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Adam Koska
About Adam Koska
Adam is an experienced player from the Czech Republic who has a number of high-profile finishes under his belt:
9th at Worlds 2009
9th at Pro Tour Kyoto 2009
45 Lifetime Pro Points
Top 32 GP Vienna 2008
Top 64 GP Krakow 2007
Three times Czech Nationals Top 8
The Current State of Standard - What's Mainstream and What's Rogue
Hey everyone! Standard is in one of its busiest periods of
the year, with one GP that has just finished in Albuquerque and another one
coming up very soon in Vienna. With so many major tournaments and the abundance of
decklists that we have access to, it’s necessary to do some analyzing work in
order to get a better grasp of what’s going on in the format. Some things
change and some don’t, but when you want to be successful, it’s crucial to keep
up with the most recent trends. Today, I’d like to have a look at some of these
new trends, at what’s important in Standard right now – at some of the most
successful tier 1 decks as well as some of the interesting rogue builds.
Two major events have taken place this past weekend: GP
Albuquerque and the SCG Open in Providence. Looking at the results, two things
stand out for me personally. First, that we already have the well tuned
versions of the „best decks“ in the format and that it’s clear which decks
these are. Monoblack devotion and Monoblue devotion are certainly the two most
important archetypes in Standard (together with Esper, which hasn’t been in the
most favorable position this past weekend, but this is likely going to change –
you know how the „tides“ of Standard work). Not only that, but the highest-finishing
versions of these decks have become quite streamlined and they typically look
very much alike now – it seems that players have found the „optimal“ versions
of the decks and stick with these. Of course what is optimal one week doesn’t
have to be the next, but in terms of numbers of cards not specifically in the
deck for a certain matchup, it seems that the general consensus has mostly been
reached, which is what usually happens after a deck has been played in an
environment for a certain period of time.
The second thing that stood out for me in the results of GP
Albuquerque and the most recent SCG Open is that because the best decks have
stabilized, going off the beaten path can pay off in spades. This doesn’t mean
going rogue for the sake of going rogue, but if you have a good reason for
that, it is a very viable option, since the rogue decks know what to aim for
and with the front-runners of the format so clearly defined, people are likely
to have less „general“ hate for other decks than the most represented ones. In
a young format, people are often going to go for „generally useful“ sideboard
cards like extra removal, discard or lifegain. In a more well-defined metagame,
it’s going to be cards for more specific matchups, like Gainsay or Blood Baron of Vizkopa. Standard is clearly in this evolution stage already, which is
something that rogue decks can benefit from.
Let’s have a look at the some of the „tier 1“ decks and
also at some of the successful attempts at attacking them from a rogue angle. First,
the latest evolution of the two centerpieces of Standard – Monoblack and
Monoblue:
Monoblack by Owen Turtenwald
Deck by Adam Koska on Wed, 11/27/2013 - 03:06
Main Deck
(60 cards)
Sideboard
(15 cards)
4
Pack Rat
3
Dark Betrayal
4
Nightveil Specter
1
Doom Blade
4
Desecration Demon
3
Duress
1
Erebos, God of the Dead
1
Shrivel
4
Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1
Erebos, God of the Dead
4
Thoughtseize
3
Pharika's Cure
2
Devour Flesh
3
Lifebane Zombie
1
Doom Blade
2
Ultimate Price
4
Hero's Downfall
4
Underworld Connections
3
Temple of Deceit
4
Mutavault
19
Swamp
Colors
Black
30
Hybrid
4
Land
26
Converted Mana Cost
1
4
2
9
3
12
4
5
5
4
Type
Basic Land
19
Creature
16
Enchantment
5
Instant
9
Land
7
Sorcery
4
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1st place GP Albuquerque
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Monoblue by Sam Black
Deck by Adam Koska on Wed, 11/27/2013 - 03:12
Main Deck
(60 cards)
Sideboard
(15 cards)
4
Cloudfin Raptor
1
Bident of Thassa
4
Judge's Familiar
1
Cyclonic Rift
4
Frostburn Weird
1
Dissolve
4
Tidebinder Mage
1
Dispel
4
Nightveil Specter
4
Gainsay
4
Thassa, God of the Sea
2
Jace, Architect of Thought
4
Master of Waves
2
Jace, Memory Adept
1
Rapid Hybridization
1
Negate
2
Cyclonic Rift
2
Rapid Hybridization
2
Bident of Thassa
2
Jace, Architect of Thought
20
Island
1
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4
Mutavault
Colors
Blue
23
Hybrid
12
Land
25
Converted Mana Cost
1
9
2
10
3
8
4
8
Type
Basic Land
20
Creature
24
Enchantment
6
Instant
3
Land
5
Planeswalker
2
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5th place at GP Albuquerque
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5
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Versions:
Theros (Foil)
These are the versions of the deck that you’re going to
encounter by far the most when playing Standard. People trust pros playing the
archetype they know inside out (which is certainly the case of both Sam Black
with Monoblue and Owen Turtenwald with Monoblack). Interestingly enough,
there’s also a pretty good version of the black deck which uses green for
Abrupt Decay, Reaper of the Wilds and Golgari Charm (an awesome maindeck card
with three very relevant modes for every matchup). The Bg deck has a worse
manabase but better removal, so if you want to lean a bit more on the „power“
side in exchange for a bit of consistency, I highly recommend taking that
route.
The interesting thing is that while the blue decks and the
black decks jockey for the position of the best archetype in Standard right
now, their matchup is fairly even and there’s not much that can swing it one
way of the other (unless you want to include green in your black deck and go
all in on Skylashers and Mistcutter Hydras). They are also very different in
their nature, which makes it harder for other decks trying to compete in the
current Standard metagame – there aren’t many cards that are good against both
Monoblack and Monoblue (and even less if you also count Esper among the big
three). This makes going rogue a bit more challenging, but there are viable
routes, as we’re going to see in a minute.
What are the most recent updates in the Monoblack and
Monoblue technology? The archetypes seem to be quite well established, so no
sweeping changes have taken place regarding the decklists, but we can still
find some small pieces of technology here and there. One such detail is for
example that the most up-to-date versions of Monoblack only play Temple of Deceit (not Temple of Silence) as their „off-color“ scry lands. The reason for
this is that with Monoblue as the number one enemy for Monoblack right now, it
is preferable to have lands that produce blue, since when you hit the opponent
with a Nightveil Specter, it’s easier to play something that you’ve stolen
right away (without having to wait for stealing their Islands). This is even
easier in the Bg decks, since they typically play some number of Temple of Mystery and Breeding Pools in their manabase to support the splash but not run
any lands that can’t cast Nightveil Specter. Nyktos, Shrine to Nyx can play a
similar role – with a Nightveil Specter out, you can tap Nyktos for blue and
cast a card that you steal even without having a real blue-producing land in
play in your Monoblack deck.
The Monoblue decks have reached the point where the
differences in the decklists are very minor. The creature base typically looks
exactly the same (no Vaporkins or Galerider Slivers anymore) and even the
tricks usually don’t include anything too surprising: the consensus is to play
a 2-2 split between maindeck Bident of Thassa and Jace, Architect of Thought
and then a couple of Cyclonic Rifts and maybe Rapid Hybridizations. This means
that when playing against Monoblue, you can usually afford to play exactly
around these tricks and not around anything else (like countermagic). However,
this creates more incentives for the Monoblue players to run cards that other
people don’t expect (like the pair of Dissolves in Valentin Mackl’s top4 deck
from Albuquerque, for example), since it's way easier to catch people off guard.
If you have a pet card of yours with a high surprise factor in the Monoblue
archetype, now is the time to run it.
These were the two most important tier 1 decks, now lets
have a look at what the weekend has brought in terms of rogue technology. The
SCG Open in Providence has actually been won by one such rogue deck (meaning a
deck that we haven’t seen almost at all since Pro Tour Dublin) – Jund midrange
in the hands of Matt Costa. Here’s the list:
Jund midrange by Matt Costa
Deck by Adam Koska on Wed, 11/27/2013 - 03:18
Main Deck
(60 cards)
Sideboard
(15 cards)
4
Sylvan Caryatid
1
Thoughtseize
3
Scavenging Ooze
2
Duress
2
Polukranos, World Eater
1
Rakdos's Return
3
Reaper of the Wilds
2
Doom Blade
4
Stormbreath Dragon
2
Anger of the Gods
3
Thoughtseize
2
Golgari Charm
4
Abrupt Decay
2
Mistcutter Hydra
4
Hero's Downfall
2
Underworld Connections
2
Anger of the Gods
1
Sire of Insanity
3
Read the Bones
1
Mizzium Mortars
2
Rakdos's Return
4
Stomping Ground
4
Overgrown Tomb
4
Blood Crypt
4
Temple of Abandon
5
Swamp
3
Forest
1
Mountain
Colors
Black
10
Gold
9
Green
9
Land
25
Red
7
Converted Mana Cost
1
3
2
14
3
9
4
5
5
4
Type
Basic Land
9
Creature
16
Instant
8
Land
16
Sorcery
11
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1st place at SCG Open Providence
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Versions:
Return to Ravnica (Foil)
Rogue decks are in a peculiar spot right now in Standard
(and it feels a bit strange to call a Jund deck playing essentially what are
some of the individually most powerful cards in Standard a „rogue deck“).
Strictly in terms of power-level, they can hardly compete with the mono-colored
devotion strategies. There’s not much that can outdo a perfect devotion draw – when
firing on all cylinders, draws involving Thassa, Master of Waves, Gray Merchant
or any Nykthos-fueled rampage are very impressive. That’s why rogue decks need
to go for either speed (an uphill battle when you consider that devotion decks
can typically „go off“ by turn four) or disruption. They can’t possibly compete
in the synergy department, not when Thoughtseize is everywhere anyway. Matt
Costa’s Jund does a great job in combining disruption (Thoughtseize, Rakdos's Return and removal) with some of the format’s individually most powerful cards
(Polukranos, Stormbreath Dragon, Scavenging Ooze, Reaper of the Wilds). With
most decks focused on beating the two or three best decks and with cards like
Gainsay, Dark Betrayal and Mistcutter Hydra everywhere (and Doom Blades on a
long-time low), I think that this is a very viable strategy. Read the Bones
glues the whole concept together and makes sure that you don’t run out of gas
in the mid/late game, which could otherwise easily happen with no spell-lands
in the manabase (a luxury for multicolored decks that we’ve been used to for a
pretty long time – with Zendikar manlands and Innistrad utility lands). Right
now, I really like how the Jund midrange deck stacks against the rest of the
metagame.
Another very interesting piece of innovation was delivered
by Reid Duke at the SCG Open in Providence and although Reid didn’t manage to
put up an impressive run (he posted a 6-4 record), he is one of the players I
trust the most in terms of deck choices and the sole fact that he was playing
this deck is a very strong argument in favor of this creation. One result of a
single player is by far not enough for any conclusions to be made about the
deck’s overall strength, so I’d definitely keep an eye on it and test it if
possible. Here’s the decklist:
Prime Speaker Band by Reid Duke
Deck by Adam Koska on Wed, 11/27/2013 - 03:25
Main Deck
(60 cards)
Sideboard
(15 cards)
4
Elvish Mystic
1
AEtherling
2
Voyaging Satyr
3
Mistcutter Hydra
4
Sylvan Caryatid
3
Nylea's Disciple
4
Polukranos, World Eater
1
Sylvan Primordial
4
Prophet of Kruphix
1
Detention Sphere
2
Prime Speaker Zegana
3
Gainsay
1
AEtherling
2
Bramblecrush
4
Jace, Architect of Thought
1
Curse of the Swine
1
Primeval Bounty
1
Curse of the Swine
2
Plasm Capture
2
Detention Sphere
4
Sphinx's Revelation
4
Temple of Mystery
4
Hallowed Fountain
4
Breeding Pool
4
Temple Garden
2
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
6
Forest
1
Island
Colors
Blue
6
Gold
14
Green
15
Land
25
Converted Mana Cost
1
4
2
7
3
6
4
10
5
4
6
4
Type
Basic Land
7
Creature
21
Enchantment
3
Instant
6
Land
18
Planeswalker
4
Sorcery
1
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The concept here is fairly simple: use a boatload of
acceleration to ramp into huge threats, card draw and insanely big Sphinx's Revelations. Plasm Capture into Revelation has been on the radar of all players
looking for fancy draws since the release of the latter card and this deck can
add third-turn Polukranoses, Jaces and mid-game 6/6 Prime-Speaker Zeganas.
Nykthos is used to its fullest potential here and can fire off massive X-spells
with ease. Prophet of Kruphix is here to double the mana output and make sure
that you have Plasm Capture mana up even when you want to play a huge threat.
When this deck works, it can certainly produce some of the
craziest draws you can have in Standard. The problem here is consistency – as
always with decks that consist of half mana acceleration and half expensive
stuff. Also, this deck doesn’t really have that many good Zegana enablers –
apart from the playset of Polukranoses, your dorks have stats like 1/1, 0/3,
2/3 and 1/2. Jace holds it together nicely, but I’m still wondering if this
deck is consistent enough, especially in a world full of Thoughtseizes.
Nevertheless, I’m certainly going to give it a chance and test it a bit to see
if the reward is worth the risk.
Overall, I like the state of Standard right now. There are
the well-defined decks (and they fully deserve the top slots in the format),
but the diversity is still quite big and going rogue is certainly viable. It
might not be an easy thing to do, but the fact that even the big names aren’t
afraid to come to the tables with crazy new decks (just look up Conley Woods’s
reanimator from GP Albuquerque, for example) is to me a proof of the format’s
health.
If you have some interesting suggestions for decks, make
sure to share them in the comments! As always, thanks for reading and see you
next time!
Adam Koska
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