A Solved Format; the New Players in Standard

Last Week

With spicy results from the double GP in Birmingham, the standard format is finally starting to look solved. Standard spikes finally found the best Karn deck in the Red Black “Vehicles” list, the true power level of Pull From Tomorrow along side Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and what a delight Riley Knight is in the casting booth.

   The best results I gathered from the standard GP were found in the final match between Leo Lahonen and Simon Nielsen on Blue White Control and Black Red Vehicles respectively.

  While a bit of a flavor fail seeing a Karn and Teferi deck duke it out in the finals, this match illustrated so many important interactions to draw conclusions from.

  Pull From Tomorrow feels as back breaking as a Sphinx’s Revelation (Lets go Return to Return to Ravnica!) Now, instead of Rev’ing into Elspeth and embleming her as a win condition, Pull From Tomorrow ends the game if you can squeeze in a few turns with Teferi, Hero of Dominaria on the board before it. Trying to achieve this win condition, Lahonen plays various blue counterspells and white board wipes and spot removal. Teferi even acts as a win condition because Teferi can put himself back in the deck, assuring you cannot run out of cards.

  While in the Top Eight, decklists are public knowledge so Lahonen’s opponents knew to play around the instant speed Settle the Wreckage. If you’re like me and didn’t go to your senior prom, you can still get a taste while watching all the awkward dancing Simon Nielsen did trying to play around Settle. I think Lahonen’s choice to diversify his board wipes was a strong one as his two-of fumigate does nothing to combat Heart of Kiran, Rekindling Phoenix, and a fresh Glorybringer with haste.

  Moving on to Leo’s blue countermagic, I want to start off by giving a shoutout to my guy, Blink of an Eye. The versatility of Blink of an Eye is truly highlighted by the counterspells in the deck to support it. In the early game, you can spend two mana to bounce a turn one Llanowar Elves or Bomat Courier to relieve pressure. In the mid and into the late game you can start to not only kick Blink of an Eye to replace itself but also, bounce threats into your opponent’s hand to then counter that threat on its way back down. While more of a common occurrence after the Blue White player has already Pull(ed) From Tomorrow, this interaction is a sick way to get end game value out of early game boon. Moving onto the counterspells, Lahonen’s list features a playset of Disallows and a copy short of a playlist of Essence Scatters. While the counterspells do well to combat stickier threats like Rekindling Phoenix and planeswalkers, I find these number respectively high when you take into account Leo doesn’t run any Torrential Gearhulks in his 75.

  Three cards out of Lahonen’s sideboard that peaked my interest were History of Benalia, Sorcerous Spyglass, and Aether Meltdown. Not to brag as a broken clock is right twice a day but, following a sideboard plan I displayed in my last article, Leo plays a playset of History of Benalia in the side when his Teferi, Gideons and Pull From Tomorrow isn’t fast enough to pick up the W against other control decks. If anyone doubted Sorcerous Spyglass’ potential as a Pithing Needle that gives hand info invaluable to a control list like Leo’s, Lahonen displayed the card’s full value pinning down both Heart of Kiran and Karn, Scion of Urza (If you haven’t seen Simon Nielsen’s MoMA worthy Karn illustration, I’m sure there’s a TwitchTV clip somewhere.) Finally, Aether Meltdown is a sideboard card I’ve been really impressed with. As a silver bullet against Heart of Kiran, the flash enchantment also shrinks creatures in the Mono Green Stompy lists buying you time against current onboard creatures and further delaying Ghalta, Primal Hunger by a turn or even two.

  As I pointed to in my last article, the dynamic duo of Karn, Scion of Urza and Heart of Kiran is playable in all colors. The only question remained was what colors were the best to accompany this combo. And it turns out, Red with a hint of Black is the empirical answer as 75% of the top 8 consisted of lists a lot like Simon Nielsen’s sharing a couple similarities that are meta defining.

  One staggering similarity was the representation of Goblin Chainwhirler in the top 8. With a whopping 24/24 possible copies in the top 8, every Red Black list ran a playset in their mains. While the overwhelming presence of Chainwhirler could be the cause for many conventions in this meta, it’s larger effect is deterring the presence of green white token decks which have seen a resurgence due to Shalai, Voice of Plenty as well as the Black White Vampires deck popular last standard season. It turns out when you print Blazing Volley, a card already commonly in the sideboard for token strategies, on an aggressively stated creature for its mana cost and give it First Strike, you can expect red players to invest and run playsets.

  While a bit of a different story, another big player in these red black lists was Abrade. With 22 out of 24 possible copies spread between main and and the board, it is very evident many thought the presence of Heart of Kiran justified mainboarded Abrades. Heart of Kiran isn’t the only artifact Abrade in the main has in its crosshairs With so many players showing up with Abrade main, The Blue Red God-Pharaoh’s Gift list featuring the new Skirk Prospector, is also suffering from the red instant’s presence.

  Finally a lesson I learned looking at these decklists is just because Karn is a busted magic card doesn’t mean you need to jam a playset mainboard in every deck. Yes, like little Tommy after eating his entire Halloween haul the night of, standard players are now looking at all these Red Black lists with two Karn’s main and one in the side and are deciding that everything is better in moderation. Especially when you need to moderate the copies of Karn you purchase as they aren’t cheap any longer.

  Moving from Birmingham’s GP results and into a more general standard discussion a general deck building tip I’d suggest is not to run lists that entirely revolve around artifacts. The type of decks I’m telling you to watch out for are lists like God-Pharaoh’s Gift or anyone trying to build a Paradox Engine storm deck. With everyone packing sideboard tech for Heart of Kiran’s, it’s very hard to justify building your game strategy up to one centric artifact and hoping it stays on the field. This concept also makes high costed artifacts people used to play, like Skysovereign, and artifacts people want to play, like Gilded Lotus, very bad investments. This isn’t even reserved to sideboard games as Abrade isn’t the only thing you have to worry about as Thrashing Brontodons are also played in playsets in the main in both Mono-Green Stompy as well as Green Black Winding Constrictor. Disenchant effects like Forsake the Worldly and Invoke the Divine are picking up in UW sideboards as well. It is a scary world for artifacts and enchantments.

This Week

  This Week I looked for an answer to this nearly solved meta and I built a list that goes wide with 1/1’s but with Standard’s cheapest anthem effect we can dodge Chainwhirler.

  Running my list through a competitive Standard league, I went 4/1 online against a couple decks featured at the GP.

Explaining my card choices I’ll start with an overview of what I’m trying to achieve with this Blue Red Favorable Winds list. I’ll start on my one drops.

  Hope of Ghirapur is amazing for its one colorless mana cost. This cheap legendary also is a cheap splashaple enabler for legendary sorceries.

  Siren Stormtamer is also another cheap flyer with a very unique ability. Stormtamer’s instant speed ability is not only really good against burn and removal spells but, it also counters Settle the Wreckage which, against this Blue White control list, is huge. In my two drops, I’ll start with my removal.

  Harnessed Lightning, on its own without a supporting energy package, benefits you when destroying a problematic one drop or seems well priced when taking down a lot of two and three drops. When supported by Aether Hubs and other energy etb triggers, Harnessed Lightning turns into a Mono-Red Terminate.

  While I talked a lot about Abrade in my coverage of the Red Black Vehicles list, I'll justify my numbers in my main and sideboard. I think having access to Abrade in the mainboard is a place you want to be when you’re playing red but I don’t think if you have access to hard removal like Unlicensed Disintegration or in my list’s case Harnessed Lightening, you need a full playset of Abrades in the mainboard. However, Abrade is a very good Magic the Gathering card in this meta so you definitely want access to four post board.

  Impressed with Lahonen’s sideboard tech, I decided to mainboard a copy of Aether Meltdown. Boosting my energy synergy with its etb effect. In my league, Meltdown completely negated Heart of Kiran’s in my Red Black matchups and in my Mono Green matchup, It delayed my opponent from getting to Ghalta before I defeated them.

  Favorable Winds is the only reason I can play a token based strategy without conceding to Chainwhirler. This cheap anthem not only allows to survive but also strive, giving all of my evasive threats a boost. Especially when stacked, Favorable winds proves very hard for opponents to deal with, especially in your Red Black and Blue White matchups.

  Some of the best vehicles are flyers and one of the best vehicles is Heart of Kiran. Heart of Kiran complements my artifact theme while simultaneously being one of the best flying threats in this format. Shoutout to my boi Karn, Scion of Urza.

  Another enabler of my flying token strategy and legendary Sorceries, Pia Nalaar is a great way to push damage through Settle the Wreckage while not full on attacking while defended by a Siren Stormtamer.

  Whirler Virtuoso is the main reason to be invested in energy after the bannings in Green. Producing two or three threats for one card is a really good place to be in this controlling meta and having all of them all benefit from Favorable Winds is a big plus.

  Similar to Heart of Kiran, another one of standards best flyers is Aethershpere Harvester. Not only does its thoughness block Heart of Kiran but also it’s nearly the widest flyer in Standard after a copy or two of Favorable Winds. On top of that Harvester plays well with my energy theme consistently allowing me to give it Lifelink.

  On my top end, I have arguably the best flyer in standard, Rekindling Phoenix. Phoenix is the perfect top end flying threat that is only weak to exile effects from Blue White control. In every other match up, Rekindling Pheonix is near unstoppable and I capitalize on that with an additional copy in my sideboard.

  Joining Rekindling Phoenix, my boi Karn, Scion of Urza sits on top of my curve. This colorless superhero helps out on card advantage and when you’ve decided you’re far enough ahead, you can start making constructs which got pretty big with all my thopters and vehicles. Shoutout to Karn in my sideboard, great to side in when I need more card advantage.

  Peaking my curve, Djinn of the Lamp has an even bigger body than Aethershpere Harvester. Accelerated with my easy access to artifact, Djinn is harder to deal with than Harvester and can’t be hit by Abrade.

  Because the format isn’t so wide, a card like Jaya’s Immolating Inferno is great three-for-one or two-for with a Searing Blaze for X. Great on turn 4, 5, and 6, and with so many legendary enablers, there’s no reason not to be running at least one copy if not two after the sideboard.

  Getting to the remains of my sideboard, in control matchups I have negates for Pull from Tomorrow and larger threats like Glorybringer and Chandara that left unanswered allows me to run away with the game.

  Highlighted by Lahonens finals match, I grabbed two Sorcerous Spyglass’ not only to get ahead of Heart of Kiran, Karn, and Teferi but, also to feed into my artifact synergy. If graveyards get bad again, I’m also closely looking at Silent Gravestone.

  After going four and one in a competitive league, I’ve found that this list is fast enough to race other aggro lists like Mono-Green Stompy and the Red-Black vehicles list and resilient enough to take down the Blue White control list.

  That’s my article for this week and , as always, I’m looking forward to comments and criticism. Do you think the format isn’t solved yet? What strategies are you exploring in this new meta? I’d love to hear other thoughts on this freshly-shaped Standard meta.