Welcome Magic lovers!
What a week! As Duskmourn spreads its shadow across Standard, Pioneer and even Modern, it's fascinating to watch each format warp and buckle under the weight of the dual cycles of powerful Overlords and Leylines. Today, let's focus on Standard, as the Regional Qualifier Championship season is just over the horizon and approaching rapidly.
According to the data we have access to from Magic Online, in-store tournaments and those hosted on Melee.gg, we can extrapolate that aggressive decks have comprised a staggering near 80% share of the Standard metagame over the last two weeks. While this may make it seem like Standard is in a rut, that's far from the truth. While the majority of players are opting to bring low-curve decks, many are still doing well with slower builds, like Domain control and Mono-white Control, as evidenced by the most recent Magic Online Challenge on Sept. 29.
However, it's aggro that’s making up the majority of the metagame so let’s start there and break down which decks are doing well.
Gruul Aggro
Starting at the top, the Gruul Aggro deck was one of the best aggressive builds in Standard before Duskmourn reared its ugly head, as its combination of powerful prowess creatures like Slickshot Show-off, Monastery Swiftspear and Emberheart Challenger were already very tough to beat, and picking up the very potent Leyline of Resonance was a big upgrade for the deck.
However, while speeding up the clock significantly, Leyline of Resonance also conversely makes the deck more all-in. This is because now there are a set of four-mana enchantments in one's deck that are terrible draws if one doesn't have a copy in the opening hand, and starting with one less card in hand when one does have a Leyline means that if the opponent can interact and stop the Gruul pilot from going off, it often means they won't have enough resources to get back in the game without getting rather lucky. As the Gruul lists move away from cards like Slickshot Show-off and play additional 'death-trigger' creatures like Cacophony Scamp, the deck becomes even more reliant on its 'combo'.
That said, Leyline of Resonance very quickly recoups that lost card advantage by copying spells like Might of the Meek and drawing its pilot two cards. Copying any two other cheap pump spells also feels like 'un-mulliganing' with the Leyline in play. It's this key aspect of the card that many players fail to realize is its true strength: it acts as powerful card advantage in red, a color that normally lacks it.
As the Leyline decks are the new kid on the block this week, we’ll see if they have what it takes to stay on top, or if their fragile nature will lead to the proliferation of decks built to stop them in their tracks.
Azorius Aggro
While several flavors of this deck exist, from convoke tokens, to Zoetic Glyph protect-the-queen, to reanimator with Abhorrent Oculus and Helping Hand, it has yet to be determined which version will prove to be more powerful and resilient than the rest. In the last Magic Online Standard Challenge, two different versions placed in the top 8, and both look very strong.
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The first is a relatively new composition, utilizing cheap, one-mana creatures which produce an artifact token when they resolve, to set up a Zoetic Glyph on said artifact token and quickly start crunching the opponent's life total down to zero.
Regal Bunnicorn is here as another large threat that must be answered, alongside Steel Seraph to send it to the air.
With excellent removal in the form of Duskmourn bangers Sheltered by Ghosts and Unidentified Hovership to mop things up, and the ultra-efficient Sharmage's Rescue to protect an animated 5/4 clue token, this deck is difficult to interact with profitably.
The other Azorius Aggro list that did well this week was one playing a more familiar plan of self-milling in the early turns, then reanimating powerful three-mana creatures using the very efficient Helping Hand or Recommission.
While the deck typically tries to cheat a Haughty Djinn into play to end things quickly, Duskmourn brought the incredible, new, dragon-sized three-drop, Abhorrent Oculus. Putting the Oculus back into play for one mana, allowing one to leave up a counterspell to protect it is going to be very hard for most opponents to beat, as it provides an 'army-in-a-can' that continues to expand one's board every turn that it sits in play.
With just twenty lands, the deck is very spell-dense, making it difficult to flood out in the mid-game, and with card draw like Sleight of Hand, Moment of Truth and Chart a Course, it's easy to find mana if one is land-light.
Protecting the powerful, three-mana creatures the deck is playing can be tricky, but it's mostly accomplished using countermagic such as Three Steps Ahead. Phantom Interference and, if one is desperate, Into the Flood Maw.
The deck is proactive, powerful and resilient and that often proves to be a particularly deadly combination of traits.
Mono-white Control
Moving now to the other end of the spectrum, Mono-white Control made its presence felt in the sea of aggressive decks, as it looked to leverage its cheap removal and powerful sweepers, backed by the incredibly potent Caretaker's Talent to keep the cards flowing.
A more proactive version of control, this twenty-five land, late-game deck seeks to survive the early game by using Lay Down Arms, Get Lost and Parting Gust to buy itself time to get to Sunfall mana.
Carrot Cake and Beza, the Bounding Spring are here to gum up the battlefield with bodies and gain some life along the way. Sanguine Evangelist may seem out of place in a deck that isn't looking to attack early, but when one considers that it's three bodies in one card, and that it also triggers Caretaker's Talent not once but twice, it begins to make a lot more sense in the list.
Archangel Elspeth and The Eternal Wanderer show up in the mid-late game to lock things up while still triggering Talent in order to keep the gas flowing. Elspeth also provides inevitability by threatening to use her -6 ability to bring back all the Sanguine Evangelists, Carrot Cakes and Caretaker's Talents in the graveyard.
With four red sources in Elegant Parlor, alongside the mandatory four Fountainport, the deck has an interesting post-board plan against other slower decks like Domain Control. It is capable of bringing in three Imodane's Recruiter to help close the game quickly before either decking oneself (as often happens when two late-game decks clash), or getting overwhelmed by Atraxa, Grand Unifier. This attempts to solve the eternal issue that these Mono-white decks have always had: switching gears and closing the game quickly once one has stabilized.
Is it enough to keep the deck relevant? Only time will tell.
That's just a taste of what's happening in Standard this week, with many more decks also potentially strong enough to grab a spot in tier 1. Which will prove to stand the test of time and not just be a flash in the pan? We'll see as the Standard Regional Championship season commences soon!