Feast and Famine at first, then evolved to using Batterskull and Sword of War and Peace. FaF would give protection from the faeries and force discards while leaving all mana up for disruption/counters. Batterskull and WaP put the game out of reach.
I played Cawblade as my first standard deck ever (mostly played kitchen table and highlander back during alpha-2000 days). If I better understood how to use Jace I would have completely loved the deck at that time. Instead I just have fond memories of how stupid the deck treated everyone except Bladebreaker (which lost to everything not Cawblade).
Cawblade ran Sword of Feast and Famine at first, then evolved to using Batterskull and Sword of War and Peace. FaF would give protection from the faeries and force discards while leaving all mana up for disruption/counters. Batterskull and WaP put the game out of reach.
I played Cawblade as my first standard deck ever (mostly played kitchen table and highlander back during alpha-2000 days). If I better understood how to use Jace I would have completely loved the deck at that time. Instead I just have fond memories of how stupid the deck treated everyone except Bladebreaker (which lost to everything not Cawblade).
What was Bladebreaker?
I often hear people telling me "so and so deck" did decently vs. Caw Blade, but in my experience, I only saw RUG (with Lotus Cobra, Jace, etc), Boros Landfall, and GW QuestVine doing decently vs. the Caw. Everything else was getting crushed and each of those matchups was probably around 50/50 at best. (I don't buy that UB Control or RB Zombies could compete with Caw.)
UW Merfolk was the deck that gave me my best playing results in MTG ever. I made the top 8 of 2 PTQs and was 6-2 in another out of 3 PTQs. Merfolk was a deck that was under the radar, albeit very powerful. Still, many people knew it's weaknesses. It was sort of like a weaker version of Faeries, but had a positive matchup vs. Faeries itself. Decks that would be tough for Faeries like RDW were nearly autolosses for Merfolk until the board made it slightly better. 5 Color Control was also nearly impossible for Merfolk to beat, whereas Faeries had a positive matchup. For these reasons, most people decided to go Faeries and have a ever so slightly poor matchup to Merfolk, but better vs. the field. Merfolk doesn't belong on this list for this reason and doesn't compare with the other 5 you mentioned.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Well, I was thinking about putting the decks like Merfolk or RB Vampires (one of my favorite decks of all time) in a larger group.
The top decks, cawblade etc., would start off with a bye.
Also interested in seeing how Cavern of Souls will affect the matchups...
Jund is even with Caw from having tried it.
Delver beats Caw from having tried it.
IDK about the rest.
Really cawblade was overhyped. RUG went even with it. Before that, a deck jammed with Thruns and Vengevines would go 60-40 against it. The reason the deck was such a scourge is valakut reamed its counters like 90-10, so you couldn't take ThrunVine to a tournament.
I suggest you check out TwinBlade vs. Faeries on SCG. There aren't a lot of decks that could handle TwinBlade throughout Standard history in general, so I'd put it at the top of the list.
WU or UB Control just after the release of Worldwake and RotE. Everyone forgets about these decks because they made up the rest of Tier 1 while everyone was preparing to play Jund and Valakut.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Why do I like posting in lists:
1. It allows me to express multiple thoughts without a need to write an essay or make multiple posts. 2. I tend to have multiple thoughts at the same time. 3. Having the right first opinion is sometimes more glorious than having a grammatically correct second opinion. 4. It allows you as a reader to pick out the most erroneous point and counter-comment, allowing you the chance to express an opinion and look like a sensible person when I sound like a dummy.
Pretty sure it's Jund. BBE into Blightning or Maelstrom Pulse is just so much value, and everything they did was 2, 3, or 4 for 1's. Some of the most efficient removal (Terminate/Lightning Bolt), and Cascade is more broken than JTMS or Stoneforge Mystic.
Pretty sure it's Jund. BBE into Blightning or Maelstrom Pulse is just so much value, and everything they did was 2, 3, or 4 for 1's. Some of the most efficient removal (Terminate/Lightning Bolt), and Cascade is more broken than JTMS or Stoneforge Mystic.
In Jund vs Caw, caw has effectively 6 Sword of Feast and Famine, whereas Jund only has 4 maelstrom pulse. Jund can cast Lightning Bolt in response to the equip, but caw has Spell Pierce to shut it down. If the equip goes off it's usually gg, since they can't stop the equipped Stoneforge from getting in if they don't draw pulse. Jace is easily managed, but you can't just ignore it. One thing Jund can do is play around Day of Judgment. It has haste, Sprouting Thrinax, and Raging Ravine, so it can def continue to apply pressure post-wrath. Further, Pulse has to do even more work against Gideon Jura, since it's unlikely you can burn it down. Blightning is nice, but Caw usually has something they can discard at all points in the game, and ofc there's Squadron Hawk. Caw has the natural advantage being just a little bit bigger, which is where you want to be in this game, but Jund can prevent both sides of the deck from working with it's abundant removal and hasty, resiliant attackers. It really is even, and it's highly interactive to boot.
Delver is just lolol Vapor Snag Snapcaster attack through everything. You need a really good draw from Caw to Have a chance. The deck literally cannot deal with Runecharter's Pike in the main.
From my understanding of tier 1 decks from this time frame
Delver
Caw
Valakut
Jund
Fae
5cc
Twin
Mono Red
Tempered Steel
Mythic Bant
UW Control
Fae > Delver
Overall fae has better countermagic, disruption and threats than delver, unless delver can stop turn 1 thoughtseize into BB then it is likely game
Caw > Fae
Caw has more CA than Fae and has enough removal and threats to beat it
Delver = Caw
The decks play very differently, but each is on equal footing and I think the coin flip matters to much in this MU
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget I stream!
I really think you guys are underestimating mythic conscription. In its final form(with mana leaks), I honestly felt like every matchup was favorable and many matchups were 80-90%. The deck was extremely fast with a 6 drop that was more powerful than primeval titan when accompanied by creature based mana acceleration. I have never played a deck post m10 with as powerful a start as fetchland>dork into Cobra>fetchland>knight of the reliquary. The third turn conceivably gave you 8 mana which was enough to either hardcast conscription or play both jace and elspeth in the same turn.
I believe the only difficult matchup for this deck in your list would be delver with most of the other matches being relatively close(excepting the glacially slow caw-blade).
Caw Blade was just really dominant. To the point where I almost stood up and left every time I got matched up with one....which is almost 3 out of 4 rounds (as an example).
I was so happy when UB Control won during US Nationals 2011, then again Caw Blade was almost at the end of it's life during that time.
I am setting up a small tournament with my friends to figure out which standard deck over the past few years was the best. We will put some of the titans that terrorized the format together. I want to see the meanest standard decks fight each other to figure out... kind of... what the best standard deck is.
Contenders I have found so far,
1. Cawblade - The #1 contender. Jace and Stoneforge mystic make this deck a real contender.
2. Delver - Amazing tempo and dangerous as hell.
3. Valakut - My dark horse. Destroys control and doesn't care what the other deck is doing.
4. (Alara) Jund - Meeaaan deck. BBE and Blightning will destroy some of these control decks.
5. Tempered Steel - Maybe not the best example, but I can see an insanely fast aggro deck placing high.
Besides these guys I have made a list of other powerful decks in the formats,
Naya (Alara)
White Wheeny (?)
Open the Vaults
Eldrazi Monument (Zen, green deck that played eldrazi monument and master of the wild hunt)
Soul Sisters
Eldrazi Green (Another deck I could see placing extremely high)
Quest (Can get some equipment to blow up permanents really fast)
RDW (Zen)
Big Red (Zen)
Landfall Boros (Zen)
RDW/Kuldotha Red (Mirr)
Elves (Mirr)
Splinter Twin
Pyromancer's Ascenion
Infect
Midrange Boros (Mirr)
Junk Rites (Inn)
Bant Auras
Hoof.dec
GB midrange (Rav)
Jund (Rav)
Sphinx Rev (Rav)
-
Vampires (Inn)
Twinblade
Mythic Conscription
Any other decks, deck lists or compendiums that you could show me would be amazing.
Thanks!
You can find me on MTGO. My username is gereffi.
Tempered Steel beat Delver. It was too fast for Delver and one of the few decks at the time that stood a chance. I feel like it was a 60/40 matchup for Steel. It was a matchup that I tested extensively because I needed to know what I was up against as a Delver player.
I've played or played against all of your top decks very extensively. My opinion is that Caw Blade was the most powerful. I know for sure that Caw Blade had an upper hand vs. Valakut ever since Sword of Feast and Famine was printed. Before that, Valakut just crushed any form of Control, Hello Summoning Trap. I actually feel like Delver is the only deck that would have a 50/50 or better win ratio vs. Caw Blade, despite Delver not beating Jund or TS. Delver was around during Prime Time (Kessig Wolf Run) and it was a close matchup, but the nod would slightly go to Delver, despite Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.
Jund was an extremely good deck at it's time and was easy to play very strongly, although a great player could maximize it that much more. It had no problems until Mythic Conscription and UW Tapout/Control emerged and even then, it was probably around 50/50 vs. those decks.
I don't think that Jund would beat Caw Blade though. Look at Modern. Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, TMS are banned while Jund only has BBE banned and more new tools. Still UWR decks probably have a nearly 50/50 win ratio vs. Jund.
Delver > Caw Blade > the rest
Tempered Steel > Delver
Delver > Valakut
Valakut > Jund (I actually played Valakut near the end of Jund and it really was too fast for Jund)
Jund > Delver, Tempered Steel
Valakut > Tempered Steel (The matchup pre board was really lopsided, with TS at 90/10; after Creeping Corrosion and Slagstorm/Pyroclasm, it went to 10/90 post board)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)@gereffi, thanks! This is exactly what I need to finish my research.
@Food, your analysis is exactly what I want test. It will be interesting seeing how our results compare. Kind of excited to see if there are any weird upsets.
@azura, Yea, Cawblade is pretty much the benchmark and why I want to see how the other decks fare against it.
@rath, I'm very interested in those decks too. Would Merfolk also be a contender?
Cawblade I think would 50/50 with faeries. Bitterblossom was just so hard to get around. At that time you either played it, or played to beat it.
Grammar is the difference between knowing your ****, and knowing you're ****.
I played Cawblade as my first standard deck ever (mostly played kitchen table and highlander back during alpha-2000 days). If I better understood how to use Jace I would have completely loved the deck at that time. Instead I just have fond memories of how stupid the deck treated everyone except Bladebreaker (which lost to everything not Cawblade).
What was Bladebreaker?
I often hear people telling me "so and so deck" did decently vs. Caw Blade, but in my experience, I only saw RUG (with Lotus Cobra, Jace, etc), Boros Landfall, and GW QuestVine doing decently vs. the Caw. Everything else was getting crushed and each of those matchups was probably around 50/50 at best. (I don't buy that UB Control or RB Zombies could compete with Caw.)
UW Merfolk was the deck that gave me my best playing results in MTG ever. I made the top 8 of 2 PTQs and was 6-2 in another out of 3 PTQs. Merfolk was a deck that was under the radar, albeit very powerful. Still, many people knew it's weaknesses. It was sort of like a weaker version of Faeries, but had a positive matchup vs. Faeries itself. Decks that would be tough for Faeries like RDW were nearly autolosses for Merfolk until the board made it slightly better. 5 Color Control was also nearly impossible for Merfolk to beat, whereas Faeries had a positive matchup. For these reasons, most people decided to go Faeries and have a ever so slightly poor matchup to Merfolk, but better vs. the field. Merfolk doesn't belong on this list for this reason and doesn't compare with the other 5 you mentioned.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)The top decks, cawblade etc., would start off with a bye.
Also interested in seeing how Cavern of Souls will affect the matchups...
Delver beats Caw from having tried it.
IDK about the rest.
Really cawblade was overhyped. RUG went even with it. Before that, a deck jammed with Thruns and Vengevines would go 60-40 against it. The reason the deck was such a scourge is valakut reamed its counters like 90-10, so you couldn't take ThrunVine to a tournament.
1. It allows me to express multiple thoughts without a need to write an essay or make multiple posts.
2. I tend to have multiple thoughts at the same time.
3. Having the right first opinion is sometimes more glorious than having a grammatically correct second opinion.
4. It allows you as a reader to pick out the most erroneous point and counter-comment, allowing you the chance to express an opinion and look like a sensible person when I sound like a dummy.
In Jund vs Caw, caw has effectively 6 Sword of Feast and Famine, whereas Jund only has 4 maelstrom pulse. Jund can cast Lightning Bolt in response to the equip, but caw has Spell Pierce to shut it down. If the equip goes off it's usually gg, since they can't stop the equipped Stoneforge from getting in if they don't draw pulse. Jace is easily managed, but you can't just ignore it. One thing Jund can do is play around Day of Judgment. It has haste, Sprouting Thrinax, and Raging Ravine, so it can def continue to apply pressure post-wrath. Further, Pulse has to do even more work against Gideon Jura, since it's unlikely you can burn it down. Blightning is nice, but Caw usually has something they can discard at all points in the game, and ofc there's Squadron Hawk. Caw has the natural advantage being just a little bit bigger, which is where you want to be in this game, but Jund can prevent both sides of the deck from working with it's abundant removal and hasty, resiliant attackers. It really is even, and it's highly interactive to boot.
Delver is just lolol Vapor Snag Snapcaster attack through everything. You need a really good draw from Caw to Have a chance. The deck literally cannot deal with Runecharter's Pike in the main.
Delver
Caw
Valakut
Jund
Fae
5cc
Twin
Mono Red
Tempered Steel
Mythic Bant
UW Control
Fae > Delver
Overall fae has better countermagic, disruption and threats than delver, unless delver can stop turn 1 thoughtseize into BB then it is likely game
Caw > Fae
Caw has more CA than Fae and has enough removal and threats to beat it
Delver = Caw
The decks play very differently, but each is on equal footing and I think the coin flip matters to much in this MU
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget
I stream!
Hermit Druid Combo:
I believe the only difficult matchup for this deck in your list would be delver with most of the other matches being relatively close(excepting the glacially slow caw-blade).
I was so happy when UB Control won during US Nationals 2011, then again Caw Blade was almost at the end of it's life during that time.
Standard
UR Control
Modern
Merfolk
Burn
Avacyn did nothing wrong!
Purify Innistrad!
#Purge
Well crap. I had my years mixed up. Fair enough.