Today we are going to talk about 4 decks that took the first 4 positions in the latest Standard MTGO Challenge. Surprisingly three of them are control decks, with the number going up to 6 if we consider the top 8.
Let’s take a look at them starting from the winning: UW Artifacts Control
In the past months we have seen many versions of UW Artifacts Control but none had seen any competitive play. The deck doesn't have any new cards from Bloomburrow in the main deck and only Beza, the Bounding Spring in sideboard. This is not surprising considering there was already a good pool of cards in standard in Azorius colours to support the archetype. Every spell in the deck, apart from Urza, Lord Protector // Urza, Planeswalker and Get Lost, is an artifact spell. This is easy to explain since Simulrum Synthesizer needs a huge amount of artifact spells in order to work efficiently. The deck has many ways to interact with opponents' creatures thanks to Glass Casket, Spring-Loaded Sawblades // Bladewheel Chariot, Braided Net // Braided Quipu, The Mightstone, Weakstone // Urza, Planeswalker, Unstable Glyphbridge and Get Lost. On the other side the deck, at least on game 1, may struggle to deal with Planeswalker, other artifacts or enchantments as the only way to get rid of them is Get Lost. Personally I think this deck has still room to improve by giving up a little bit of synergies in order to have more stable matchups. Cards like The Irencrag, Fabrication Foundry, Thran Spider and Urza, Lord Protector // Urza, Planeswalker can really help in ramping towards Cityscape Leveler or even multiple Simulacrum Synthesizer that will eventually snowball the game (Farewell rotated out luckily for this deck). The deck has so many ways of winning games that the main focus should be on how not to lose when playing it. The sideboard is pretty intuitive: give up some explosiveness when needed, in order to obtain more stability depending on the matchup.
The good old 5C Control took the second place
Fabled Passage and Heaped Harvest are the two new cards for the deck (sideboard included). We all know how strong the deck was before rotation and now the only problem this deck may have is represented by the quality of the lands available in the format (this also affects Migration and Leyline Binding unfortunately). The deck plan is pretty simple: survive the early stages of the game thanks to the many removal available then deploy Atraxa Grand Unifier Herd Migration, J, the Perfected Mind or Archangel Wrath to stabilize eventually win the game. Up the Bealk is one of the best tools to generate card advantage in standard: not only does it cycle itself but it keeps drawing cards in such an easy way within the archetype. The deck has many ways to interact with opponents' threats: Sunfall is the best wrath available right now in Standard; Archangel of Wrath can be considered a removal but on top of that it generates life forcing aggro decks to remove it as quick as possible; Temporary Lockdown is a cheap answer to many aggro decks; Leyline Binding can easily become a 1 mana removal for every nonland permanent; Get Lost is a really needed flexible removal for the deck. Contrary to the previous versions of the deck Heaped Harvest is the only way for this deck to ramp but in my opinion it's not close to being the best one for 3 mana in standard. Hence I think there are many ways to improve this list even though it performed really well in this Challenge.
And now the third control deck: Azorius Control
Azorius Control is a deck that lost many relevant cards in the rotation and unfortunately right now there is no easy way to replace. Luckily enough the archetype still seems to be among the strongest ones. Memory Deluge has been replaced by cards such as Quick Study and Spellgyre, Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim is now the only played Planeswalker while previously The Wandering Emperor was an incredible card for the deck. In the rotation we also lost March of Otherworldly Light, Make Disappear and Depopulate and many different lands as well. Beza, the Bounding Spring is the only nonland card the deck received from Bloomburrow: the card seems to be really solid in specific matchups but I'm not sure about the 3 copies main deck. Probably a wiser choice would be to cut some copies of it and move them to the sideboard. Control decks like this one are hard to evaluate after the rotations since the way they are built heavily depends on how the meta settles. At the moment it's been only a few days since the rotation and consequently the meta is not yet defined: this makes it difficult to analyze this type of decks and also the cards that are being played in it (as in the case of Beza, the Bounding Spring). Considering the good result (third/fourth place) it's likely to assume that the deck is properly built to deal with the current meta.
The only Midrange deck in top 4: Golgari Midrange
In my previous article I foretold about how Golgari Midrange was a safe bet for standard as it didn't lose many relevant cards. Since the rotation Golgari Midrange has been the most played deck and right now it has a meta share of around 17.4% which is a lot considering the format. There aren't new cards in the main deck and among cards from Bloomburrow only Cruelclaw's Heist is being played in the sideboard. The archetype is extremely solid and can generate a lot of card advantage thanks every 2 and 3 mana creatures the deck. The deck has access to many removal spells such as Cut Down, Go for the Throat, Gix's Command and also Liliana of the Veil in cases. Every creature in this deck represents threat needs an immediate answer. On of that the sideboard offers answers to almost everything that is currently being played in standard. Do not be by the result in my humble opinion this is the real deck to beat in standard.
Conclusion
Today's decks are very different from each other but they all performed really well in the. Honestly I think it's too early to evaluate the meta right now but getting to know what is performing well may help towards the goal of “solving” the format. Remember the first weeks after a rotation are always full of surprises and we should enjoy this beautiful where everything can be played. Eventually the will settle and the format will become ( my humble opinion increasingly less fun depending the variety of playable decks. Right now enjoy the many different decks and see you the next article!
