Hey all. Strickles here back with Week 3 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 four Magic Online Standard Challenges to review, and the meta has refused to settle. This week we saw no decks with Leyline of Resonance in any of the Top 8s, and midrange and control decks took over to be over represented across Top 8s. New innovations and new builds of decks have continued to emerge, so don’t let anyone tell you that Standard is boring and solved.
With all that said, let’s dive in and break it down!
Mono-White Token Control had a huge weekend, with eight copies making their way into Top 8s, and wins in two of the four events.
It seems that players have settled on the build with Enduring Innocence and a mono-white core. The question now is what do you splash? A lot of players choose to have a small red splash in their lands to cast Imodane’s Recruiter from the sideboard, but this week we saw about half the players splash blue instead, for Jace, the Perfected Mind and even Negate in the sideboard.
It seems to me that either way, those splash cards are for mirror matches, as this deck emerges as the main player in the format, how you get your edge in the mirror is going to be critical if you are going to be competitive in the later rounds of a tournament.
We’ll have to keep an eye moving forward on if this deck continues to dominate, and if it does, what sideboard splash ends up being the best.
This build also has two Caretaker’s Talent, which I find a bit odd to only have two, it feels more like a zero or four card, but I do like how it works with Deduce to make a token on your opponent’s turn to draw a card, and it does work with Sunfall and The Eternal Wanderer so maybe it’s fine as just a little bit of extra card advantage.
As I’ve mentioned when discussing other Azorius decks, Azorius has access to such good sideboard cards right now. Rest in Peace, Elspeth’s Smite, Negate, etc. Just clean, efficient ways to get the job done.
Azorius Control had failed to put up any results prior to this week, so we’ll keep an eye on it to see if this was just an apparition or if it is a real player in the format.
One Domain player brought the deck into a Top 8 this weekend, and it seems to be business as usual with this build. The only interesting shifts are to include more copies of Overlord of the Mistmoors and a single copy of Make Your Own Luck, which is great with the overlords or Atraxa, Grand Unifier to get them into play a bit ahead of schedule.
Our last control deck of the weekend was a spicy one, as a single player put what I’m calling Four Color Overlord Control into a Top 8.
This deck is kind of like Domain, but with a heavier focus on overlords. On top of Overlord of the Hauntwoods, we also have Heaped Harvest, and Spelunking to make sure we are ramping on turn three, and Analyze the Pollen helps us find lands early or overlords later in the game.
The cool part of this deck is it has a sort of combo finish. We can use Doppelgang to make copies of our overlords and then sacrifice Bitter Reunion to give them all haste, giving us a ton of value and a ton of hasty damage.
So is this deck the real deal? I’m not sure but I love the innovation of taking the Domain shell and moving away from Atraxa towards a more interesting way to win. Let’s keep an eye out and see where the deck goes from here.
Last week we had a Golgari Crimes Midrange deck pop up, but this week just good old Golgari Midrange returned in force with five copies into Top 8s, including one event win. Here’s the thing though, it really is just generic midrange, no Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting and Innkeeper’s Talent combo, just efficient creatures and efficient removal.
There are some things worth noting in this build, first is the main deck enchantment removal in Tear Asunder and Tranquil Frillback giving answers to Caretaker’s Talent, Leyline Binding, and Overlords.
This build also is playing Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber as a source of card advantage and a big demon, and Unholy Annex curves nicely into Archfiend of the Dross to start draining your opponent.
I really like this build, it seems like it has good answers to the meta and a lot of good card advantage. We’ll see if it continues to be the default Golgari build moving forward, or if other builds return to make a case for themselves.
A deck that I’m calling Orzhov Slasher is a newcomer this week, but it put a solid three copies into Top 8s this past weekend. The Orzhov is very light, as this is mostly a mono-black deck, but it does play main deck and sideboard white cards so I’m fine with calling it Orzhov.
This deck is built around the combo of Unstoppable Slasher and Bloodletter of Aclazotz. Basically, if you hit your opponent with the slasher while the bloodletter is in play they lose half their life, doubled, which is their entire life total.
Other than that this deck is essentially a mono-black midrange deck. Plenty of removal, and the curve of Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber and Archfiend of the Dross returns to provide card advantage and pressure.
Main deck Duress and Liliana of the Veil help attack the opponent’s hand and disrupt their interaction for our creatures, and Virtue of Persistence gives us early removal and a late game threat.
I like that the deck is able to make use of Temporary Lockdown from the sideboard, as all of our permanent cost three or more, and Kaya, Intangible Slayer is great against the slower decks in the format.
All in all, this is a pretty sweet midrange deck. Kind of like Golgari Midrange from last season, it does have a combo that will help you steal games that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to win, but most of the time it just plays like a normal midrange deck.
Jeskai Convoke was the best performing aggro deck this weekend, with three copies making it into Top 8s. This build made some cool changes to make use of Duskmourn cards so let’s break it down.
Clockwork Percussionist is in for Yotian Frontliner, because when it dies you exile the top card of your library and can play that card until the end of your next turn. So when you target it with Gleeful Demolition you are also getting that card back, which is just a nice bonus.
We also have Sheltered by Ghosts, which is great on a Spyglass Siren or Warden of the Inner Sky to get in some lifelink damage, but also give us a main deck answer to things like Temporary Lockdown and other problematic permanents. And, Painter’s Studio // Defaced Gallery returns for some card advantage and a way to buff up our creatures.
The sideboard is pretty standard but there is a cheeky copy of Arabella, Abandoned Doll which is a card I love as a way to get in a big swing of damage. I’m not sure what matchup its for, but glad to see players trying out different options in the sideboard.
Gruul Prowess had two copies make their way into Top 8s this weekend, but interestingly neither copy was built around Leyline of Resonance, and were instead more in line with the Gruul Prowess builds from last season.
This build is pretty straight forward, trying to curve out early with creatures, especially mice, and then use Monstrous Rage and Might of the Meek to force through damage. Innkeeper’s Talent provides some extra power, and Snakeskin Veil protects our creatures.
I think that most players are so prepared for Leyline of Resonance builds now, that players have decided it just isn’t worth it. Most games you have to mulligan to six or five to try to find the leyline, and then all of your opponent’s have cheap removal to blow you out anyways.
So I expect for now aggro players will shift away from leyline builds to a more durable game plan that doesn’t go all in on one threat, as long as players are prepared, and then once our guards are down, leyline builds will roar back to relevance to kill us on turn two.
This Mono-Red Aggro deck put one copy into a Top 8 this weekend, and also chose to avoid Leyline of Resonance in favor of a more stable game plan.
This build of Mono-Red Aggro has existed for the past couple of weeks, and should be a known factor at this point. It has the tools to play into the midgame, making it more resilient to removal but can still have fast draws.
I think that this is the place to start if you are a red aggro player for now, until Leyline of Resonance finds its moment to shine again.
Azorius Enchantments snuck a single copy into a Top 8 this past weekend, keeping it alive as a relevant archetype.
This player did have a new innovation, by including Silent Hallcreeper, which I quite like in the deck. Silent Hallcreeper is a great early threat, drawing a card, getting in for a chunk of damage, and then gets to copy one of our payoffs like Gremlin Tamer or Entity Tracker.
I think the addition of Silent Hallcreeper gives the deck even more threats, which is good since it is otherwise soft to removal. Profit’s Eidetic Memory is also cool in the deck, as later on once you get going with Entity Tracker, it can add a lot of counters to individual threats each turn.
This deck still struggles against Temporary Lockdown, which is why this player has added No More Lies to the sideboard on top of Negate, and I assume that Enduring Curiosity is also for those matchups as a follow up to their wrath.
Like always I’ve buried the lead a bit by putting this deck at the end, but it kind of is in its own category. Azorius Hand had a solid weekend, with five copies making their way into Top 8s and one event win, cementing it as a real player in the format.
I think the power of this deck comes in the variety of ways it has to interact with graveyard hate, making it very easy for them to bounce a Rest in Peace, for example, and then quickly go off with Picklock Prankster or Chart a Course into Helping Hand.
I think this deck is going to continue to put up consistent results, which is why I put in Tier One in my most recent Standard tierlist update. Playing graveyard hate isn’t enough, you need an active plan to use graveyard hate and good removal and to put on pressure, which is a lot to ask in a lot of games.
All Decklists
I did cover all of the decks that Top 8ed this weekend, but if you want to browse any of the other decks you can find them here:
It feels like we are starting to see some parts of the format stabilize. Mono-White Token Control and Azorius Hand have proven to be top contenders, while Leyline of Resonance may have fallen off the map for good.
At the same time, new decks roared onto the scene this weekend with Golgari Midrange and Orzhov Slasher, proving that the meta is still open to new developments.
Wherever Standard goes from here, I’ll be back to cover it all next week. Until then, best of luck in your matches!
Premium
Enjoy our content? Wish to support our work? Join our Premium community, get access to exclusive content, remove all advertisements, and more!
No ads: Browse the entire website ad-free, both display and video.
Exclusive Content: Instant access to all exclusive articles only for Premium members, at your fingertips.
Support: All your contributions get directly reinvested into the website to increase your viewing experience!
Discord: Join our Discord server, claim your Premium role and gain access to exclusive channels where you can learn in real time!
Special offer: For a limited time, use coupon code L95WR9JOWV to get 50% off the Annual plan!
