Get To Know Your Metagame: All the rest

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KrazyCaley

19 May 2010

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Vampires Fast

Mono-black small-creature aggro. Typically finishes with Malakir Bloodwitch. Though hyper effective against the new Planeswalker-based control decks because of its fast damage and certain good matchup cards, (hello, Vampire Hexmage ) can't keep up with Jund, gets wasted by Grixis Control, gets wasted by Mythic, is outraced by RDW, etc.

Green LD

Ramps and uses the myriad green LD creatures like Acidic Slime and Mold Shambler to blow up your land then kill you along with a host of usually small elves. Problem is that it loses practically automatically against anything that can counter a creature spell or any mono-color deck. Also has a problem getting down ENOUGH LD fast enough.

Turbo Fog

Causes both players to draw TONS of cards each turn with Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, Jace Beleren, et. al., fog fog fog (usually in the form of Angelsong ); it brought Reliquary Tower and/or Spellbook and you didn't, then it mills you a few turns later, after you've drawn 6 cards a turn for a few turns. But if your win condition isn't Fog-able, then it has some problems with you, since you're drawing 6 cards a turn, even if you have to discard some of them.

Open the Vaults and Combo Crypt

Same idea, different colors- cycle, cycle, cycle, throw stuff in the graveyard, stall for time in various ways, then either cast Open the Vaults or use your Crypt of Agadeem to bring everything back and win. Like all one-trick combo decks, though, does not want to see counterspells or sideboarded graveyard-clearers like Bojuka Bog. Open the Vaults is also weak vs. any wrath effect, and Crypt Combo is toast if its opponent brought any land answers, including the popular Spreading Seas.

Allies

Comes in many shapes and sizes, always popular, never seems to win tournaments. It's too easy to selectively pick the ally decks apart with removal, or god forbid wrath, and then just win. They are too slow against Jund and Co., too easily-stopped against the control decks, and generally don't do anything special-enough for standard. Still, don't think they're pushovers- they are the successors to slivers, after all, and CAN get dangerous if you let them.

Lullmage Control

Uses a few merfolk, including Lullmage Mentor, and the rest of the deck is counterspells. Played by depressed blue players who wish Counterspell was standard legal. Has no sufficiently-reliable win condition, you can run it out of counterspells if you can develop enough threats (Jund especially is good at this), and the counterspells usually aren't online fast enough to stop the aggro decks.

Naya Zoo

Makes use of high-quality RWG cards- you'll see Bloodbraid Elf, Behemoth Sledge, smaller creatures like Scute Mob, Wild Nacatl, Noble Hierarch, and so forth, maybe Baneslayer Angel, either Ajani, equipment and Stoneforge Mystic in some builds, and usually a smattering of removal. It's a good deck, but it's also all over the place. Doesn't have any really superior matchups, but does have a few bad ones because it is a jack of all trades and master of none. Gets killed by the combo decks, Grixis Control, Vampires, and the Planeswalker control decks. Does pretty well against Jund, though, which is doubtless why it's stuck around.

White weenie

In its current incarnation, tends to use soldiers and Honor of the Pure. It just isn't GOOD enough when it goes off- even with a god draw, it's just going to have maybe four or five 4/4s or thereabouts on turn 4/5, and that is easily dealt with by most decks.

Time Sieve

Sacrifice random small artifacts to Time Sieve. Take turns. Cast Open the Vaults to get your artifacts back and take more turns. All the while, Tezzeret the Seeker is building up his ultimate to kill you with. But- If you can stop a Tezzeret, you win. Too many moving parts to be reliable.

Mill decks

Mill decks come in different assortments, but with the current set of tools available to them, they have several problems- 1- They run out of gas just like RDW, and have to rely on luck to topdeck the right cards to finish the job, or to mill enough cards in the first place, as with Mind Funeral and Archive Trap. They have an even bigger problem with the Eldrazi around, as all the legendary Eldrazi have Gaea's Blessing-type abilities. Any deck with Emrakul, Ulamog, or Kozilek in it will more or less automatically defeat any mill deck. Mill just isn't good enough for standard right now.

Thanks for participating in our week-long deconstruction of the current Meta. Enjoy!