With Fate Reforged finally legal last weekend it seemed all our wizardy eyes were focused on what happened at the Washington DC SCG event. While we didn’t get to watch anything but Standard all weekend, we are still left with some preliminary eternal-enthusiast data to comb through. I was excited to see what top performing decks would emerge, without expecting anything revolutionary to blow my top. The format didn’t get many tools from Fate Reforged to implement, unless you count the updated banned and restricted list.
I had suspected, as you may have heard when listening to the latest episode of On The Stack, a podcast which I am involved with and shamelessly plugging, that black decks were to comprise the larger portion of the predicted Modern metagame. If I had attended DC, I would have prepared to face decklists chock full of Thoughtseizes, Liliana of the Veil, and Dark Confidants. I also expected Zoo to be out in full force, and Splinter Twin combo decks. So what did the actual metagame look like? Let’s break down by archetype the top 32 decklists from the tournament.
AGGRESSIVE STRATEGIES
Zoo – II
Affinity – III
Burn – III
Merfolk – II
UR Delver – I
Dredgevine – I
Total Percentage of Metagame = 37.5%
These numbers make sense in that one of the best ways to attack a ‘fresh’ format is to run an aggressive deck into it. If people are trying out brews and experimenting, an aggressive burn deck can torch its way to the top tables, while also punishing a predicted field full of Dark Confidants and Thoughtseizes. The outlier here is Elliot Garner’s Dredgevine deck. People were wondering if the unbanning of Golgari Grave-Troll would bring a dredge deck back to relevance in modern.
Dredgevine by Elliot Garner, 29th place at SCG DC.
| Creatures (25) 4 Bloodghast 3 Golgari Grave-Troll 4 Gravecrawler 1 Grim Lavamancer 2 Hooting Mandrils 4 Lotleth Troll 2 Satyr Wayfinder 4 Vengevine 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang Spells (15) 3 Abrupt Decay 2 Darkblast 4 Grisly Salvage 2 Murderous Cut 4 Faithless Looting | Lands (20) 1 Forest 1 Swamp 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 2 Blood Crypt 4 Bloodstained Mire 3 Overgrown Tomb 1 Stomping Ground 1 Treetop Village 1 Twilight Mire 2 Verdant Catacombs Sideboard (15) 2 Dragon’s Claw 1 Abrupt Decay 2 Ancient Grudge 1 Darkblast 1 Gnaw to the Bone 1 Golgari Charm 2 Rakdos Charm 2 Slaughter Games 3 Thoughtseize |
This list has some explosive draws that can ovewhelm the board fairly quickly. By leaning on Bloodghast and Gravecrawler to power out Vengevine and Faithless Looting to trigger dredge on the Grave-Troll, the deck slants towards a fast, wide clock. Also, one Tasigur, the Golden Fang is decent to power out for one mana, but not the best combo with Golgari Grave-Troll. It’s cool to see the deck doing some work. I still question whether it’s viable enough to be competitive once the meta adapts to it — as it has to deal with Rest in Peace and Anger of the Gods — but I like that it showed up!
Mr, Pat Cox, the Wildest Nacatl, pounded through the metagame with a low to the ground Zoo deck, most notably without Siege Rhino — a card I imagined perfect for the Tribal Flames version of the deck — and instead running Elspeth and Mutagenic Growth!
Tribal Zoo by Pat Cox, 3rd place at SCG DC
| Creatures (22) 4 Loam Lion 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Wild Nacatl 2 Snapcaster Mage 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Geist of Saint Traft Spells (18) 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Lightning Helix 2 Mutagenic Growth 4 Path To Exile 4 Tribal Flames 2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant | Lands (20) 1 Forest 1 Plains 4 Arid Mesa 1 Blood Crypt 1 Hallowed Fountain 1 Sacred Foundry 1 Steam Vents 1 Stomping Ground 1 Temple Garden 4 Windswept Heath 4 Wooded Foothills Sideboard (15) 1 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Aven Mindcensor 2 Kor Firewalker 1 Qasali Pridemage 1 Ranger of Eos 1 Snapcaster Mage 1 Rule of Law 2 Stony Silence 1 Ancient Grudge 1 Mutagenic Growth 2 Swan Song 1 Gaddock Teeg |
It’s certainly faster, and I like Mutagenic Growth in this list, but i’m still hung up on Siege Rhino as my four drop. Maybe I have to pick up a couple Elspeth, Knight-Errant and try this one out. I can’t argue with Pat Cox on his zoo builds. It’s like arguing with Sam Pardee on Melira Pod.
MIDRANGE STRATEGIES
Abzan – IIII
Jund – I
Assault Loam – I
Total Percentage of Metagame – 18.75%
Yeah yeah yeah, Abzan Abzan Jund. Some of the lists even mised a single copy of Tasigur or Sorin, Solemn Visitor. Other than that, the lists were predictable, and why shouldn’t they be? The deck is consistent, powerful, and stretches out a bunch of Modern cards that had been pushed to the periphery with the advent of Treasure Cruise. So let’s skip to Simon Korzunov’s Assault Loam list, shall we?
Assault Loam by Simon Korzunov, 18th place at SCG DC
| Creatures (5) 4 Bloodghast 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang Spells (29) 3 Seismic Assault 4 Abrupt Decay 2 Terminate 4 Faithless Looting 2 Flame Jab 2 Raven’s Crime 4 Life from the Loam 4 Smallpox 4 Liliana of the Veil | Lands (26) 1 Forest 1 Mountain 1 Swamp 3 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Blood Crype 2 Bloodstained mire 4 Graven Cairns 1 Overgrown Tomb 3 Raging Ravine 1 Stomping Ground 2 Tectonic Edge 1 Treetop Village 3 Verdant Catacombs 2 Wooded Foothills Sideboard (15) 2 Batterskull 2 Ancient Grudge 1 Darkblast 1 Bow of Nylea 2 Maelstrom Pulse 3 Pyroclasm 3 Thoughtseize 1 Tectonic Edge |
Whoa! Where the hell has this deck been? It’s AWESOME! I’ve wanted to see a Loam engine take a stand in Modern, and while i’ve heard about Seismic Assault decks, i’ve never seen them in action. 18th place aint nothing either. It doesn’t have a great aggro matchup, which is probably where it fell short in the tournament, but it’s going to outgrind the blue decks and other BGx decks with Loam. Again, a deck that gets disrupted by Rest in Peace. If these graveyard decks continue to push forward, then RIP could graduate to sideboard play again, and more Scavenging Oozes will show up in BGx decks.
CONTROL STRATEGIES
Jeskai Flash – III
G/R Tron – III
Grixis Control – I
Total Percentage of Metagame: 21.875%
It’s no surprise to me that Jeskai Flash — also known as UWR Control — had successful finishes. Without Treasure Cruise in the format, or Birthing Pod, this deck becomes a legitimate Tier 1 deck again. Sphinx’s Revelation and Celestial Colonnade regain their prowess. I never had an issue beating this deck up as a Birthing Pod player, and thought it was one of the more interesting and complex matchups in Modern. Now Jeskai seems to have less and less bad matchups; a competent pilot should be able to tear through a tournament full of Affinity and Splinter Twin with ease. I don’t know what the Liliana of the Veil matchup is, but i’m sure it’s mostly on the rock mage to have the right build so the cards match up well against the control deck.
The big surprise to me is the presence of G/R Tron, and the decks performing well overall. Only one list ran two copies of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon; the others appeared stock Tron lists. I probably naturally hate this deck from being a long time Birthing Pod player, as the matchup was unwinnable. But the definitive ‘little kid’ deck of Modern seemed like a powerful choice for the weekend when Remand was at a low.
COMBO STRATEGIES
Auras – II
Storm – II
Temur Twin – II
Scapeshift – I
Total Percentage of the Metagame: 21.875%
The top 8 of SCG DC featured Auras in first place and two copies of Storm, the only two copies in the top 32, closely behind the GW Hexproof deck. The controversial, non-interactive storm deck performing well had to be one of the more disappointing statistics of the weekend. The deck is just as fast, resilient, and consistent post-banning. It’s bad matchups, counterspell heavy decks with clocks to back it up, were nowhere aside from a few Jeskai Flash decks and a copy of Scapeshift somewhere far down the top 32 list. It was a good weekend to play Storm, and it very well could be a good choice to run at the Pro Tour providing the predicted metagame remains light on countermagic.
Another surprising statistic is the lack of Splinter Twin decks. Perhaps it simply got hated out by the sheer amount of Abrupt Decays at the tournament. Rock decks are naturally posited to beat up on twin, so it probably wasn’t the smartest deck to sleeve up. Allen Norman, who piloted the deck to a 13th place finish, had a fairly stock list aside from running 2 Sower of Temptation out of the sideboard.
Some other notes. Jeskai Ascendancy was nowhere to be found, and some of us were wondering whether an updated application of the Khans enchantment would find its way into the metagame. If it does exist, certainly no one wanted to play it, with the thrill of running pre-Khans of Tarkir decks probably overpowering peoples interests. As for Fate Reforged cards making impact, there wasn’t much roaming around the tables aside from a few singelton copies of Tasigur and a single Tron deck running Ugin. It takes a lot for a new card to make a strong enough impact on eternal formats. If there is a synergy, or deck, left to be unveiled, it probably wont show its face before Pro Tour Fate Reforged.
I’m excited to help my friends test for the Pro Tour, as a few of them are qualified. After this week, I will look a bit more at the metagame. Once MTGO updates to include Fate Reforged, we can look at the dailies, as well as another weekend of results from moderately sized tournaments.
Derek Gallen lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY.