CFB Pro Showdown October Decklists and Metagame

CFB Pro Showdown is an exhibition tournament organized monthly by Channel Fireball. In October, it boasted the field of 267 players, competing within the single-elimination structure for the prize pool of $1,000 and a right to face off against Hall of Famer Luis Scott-Vargas in the finals. This time, it was Ondrej Strazky who went on a 9-0 run with a Selesnya Yorion brew and emerged as the sole winner of the single-elimination part. However, he wasn’t able to beat LSV’s Azorius Control who remains an undefeated End Boss.

Metagame

Strazky himself shared after the tourney: “Standard is in a great spot right now. I’ve played against 8 distinct archetypes in the 9 rounds today, which is kind of insane.” The metagame table below only goes further to confirm this impression – the biggest share of the metagame any deck has is just 10 percent, which of course is night and day when compared to Omnath times just a couple of weeks ago. However, it must be also noted that CFB Showdown isn’t meant like a high-stakes competitive event, so a lot of players took more of a casual approach, which overall led to a huge variety of choices.

Rakdos Midrange was one of the most evolved archetypes even before the ban, so it’s not a surprise the deck only gained even more popularity after Omnath, Clover, and Escape got kicked out of Standard. However, Kroxa and Co. couldn’t show up with a great winrate on the day – only 44%. The second most popular deck performed even worse – Golgari Adventures had an abysmal 36% winrate. These stats only really go further to show that the metagame is still wide open, and the search for the true ‘top archetype’ is still far from over.

Selesnya Yorion build piloted by Ondrej Strasky to an undefeated finish – right up to the End Boss match – is probably the breakout deck of the tournament:

The archetype brings out the memories of the old Bant Yorion Control deck. The comparison is obviously not 1-to-1, but it definitely has the same feel and similar moving parts. The ramp is still there, but it’s much more toned down to be fair without Growth Spiral and Uro; the control elements of the gameplan – Glass Caskets and ECD’s – are also quite reminiscent. What’s really new is the reliance on Food synergies – Guilded Goose, Wicked Wolf, and Trail of Crumbs are all back to Standard in a big way it seems.

Below, you can see the 11 most represented archetypes of the weekend, and the top 32 decks of the tournament:

Archetype	No. of Decks	% of the Field	Winrate
Rakdos Midrange	27	10.1124%	44.4444%
Golgari Adventures	26	9.7378%	36.1111%
Mono-Red Aggro	24	8.9888%	51.1111%
Azorius Yorion	22	8.2397%	37.5%
Gruul Adventures	22	8.2397%	59.2593%
Mono-Green Midrange	16	5.9925%	53.3333%
Mono-Green Aggro	14	5.2434%	33.3333%
Dimir Control	11	4.1199%	50%
Dimir Rogues	10	3.7453%	43.75%
Esper Doom	10	3.7453%	57.8947%
Temur Ramp	8	2.9963%	69.5652%