Brewing Against the Current Metagame

Hey everyone! Josh here to talk about standard and how to take down the new big three in Mardu Vehicles, G/B style decks, and the various Copy Cat decks running rampant in standard. I'll link to the list of these three decks whenever they are referenced so you can easily take a look at the decks that have been performing very well recently on Magic Online.

Let's briefly look at what each of these decks does to win the game so we can get a better understanding of what we are up against.

Mardu Vehicles: This deck is all about curving out and is known to do so in tremendous fashion.

The one drop of choice in this deck is Toolcraft Exemplar, which allows the deck to hit very hard, very fast. It is important to kill their Toolcraft Exemplar very early, as a turn two Scrapheap Scrounger can quickly spell your doom. The Vehicles player has interchangeable cards in the 1-2 slot that are all very powerful. Thraben Inspector is probably the weakest card in the deck and Veteran Motorist is only a real problem when cards like Cultivator's Caravan and Heart of Kiran are on the board. There are a few cards in the 3-4 slot but Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is really the only card that can truly take over a game since it is harder to interact with than the other major advantage provider: Depala, Pilot Exemplar. This makes the plan to build a board of cheap efficient creatures as well as a few overpowered vehicles in the first few turns of the game. From there, try to resolve a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or Depala, Pilot Exemplar and ride the early damage and good mid-game to victory.

Now that we know how it works, let's look at what we need to do to beat it.

Early interaction is key in beating this deck. You have to be able to answer Toolcraft Exemplar, Heart of Kiran, and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Another good card you want to be able to answer is Scrapheap Scrounger but most of the ways to do that will already be discussed with the other cards we mentioned. Starting with the early game, there are a number of ways to take down the vehicles fast starts. The best ways are going to be Shock, Fatal Push, or Galvanic Bombardment, as they all are obviously efficient and great ways to deal with the early game, but don't be afraid to cast Grasp of Darkness on these cards if you feel your opponent is getting too far ahead. Heart of Kiran and Cultivator's Caravan are both very powerful artifacts that will win the game if left unchecked. The time has come for main board removal for these problematic artifacts. Natural Obsolescence is a great choice as it is a pretty clean answer to Scrapheap Scrounger, while still taking care of the problem vehicle cards. Appetite for the Unnatural is also a solid choice as it can gain back a few life points in the process, the mana cost on Appetite is a bit prohibitive so I would recommend Obsolescence for efficiency. Grasp of Darkness is also good against Heart of Kiran which is certainly a card you want to remove. Fatal Push is great against Heart of Kiran and can even hit Cultivator's Caravan if you can trigger Revolt! As for Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, the answers are a bit harder to come by. Ruinous Path is an answer and a card that should be seeing more play as it also helps out against Nahiri, the Harbinger and Saheeli Rai in the Copy Cat deck. Outside of that, To the Slaughter and efficient creatures are a good way to keep Gideon in check. Gideon's ability to make 2/2's makes playing large creatures on the ground very inefficient so we have to be sure to have answers to planeswalkers in order to have a shot at taking down the Mardu Vehicle's deck.

Vehicles is a very strong deck that is here to stay as long as Heart of Kiran is legal (so all of standard... PROVE ME WRONG WOTC!!). So playing a deck that has a good match-up against this deck is going to be a key to success.  I recommend decks with large amounts of removal as you can eventually gas this deck out if you simply trade enough.

On to the G/B decks, which are very close to my heart as they pack a lot of raw power and efficiency without needing cute tricks to win games. We'll focus on the Winding Constrictor decks as I believe this is the more powerful version of the mainstream iterations of G/B.

The goal of the deck is simple, play Winding Constrictor: play cards that put +1/+1 counters on creatures: win games. The linchpin of this deck if you didn't guess it is Winding Constrictor. We have to be able to answer this card to have a fair chance at winning. Being a 2/3 makes things difficult as Shock is no longer an answer to the problem. Black is going to have the best options to take care of this problem as you have access to Fatal Push and Grasp of Darkness which are on curve, keeping things efficient and clean. Red will have Harnessed Lightning in energy heavy decks but other than that the options are limited to cards like Unlicensed Disintegration or in extreme circumstances Chandra, Torch of Defiance. If your opponent follows up with Rishkar, Peema Renegade then you are in a really tight spot and are still turns away from being able to wrath, so having efficient creatures of your own that you can trade along with good removal is key to beating the onslaught that can come from this deck.

Late game almost requires counter magic to survive. If you are unable to take down Winding Constrictor and your opponent plays Verdurous Gearhulk: you're gonna have a bad time. You have to have the early game contained by the time they play this card or you have to be able to prevent this card from entering the battlefield by countering it or by stripping it from your opponents hand. There are a number of ways to attack this deck but you have to match their curve and not sit around trying to be reactive to everything as the top decks are all pretty good from G/B.

Let's take a quick look at Copy Cat before moving into a deck I think has a pretty good game against all of these lists.

Copy Cat is a control deck with a combo finish. It is limited on win conditions but the deck is efficient in protecting itself, which mitigates this problem nicely. the goal is to win via Saheeli Rai and Felidar Guardian by blinking Saheeli and creating infinite 1/4 Cat Beasts which feels like a throwback to Splinter Twin. Most of the time this deck isn't going off on turn four as there are cards like Heart of Kiran to keep things in check by killing the Saheeli Rai in the early turns. The deck looks to grind out games and then win when the "getting is good" and they can protect the combo via counter-spells or grinding their opponent down to no cards in hand. The deck can also win by Torrential Gearhulk but I would assume too many Copy Cat players are prideful enough to just go for the combo to win. This is an efficient deck that requires tight play to beat.

The cards that can enable victory are actually plentiful. Grasp of Darkness can take care of Guardian with the flicker trigger on the stack so while the Saheeli Rai re-enters the battlefield, it has no real target to go off. There are a few good answers to this: Fatal Push when you can turn on Revolt, Harnessed Lightning when you have an extra energy floating around, and Unlicensed Disintegration all do the trick rather nicely. You can also just take care of the planeswalker via Ruinous Path, To the Slaughter, or just attacking it. The attacking option is a bit harder to achieve as your opponent will generally assure they can answer a creature instead of leaving Saheeli Rai vulnerable. Keeping up in cards is also advantageous, particularly in this match-up. Cracking clues, casting Glimmer of Genius of your own and other means of gaining an advantage will go a long ways in this match-up which is always going to feel like a grind.

Now that we have seen what the plans of the big three decks are let's try to explore a deck that could have some game against this field.

Some of you reading this in the Boise area may have seen a deck I posted recently on Facebook that was a throwback to a recent pro tour breakout deck that faded into the background: Seasons Past. The deck was slow and sought to grind opponents into oblivion. The deck was strong but fell out of the limelight rather quickly and I think it is about time to bring it back. For those who missed the initial post here is the decklist for reference.

3x Tireless Tracker
4x Mindwrack Demon
2x The Gitrog Monster
2x Noxious Gearhulk
3x Liliana, the Last Hope
4x Fatal Push
4x Grasp of Darkness
2x Natural Obsolescence
3x Ruinous Path
2x Seasons Past
3x Traverse the Ulvenwald
2x Yahenni's Expertise
4x Blooming Marsh
3x Evolving Wilds
7x Forest
4x Hissing Quagmire
8x Swamp

Sideboard

2x Clip Wings
2x Ishkanah, Grafwidow
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3x Natural State
1x Nissa, Vital Force
2x Ob Nixilis Reignited
3x Transgress the Mind

My first impression when testing this deck was that Seasons Past was a bit of a win more card that I would only be casting when ahead and it really wouldn't have that big of an impact. I was very wrong in this assumption as casting Seasons Past with the removal suite we are playing in this deck is enough to give you the legs necessary to win a grindy game against something like the Copy Cat decks.

I've read in several places that Mardu Vehicles has the best creatures in the format. That may be true as far as aggressive creatures, but how good is The Gitrog Monster in a world of Grasp of Darkness and burn based removal?? Very good. Removing our creatures is very difficult and basically requires unconditional removal and your opponent will not have enough of that to go around to 4 Mindwrack Demon, 2 The Gitrog Monster, and 2 Noxious Gearhulk. Even if they have enough to survive the initial onslaught, buying back a copy of each of these cards via Seasons Past is very potent, due to the way they curve into one another, and is usually enough to seal the deal on your opponent.

This deck has a pretty sneaky way to turn a path to victory in the form of Yahenni's Expertise and Liliana, the Last Hope. If you are playing against a slow to go off G/B deck or are against a wall of aggressive creatures on turn four due to the Vehicle decks fast starts this combo can swing the favor of a game really fast. Casting a wrath spell and a planeswalker for four mana should be enough to swing any game in your favor especially when that walker can pick off a straggler that may have just beaten Yahenni's Expertise.

As for beating the big three, this deck looks to answer all of Mardu Vehicle's early drops with efficient removal backed by bigger creatures than your opponent has. Ruinous Path is here for Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and is critical to your success unless you can justify firing off a removal spell on the token to get in on the walker. Mindwrack Demon is also great against a problem Gideon, Ally of Zendikar as it can get by their Heart of Kiran. The key in this match-up is matching their curve and applying pressure in the mid-game to prevent your opponent from stabilizing due to their great top deck capabilities.

Looking specifically at G/B, a match-up that is a bit more even than the other two decks, we find a variety of options at our disposal geared at churning out a W. Grasp of Darkness and Fatal Push are at a premium here as they answer all of your opponents creatures as long as they haven't gotten to start going off with Winding Constrictor. Be sure to save your removal for Winding Constrictor in the early game as this is truly the only card that is backbreaking in the first 4-5 turns. Your creatures will be better than your opponents if you can just remove the Constrictor. As long as you are able to complete this, you are pretty favored to win this match. The deck is only packing one Murder in most lists for unconditional removal so jamming The Gitrog Monster is usually enough to set your opponents seat ablaze.

On to the last deck of the current big three, Copy Cat. This isn't as cut and dry as you may think. You can't just bank on casting Grasp of Darkness on Felidar Guardian and riding that to victory (though casting two Grasp of Darkness on it when they go to combo is usually pretty good as your opponent will often go for it with a single counter spell in hand). You have to stay proactive and realize that you are on a limited window. By this I mean you have to be taking risks with turn three Tireless Tracker and turn four Mindwrack Demons, even when you don't have delirium prior to the mill four cards trigger. I say this as, again, your creatures are usually good enough to ride to victory. Opponents have to blow counters on most of these creatures as their removal has a hard time staying efficient against them. Keep in mind these decks do play Fumigate so don't run out everything unless you have the Seasons Past in hand. Even if you do have the namesake card, it doesn't hurt to be weary of the wrath spell. Post sideboard this match-up becomes very favorable for us since we can rip apart their hand with Transgress the Mind and we get to bring in a pretty stellar planeswalker package that your opponent will have a hard time keeping pace with in the form of Nissa, Vital Force and Ob Nixilis, Reignited.

Overall, I am very happy with this deck. It is a competitive way to stay on the beaten path, which I am a fan of when a lot of the current decks are linear and quickly becoming stale. I encourage you to give this list a try if you have the cards around, if not check out the links and grab up the cards you need at wizardden.com because this deck is gas. If you have any improvements you would make to this deck or have an idea for some content you would like to see, feel free to send me an email at josh.limited.magic@gmail.com or just drop me a line on Facebook. As always:

Happy Battles,
Josh