Fatal Flaws

Current Standard

OutspokenFerret

27 July 2015

1323 views

When building decks, It's very important to establish the strengths and weaknesses of your deck, as well as analyzing other decks to determine if your deck brings anything unique to the table, that justifies playing it over another deck. So, before you begin brewing, building, and trimming, it is important to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the current Top Tier decks of the meta, and tailor your list to maximize your strength in that match-up. Let's take a look at the top decks right now, and find what makes them tick.

G/x Devotion:

G/R Devotion: Paul Jackson, Pro Tour Origins 3/4 Place

G/R Devotion, after SCGCHI was considered by many to be the "Best" deck in Standard. Highly resilient to 1-for-1 removal, and protection against sweepers, made Devotion really hard to beat for the slew of Control decks that seemed to dominate much of the meta. Gaea's Revenge gave the deck a huge boon vs. Blue-Based Control, which used to give it a tough time because of it's Counter spells and the consistency provided by Dig Through Time. However, G/R Devotion lacks Removal of it's own, making it hard to deal with Aggressive decks that it can't stop in combat, like U/W/x Heroic. The deck also does not have many ways to refuel if it get's stopped, meaning that if you can work around Whisperwood Elemental and sweep the board, it will make it very tough for the deck to come back, making cards like Perilous Vault, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, and Hallowed Moonlight very tough for the deck to compete with. To recap, some cards that are strong against it include: Hallowed Moonlight, Perilous Vault, Managorger Hydra, and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.

U/W/x Heroic:

Bant Heroic: Todd Anderson, SCG Richmond Open Runner Up

Heroic is a very strong archetype right now, and is considered to be one of the best decks against G/R Devotion and Abzan Control. Like Devotion, it is very resilient to 1-for-1 removal, trading their 1-mana protection spells for 3-mana removal, makes it very tough for decks to deal with their threats. Heroic, unlike Devotion, actually excells in the way of card advantage, making use of both Ordeal of Thassa and Treasure Cruise to refuel, while weeding through the deck with scry effects like Battlewise Hoplite and Aqueous Form. Hero of Iroas makes it easier for the deck to set up again after a board clear, and allows it to leave mana up for protection much more easily. However, with so many slots devoted to protection and evasion, the deck plays very poorly off the top if they don't have a solid board presence, meaning that it has a tough time recovering from Hand Disruption like Thoughtsieze, and really struggles on a mulligan. The deck has to have the creatures to support it's Aura's and Combat Tricks, without those, the deck has 0 presence. This means that Edicts, which the deck has no answer to, are brutal against them. In order to sustain themselves versus Edicts, the deck needs a Monastery Mentor of which they tend to only have two. Be very careful when attacking though, even if they only have a single creature on the board, the deck excells in making that one creature huge and evasive, be wary of pushing too far. Card's that tend to be good versus U/W/x Heroic include: Thoughtseize, Perilous Vault, Fleshbag Marauder, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Languish, Dead Drop

Abzan Control:

Abzan Control: Matthew Sperling, Pro Tour Origins Top 8

Abzan Control has been the most common deck in the format for a while now, and has been one of the main reasons that 1-for-1 resilient decks have had so much success recently. Much of the deck is 1-for-1 removal like Hero's Downfall, Abzan Charm, Ultimate Price, and occasionally Murderous Cut. Recently, the deck gained a sweeper in the form of Languish, so many decks have adapted to reduce the effectiveness of Languish. Still, the deck is very good at taking over a game with Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, using removal, and efficient creatures like Courser of Kruphix, Nissa, Vastwood Seer  ^Flip, Den Protector, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, and Seige Rhino to stabilize through the early-mid game. In the same sense though, if it can't stabilize, it just get run over. It has Elspeth and Ugin to reset if it can, but that tends to slow them down a lot, forcing them to use their win conditions to deal with your threats. That said, the deck is very consistent and effective, hence it's popularity. It's main weakness is it's reliance on it's 1-for-1 removal and it's reliance on it's stabilizers, making cards like Hornet Queen, Hangarback Walker, Perilous Vault, Whisperwood Elemental, Rally the Anscestors, and Gods Willing and any card that is hard to get 1-for-1'd very good against it.

Rally the Anscestors.dec:

Abzan Rally: , SCG Richmond Open Champion

Rally is very good when it comes to combat. If it has 5 mana up, you have to be very careful when declaring attackers to be mindful of the creatures in their graveyard. Not only do you have to make sure that you aren't beaten when it comes to blockers, but you also have to be sure they can't just Rally and kill you on their turn. With Fleshbag Marauder and Merciless Executioner, the deck gives U/W/x Heroic a lot of trouble, while Rally the Anscestors makes a lot of 1-for-1 removal virtually useless except to Fog an attacking creature. The deck, however, is very reliant on having creatures in the grave, making cards that exile their creatures very strong in the match-up. Cards like Anafenza, the Foremost, Perilous Vault, and Hallowed Moonlight are very good at accomplishing this, while Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is not very effective, since their creatures dont tend to be around when sorcery speed removal is all that useful. In the case of Anafenza, it is important to note that a Fleshbag or Executioner can take care of her if you don't have other creatures on the board. Rally, while a very strong deck, falls behind when they don't find Rally, and many players have switched to Abzan, meaning they don't get the recasting Value of Jace, Telepath Unbound  ^Flip. Cards that give them a lot of trouble include Perilous Vault, Hallowed Moonlight, Thoughtseize, and Abzan Charm as well as any other exile effects.

That's just a few cards, mostly touching on removal as well as a few other cards of note. I just wanted to get a little bit of a lot of decks in this article. Next article, I'll go more in depth on where this comes in for deckbuilding, as well as go over a deck I've fallen in love with. I want to note that the lack of a UR Scissors or Red Aggro list is because I haven't seen them enough to really provide any insight, so I'll try to add those in the next article in wake of the Pro Tour. See everybody next time :D