I personally am absolutely loving THS-KTK. There are some standout decks, but the brewing is really good right now. You can be pretty competitive with fringe brews, there are legitimate combo decks, and it feels like you can play a huge variety of styles and still do great.
right about now is the most exciting time ask again in a month.
For THS the decks that were meta for the rest of the season appeared at the first GP after the pro tour.. so we will get a better idea after GP LA.
I like that there is multiple ways to build each of the major archetypes... they might be archetypes but there is a lot of room to move with in it... That was the big problem with THS-RTR standard there were just too many required cards to get the major decks to work that there was no room to innovate.
While there are arguably two powerhouses that the rest of the field really struggles with in Jeskai and Abzan Rhino, the meta contains a pretty dang good combo deck, a blue black control element, an impressive artifact strategy, multiple variations of superfriends decks, heroic decks, token decks, green ramp, and explosive black aggro. This meta is a fun meta. Fun = healthy.
Then again, they could have just printed anything as long as pack rat, lifebane zombie, and sphinx's revelation rotated.
I guess it matters how much you like Siege Rhino or Jeskai Charm. I'm not a big fan so far because I'm not running either and don't want to dump a couple hundred more dollars to make the switch over. Fingers crossed that Mardu lineups can be more effective soon. At my local meta, it's Siege Rhinos for days.
I want to like it because a combo deck has a chance to exist. I want to like it because we have, Tempo, Aggro and Midrange.
I don't like it right now because control has no presence yet (yes we saw some UB Control, aka the Punching bag of standard right now). I don't like it right now because I'm always up against: Courser/Sylvan/Rhino and Rider/Rabble. I don't like it right now, because the Clans are imbalanced right now (sorry Temur and I feel bad for Sultai)
Did everyone actually enjoy watching standard at the Pro Tour? I found it incredibly boring. A lot of the games were absolute blowouts, and or very matchup dependent.
I voted it's alright because the current meta has its ups and downs. I like that there are a lot of different decks you can use and rogue brews you can be moderately successful with. However it is also my opinion that some of the more meta decks when playing each other don't involve very much skill or blow out potential. From watching the pro tour it just looks like a bunch of 1 for 1s and whoever runs out of gas first loses, or whoever gets the best draws wins. It's kind of hard to explain what i mean, and this is just my opinion, but i sort of wish the cards were a bit higher in power, that in my opinion would bring us a more skill intensive meta, rather than just playing extremely responsive.
I'm glad other people's metas are so diverse, mine is upward of 70% Abzan midrange and it's rapidly getting a bit stale. I don't have a hate on for that deck or anything, but I do hope some new builds shape things up a bit and make it more diverse.
I voted It's alright. Abazan is going to be the next Mono Black Devotion it's just a matter of time. Abzan Midrange, Abzan Control, Abzan Aggro and even Abazan Reanimate.
IMO it´s great!. But time will tell if siege rhino was a mistake.
Let's see, it forces a commitment to three colours, it doesn't trade with itself, it doesn't replace itself, there are no blink cards in standard to take advantage of its ETB.
The moment I saw it the spoiler for it I felt it was a properly balanced thragtusk for the midrange decks to use.
It forces commitment to three colors that are known for huge fatties, disruption, kill spells, exiling, life gain, and +1/+1 counters. If I wasn't already invested in black, white, and red just before Khans, I'd be ALL OVER abzan. The stuff is just gold right now. Also, Whip of Erebos is stupid good. Whip a Rhino for another 6 point life swing, attack with lifelink and gain another 4. Who cares if the damage gets through or not, you just gained 7 life for a potential 14 point life total swing. Just makes me wish I invested in Coursers/Caryatids and other staples before Khans launch. And the fact that 75% of local decks are running these is making me main deck things like Hushwing Gryff.
IMO it´s great!. But time will tell if siege rhino was a mistake.
give me a break, just because midrange has better tools than everyone else doesn't make anything a mistake.
its just "are you playing catyrid and courser and elspeth and rabblemaster?" kind of want to see a real departure from this.
It´s not just better tools. The colors that can make a fair trade (1 card for 1 card) with the rhyno are white and black. It´s real funny that the only charm that efficiently deals with it is abzan charm. That wasn´t at random. But!, there is still a lot of room for innovation and ways to deal with it.
At first, I was crushed when I saw all the 5-mana Godzillas and thought of a midrange winter with nothing but Courser, Caryatid, Polaukronous-whatsit's stupid name, and Stormbreath dominating. But now that I've played a couple drafts, I'm relieved to find that decently paced decks have a fighting chance.
Some people hate combo. I don't mind combo, even if I lose to it. What I do mind is 25-turn games where the objective is to durdle around and refuse to die until your opponent concedes out of pure exhaustion.
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Junk reanimator
G devotion splashing B and W
RUG monsters with prophet of kruphix
UW Heroic
Last friday I played against:
Mono red aggro
UWR control
Jeskai tempo/burn
Jeskai tempo/burn
G/R devotion
Today I played against:
UW Heroic
RUG Monsters
Sultai Delve
Jeskai tempo/burn
Mono B Aggro
The format seems pretty healthy besides junk/UWR burn being rather prevalent. I played U/B control and saw two other control decks out of like 26 people.
Abzan and Jeskai are cleary the two dominating archtypes for now. I still have a lot of faith in Mardu and it's cleary the runner behind those two. The Theros decks seens to be flopping very hard, I didn't expect to mono green devo and BW control to just die this way.
The good thing is, in each of those archtype, the number of possibilities seens to be great, althrough a perfect interaction is just a matter of time.
Imo this format have much lower diversity among tier 1 then Theros/RTR but this downside is outweight by the fact the decks are much more cooler to play with and the difference between tier one and two two decks seens to be small this time around. There's a dozen of tier 2 deck that have favorable match ups against the tier ones, something that didn't happen last season were Esper and Black Devotion didn't had less then 55% win rate vs. any tier 2 archtype.
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Standard - Serious BGU Control R Aggro
Standard - For Fun BG Auras
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For THS the decks that were meta for the rest of the season appeared at the first GP after the pro tour.. so we will get a better idea after GP LA.
I like that there is multiple ways to build each of the major archetypes... they might be archetypes but there is a lot of room to move with in it... That was the big problem with THS-RTR standard there were just too many required cards to get the major decks to work that there was no room to innovate.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Then again, they could have just printed anything as long as pack rat, lifebane zombie, and sphinx's revelation rotated.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I don't like it right now because control has no presence yet (yes we saw some UB Control, aka the Punching bag of standard right now). I don't like it right now because I'm always up against: Courser/Sylvan/Rhino and Rider/Rabble. I don't like it right now, because the Clans are imbalanced right now (sorry Temur and I feel bad for Sultai)
Standard
UR Control
Modern
Merfolk
Burn
Avacyn did nothing wrong!
Purify Innistrad!
#Purge
Modern: RW Burn
GWU Bant Manifest - The Future Is Here. Or it will be at the end of turn. GWU
Only real issue IMO is the delve draw cards being too good.
I'm glad other people's metas are so diverse, mine is upward of 70% Abzan midrange and it's rapidly getting a bit stale. I don't have a hate on for that deck or anything, but I do hope some new builds shape things up a bit and make it more diverse.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
I'm not going to be making hasty metagame calls.
It forces commitment to three colors that are known for huge fatties, disruption, kill spells, exiling, life gain, and +1/+1 counters. If I wasn't already invested in black, white, and red just before Khans, I'd be ALL OVER abzan. The stuff is just gold right now. Also, Whip of Erebos is stupid good. Whip a Rhino for another 6 point life swing, attack with lifelink and gain another 4. Who cares if the damage gets through or not, you just gained 7 life for a potential 14 point life total swing. Just makes me wish I invested in Coursers/Caryatids and other staples before Khans launch. And the fact that 75% of local decks are running these is making me main deck things like Hushwing Gryff.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Stinky Britches Elf BG
Creature - Elf
When ~ ETB, draw a card and lose 1 life.
2/2
and I will be the happiest Abzan player in the world.
GWU Bant Manifest - The Future Is Here. Or it will be at the end of turn. GWU
give me a break, just because midrange has better tools than everyone else doesn't make anything a mistake.
its just "are you playing catyrid and courser and elspeth and rabblemaster?" kind of want to see a real departure from this.
It´s not just better tools. The colors that can make a fair trade (1 card for 1 card) with the rhyno are white and black. It´s real funny that the only charm that efficiently deals with it is abzan charm. That wasn´t at random. But!, there is still a lot of room for innovation and ways to deal with it.
Some people hate combo. I don't mind combo, even if I lose to it. What I do mind is 25-turn games where the objective is to durdle around and refuse to die until your opponent concedes out of pure exhaustion.
Junk reanimator
G devotion splashing B and W
RUG monsters with prophet of kruphix
UW Heroic
Last friday I played against:
Mono red aggro
UWR control
Jeskai tempo/burn
Jeskai tempo/burn
G/R devotion
Today I played against:
UW Heroic
RUG Monsters
Sultai Delve
Jeskai tempo/burn
Mono B Aggro
The format seems pretty healthy besides junk/UWR burn being rather prevalent. I played U/B control and saw two other control decks out of like 26 people.
The good thing is, in each of those archtype, the number of possibilities seens to be great, althrough a perfect interaction is just a matter of time.
Imo this format have much lower diversity among tier 1 then Theros/RTR but this downside is outweight by the fact the decks are much more cooler to play with and the difference between tier one and two two decks seens to be small this time around. There's a dozen of tier 2 deck that have favorable match ups against the tier ones, something that didn't happen last season were Esper and Black Devotion didn't had less then 55% win rate vs. any tier 2 archtype.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras