Standard at #mtgchamp

Yesterday I wrote about the modern metagame at the 2014 MTG World Championship. I was going to do something similar today for standard, but since Wizards beat me to it instead, I wanted to facilitate a more general discussion about the standard decks chosen by the 24 players competing for the title of world champion.

Sidisi Whip:

Sidisi Whip being tied with Abzan for the most played deck of the tournament is one of the biggest surprises of Worlds. While the deck has been picking up steam lately, both on MTGO and in the SCG/GP circuit, the general feeling about what decks the pros would play at Worlds is summed by by Stanislav Cifka: “I don’t think there’s going to be many Sidisi Whip or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx decks, those grindy kind of decks. Those are super fun to play but I think the other decks are slightly better.”

All the builds of Sidisi Whip are within a handful of cards of being the same, and the consistency between decks is helpful in understanding what the pros believe to be the correct way to build the deck. The first characteristics of all six whip decks is the lack of Dig Through Time, which has been a common addition in recent weeks. In place of Digs are three or four Thoughtseize. This may be a World’s metagame call, or it may simple be that Thoughtseize is that important to the deck.

Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver is also a new piece for the deck, and may be a small concession to the mirror match. If your opponent is actively milling themselves to turn on Whip, Ashiok is one of the most powerful things you can play at any point in the game by mimicking Nephalia Drownyard as low opportunity cost win condition.

Finally, if Sidisi Whip becomes a heavily played deck, some number of main deck Sultai Charms may be in order. Not only does the charm kill every non-Sidisi creature in the deck at instant speed, but it also takes out Whip of Erebos, and can fill the graveyard for Murderous Cut or your own Whips in a pinch.

Abzan Midrange:

Not much innovation here, and it is starting to seem like most of the slots in Abzan Midrange are accounted for. Several players did throw in a couple copies of Brimaz, perhaps predicting a Jeskai heavy meta in the all-pro field, but otherwise it comes down to the standard Abzan debate. Do you go planeswalker heavy, like Ari did at the Pro Tour, or do you go more creature heavy, playing Brimaz and more Wingmark Rocs?

When it comes to Abzan, I tend to defer to Chapin, because he has been playing this deck fairly consistently since the block PT last spring. Here is his 75:

Planeswalker (5)

2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor

1 Ajani, Mentor of Heroes

2 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion

Creature (15)

4 Sylvan Caryatid

4 Courser of Kruphix

2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos

4 Siege Rhino

1 Wingmate Roc

Sorcery (5)

4 Thoughtseize

1 Read the Bones

Instant (10)

4 Hero’s Downfall

4 Abzan Charm

1 Utter End

1 Murderous Cut

Land (25)

4 Sandsteppe Citadel

4 Temple of Malady

3 Temple of Silence

1 Temple of Plenty

4 Windswept Heath

2 Caves of Koilos

2 Llanowar Wastes

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

2 Forest

2 Plains

Sideboard (15)

1 Utter End

1 Murderous Cut

2 Read the Bones

3 Bile Blight

1 Liliana Vess

2 End Hostilities

1 Glare of Heresy

1 Nissa Worldwaker

1 Duneblast

 

One of the reasons to play Abzan Midrange is the decks ability to firmly define itself as either the aggro or control deck in a given matchup post board. If your playing something like UB Control, you get to bring in two extra planeswalkers and two more Read the Bones and have a reasonable chance of having more threats than your opponent has answers. If your playing Mono-Red or Mardu Tokens, you can take out some clunky ‘walkers and being in a couple End Hostilities and overload on spot removal with the three Bile Blights and an extra Murderous Cut.

 

Basically, Abazan is the pre-KTK Jund of standard. You might now be 70-30 against anyone, but your probably 50-50 against most of the field.

 

GB Constellation:

 

Coming in third the Peach Garden Oath’s GB Constellation, which is pretty much Sidisi Whip, minus Sidisi, Brood Tyrant plus Eidolon of Blossoms. The deck walks the line between the old GB Devotion lists (while it has many of the same cards, it only plays two Nykthos, and no Voyaging Satyrs) and the Sidisi Whip decks (obviously without Sidisi, and less removal, playing only one Hero’s Downfall compared to the full set in the BUG deck).

Probably the two things that stick out most is the lack of Polukranos (who managed to be completely absent from the field) and a full set of Arbor Colossus in the board. I’m not really sure why Reid, Huey, and Owen wanted 12 copies of Colossus between them, but I’m sure they have good reason.

 

Personally, I can’t figure out if its brilliant or foolish to not be full-on devotion based and not be a full-on Whip deck, but like I said before, these guys are far better at magic than I am, so I’m sure they have a good reason.

 

UB Control:

Nothing really to see here (other than the fact that Flock decided that wraths are good in control and played Perilous Vault). Although not exactly new, the presence of six lands that gain life when they ETB is worth mentioning, but its pretty much the same old song and dance. Counter some things, kill some things, Dig for some things, and then hope that Pearl Lake Ancient can clean everything up.

What is interesting is that true control decks are relatively under-represented in the field, with many player who tend towards control decks siding with Sidisi Whip instead.

 

Mono-Red

Team France decided to troll the field and play mono-red, and were very proud of their decision to play Valley Dasher, commonly a last pick in Khans of Tarkir limited due to, well I’ll let Wraper take it from here:

Every time I have to suicide Valley Dasher I’m cursing @G3RRYT in my head #mtgchamp

— Josh Utter-Leyton (@wrapter) December 3, 2014

Probably the most interesting thing about the French red deck is the seven planeswalker sideboard, which allows it to become a more resilient big red strategy in games 2 and 3:

2 Searing Blood

4 Chandra, Pyromaster

3 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

2 Temple of Malice

2 Arc Lightning

1 Hammerhand

Others:

The “others” category includes five one-of decks of various degrees of interest (six if you include Yuuki’s Abzan Whip deck ), which WOTC lumps in with Abzan Midrange).

Three are Hordeling Outburst decks, which are, more or less, adaptations of the Mardu deck was popular couple weeks ago. While the colors and composition of these three decks vary, the foundation of all three is turn two Seeker of the Way into turn three Hordeling Outburst, backed up by burn for reach.

Sam Black’s RW tokens, playing Eidolon of Countless Battles and Heloid’s Pilgrim (which can only find Chained to the Rocks) is likely the most interesting, but Watanabe’s Jeskai tokens running a full set of Jeskai Ascendency and Treasure Cruises, along with only eight creatures (x4 Goblin Rabblemaster along with the Seekers) was most successful, going 3-0-1 during the standard rounds.

Finally, Lee Shi Tain brough Ascendency Combo to the event, much the same as he played at the last PT and Lars Dam brought a planewalker free UWR control build, which looks to win with Prognostic Sphinx or Pearl Lake Ancient.

Records

Here are the records, by archetype, for the standard rounds of World’s 2014. Remember, in some cases, a deck can pick up both a win and a loss in the mirror match.

BG Constellation (3 players): 8 wins, 4 losses, 66.67 win percentage.

Abzan Midrange (6 players): 14 wins, 10 losses, 58.33 win percentage.

Seeker/Outburst (one Mardu, one RW, one Jeskai): 7 wins, 5 losses, 58.33 win percentage.

UWR Control( 1 player): 2 wins, 2 losses, 50 win percentage.

Mono-Red (2 players): 3 wins, 5 losses, 47.5 win percentage.

Sidisi Whip (6 players): 8 wins, 15 losses, 1 draw 33.33 win percentage.

UB Control (2 players): 3 wins, 5 losses, 37.5 win percentage.

Ascendency Combo (1 player): 1 win, 3 losses, 25 win percentage.

Conclusion

That’s all for today, what do you make of the data? Let me know in the comments, on Reddit, or @SaffronOlive on twitter.

Modern Meta at #mtgchamp

World’s Week is always one of the most fun times on the magic calendar. While the World Cup is always entertaining, if you like star power and high-level magic, the World Championship is the event for you.

Yesterday started with three rounds of Vintage Masters draft (likely the first sanctioned phantom draft in paper magic) highlighted by Wraper opening a Mox Jet and Jeremy Dezani’s first match taking nearly three hours to finish 0-2-1 (which was actually great for me, because despite my best intentions, I didn’t wake up until 5 AM, nearly two hours after the start of the event).

I spent the lunch break calculating the EV of drafting VMA in paper. By using the cheapest version of each card (so white bordered power, Revised duals, etc) and discounting commons and uncommons all together, I came up with a touch over $166 (and its probably a bit higher if you count things like Reanimate at uncommon and Brainstorm at common). Either way, if anyone offers you the chance to pay $150 for a non-phantom paper VMA draft, you should probably take it.

Modern Meta

While opening Mox Jet’s is awesome, and the EV of paper VMA is interesting, what I really wanted to talk about was the Modern metagame brought to Worlds by 24 of the best players on earth. If you check out the deck lists , here is the breakdown you’ll find.

Most Played Cards (Lands)
*The highest number of any single card that could be played in a 24 player field is 96.

Land Discussion

I should mention right off the bat that using a 24 player tournament made up of ultra-spikes may not be the best way to generalize to the broader meta. On one hand, people do tend to follow the pros lead, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of their innovations showing up on-line or in your FLGS over the winter, but at the same time, a deck like Pyromancer Ascension takes a lot of skill to play well, so it’s definitely not for every F&M grinder. This said, it’s still worth discussing what the pros are up to in modern.

First off, there are a ton of Scalding Tarns and Steam Vents being played at the World Championship. While this isn’t really a surprise, finding that a 66.67 percent of the World Championship field is playing the full four copies of Scalding Tarn (across several different decks, no less) is worth note. Prices on Tarn have been steadily decreasing for a year now and there is some amount of speculation/fear about a reprinting in the near future. I don’t think ZEN fetches will show up in KTK-block (mostly because of the “the enemy/ally breakdown of lands in standard is already equal” argument), and while having ONS fetches in modern relieves some of the pressure on mana-bases as a whole by allowing for less expensive substitutes, the World Championship field shows that the correct (i.e. no budget concerns) modern manabase is going to be Scalding Tarn heavy. Whether or not this means a recovery for Tarn is yet to be seen, although having a modern PT in a couple months, and on-camera SCG events starting soon can’t hurt.

Second, where the heck is Polluted Delta? Blue decks, and blue fetches are dominating the tournament, but Delta is nowhere to be found.

Third, if you had told my Sunday that there would be 12 Faerie Conclaves in the field, I would have laughed you out of the room.

Fourth, it is worth mentioning that there are two difference Jeskai Ascendency builds, the CFB Fatesticher based combo, and a 5-color version from Lars Dam. While I would guess that most people will move towards the CFB build because of the groups popularity, Dam’s build is running x4 Gemstone Mine, which hasn’t really made much noise in modern. If, for some reason, Ascendency Combo heads Dam’s direction, maybe there could be some potential here?

Dig Through Time or Treasure Cruise?

So, as the above pie chart shows, there are more Cruises than Digs in the World Championship field. At this point it clear that Dig is better in control, and Treasure Cruise is better in tempo/aggro (basically, decks where most of your cards do the same thing). The most interesting Dig/Cruise revelation from the World Championship comes from what decks are not playing Cruise, specifically the CFB Ascendency deck, which decided on a 1-4 split in favor of Dig. This is a major evolution in the Ascendency deck, as the earlier build of Ascendency Combo tended to favor Dig.

Counterspells

Non-situational counters are at an surprising low, especially considering the number of Scalding Tarns in the field. However, the versatile Izzet Charm is out in force. Both the F&M promo and RTR foils are sitting at between $2.50 and $3.00, with a foil multiplier of about x4, and could represent a good buy.

Final Notes:

I was going to break down creatures, but given that a high percentage of the deck in the field are creature free (Pyromancer Ascension), creature-light (Ascendency Combo, Scapeshift), or Delver, there really isn’t much to see here.

The fact that nearly half the Delver decks are splashing green for Tarmogoyf is interesting, and represents another new development. The return of Pyromancer Ascension is a good story, and the deck could see an uptick in popularity as a budget option for local modern events. Ascension was as high as $10 over the summer, and you can pick up copies for as little as $5 currently and could be a card to keep an eye on. Its probably worth skimming over the some upcoming modern results to see if the deck is on the upswing, or if it is simply the product of the pro meta.

CFB returned to the Gifts/Rites transformational SB plan, which was somewhat popular online a year or so ago. While it probably won’t impact prices of anything much, as a player it’s something to be aware of because it does seem like a good way to pick up some free wins with Iona, given the severe lack of any graveyard interaction in the World Championship meta.

Finally, don’t think about specing Fatestitcher. Sure, the deck is cool, but it’s an uncommon, and even foils are uninteresting due to those horrible all foils Alara block packs.

Anyway, what do you make of this data? What did I miss. Let me know in the comments, or @SaffronOlive on twitter.
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MTGO: Legacy Cube Primer

Poor Adam Prosak. He became one of my favorite players when he next leveled Sam Friedmand with storm at an SCG invitational about a year ago, but after only one run, his freshly redesigned cube has got an overhaul so complete that it’s almost unrecognizable. The new “Legacy Cube” hits MTGO for the first time today, after an extended downtime , although a few select streamers had an opportunity to draft it last week .

You probably know me as a financier, but I love me some magic online, and I really, really love cube drafting. I will always remember the first time I played cube as a seminal moment in my magic life – I already knew magic was fun, but I never knew it could be cube fun. While I was not one of the select few to get to play this cube early, I did get to check out a chunk of the coverage on various streams, so while I am working more in theory than in practice in discussing the new cube, I did get to see some of the new cards and decks in actions.

White

In past MTGO cubes, white was almost always one of two things: a primary aggressive color (sometimes alongside black or red) or a secondary control color (often in U/W/x decks). In Legacy Cube, it looks like white is more aggressive and swarm-oriented than ever before, and many of the cards that pushed white decks towards control have been removed.

Probably the biggest difference is the lack of sweepers. While the Legacy Cube, as a whole, is 17 percent smaller than the previous MTGO cubes, the number of white wrath effects were cut at a might higher rate of 43 percent. Apart from the categories namesake Wrath of God, Day of Judgment, Martial Coup, and Terminus are the only wraths in Legacy Cube, with Akroma’s Vengeance, Catastrophic, and Balance being left on the sidelines.

The biggest addition to white is a token theme, which looks to be Boros-focused. In Legacy Cube, white actually has more crusade effects that wrath effects, and new additions like Gather the Townsfolk, Raise the Alarm, and Doomed Traveler push white towards decks that want to go Turn 1 Champion of the Parish/Doomed Traveler, Turn 2 Raise/Gather, Turn 3 Crusade. While we will talk more about artifact in a bit, its worth noting that cards that punish token strategies, like Powder Keg or Ratchet Bomb, are missing from the cube this go-around.

Decks: White aggro, Boros tokens.

Biggest Additions: Kor Skyfisher, Frontline Medic, token producers.

Most Noticeable Subtractions: Control cards, Stoneforge Mystic.

Blue

As much as white is different in Legacy Cube, blue is the same offering a heavy dose of counters, card advantage, mind controls, and bounce. Along with powerful build-around-me cards like Opposition and Upheaval, much like past cube, the common blue decks in Legacy Cube appear to be U/x control (although weakened by the lack of sweepers in support colors), U/x tempo, and B/u/x (most often green) reamimator.

There are two changes in blue for the Legacy Cube, but I don’t think either will have much of an effect on the format. First, they removed some blue aggro cards like Delver of Secrets and Phantasmal Bear, which is good, because a huge percentage of the time these cards were both crappy and trappy. The problem is, they replaced the blue aggro cards with what I assume is another trap: the Kiki-Jiki/Splinter Twin and Pestermite/Deceiver Exarch combo.

While it may be possible to just fall into the combo, any given cube draft only contains 60 percent of the 600 cards in the cube, so it is entirely possible to first pick a Pestermite, second pick a Deceiver Exarch, and come to find out that neither of the red enablers were even in your draft. So be careful making this combo your primary strategy, it seems like more of a plan b for when everything falls into place perfectly.

Decks: U/x control, U/x (or X/u) tempo), B/u/x reaminator, maybe Exarch Twin (but probably not).

Biggest Additions: Pestermite, Deceiver Exarch.

Most Noticeable Subtractions: Nothing really. Storm has been gone since the Prosak update, and the cards that have been cut were consistently late picks.

Black

I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what black is in the Legacy Cube. It still has some hold-over aggro cards like Bob, Diregraf Ghoul, and Pain Seer and it still has some strong support for U/x control decks (actually, black has as many sweepers as white in Legacy cube, and far more spot removal, so it is likely that most control decks should be U/B/x instead of the old U/W/x). Its graveyard theme has been strengthened with dredge cards including Darkblast and Stinkweed Imp to go along with all the typical reanimation spells from past MTGO cubes. On top of all this, a mono-black theme with cards like Gray Merchant being added to former late picks Phyrexian Obliterater, Corrupt, and Geralf’s Messenger. I’m not sure that Gray Merchant is enough to make mono-black a good deck, but there are more reasons to give it a shot now that in the past.

In past cubes, the nut reaminator deck was likely the best deck in the format, and it seems to be even better now with dredgers to fill up the graveyard, so this is where I will be looking first if I’m trying to win some VMA packs, although the loss of every playable tutor effect makes the reanimator strategy much less consistent.

Decks: B/u/x (likely green) reaminator, black aggro, mono-black devotion/”swamps matter,” U/B control.

Biggest Additions: Gray Merchant, Underworld Connections, Dredgers, Whip of Erebos.

Most Noticeable Subtractions: Braids, Cabal Minion (which will probably improve my win rate because I’m a sucker for the Braids/Smokestack deck), Tutors (both Demonic and Vampiric).

Red

Don’t worry, red is still pure beat-your-face-in aggro. The biggest changes in red have already been covered in talking about the other colors, most importantly the addition of the Splinter Twin/Kiki-Jiki combo and the Boros token theme. Where white got Raise the Alarm and Gather the Townsfolk, red got Hordling Outburst, Krenko’s Command, Dragon’s Fodder, Stoke the Flames and the potential center piece of the deck: Goblin Bombardment.

On paper, Boros tokens looks strong, perhaps even better than mono-red aggro, so when your drafting the cube, be sure to keep this deck in mind, and if you open a Goblin Bombardment, don’t be afraid to dive in, because there is plenty of support for the archetype.

Decks: Mono-Red Aggro, Boros Tokens, X/r tempo, U/B/r control.

Biggest Additions: The token theme, highlighted by Goblin Bombardment, Splinter Twin.

Most Noticeable Losses: Ball Lightning effects, Keldon Champion (maybe the best mono-red 4-drop), land destruction (Ravenous Baboons, Magus of the Moon, Goblin Runeblaster), Wildfire effects, and all the bad Chandras (thankfully).

Green

If you want to get your ramp on in the Legacy Cube, green is about your only option, because there are no signets and very few mana rocks of any kind. Like always, green is elves and fatties. Green also has more planeswalkers than any other color in the Legacy Cube, with every Garruk every printed, Nissa, and Freyalise making it six in total.

In past MTGO cubes, green aggro was a deck. In the legacy cube, cards like Experiment One, Flinthoof Boar, and Strangleroot Geist are left on the sidelines, so green is firmly a mid-range and ramp color. Green has also gained some pieces which make it an appealing support color for reanimator strategies including Tracker’s Insight, Commune with the Gods, Wild Mongrel, and Satyr Wayfinder, so in Legacy Cube, BUG graveyard decks might be the way to go over something like Esper reainmator.

Decks: Green Ramp, G/x(/x) midrange, B/U/g reaminator/”graveyard matters.”

Biggest Additions: Graveyard support (especially Wild Mongrel, one of the best limited 2-drops ever printed), removal (Songs of the Dryad, Setessan Tactics).

Most Noticeable Subtractions: Aggro cards, Heartbeat of Spring, Survival of the Fittest.

Gold and Artifacts:

Since there are not enough multi-color or artifact cards to create their own archetypes, this group is more about individual additions or subtractions, and what they do (or don’t do) for the decks we have already discussed. Prime Speaker Zegana is an interesting addition to U/G ramp decks, and potentially even U/B/G graveyard decks, which also gain from the addition of the former best creature ever printed, Psychatog. Boros Reckoner slots into WR tokens and Brango, King Eternal is a cool card, but I have no idea where (or if) it fits in the format.

Most of the cuts from of the gold cards go along with what we have already talked about. Things like Putrid Leech and Ghor-Clan Rampager leave G/x aggro. The loss of every charm (minus Boros) is also notable, but I’m not completely sure why.

As for artifacts, there is a huge reduction in equipment, most importantly the loss of all swords and a 7 percent reduction (as a percentage of the cube) in mana producing artifacts. Things that hate on the newly pushed token deck (Ratchet Bomb/Powder Keg) and BUG graveyard deck (Relic of Progenitus) also get the axe, along with some of my personal favorites including Smokestack, Crucible of Worlds, Memory Jar, and all colorless sweepers including Oblivion Stone and All is Dust.

Overall, there the number of colorless cards (as a percentage of the cube as a whole) has been greatly reduced by 15 percent while the number of gold cards has increase by 7 percent.

Lands:

The Legacy Cube has 6 cycles of dual lands: Shocks, ABU Duals, Fetches, Buddy (core set/Innistrad) lands, Scry-lands (the only new cycle of lands), and Painlands. This is a massive change, with Filters, Tri-Lands, Mirage Fetches, WWK (and Urza’s) Man-Lands, dropping out. So the amount of mana fixing is limited compared to past MTGO cubes, which makes multi-color decks slight worse. If you look a bit deeper, the changes seem to hurt control decks more than aggro, as the man-lands made great finishers in creature light decks, and control deck are usually more apt to play a greater number of comes-into-play tapped lands like the Mirage fetches and Tri-lands.

There number of utility lands has also been reduced. Probably the most impactful change is the loss of Karakas, which was a very powerful option in past cubes (to the point where it was sometimes playable in non-white decks), and Strip Mine, which is one of a handful of lands that can win a game on its own.

All in all, there are nearly 15 percent less lands (again, as a percentage of the cube) than in the last update, which suggests that it may be correct to take premiere duals even higher than in the past.

…

That’s all for today. As always, you can follow me @SaffronOlive on twitter, you can find my financial article on http://www.mtggoldfish.com, or send me a message on MTGO.