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HammerAndSickled

2 July 2011

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I was utterly shocked at the recent bannings in Standard. Not just because I had my Jaces and Stoneforges all sleeved up, though that is a little depressing. I was shocked because I had five other non-Jace, non-Stoneforge deck lists floating around that all fought against Caw-Blade reasonably well. Simply building to the metagame gives you an advantage, and through main-deck artifact hate many decks were able to slay the swords-and-planeswalkers Dragon. Star City Games Opens in Denver and Indianapolis (the two most recent prior to the banning announcement) had Vampires holding the trophy. So what happened?

As Gerry Thompson said in his most recent article, “Standard became probably the most skill-intensive format we've seen in a long while. You could play Valakut, Vampires, RDW, U/G, etc. The possibilities seemed endless, and the winners were usually the ones who were more prepared or played better. Clearly this was unacceptable and something needed to be banned.” I personally thought the format was healthy and exciting pre-ban. But, there's no use pining for the past or discussing what could have been. We're here to talk about decks! Those same non-Caw alternatives Gerry name-dropped might be the key to the new metagame. Who knows? The king is dead, long live... Valakut? Splinter Twin? Goblin Guide?

Honestly, the reason Standard Deviations has been in limbo for two weeks is because, like many of us, I don't know the answers. It felt silly to publish an article filled with decks built to beat Caw-Blade, when the threat that warped the metagame around itself is no more. Suddenly Birthing Pod decks with 9 maindeck artifact removal cards and even Blue-Red Exarch-Twin decks with maindeck Dismember look like cute anachronisms rather than cutting-edge technology. So instead I sat, I thought, and I brewed. This whole article will be my proposed lists for Standard rather than pro lists, since there aren't any to go by before the first big tournament series. Without further ado, here is what I came up with:

The format will be dominated at first by two decks: Valakut and Exarch Twin. These are the two fastest, consistent combo kills in the format and they demand specific answers (land hate for Valakut and instant-speed removal for Exarch, though they both get splash damage from cards like Torpor Orb and Despise). Preparing too heavily for one tends to leave you soft to the other, so these two pillars of the format will be around until someone builds a deck that can compete. Here are some deck lists:

MAINBOARD

4 Lotus Cobra
4 Overgrown Battlement
4 Primeval Titan
2 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Explore
4 Harrow
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Summoning Trap
2 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
6 Forest
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Raging Ravine
10 Mountain

SIDEBOARD

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Slagstorm
4 Nature's Claim
2 Summoning Trap
1 Dismember

Those of us who played Standard prior to the release of Mirrodin Besieged know all to well how a good ramp strategy can put an aggressive stranglehold on the metagame. Valakut-Standard was perhaps worse than Caw-Standard, if only because Valakut completely split the format into Aggro and Control or else you just shrugged and played Valakut, because no other midrange strategy could concede. You had to either beat them in the race or outlast them with control, because no deck can play a “fair” game against Primeval Titan.

For those of you that don't know, the deck's primary win condition is Primeval Titan acting as a double nonbasic land tutor for Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. This, combined with the glut of good ramp spells that throw lands into play (Harrow, Khalni Heart Expedition, Explore) and the possibility of running up to twelve Titans-by-proxy (through Green Sun's Zenith and Summoning Trap) the deck becomes consistent beyond belief, capable of turn-four Titans and possibly turn 5 kills if left unchecked.

The best way to fight Valakut is, again, to take a partisan approach to Magic: aggro or control. I can't foresee any midrange strategies like Mono-Black, Black-Green, Green-White or Birthing Pod decks being successful in a format defined by combo. The decks splashing black would need to run heavy amounts of discard to compete, which cuts their chances against aggro significantly because it reduces their chances of drawing business spells in the late game. Aggro strategies should look to win as fast as possible against Valakut, and a wide variety of removal spells should help to try and minimize the impact of Valakut's ramp creatures. Dismember in particular should start to be a maindeck card for nonblack aggro (and perhaps even black once they have maxed out on Go for the Throat because it kills an Overgrown Battlement, notorious speed-bump for aggro decks. Control decks should be packing quite a few hard counters between their main and sideboards. Losing Jace, the Mind Sculptor means you can't bury a Valakut player in card advantage as easily anymore, and this might possibly be the downfall for Control. One-for-one trades of counterspells for ramp spells are eventually a losing proposition for Control, because missing one counter can leave you open for a game-ending Titan. As games go long, even Harrow becomes a must-answer threat. Therefore, it might be advisable for Control decks to attack Valakut from another angle: closing off its win conditions. Cards like Memoricide (for Primeval Titan), Sadistic Sacrament, Spreading Seas, Acidic Slime (for the Valakut lands themselves), and newcomer Surgical Extraction (if there's a juicy target in a graveyard) all offer a more targeted strike at the core of Valakut's engine.

A lesser-played Primeval Titan deck is Eldrazi ramp. What can I say, people like casting big fatties! The deck is usually inferior to Valakut in terms of speed and threat level and tends to fold to the same attacks mentioned above (Discard, extraction effects, land hate, counterspells). It has a slightly better matchup against control decks due to the on-cast effects of Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, but Valakut applies must-answer pressure just as well in the late game. Without relying so much on land-based ramp Eldrazi can afford to run walls like Wall of Tanglecord and more midrange creatures like Obstinate Baloth to shore up its defenses against aggressive strategies.

The other deck-to-beat will be Exarch-Twin. This deck relies on the interaction between New Phyrexia's Deceiver Exarch and combo lodestone Splinter Twin. Since the Exarch has flash, it can join the fray as early as your opponent's third turn (on the play) during their end step. Flashing during the end step means two things: a) it loses summoning sickness during your next untap step, and b) they need an instant-speed response to deal with it. Untapping on your fourth turn with a ready-to-tap Exarch usually spells game once you enchant it with Splinter Twin. By tapping the Exarch, you create a token copy which enters the battlefield with the same ability as the original. Choose the second mode, untap your Twinned Exarch, and repeat. Infinite 1/4 tokens with haste, as early as turn four, where your opponent has to have an instant-speed response or they die on the spot? Sign me up!

As of two weeks ago, my deck of choice was Twinblade, the amalgamation of Caw-Blade and Deceiver Exarch combo. I started playing this deck on the first FNM of New Phyrexia because I understood that, while powerful, the Twin combo is easily answered. Duress effects, Dismember, Torpor Orb, Spellskite, and the ultimate “nay,” Combust were all available answers to the combo that required you to play around them. Twinblade avoided these downfalls (and was, in my opinion, the best deck of the format) because even though many of those cards have “splash damage” versus Caw-Blade, it's still very difficult to fight against two different win conditions, especially when you're essentially playing against the best deck stapled to the second-best deck. As a plan B! With Stoneforge Mystic gone, White-splashing Twin decks are gone as well. So what's left?

You have three options, and three variants to fight against as well. Straight UR Twin is the most straightforward. It is a combo-control deck that eschews fanciness for straight up consistency: the card draw effects and filtering help offset the lack of a Plan B. If I were to play UR Twin, my list would look like this:

MAINBOARD

4 Deceiver Exarch
4 Splinter Twin
4 Preordain
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Mana Leak
4 Spell Pierce
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Into the Roil
2 Spellskite
2 Inferno Titan
7 Island
5 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Tectonic Edge
4 Halimar Depths

SIDEBOARD

3 Slagstorm
4 Volt Charge
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Dispel

The Pyromancer Ascension sideboard is my own touch, and will NOT work in every meta. Both Splinter Twin and the Ascension are weak to enchantment removal, but the difference is if you expect traditional Exarch answers like Dismember, Combust, Act of Aggression, or Spellskite as well as counter-based control decks, Ascension is better. All of the four-of instants in the deck facilitate the transformation, since all the cards in the deck minus the combo and auxillary creatures can also add counters to the Ascension. Also, Gitaxian Probe vs. See Beyond or simply more card draw like Jace Beleren is a preference decision.

The other Exarch decks sacrifice consistency and the godlike Tectonic Edge viability for more options against the meta. Twin decks have to be UR by default, so the colors we can add are Green, Black, and White. White-splash Exarch decks died with Stoneforge, but the Grixis and RUG varieties can still contend.

MAINBOARD

4 Deceiver Exarch
4 Splinter Twin
4 Preordain
4 See Beyond
4 Mana Leak
2 Spell Pierce
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Duress
4 Go for the Throat
2 Grave Titan
2 Island
3 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Drowned Catacomb
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Dragonskull Summit
2 Terramorphic Expanse

SIDEBOARD

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Dispel
2 Despise
1 Memoricide
4 Surgical Extraction

What this list sacrifices in consistency it makes up for in resiliency. Duress effects early game let you get through with your combo without fear: the likelihood of them drawing multiple answers early enough is slim. You can shuffle them away in the late game with See Beyond as well, when discard becomes less relevant. Grave Titan offers a better finisher than Inferno Titan in UR, and synergizes very nicely with Splinter Twin as well. But you have less counters, bounce, and ultimately rely less on the combo than the core UR decks.

RUG Twin relies more on speed than consistency or resiliency. It merges a hybrid ramp-control deck with a combo finish, allowing a very fast assault from multiple directions. It is more draw-dependent than the other builds simply by virtue of being stuffed to the gills with good stuff.

MAINBOARD

4 Deceiver Exarch
4 Splinter Twin
4 Lotus Cobra
2 Inferno Titan
2 Consecrated Sphinx
2 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Preordain
4 Explore
4 Mana Leak
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Island
2 Mountain
3 Forest
4 Raging Ravine
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Halimar Depths

SIDEBOARD

4 Acidic Slime
1 Lightning Bolt
3 Spellskite
3 Flashfreeze
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Nature's Claim

The Lotus Cobra and Explore here allow the deck to power out its Titans early, meaning it doesn't need to play a control game as much as the other two decks. What's interesting to note here is that it shares a powerful component with Twinblade: a must-kill two-drop. Lotus Cobra ends games, plain and simple. As your opponents scramble to answer the Cobra before it goes crazy with mana and Titans, you can sculpt a board state that will allow you to combo-kill effectively and quickly.

The two-deck metagame post-Caw might be varied and allow for more challengers to the twin thrones than the single despotic rule of Caw-Blade, and only time will tell. Many of the aggro decks I detailed in my last article will still work, with a few modifications to fight Exarch and Valakut. Aggro will always be a force in Standard, but will Control still exist in a twin-combo format? Next week I'll try and answer that question. A deck with the answers will always be beat in a fresh format by the decks with the threats, so sleeve up your Primeval Titans and Splinter Twins and dare them to try.