Standard Top 8: Rapsolo’s Arena Tournament

Code here, today we are going to delve into an Standard Metagame analysis in a Community Tournament hosted by Rapsolo, 33 participants, let’s take a look at the top 8 decks.

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Pirexianomon

Solid Mono White Control aiming towards the later stages of the game with solid card draw engine with caretaker's talent, and Invasion of Tolvada to reuse a permanent from the battlefield and turning into a Token Generator afterwards, my main concerns with this deck rely in the early stages of the match where those first damages really take a toll on your decisions later on, but there’s Beza, the Bounding Spring to help along and close resource gaps with your opponents.

Piraxianomon took second place in this tournament with MonoWhite splashed black Token Control.

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Smadonno

Smadonno Jeskai Convoke your typical fast aggro deck, a bunch of critters by turn three dealing lethal damage, and excelent removals like Sheltered by Ghosts putting away those pesky blockers

Smadonno finished 3rd-4th in standings

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Rapsolo

The Host himself swiftly dealing matches left and right with a top tier mono black control, you probably have seen it around already, early turns discard control, Powerful three drop Liliana of The Veil removing annoying creatures and putting attention to be dealt with, and dealing punches with Sheoldred, The Apocalypse passive ability and a 6/6 flying Demon Archfiend of the Dross.

Rapsolo standing 3rd-4th

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Acosta220

Your typical critter pump spell Monastery Swiftspear and Slickshot Show-Off these cards alone can make everyone frighten, with these creatures around, two pump spells by the next turn and you are finished.

Acosta220 standing 5th-8th

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Hereu

Archetypical Golgari, a bit of control with my favorite card in Standard Deep-Cavern Bat a couple of drawing effects, and into the late game is where the magic happens, but don’t let the attrition give Restless Cottage a window of opportunity here for attacks.

Hereu standing 5th-8th

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Yeisonl

I would call this the perfect stir between Aggro Control, because you do a lot of discard effects, and then the critters take over, and Bloodletter of Aclazotz is always a threat to deal with, or you are finished with an attack of Unstoppable Slasher, and I myself I am guilty of playing variations of this deck since Foundations hit the Metagame.

Yeisonl standing: 5th-8th.

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Skoje22

I don’t know why I like this archetype so much if it’s either the cute cheeky rebel lizards, or the original gameplay this brings to the table, with each critter dealing slashes of damage that at first might not be impressive, until you’re turn 4 with 2 Life points left and a bunch of critters against licking their eyes, you might deal with a bunch of Lizards in the early turns but the real breadwinner is Laughing Jasper Flint this one is sheer terror using your cards against you.

Skoje22 standing: 5th-8th

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Rafita Money

Boros Aggro with your usual suspects Mouse Typal, Heartfire Hero is insanely powerful with Manifold Mouse and Sheltered by Ghosts you need an excellent removal to avoid its ability from triggering and stopping it from taking half your life points away.

Lightning Helix is always a sight to behold a great card to reduce advantage or gain it.

Rafita Money is the winner of this Tournament with Boros Aggro, standing: 1st

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There’s a particuliar reason I picked this Top 8 to be examined and that is the lack of a Monoblue or strong Blue pressence. I am known to be particularly biased against blue, but I don’t know if this has something to do with Foundations release shifting to a more Aggro metagame and there’s a clear pattern to constant damage gets things done, be it Sheoldred, The Apocalypse, or the cute cheeky Irisdescent Vineslasher, for more information about this particular tournament you can find it here .

And with this I wish you an extremely good weekend, and may your spells never be countered, until the next Code is out!