Shard It Out: A Post Shards Standard Metagame Analysis

Good Day to All Readers!

I’m Oliver Mastilero and I’m here to tackle our local standard MTG metagame as well as the foreign metagame that could influence the tournament scene. We all know that knowing the metagame gives us the edge in tournaments, the way we build our decks and what cards to be used as sideboards, so it’s very important to have an idea about them.

Starting today I will be bringing the latest news about the metagame. I will be doing this every week and I hope you’ll have a great time keeping track of the updates every Friday. Also I will be discussing new deck techs and cool rogue decks floating around. Without further ado I’ll show you the statistics of different decks being played at our local tournament last October 11, 2008.

THE METAGAME BREAKDOWN:
Kithkins - 3
Merfolk - 3
BR Sligh - 2
Faeries - 2
Q n T - 1
Oreo Aggro - 1
Cruel Control -1

The Top 4 Results
1st - Faeries
2nd - Kithkins
3rd-4th- Kithkins, QnT

As you can see lots are playing Kithkins and Merfolk, and that would put them at the top of the food chain. Despite the metagame is dominated by Kithkns and Merfolks, a UB Faeries deck triumphs over them. Here is the spicy list of the winning Faerie Deck piloted by Patrick Tirol.

UB Faeries
1st Place October 11, 2008

Maindeck
4 Mutavault
4 Secluded Glen
4 Underground River
3 Sunken Ruins
1 Vivid Creek
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Swamp
5 Island

4 Misbind Clique
1 Puppeteer Clique
2 Shriekmaw
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Spellstutter Sprite

4 Bitterblossom
4 Cryptic Command
2 Broken Ambitions
1 Remove Soul
2 Pepper Smoke
3 Nameless Inversion
2 Infest
2 Snakeform
2 Loxodon Warhammer

Sideboard
2 Jace Beleren
2 Infest
3 Stillmoon Cavalier
1 Puppeteer Clique
3 Flashfreeze
1 Remove Soul
3 Thoughtseize

Looking at the decklist, I was surprised to see the presence of Infest at its main deck. I’m sure this will definitely answer the trouble caused by Kithkins and Merfolks. More Infest and Stillmoon Cavaliers at the sideboard for Kithkins. There are also Loxodon Warhammer and Flashfreeze against Sligh which is at our Meta list and which I believe is a metabreaker, great tech Pat!

Now that the Shards of Alara is legal in Type 2, I can see the new metagame is forming, I think this would be the era of the Reflecting Pools. Expect them to be the chase card for it is stable for 5 color controls and other decks that use multiple colors. Shards provides lots of Standard T2 playable cards like the Charms, Shard Lands, Infest, Tidehollow Sculler, Cruel Ultimatum, Ranger of Eos and many more…

Foreign Metagame

Recently at Starcity Games, there was a big time Standard tournament about the Gulf Cruise Qualifier which is held at Roanoke, Virginia in US and here are the results:

Decks	Place	Player
Faeries	1st	Tim Furrow
Cruel Control	2nd	Chris Woltereck
Cruel Control	3rd	Joseph Keaveny
Merfolk	4th	Justin Perdue
Kithkin Backlash	5th	Marsh Usary
Reveillark	6th	Randy Williams
Justice Toast	7th	Ali Aintrazi
Red Deck Wins	8th	Joshua Drum
Cruel Control	9th	Josh Cope
Vengeant Control	10th	Ken Adams
Faeries	11th	Christopher Barfield
Bant Control	12th	Joshua Owens
Blightning Aggro	13th	Richard Lovern
Faeries	14th	Troy Doyle
Cruel Control	15th	Chris Wallace
Quillspike Combo	16th	Matthew Thornton

 

STATISTICS SAYS:
Cruel Control - 4
Faeries - 3
Merfolk - 1
Kithkin Backlash - 1
Reveillark - 1
Justice Toast - 1
Red Deck Wins - 1
Vengeant Control - 1
Bant Control - 1
Blightning Aggro - 1
Quillspike Combo - 1

Yes, Faeries are back! Since the RDW dominated the T2 scene before the rotation, you can no longer find Faeries at the top. And here is the new look of a Faerie deck that won the tournament…

Faeries
1st place October 12, 2008
By Tim Furrow
Main Deck
Lands
4 Secluded Glen
4 Faerie Conclave
4 Mystic Gate
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Sunken Ruins
4 Arcane Sanctum
2 Island

Creatures
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Scion of Oona
4 Mistbind Clique

Spells
1 Loxodon Warhammer
4 Bitterblossom
4 Esper Charm
4 Cryptic Command
4 Broken Ambitions
4 Agony Warp

Sideboard
SB: 2 Glen Elendra Archmage
SB: 2 Sower of Temptation
SB: 3 Oblivion Ring
SB: 4 Terror
SB: 4 Thoughtseize

What’s new? Well, it’s obvious, no Ancestral Visions but hello Esper Charms! You heard it right people, the only thing lacking in the faerie deck is card drawers. Esper Charm provides what Visions is capable of doing, not only that it is also good against mirror for it destroys opposing Bitterblossom and act as an instant discarder. Wow what a great addition indeed!

Now that faeries are using the 3rd color which is white, there is no room for Mutavaults now. Because color consistency is very important, instead 4 Faerie Conclave, 4 Mystic Gate, 4 Arcane Sanctum and 4 Reflecting Pool are used to fill the void which looks very strange in a Faerie deck. Another Great addition from Shards is Agony Warp. This card is all about 2 for 1, a very nice tool during combat and act as a spot removal.

How about the new deck from Shards? This might be the deck to watch out for and possible to be at tier 1. Introducing the Cruel Control…

Cruel Control
2nd place, October 12, 2008
By Chris Woltereck
Main Deck
Lands
4 Vivid Creek
2 Vivid Marsh
3 Vivid Grove
3 Vivid Meadow
2 Sunken Ruins
4 Reflecting Pool
3 Island
1 Cascade Bluffs
2 Flooded Grove
2 Mystic Gate

Creatures
2 Cloudthresher
1 Shriekmaw
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Mulldrifter
1 Nucklavee

Spells
3 Negate
1 Firespout
1 Mind Shatter
1 Makeshift Mannequin
3 Bant Charm
4 Cryptic Command
3 Esper Charm
2 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Wrath of God

Sideboard
SB: 2 Cloudthresher
SB: 1 Shriekmaw
SB: 1 Negate
SB: 1 Firespout
SB: 1 Mind Shatter
SB: 3 Vexing Shusher
SB: 3 Condemn
SB: 2 Counterbore
SB: 1 Oona, Queen of the Fae

Its name says it all! It has very cruel spells that punish all sorts of aggro decks in the metagame. The deck looks similar to Quick n Toast but it uses the power of Cruel Ultimatum, a total “Ownage” card! What if you’ll abuse the card with Nucklavee giving no chance against your opponent? Nasty! This deck is all about control! It has all the tools against other control and mid-range decks. Thanks to the addition of Esper and Bant Charms these cards has all the answers in the format.

Online Metagame

Also last weekend there was a Standard tournament which is called Master at Magic-League.com. It is played online via MWS, almost 111 players joined the tournament and here are the results…

Decks	Place	Player
QnT	1st	stone_d
GB Rock	2nd	PaUl0_BRA
Doran	Top 4	-Kev-03
QnT	Top 4	GFSS
Reveillark	Top 8	Batutinha
WW Kithkin	Top 8	Schmirglie
QnT	Top 8	Murphy
QnT	Top 8	marcooj

 

TOP 8 BREAKDOWN:
QnT – 4
GB Rock – 1
Doran -1
Reveillark -1
WW Kithkin – 1

Almost half of the top 8 are using Quick and Toast, let’s take a look at the winning QnT deck…

Quick and Toast
1st place October 12, 2008
By stone_d
Main Deck
Lands
4 Vivid Grove
2 Mystic Gate
4 Flooded Grove
4 Vivid Creek
2 Sunken Ruins
4 Reflecting Pool
2 Forest
3 Twilight Mire

Creatures
3 Cloudthresher
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Shriekmaw
4 Mulldrifter
3 Garruk Wildspeaker

Spells
2 Broken Ambitions
4 Wrath of God
1 Resounding Silence
3 Profane Command
4 Cryptic Command
4 Fertile Ground
4 Primal Command

Sideboard
SB: 1 Cloudthresher
SB: 1 Kitchen Finks
SB: 1 Hallowed Burial
SB: 3 Mind Shatter
SB: 3 Puppeteer Clique
SB: 2 Naturalize
SB: 4 Thoughtseize

 

Looks like an unorthodox build of Quick and Toast, were Profane Command was the main kill condition and we could see Garruk to accelerate some mana in order to cast some big bangs! But with an awesome record of 9-1-0 in Swiss rounds, this deck is proven to be consistent. The Deck doesn’t have some Charms from Shards but the singleton limited power bomb Resounding Silence is there for the uncounterable kill for 2 crits plus gives you an extra card. It’s very exciting to see these card being cycled, with lots of mana and with the help of Fertile Ground, cycling the Resounding Silence would go smoothly.

Now that the metagame is forming, it is now easy to prepare against the top decks in the format. With Shards of Alara available in standard, all I could say is that the format is still very young, plenty of other decks waiting to be discovered and maybe you’ll have the chance to break the format.

These will wrap up the report and until next time!