Hey all. Strickles here back with Week 4 of our Duskmourn Standard meta reports. To give you all the latest info without having to dig through decklists and events, each week I will be going over the top events of the weekend and provide analysis of how the meta is evolving. As all of these tournaments are Best of-3, keep in mind that these meta changes only reflect the Bo3 meta and not Bo1.
This week we have five Magic Online Standard Challenges to break down, giving us a lot of good data to comb through. The meta has completely stabilized at this point, and there were only a couple of outliers this week. Dimir Midrange and Mono-Red Aggro have emerged as the top decks in the format, as they took over the meta this weekend.
This will be the last meta report before Foundation releases, as I’ll be taking next Monday to focus on Foundations.
With all that said, let’s dive in and break it down!
Dimir Midrange emerged as the best deck of the weekend, with twelve copies making their way into Top 8s and taking down three of the five challenges. This isn’t surprising because of how well it did last weekend at the World Championship, however the Dimir Demons build that took down the championship did not appear at all, as the more classic midrange build was favored.
There are a few things I like about this build, including less copies of Anoint with Affliction, as there is not a Helping Hand anywhere near the Top 8s, you can probably get away with playing less copies of that card in the main deck, and shift over to the sideboard like this player did.
Kaito, Bane of Nightmares has become standard stock for this deck, so if you haven’t gotten used to playing with and against this planeswalker you better start. It has hexproof on its controller’s turn, so if you have a kill spell like Bitter Triumph, you have to use it on your turn.
Golgari Midrange had an alright showing, with five copies making their way into Top 8s, but compared to the insane performance from Dimir Midrange, it has clearly fallen down to second place in the battle for best midrange deck.
The Demons build has become the standard for this deck, and both Unholy Annex and Archfiend of the Dross have spiked in price as a result.
This build is still heavy on Anoint with Affliction, which as I described above, I don’t think is necessary at this time. It does hit most threats in the format, but it does miss opposing copies of Archfiend of the Dross and Enduring Curiosity, which are very common threats in the format now.
I think that Golgari is going to continue to be a player in the format after Foundations releases, but we’ll have to see if it can find a way to get a leg up on Dimir Midrange. In general, the counterspells coming out of Dimir just give it that edge in the mid and late game, so it might be difficult for Golgari to ever come out on top.
Orzhov Demons had two copies make their way into Top 8s this weekend, making it a pleasant surprise in an otherwise stable set of results.
This build is very similar to Mono-Black Demons that we have covered before, it has the core of Unholy Annex and Archfiend of the Dross, backed up by good removal and disruption.
The benefit of being Orzhov is the splash gives us Legion to Ashes to answer opposing copies of Unholy Annex or Enduring Curiosity, and Temporary Lockdown to slow down Mono-Red and Gruul aggro decks.
Now that the Demons core seems to be taking over Standard midrange decks, it is smart to explore all the options. I wouldn’t be surprised if a Rakdos build popped up at some point, or maybe even a three color build.
Mono-Red Aggro had a great weekend, putting ten copies into Top 8s this weekend and taking down one of the five challenges.
This build of Mono-Red should look familiar and different at the same time. The core of the deck is the same as the list that Top 8ed the World Championship, with the mice core and then other good aggressive creatures including Screaming Nemesis to go alongside Monstrous Rage and burn spells.
This build has a bit of a twist though, if you look at the lands we do have 8 green sources, and those are only there for the copies of Pawpatch Formation in the sideboard. Some people would call this a Gruul deck, but I think the decklists are still different enough that this is still Mono-Red and Gruul is its own thing.
I’m honestly kind of surprised that this classic Mono-Red Aggro list is so popular and put up such great results, but I think that shows how good the card quality of this deck is. Every threat is problematic if left alone, pressure the opponent to have removal spell after removal spell if they want to stay alive.
Mono-Red will likely continue to be a big player once Foundations releases, but there are some interesting tools that may make it move into another color. We’ll talk about that later though.
Gruul Prowess had a good weekend as well, taking up seven spots in Top 8s, including one event win, keeping it relevant in its fight with Mono-Red Aggro for best aggro deck in the format.
I think the benefit of Gruul Prowess is that it plays well into the mid game thanks to Innkeeper’s Talent buffing up any threats you top deck, and Questing Druid providing some card advantage.
That being said, Gruul is also much more all-in than Mono-Red Aggro, trying to kill in a couple of big swings. The key difference is a card like Slickshot Show-Off, which we don’t see in the build of Mono-Red Aggro but do see in Gruul Prowess. The goal of this card is to be plotted and then come down and get pumped two or three times and finish off the opponent.
This is also when Snakeskin Veil is valuable, as it can protect your key threat on the turns you go for the kill.
With all that in mind, I think that Gruul Prowess wins in terms of speed, but that Mono-Red Aggro wins in terms of consistent kills. Gruul is running a sprint, while Mono-Red is running, well not a marathon, but a slightly longer sprint.
Azorius Enchantments stuck around this weekend, putting two copies into Top 8s, keeping it relevant in the Standard metagame as we prepare for Foundations.
This build is a bit interesting to me, as it is very light on copies of Shardmage’s Rescue, and instead is playing four copies of Fae Flight for its protection spell. The benefit of Fae Flight is that it grants flying, giving some much needed evasion to whatever creature you have chosen to buff up with cards like Ethereal Armor.
Speaking of flying, this build is also playing a couple copies of Spyglass Siren, which is a great target for your auras and counters, as it can fly over the battlefield to get in some damage. Although I would think if you were playing this card you would want more copies of Shardmage’s Rescue, so that might be something to play around with.
I think what keeps this deck around is it has a consistent game plan and great sideboard tools. It sees a lot of cards so it is likely to find those sideboard tools, and if the opponent stumbles it can quickly end the game in just a couple of big swings.
I would keep this deck on your radar moving forward, as I feel like it hasn’t been fully explored to find the best build yet.
One copy of Domain made its way into a Top 8 this weekend, forcing me to talk about it once again.
This is the cool Zur, Eternal Schemer build, which if you aren’t familiar, is trying to get overlords into play with their impending cost, and then use Zur to turn them into creatures early to get their attack effect going.
Scrollshift is also part of this plan, as it can exile an overlord that was cast for its impending cost and return it to play as a creature, giving you a surprise blocker or nice end of turn play to get your own clock going.
Other than that it is a fairly standard build of Domain, good removal, plenty of sweepers, and Up the Beanstalk to tie it all together. I think that these decks have moved away from Atraxa, Grand Unifierbecause she just isn’t fast enough. Dimir and Golgari Midrange, and the aggro decks, all have pretty good clocks, and once Atraxa comes down she is easily removed by the midrange decks and then they can finish the game off.
We’ll see if Domain sticks around after Foundation releases, or if it is left in the past.
We did get one newish deck this weekend, as Temur Combo put one copy into a Top 8 this weekend.
The goal of this deck is to get Valley Floodcaller and Enduring Vitality in play at the same time. Then, we use our otters, including the floodcaller, Thundertrap Trainer and the token from Stormchaser’s Talent, to tap for mana and cast a noncreature spell.
They will untap thanks to Valley Floodcaller, and we can keep using them to cast more noncreature spells and hopefully generate extra mana. We can then use level 2 of our talent to get back a spell, and once we hit level three we are generating a token every time we cast a spell.
Once we have enough mana or enough tokens, we can use Bitter Reunion or Song of Totentanz to give all of our creatures haste and kill our opponent with one big swing.
This deck plays similarly to the old Jeskai Ascendency combo decks back in the day, so if you like these kinds of tricky combo decks, give this one a try!
All Decklists
If you want to see all of the decklists from this weekend you can find them at the links below. They have labeled all of the Mono-Red decks that are splashing for Pawpatch Formation as Gruul Prowess, which means you will need to click in to see if it is a real Gruul Prowess list or not. There are also several Dimir Midrange decks labeled as Dimir Control, even though the decklists are not meaningfully different.
Well Duskmourn Standard is coming to a close. We technically have one more weekend of it, but next Monday I’ll be focusing on new Foundations decks so this is my last meta report on Duskmourn.
Duskmourn started out pretty wild, with Leyline of Resonance and token control decks causing quite a stir, and midrange decks nowhere to be found. As time progressed, aggro decks ditched leyline for more consistent game plans, and Dimir and Golgari midrange found their footing in the format.
The meta evolved quite dramatically over the course of the past few weeks. What were once top decks like Mono-White Token Control and Azorius Oculus have dropped off considerably. Will they come back once Foundations is out, or are they going to be left in the past? What new players will emerge?
Whatever happens in the Standard Metagame, I’ll be back after Foundations releases to break it all down. Lookout for my article this Friday where I go over my picks for the most impactful cards from Foundations for Standard, and next Monday where I break down my new brews for the set.
Until then, best of luck in all of your matches!
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