Christian with www.wizardden.com and Team Rogue T3ch here to talk to you about our favorite format; Standard. Like after every rotation, this format is significantly different that the one before and seems to have alot of room for brewing and deck idea's. Over the past couple months we have seen a lot of awesome archtypes make top 8 finishes. The format is very diverse as there is no defined "Best deck". Abzan and Jeskai have been battling for that title since the first standard tournament after rotation but neither has cemented itself with that title.
As I said, the format is very diverse but still seems to be very Rock/Paper/Scissors(Lizard,spock). Abzan being rock, Jeskai Scissors and the other archtypes falling under Paper. From my deck building and playing I can say Abzan and Jeskai are the most popular taking up 50-60% of the field more often than not. The other archtypes being: G/x Devotion, G/B/x constellation, Mardu midrange/walkers,Temur Monsters/aggro U/B Control, U/W or Esper control, and Boss Sligh/aggro. The "Paper" decks are all very good and as I said have had some impressive finishes as of late but when playing and building these decks I have seen one common issue. It either beats Abzan and loses to Jeskai or beats Jeskai but loses to Abzan. It either goes bigger than the midrange decks and out aggroed by the tempo decks or Vise Versa. It's proving hard to find the middle ground to be favored against both.
The Mardu Midrange:
deck I talked about a few weeks back has been found to have a good game against both but is never favored. It always came down to the draws and it's games were very grindy and always came to a very close finish for either player. It is a very viable deck and just having a 50/50 shot against all decks goes to show its versatility but the deck has yet to show consistent results due to how swingy the matches are.
Blue/Black control.
I have been piloting the deck since I wrote about it a few weeks ago. I can say it is very good. Not quite as dominating as control has been in the past but has given me X/1 or better results since playing it. That being said, the deck is very good against Abzan and other midrange. It even has a favorable match against boss sligh/aggro decks. It's issue is it folds to Jeskai. They back so much burn that you can't counter it all. You get stuck in a spot where you can either cast a draw spell and risk dying with it on the stack or do nothing and risk letting them build up more burn in their hand. I'm pretty sure the matchup was 80/20 in jeskai's favor. With the amount of people on the archtype at any given event, it may not be a wise choice to sleeve up this deck. I personally have gotten off the archtype and don't see myself going back.
G/B/X Constellation.
The last article I wrote was about this deck so I don't want to go too deep into it. This is a deck with a solid game against both Jeskai and Abzan due to it's synergies and card advantage. Neither Abzan or Jeskai pack mass removal to disrupt the constellation engine ones the pieces are assembled and it gets going. Because of this, it has a positive match against both. It's issue is the enchantment hate the almost every deck has access to. If the archtype becomes more popular, the hate may outweigh the value of playing the deck. Just something to keep in mind.
G/X Devotion.
Very linear strategy. Play a lot of mana producers and ramp into big threats.I have to say that this is the deck I always fear being paired against just because of how scary the top of their deck can be if it comes down to it. With all the mana producers, it can leave with some pretty bad draws if you get all mana dorks and no threats which is probably why it has not seen any big finishes as of late. The addition of red and black has given it a lot of resilience and is a very solid deck choice. Not much else to say about it.
Boss Sligh/Aggro.
Aggro has fallen out of favor in this standard. The guards were down for a few tournaments allowing some great finishes for red mages but from what I've seen, enough decks have a good game plan against aggro that it has not been able to get a solid foothold in the meta. Although I hope that changes, as for now, I don't think it is viable.
Well, I can't say what the best deck it. Doesn't look like anyone can. Abzan and Jeskai are both very good. Which is better? The world may never know...
Thanks for reading,
Until next time.
Christian
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