Here is the breakdown of top 16 decklists for SCG Open Indianapolis. From the looks of this, does it look like that Standard finally have a diverse meta? Granted, I am not too pleased to see the green-based stompy decks making up 3 of the top 4.
4 R/W Burn
3 G/R/x Monsters (grouping Jund and Naya together)
2 Thoughtseize/Pack Rat decks (grouping B/G and B/W together)
2 U/W/x Control
1 G/W Aggro
1 G/B Devotion
1 R/B Devotion
1 B/W Humans
Since the introduction of Journey Into Nyx, many new decks, such as B/W Humans and Mono Black Aggro, are now able to be competitive. While decks such as, Mono-Black devotion, are still common, the addition of the new cards from Journey have diversified the meta largely.
The Orzhov midrange deck is not a devotion strategy. As mentioned in the SCG Indy thread, it is a Thoughtseize/Pack Rat strategy. If that is your baseline for what makes Mono Black decks the same deck I dare say you applying an over-arching strategic core to far too many deck lists, as any deck with a solid Black commitment, Devotion related or not, is going to be piggybacked by the powerful opener those two cards represent. The Black Devotion deck is an entirely different deck in terms of its strategic aims from the Orzhov Midrange ones besides the presence of those two cards.
The Orzhov midrange deck is not a devotion strategy. As mentioned in the SCG Indy thread, it is a Thoughtseize/Pack Rat strategy. If that is your baseline for what makes Mono Black decks the same deck I dare say you applying an over-arching strategic core to far too many deck lists, as any deck with a solid Black commitment, Devotion related or not, is going to be piggybacked by the powerful opener those two cards represent. The Black Devotion deck is an entirely different deck in terms of its strategic aims from the Orzhov Midrange ones besides the presence of those two cards.
I still see turn 1 Thoughtseize, turn 2 Pack Rat, turn 3 Lifebane Zombie, Turn 4 Desecration Demon. You're saying that trading a turn 5 Gary for an Obzedat or Blood Baron makes it a completely different deck?
Be a lemming hunter. Don't be a lemming. Really, all you had to do was explain to him the popularity metric, not give him the lemming hunter manifesto...
What do you guys want? Yes creatures are the number one win condition. That makes sense in a block all about permanents to promote mechanics such as constellation and devotion. If it's competitive combo, I'm sorry that the slowing down of the format necessitated combo being slow as well. It's there, it's just much tougher to achieve. Though to be honest, I hate standards with competitive combo. They hold no interest to me. The introduction of journey into nix really salvaged this standard for me and stoked my interest. The real shame here is that every set in the block wasn't like it from the start.
What do you guys want? Yes creatures are the number one win condition. That makes sense in a block all about permanents to promote mechanics such as constellation and devotion. If it's competitive combo, I'm sorry that the slowing down of the format necessitated combo being slow as well. It's there, it's just much tougher to achieve. Though to be honest, I hate standards with competitive combo. They hold no interest to me. The introduction of journey into nix really salvaged this standard for me and stoked my interest. The real shame here is that every set in the block wasn't like it from the start.
My main complaint is that the top 1o most played cards in Standard are black. The only saving grace for me for this Standard is that R/W Burn is a very good deck in the current meta. I have been playing Red aggro since the start of this Standard, to vary success. It's nice to finally see a Red-based aggro deck kick butt and take names.
What do you guys want? Yes creatures are the number one win condition. That makes sense in a block all about permanents to promote mechanics such as constellation and devotion. If it's competitive combo, I'm sorry that the slowing down of the format necessitated combo being slow as well. It's there, it's just much tougher to achieve. Though to be honest, I hate standards with competitive combo. They hold no interest to me. The introduction of journey into nix really salvaged this standard for me and stoked my interest. The real shame here is that every set in the block wasn't like it from the start.
My main complaint is that the top 1o most played cards in Standard are black. The only saving grace for me for this Standard is that R/W Burn is a very good deck in the current meta. I have been playing Red aggro since the start of this Standard, to vary success. It's nice to finally see a Red-based aggro deck kick butt and take names.
Yea I feel for you there. But to be fair, people have been crying for mono black control to be a thing for years so it's somewhat fair. I get to play my janky junk enchantress deck so I'm happy haha.
My main complaint is that the top 10 most played cards in Standard are black. The only saving grace for me for this Standard is that R/W Burn is a very good deck in the current meta.
I don't know where you manufactured those stats from but you're wrong. You not liking the Mono Black archetype is well noted but statistically the metagame is allot more varied than you keep letting on. The MTGO landscape is not some mighty blueprint that dictates the standard metagame as a whole and the last month of tournament data proves that.
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My main complaint is that the top 10 most played cards in Standard are black. The only saving grace for me for this Standard is that R/W Burn is a very good deck in the current meta.
I don't know where you manufactured those stats from but you're wrong. You not liking the Mono Black archetype is well noted but statistically the metagame is allot more varied than you keep letting on. The MTGO landscape is not some mighty blueprint that dictates the standard metagame as a whole and the last month of tournament data proves that.
This should not be so hard to understand. I do not dismiss the online metagame but I don't use it as a blanket statement for the state of standard as online results tend to be more skewed than their paper counterparts. Again, the metagame is far more diverse as shown by the last month of paper tournament results. I may be biased but I care little for the online metagame other than using it as a base for testing purposes.
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This should not be so hard to understand. I do not dismiss the online metagame but I don't use it as a blanket statement for the state of standard as online results tend to be more skewed than their paper counterparts. Again, the metagame is far more diverse as shown by the last month of paper tournament results. I may be biased but I care little for the online metagame other than using it as a base for testing purposes.
His point is still very much a more valid one than your word. Also I trust mtgo trends as a GENERAL barometer for the meta game over select tournament reports. You have to at least recognize that even if what he said is mostly true on mtgo for whatever reason, it's still a disturbing sight to see for the meta, online or not.
I feel like the field is very much more diverse then it was 3 months ago. We used to only see Mono B, MUD, RG Monsters, and UW Control. Now we're seeing new decks pop up every week that are very good.
I really don't think it's changed too much. The biggest addition was mana confluence which lets 3-colors back into the game and o-ring which the non BGx black devotion decks can't answer so well.
Here's what I see:
GBx devotion (basically mono black devotion with green for enchantment hate)
UWx control (woop dee doo)
GWx midrange (Not entirely new, but two or three new cards pushed it to t1)
GRx midrange (Not new, Usually jund now)
BW midrange (Not new)
All of these decks have versatile answers and big threats so of course it's going to be up in the air who wins SCG open one week or the next.
Come rotation courser and caryatid are going to be as staple as thoughtseize and downfall.
The baseline green suite is almost as powerful as black's. I hope they don't print a new cheap wrath so that green-based control strategies with such dorks can make a serious splash.
I'm slightly afraid without a 4 mana cost sweeper in black or white that Horse and Tree dominate next year.
Meta is diverse, and intact. its really revelation that I will enjoy a break from, just so I can play tempo again.
MUD and bant are the only decks I heavily enjoyed this year competitively. Brewing heroic and master biomancer decks kept me busy while I prayed for duskmantle seer to be good.
Instead we got tree and horse
Lol
Come rotation courser and caryatid are going to be as staple as thoughtseize and downfall.
The baseline green suite is almost as powerful as black's. I hope they don't print a new cheap wrath so that green-based control strategies with such dorks can make a serious splash.
I hope they do, because I don't want "just" creature decks.
Maybe my local playerbase sucks it harder than a black hole but at one LGS i played a 16 man standard tonight and saw NOTHING but boros burn, red devo and black devo with splash green for abrupt decay. and one guy had 4 color goodstuff.dec (WBGR) as a UW control player its not even worth paying into a tournament right now.
At the other of my LGS' stores the "midrange" strategy is prevalent, midrange being a fancy word for "screw strategy, i spend more money" these decks come in junk jund and bant but they are all the same, spam planeswalkers and money creatures until you win. its the most mindless deck possible but it wins because its the most expensive, therefore the one WOTC wants to encourage use of.
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4 R/W Burn
3 G/R/x Monsters (grouping Jund and Naya together)
2 Thoughtseize/Pack Rat decks (grouping B/G and B/W together)
2 U/W/x Control
1 G/W Aggro
1 G/B Devotion
1 R/B Devotion
1 B/W Humans
I still see turn 1 Thoughtseize, turn 2 Pack Rat, turn 3 Lifebane Zombie, Turn 4 Desecration Demon. You're saying that trading a turn 5 Gary for an Obzedat or Blood Baron makes it a completely different deck?
Be a lemming hunter. Don't be a lemming.
Really, all you had to do was explain to him the popularity metric, not give him the lemming hunter manifesto...
Originally posted by MemoryLapse and DotMatrix
In general, there are very few different "strategies" in standard right no deck can win outside of the combat anymore
Sphinx's-based control
Thoughtseize/Pack Rat decks
Green-based Monsters (Gods/PW/Big guys)
White and/or Black weenie decks
Burn
And blue has been unusable without white since Lorwyn.
What do you mean by pokemon decks? (I don't play Pokemon so I'm just wondering)
My main complaint is that the top 1o most played cards in Standard are black. The only saving grace for me for this Standard is that R/W Burn is a very good deck in the current meta. I have been playing Red aggro since the start of this Standard, to vary success. It's nice to finally see a Red-based aggro deck kick butt and take names.
Yea I feel for you there. But to be fair, people have been crying for mono black control to be a thing for years so it's somewhat fair. I get to play my janky junk enchantress deck so I'm happy haha.
I don't know where you manufactured those stats from but you're wrong. You not liking the Mono Black archetype is well noted but statistically the metagame is allot more varied than you keep letting on. The MTGO landscape is not some mighty blueprint that dictates the standard metagame as a whole and the last month of tournament data proves that.
MTGgoldfish would like to have a word with you.
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/standard
Online
This should not be so hard to understand. I do not dismiss the online metagame but I don't use it as a blanket statement for the state of standard as online results tend to be more skewed than their paper counterparts. Again, the metagame is far more diverse as shown by the last month of paper tournament results. I may be biased but I care little for the online metagame other than using it as a base for testing purposes.
His point is still very much a more valid one than your word. Also I trust mtgo trends as a GENERAL barometer for the meta game over select tournament reports. You have to at least recognize that even if what he said is mostly true on mtgo for whatever reason, it's still a disturbing sight to see for the meta, online or not.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/598381-kiki-chord-kiki-company
Bring to Niv
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/814060-bring-to-niv-the-golden-deck
Legacy - Lands
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/established-legacy/control/535484-primer-lands
Here's what I see:
GBx devotion (basically mono black devotion with green for enchantment hate)
UWx control (woop dee doo)
GWx midrange (Not entirely new, but two or three new cards pushed it to t1)
GRx midrange (Not new, Usually jund now)
BW midrange (Not new)
All of these decks have versatile answers and big threats so of course it's going to be up in the air who wins SCG open one week or the next.
Perhaps that's a good thing.
The old control style decks can't keep the green creature decks down any longer.
It's great to see a common making an impact Keening Apparition!
Come rotation courser and caryatid are going to be as staple as thoughtseize and downfall.
The baseline green suite is almost as powerful as black's. I hope they don't print a new cheap wrath so that green-based control strategies with such dorks can make a serious splash.
Meta is diverse, and intact. its really revelation that I will enjoy a break from, just so I can play tempo again.
MUD and bant are the only decks I heavily enjoyed this year competitively. Brewing heroic and master biomancer decks kept me busy while I prayed for duskmantle seer to be good.
Instead we got tree and horse
Lol
I hope they do, because I don't want "just" creature decks.
At the other of my LGS' stores the "midrange" strategy is prevalent, midrange being a fancy word for "screw strategy, i spend more money" these decks come in junk jund and bant but they are all the same, spam planeswalkers and money creatures until you win. its the most mindless deck possible but it wins because its the most expensive, therefore the one WOTC wants to encourage use of.