Delver is the best deck in standard. But, in reality it has been for the past four or five years. No, I am not saying that delver has been a deck for that period of time, but aggro-control decks (faeries, caw-blade, delver) have been the decks to beat in their respective formats for that time. Honestly, it's pretty inevitable that aggro-control becomes the most dominate archtype in any format in exists in, because it is able to change roles the best by playing the most flexible cards, and if the power level of cards continues to creep the way it has, it is also inevitable that the flexibility of cards continues to increase.
I'm not saying this as a bad thing, because for the game to continue to be succesful, a certain degree of power creep is necessary - although, as it seems from the current spoilers, the power level of m13 is far less than the power level of the previous two, or even three, core sets - power levels do need to creep gradually. I'm really not one for disputing what Wizards does though, because while certainly they are responsible for some number of mistakes over the past decade and a half of Magic, they are also the ones responsible for allowing there to be a successful decade and a half of Magic.
One of the larger complaints during aggro-controls pretty constant strangleholds over standard, and even years before that, is that blue is too dominant a color. Yes, Magic's history does reflect that blue has been the most powerful color, but it isn't because blue is the favorite child of R&D. On the most basic level of Magic, drawing cards is one of the most fundamentally powerful things anyone can do, so it's only natural that the color given the most card draw will be the most powerful.
Just consider though, in the standard format before Worldwake and Jace were released upon the world, blue was experiencing its biggest slump in years. While there were playable tier one blue decks that had on and off sucess in tournaments, divination was consdiered to be the formats best card draw spell, and nearly everyone was claiming that blue was being hated on it standard.
With all that said, I really don't think that anything as of now needs to be banned in standard. Sure, the argument is that delver continues to occupy the first sheet of the standings, but you also have to look at the names behind those decks. The majority of the delver decks in the top eight, or even top sixteen, of tournaments are weekly players like Costa, LSV, and GerryT. Sure, the TCG 5k last weekend was won by a player whose name I do not recognize with delver, but also you must consider the skill level of any given tournament and compare it to the player winning.
In reality, I really don't think anything should be banned, in standard at least. Thakns for reading,
Delver is the best deck in standard. But, in reality it has been for the past four or five years. No, I am not saying that delver has been a deck for that period of time, but aggro-control decks (faeries, caw-blade, delver) have been the decks to beat in their respective formats for that time. Honestly, it's pretty inevitable that aggro-control becomes the most dominate archtype in any format in exists in, because it is able to change roles the best by playing the most flexible cards, and if the power level of cards continues to creep the way it has, it is also inevitable that the flexibility of cards continues to increase.
I'm not saying this as a bad thing, because for the game to continue to be succesful, a certain degree of power creep is necessary - although, as it seems from the current spoilers, the power level of m13 is far less than the power level of the previous two, or even three, core sets - power levels do need to creep gradually. I'm really not one for disputing what Wizards does though, because while certainly they are responsible for some number of mistakes over the past decade and a half of Magic, they are also the ones responsible for allowing there to be a successful decade and a half of Magic.
One of the larger complaints during aggro-controls pretty constant strangleholds over standard, and even years before that, is that blue is too dominant a color. Yes, Magic's history does reflect that blue has been the most powerful color, but it isn't because blue is the favorite child of R&D. On the most basic level of Magic, drawing cards is one of the most fundamentally powerful things anyone can do, so it's only natural that the color given the most card draw will be the most powerful...
The inagural Modern ptq season has reached ts conclusion thus ushering in the next stage inn the dedicated grinder's life; Standard Season.
While Avacyn Restored will undoubtedly shake that things up to no small extent, I am not one for intensive speculation, especially when only a fifth of the set is publicly known. So, for the time being I'd prefer to discuss the decks getting sleeved in the innumerable amount of qualifiers taking place from now until the prerealease. To make things simple, I'll just show you what I'd be playing if I was going for a blue envelope this Saturday:
Larry Swasey wrote briefly about this a few weeks ago in an article for SCG, and after ten or so daily events and near infinite two mans I made a few minor/major changes to the deck.
The Fatties
Firstly, Frites is a deck that looks to reanimate a big dude as soon as possible, destroy the other side of the board, and win. When I first started experimenting with the deck it had these monsters:
Personally, I would just rather be flashing back Elesh Norn in most situations. As long as delver is the "best deck" then I won't run less then four Elesh Norn and more than sero Wurmcoil Engines for these reasons:
1.) If vapor snag is a card, Wurmcoil Engine is not a card I want to be playing
2.) Accordingly, when my creatures come into play I want them to do something immediately
3.) Inferno Titan doesn't deal with invisible stalker of geist, which while equipped can be much more lethal than the titan
The arguments against playing four Elesh Norn are fairly weak, mainly citing that Inferno Titan wins games faster than Elesh Norn. But, the wrath effect attached to the Grand Cenobite is much more valuabe than the extra turn (if that even) clock provided by Titan.
Those Damn Lands
Examing the manabase, a five color deck playing shimmering grotto and gavony township, you probably think that it is pretty bad. I'll be honest; it's not ideal. But, it's either shimmering grotto or Darkslick Shores, and only one of them can cast faithless looting and birds of paradise. Gavony Township, despite not doing anything to cast a turn one mana dork, still as Larry Swasey writes is the best land in the deck, and it is.
Along with the sideboard, Gavony Township creates a pretty quick clock, but we'll talk about that more in a minute. Township turns mana dorks and lingering souls tokens from chump blockers into lethal threats fairly quickly.
The Other Fifteen
The sideboard is a little different. While I won't go over a detailed sideboarding guide because frankly I don't like definitive sideboarding plans and it is pretty self explanatory, I will briefly comment on how great transformational sideboards are.
Game two while the other guy is loading up on counterspells and surgical extractions we're throwing some of the best creatures in the format into the board. The two grave titans may seem a bit out of place, but in fact they have tested quite well. Elesh Norn, despite all her positive attributes is not the best in the control matchups, but Grave Titan is. Not only does he dodge doom blade, but he also negates Liliana of the Veil as well as making an immediate impact on the board. It is pretty poor against Phantasmal Image, but Delver isn't a matchup that is gets boarded in against too frequently.
Why SHOULD I play this pile?
There's a lot of reasons to play this deck, maybe I should just start another list:
1.) Your doing the most powerful thing in standard
2.) You have an incredibly high, almost perfect game one win percentage
3.) It is a multi-dimensional deck that attacks the opponent from multiple angles
4.) Most people don't know how to appropriately play against Frites
5.) It is a fairly easy deck to play, and very easy to modify to address different metagames
The majority of people who read Magic articles, other than the sickos who scroll through a thousand words for the fun of it, want to better their game in some way to perhaps level some advantage over the next opponent in search of that coveted blue envelope. We all want to make it to the Pro Tour, to hoist that golden trophy in some exotic city to the awe of thousands of players around the globe. I've gamed a few PTQs, and by a few a mean probably close to a hundred. It's how I got my first invite and how I met tons of great people from cities I've never heard of before.
More to the point of this article, let's talk a little about five of the most essential things to winning a PTQ:
What Are You PAcking?
Unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunately depending on what side of the road you stand on, much of how your Saturday PTQ will go is decided before you sit down to face your round one opponent. I don't mean this in reference to some sort of predestination, but rather the fact that metagaming and deck selection is probably more important to your overall tournament sucess than your actual play in said tournament.
While that is quite the ambitious statement by a mere glorified grinder such as myself, it does carry a lot of truth. Just think about the world's greatest players, the Finkels, Kais, and Paulos who have failed to win an innumerable amount of tournaments not because they were worse players than their opponents, which they are certainly not, but rather because of misevaluations of metagames and poor deck choices.
Metagames change, they are flowing, ebbing entities which transform throughout the qualifying season. In recent memory, there has been one PTQ season that I can remember where it was correct to keep the same deck for over half the season, and that was when Gerry Thompson broke extended with Thopter Depths which was one of the most well built, dominating decks in the history of extended.
Especially with MTGO and the daily flood of results, it is easy to see what decks are putting up the best numbers and deciding to play them or play to beat them (which we will address later).
How GOOD Are You?
PTQs aren't terribly hard events when compared to the events which they feed into, but like any other Magic event the better players do tend to do..well better. Every weekend I see on Facebook some of the more well noted grinders posting statuses about top eighting, and even more frequently winning, qualifiers.
It's important to know how good you are. We all like to superficially think we are better players than we actually are, but the truth is your probably not the best player in the room, and if you are then I promise that you are not the only one who realizes it.
I used to go to a lot of Florida PTQs living in the southeast, and I've been to PTQs that had multiple future Pro Tour and Grand Prix winners sitting across the table from me. Often, these players were playing what was considered to be the "best deck", and they had good knowledge to do so.
When half the room is playing the "best deck", especially when the mirror match as it tends to be is fairly skill intensive, the better players will naturally produce better results in these matchups while retaining their subsequently good matchups with the rest of the field that comes with the title of "best deck".
Play to your strengths. If you like bashing with dudes, bash with dudes. I remember after Matt Elias won an SCG Open with zoo he said that he knew he wasn't a good control player, he was going to be the best aggro player he could be.
How Bad Do You WANT It?
Do you want to win? Of course you THINK you want to win, otherwise you wouldn't have paid the twenty five dollar registration fee and driven five hours in the backseat of a car with three other dudes. But, do you really WANT to win.
The first time I top eighted a PTQ I got almost immediately 2-0ed against a very good matchup which I should be like 98% against on an average day. I didn't want it. I was too busy running around telling everyone I top 8ed, calling my mom, and making jokes to friends while my face was getting smashed in.
It wasn't till the car ride home that it hit me, siitting with my booster box worth of prize and a small pin giving me the title of "PTQ top 8er", that that was all I was going home with; no envelope.
Perhaps even more of the realization of just how bad you have to want it hit me at an Alabama PTQ. It was the last qualifier of the season and it was in a small Alabama town in the local car shop. Players had flown from New York to play in the tournament and when the fire marshall came and capped the attendance people were selling their spots in the PTQ for a playset of baneslayer angels and fifty dollars as a high offer.
That was a good two hundred fifty dollars, but it was worth it for those who wanted the envelope.
While tis not quite over, the first modern ptq of the season has settled down to a top eight; a somewhat unusual one at that. Before we go further, here are the eight decks which top eighted (keep in mind we don't have decklists yet)
3 Splinter Twin
1 Bant
1 Mono Blue Faeries
1 UW control
1 Gw Tokens
1 Melira Pod
Honestly, that is not the top eight i expected, but I can quite easily see how it resulted. To be fair, the most popular deck by far in the tournament judging from the replays is zoo, and the zoo list are all over the place, befuudled without the use of wild nacatl. Splinter Twin preys upon those weak aggro decks, punishing them for weak draws and bad decks unforgivingly.
On a similar note the Melira Pod deck functions similary to splinter twin in that it punishes weaker decks and draws, but also packs some large amount of hand disruption.
UW control you would think in theory as a control deck has at least a reaosnable matchup against both combo and aggro, and depending on the list, and if it is a gits deck or just straight Uw, then we can better judge the matchups.
There are three unknowns in the top eight; bant, gw tokens, and mono blue fae. According to twitter and replays the bant deck is an aggressive deck that features Geist of Saint Traft, Tarmogoyf and Snapcaster Mage. The mono blue fae deck is a literal faeries deck despite the absence of bitterblossom in modern. The deck runs mistbind clique and vedalken shackles as the primary threats and preys on the combo decks throughout the format.
As I am writing this, the finals have begun, and it is the g/w deck against one of the splinter twin lists. I could be wrong, and I don't know much about the g/w list except that it runs both honor of the pure and intangible virtue. Based on this, the deck is quite obviously token centric, and I assume would assume splinter twin has a very positive matchup against it, and it would not be very surprising if the splinter twin player was recieving the blue envelope.
There obviously is a lot of speculation in this article, but it is also quite apparent what this PTQ means for the evolution of the format. Splinter Twin, placing three copies in the top eight, is obviously the deck to beat, and the format will develop around it. Subsequently, mono blue fae will pick up steam as a deck as well, and g/w tokens, given that comparitivley, it is pretty cheap to build, will probably be present in some capacity for the rest of the season.
Some of you, probably none, may remember me writing quite a bit from last year on the blogs. I took a break, traveled and played the game, and now with that always awkward lag in between seasons I find myself with a large amount of free time with which to write. Overall, as far as the pro tour is considered, last year was pretty bleak, and I only picked up a couple of points all year. But, with a new year and a new system of pro play there are near infinite possibilities, so hopefully I'll get there.
Last year, I did quite a number of small reports from tournaments held on Monday nights at my one of the local stores, and today I will do the same. The format is usually standard, but with modern being the big format of late, the next few weeks are modern, which honestly I have no problem with considering I need to que during the Modern season to get back on the tour.
This time I tried an interesting list, one of my own concoction which I honestly don't do often enough. I tend to use previously tested decks, and only occasionally will I play a "rogue" deck given a certain set of circumstances. The deck I played was far from rogue, but it was not the most clear cut deck either; let's take a look.
With the somewhat recent banning of Wild Nacatl, people have been running with their heads cut off looking for the next big deck. I on the other hand don't want to put in the work making sure all of the one of's in my mystical teachings are correct, and would rather just attack the format with sideways creatures and burn. Here's the list I played
The deck is rough, and while I won't go through the whole thought process beyond the deck, I'll give a simplified verson. The deck essentially trades Nacatl for Delver, which is a fine trade, but of course Delver requires a lot more instants and sorceries than the traditional zoo list. While the deck doesn't have an optimal amount of instants and sorceries, it still is decent. The spectral processions, you might be wondering about with good reason, but they are a creature in essence which complements Delver and has a ton of synergy with Snapcaster. With Delver we were already at four colors, so splashing a couple of black dual lands for tribal flames and thougtseize out of board wasn't too far of a stretch. The mana base and sideboard are both pretty bad, and I wish I had had surgical extraction.
As far as the matches go, it wouldn't be too much of a benefit to give a play-by-play, as most of my games were either a play out on my side, or me getting blown out. It was a four rounder, and I faced two random control decks, a mono blue Delver deck (I think the one from Flores' most recent article), and a zoo deck that replcaed nacatl with Steppe Lynx. Snapcaster made the control matchups easy, and recurring thoughtseize combined with clique is a pretty bad beating. The mono blue deck was also easy, he had vedalken shackles, but I burned him out both games. The zoo deck was my only loss, and it was because he ran lightning helix, a full set, to my zero. I could definetly see throwig in a couple helixes somewhere in the 75, but I did steal one game.
At 3-1, and a cut to the top four, I got there, and everyone wanted to split except one guy playing Matyr, because there were to decks of the four. I got paired against faeries, and proceeded to crush him, the two games taking six minutes total. I got to watch the Matyr deck crush the zoo guy who beat me, and it was rough. Admittedly, I did have a better game against Matyr, but still attempted to split with him. Game one I conceded to Proclamation of Rebirth, where game two I went Thoughtseize take Matyr, Thoughtseize take Proclamation, Snapcaster targeting thoughtseize take Proclamation. Game three was really interesting, and quite intricate. He couldn't find a matyr, and had double Phyrexian Arena at one point. I had him at three, and was tapped out with a bunch of dudes, he went to one, ripped a matyr, slammed it, then went proclamationed it back. He was at forty then. I untapped with my guys, bashed him down to the twenties, and passed back. He dropped a Baneslayer Angel, and I realized the only way to win was to deck him with his own arenas. I double bolted the angel, and then proceeded fruitlessly kept bashing in as he gained more and more life. Eventually he realized my end game once I stopped playing spells, favoring instead to save the removal for threats, but by then he was at ten or so cards in his library, and I held on to get there.
The deck isn't great, and it is much harder to play then I thought. Ponder was spectacular all night, and it was a card I was speculating on, assuming it would help find threats and set up delver with my reduced creature count. If you play it, throw in a QAsali Pridemage or two in the board. That's it for today.
It feels good to being playing the best deck, and right now if your not playing stoneforge mystic in standard, then your doing something wrong. I say stoneforge mystic as not only is it in the caw blade deck, but it also the card which should be included in almost every deck in standard, the exception being mono red. Its been a while since a format has been on the same level that the current standard is, probably going back as far as combo winter. But really, having a definitive best deck like caw blade is terrible for the game as standard is the most played format and the one which generates a significant amount of wizards income and is the first stop for new players. Wizards cares about new players, moreso then theudo about professional because paiynew players will end up as we all have spending some uncalculatable amount on the game,whereas professionals are getting payed to play. No new player wants to start in standard and get bashed by turn three batterskulls and turn four splinter twins, and this will be the driving force behind any ban that will happen as the banning anouncement comes upon us. Wizards will most likely ban only one card, as banning a card in a way is admitting that they made a mistake in some area and overlooked a possible deck. While it is true that bannings are necessary as wizards cannot playtest and predict every single outcome for every new card created, creating cards like stoneforge mystic then feeding them with cards like batterskull and the three swords is a bit ridiculous and something r and d could not possibly overlook. The card they will most likely ban is stoneforge mystic, as squadrron hawk is being excluded from multiple lists. Jace will most likely not be banned either as jace is wizards little brainchild which has generated such significant sales for wizards that they would not dare ban it, but rather just let it rotate out. Nevertheless, caw blade is the best deck in standard, and while I willl not give a list as I am most likely slinging it in the upcoming grand prixs, the twin blade variant is the best right now. In a world where darkblade is nonexistant, uw caw blade is everywhere, and people are looking to beatcaw with sub par green creature decks splinter twinning while also having access to the power of stonefoerge mystic is one of the most absurd things you can be doing. Go get 'em and if not this time then maybenextime,
Per usual sorry I haven't wriiten in forever. My cross continent trek of Magic playing brought me to Singapore where I posted a top thirty two finish and then Pro Tour Nagoya where I fell right outside of top sixteen range after two disappointing rpunds towards the back end of day two which led me from competing for top eight to not making top sixteen. Overall it was a pretty decent two weeks, which left me with enough pro points to level up and even made a little money on the weekend.
For those curious readers, I ended up playing a blue white midrange venser deck at the pro tour which was similiar to the four color list that Fujita top eighted with, except it was strictly worse because it didn't have the beast withins or the oxidda scrapmelters which meant that I couldn't deal with consecrated sphinxes or tempered steel nearly as efficiently as the four color variant did. To be fair, the deck did perform rather well as I x-1ed constructed before crashing and burning in limited. I definetly felt like I could have top eighted, even with my terrible tiebreakers had I put some more effort into my limited game. I am, and have always been, a much better constructed player than limited, and as such the block pro tour is always my least favorite, but I tried to make it more enjoyable by concentrating on constructed. Regardless, I felt I played decently all day, and had I drafted better things may have very well turned out differently. There's always pro tour philly though..
While the pro tour was going on, lots of American magic players where busy grinding away the starcitygames open series, and to be honest the results aren't that surprising. for a while, I did not think that the caw blade problem was as bad as it is, because I was playing caw blade and either winning or losing to the mirror. The deck is more dominant then I had originally thought, and really if you aren't playing caw blade then your probably playing the worng deck. While there are other decks that can win given the right metagame, cae blade is probably the best route.
The only other really viable option that has a pretty positive matchup against caw blade are the blumanji/blue green vengevine decks that Larry Swasey popularized. With that being said, red also becomes a somewhat viable option, and while I am rarely one to advocate slinging lightning bolt if your not Patrick or Adrian Sullivan, I must concede that lightning bolt seems appealing right now. Red has been considered as one of caw blades "worse" matchups since the decks inception, and while red can certainly lose the matchup, it is still good enough to warrant the deck being played. Additionally, red can crush the green fauna shaman or birthing pod based decks that look to prey on caw-blade.
Legacy is a pretty interesting format as well, and its one of my favortie which unfortunately I don't get to play enough as it is not a format heavily endorced on the pro circuit. When new phyrexia first came out standstill decks were really popular due to the addition of mental misstep, and while still popular they have started to somewhat fade in favor of Drew Levin's blue white control list which features ancestrial visions. With Grand Prix Providence yielding the hive mind deck which Tom Ma used to win the latest SCG Legacy Open, that deck will certainly be seeing a lot more play in the near future. The deck is pretty easy to stop, and to do so zoo decks have come back in style do their handy qasali pridemages and gaddock teegs. My problem with zoo is that there are several different builds, and the best way to take full advantage of zoo is to play the best list, and as I typically don't play zoo I do not know what the best build. There are two schools of thought on zoo right now, one that is a "big" zoo list with stoneforge mystics, green sun's zeniths, and knight of the reliquary, and the other being a one drop zoo list like Patrick Sullivan's list form the scg Invitational which chooses to not play stoneforges but rather answer opposing equipment with pridemages. I really don't know which is better, and as such right now am playing the esper stoneblade deck on MTGO as it has decent matchuos across the board. Anyways in summary standard is stale, legacy is pretty open and interesting, block is exciting except no-one plays it except online, and magic is great game. Go sling some spells and if notn this time then maybenextime.
Sorry I haven't written in forever, I've just been on a multicontinent trek playing Magic, grinding Grand Prix's, Open Series, and getting ready for pro tour: Nagoya. Per usual, my favorite format is always, and has always been legacy. Accordingly, I've been excited for Grand Prix: Providence, as I am always for the american legacy grand prix. Standstill decks, with the printing of mental missteps have gained alot of popularity. Prior to the printing of mental missteps the blue white variants of standstill were nearly unplayable as once an opponent resolved their one drop, something like aether vial, goblin lackey, or even wild nacatl you had to deal with that threat before being able to profitably play standstill. As Gerry Thompson and Drew Levin demonstrated on the SCG Open Circuit mental misstep increases these decks playablity tenfold as it allows you to freely counter your opponents one drop and then play standstill onto a free board.
The Channelfireball team, notably OWen Turtenwald, further developed the u/w standstill list incorporating a stoneforge mystic package and making a few more subtle changes to the deck. The original standstill list had trouble with merfolk and other fish based strategies, but the stoneforge package of four stoneforge mystics, a batterskull, and a sword of body and mond nicely addresses these issues. At first glance, I found the one sword of body and mind suspect as in standard we are used to seeing sword of feast and famine most often included in the maindeck of stoneforge based strategies. Under closer inspection though, the change made a great deal of sense as sword of body and mind does the most while under a stanstill, where feast and famine just allows you to untap mana you won't be using anyway. The batterskull is pretty sweet, and it was one card I honestly did not expect to see at the grand prix. In fact, batterskull just beats all the aggressive aggro decks when not dealt with and usually results in a game win when under standstill.
To better fit the stoneforge package into the deck, there are a few subtle changes which make the deck a lot better. Initially, the deck had three counterspells in it when it first appeared on the open circuit, but in Owen's top eight list form Providence the couinterspells are replaced with dazes. This change allows you to tap out on turn two for stoneforge mystic, counter their two drop, and then be able to cast standstill with your stoneforge out, where counterspell would just sit there.
I really think this deck is the best current deck in the format, until the format evolves and people start playing 43 land again, which rarely happens as the lands decks are typically expensive. Hopefully, legacy continues to grow as a great format, and wizards continues to print cards which support eternal formats..play some legacy its a greaat format and if not this time then maybenextime
Peace,
maybenextime
maybenextime on magic-league
legacydude34 on twitter follow me!!