Beating the Standard Meta-game

We all know that G/W Tokens is the top dog in the current Standard Meta. I’ve shown you a G/R Ramp list that dismantled the tokens deck 4-0 at the GP, but even so, I think there is a stronger strategy that is underutilized because innovation hasn’t happened with it lately, and instead it has been abandoned. First, let’s take a brief look at the metagame based upon www.mtgtop8.com for these past few weeks:

G/W Tokens – 19%

Bant Coco Variants – 19%

Humans Variants – 14%

B/W Control – 10%

(that’s 62% of the meta already, which means nearly 2/3 decks you play will be one of these four).

Let’s see what will typically round out the rest of the meta before we get to more random archetypes:

RG Ramp – 7%

4/5 Rites – 4%

Eldrazi Aggro – 4%

G/B Aristocrats – 4%

U/R Control – 3%

Grixis Control – 2%

(that would be 25% which added up to nearly 90% of the meta with the other 4 decks)

In summation, this standard is very defined, and at this point we know what powerhouses we need to be able to beat. So, I’ve shown you how I set up RG Ramp to do this in the last few articles, along with how it did against the archetypes we planned for (quite well). Now, here’s an update on the deck I won a Pretq with nearly a month ago (some negotiation required because I had far too many play errors), and why I think it’s stronger now than it was.

Without further ado, here’s the updated 5-color Rites list followed by my arguments for the changes:

4 Caves of Koilos

4 Yavimaya Coast

4 Llanowar Wastes

4 Evolving Wilds

2 Westvale Abbey

1 Island

1 Swamp

1 Plains

3 Forest

4 Loam Dryad

4 Elvish Visionary

4 Duskwatch Recruiter

4 Reflector Mage

4 Eldrazi Displacer

4 Catacomb Sifter

1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer

3 Dragonlord Atarka

4 Cryptolith Rites

4 Collected Company

Sideboard:

3 Invasive Surgery

4 Negate

4 Pitiless Horde

4 Sylvan Advocate

The Non-Combo Argument: I remember playing with this deck and thinking to myself the entire time that the real combo was how much mana it could generate and then turn into tempo/card advantage, and that the brood monitor/zulaport combo was more of an easy out to having to think through combat phases. I remain in the camp that the initial combo versions are weaker except in the mirror for a few reasons.
1. B/W Control decks now kill everything with languish. Literally every creature you can cast.
2. G/W Tokens is already favorable without the combo, and honestly eldrazi displacer gives that deck one hell of a nightmare to face down.

3. This version of the deck has the answer for the combo in the mirror, and it goes by the name D-Lord Atarka.

4. I remember from my tournament that I sided in a Nissa, Vastwood Seer nearly every matchup I went against, and it was a house as a card advantage engine. I never needed the combo to win any of my games until the finals, but I most certainly needed the card advantage.

In the end, I believe that with intelligent play, this deck has no need for the combo, and need I remind you that this is yet another deck that has Eldrazi Displacer + Dragonlord Atarka. If you want to clear out the other side of the board, believe me, you can get it done.

The Dragonlord Atarka Argument: Since we’ve dropped the combo iteration of the deck, the question becomes what fills that vacuum. In a weird way this deck does feel similar to a ramp deck. Dragon lord Atarka was by far the strongest card in the RG Ramp strategy, and in this same strategy it gives the deck a machine gun mini-combo (Eldrazi Displacer + D-Lord Atarka), while also giving it an easy way to deal with pesky things like planes walkers, Avacyn’s, and pushing past a Languish. Also note that G/W Tokens absolutely hates going against this card.

The Transform Board Argument: I tried a number of way to take down B/W Control with 4-color rites back when it was a combo version. I tried everything from Reality Smasher to Though-Knot Seer’s to duress/discard. The issue remained the same, we could beat their 1-for-1 removal with sheer card advantage generated by our creature base, but we could not beat their wrath effects consistently. Kalitas wasn’t actually a huge problem for us, but Languish most certainly was as it tended to buy them 2 turns to take over the game while we recovered. The issue with the other board plans was that they didn’t counter this languish game, they just assumed they’d lose 3-4 creatures if it went off and in the case of reality smasher, hoped they didn’t have a solid 1-for-1 removal spell afterwards to deal with the smasher. In the case of discard, we ran into the issue that we were spending turns trying to shred their hand when nearly every card off the top killed another creature of ours. In essence, density of removal = bad news bears for targeted discard. Also going above Languish with Reality smasher was inconsistent because Sorin/Ob Nixilis could still come down after and clean up house. So how to deal with this…Well, why not enjoy the use our creatures protecting themselves from wrath effects with a 7-counter sweet, and then upgrade the power level of those creatures so that early game they hit for quite a bit. Late Game we have a few creatures that still survive the languish anyways (see sylvan advocate). Also note that almost all of these archetypes are boarding out duress/discard effects because they just want to kill creatures post-board, and so we only need to draw 1-counter typically to buy us the turn we need to seal the game. Also note that the transform plan takes us out of Crypto-Rites plan, and that we’re happy to do that as our creature density is just nutty still.

Side boarding:

G/W Tokens – we expect 3-4 Tragic Arrogance off the board, and of course planeswalkers.

-4 Catacomb Sifter

+2 Invasive Surgery

+2 Negate

Humans Variants – If we expect 3-4 Tragic Arrogance (unlikely in current iterations that run the R/W needle spires build)

-4 Catacomb Sifter
+4 Negate

Bant CoCo Variants – If we expect 3-4 Tragic Arrogance (unlikely again in current iterations which are more focused on taking down G/W Tokens, Humans, and the mirror)

-4 Catacomb Sifter
+4 Negate

Essentially against all the creature based aggro strategies we’ll be boarding into a mix of negate/invasive surgery depending on how many tragic arrogance effects we expect post-board. The decision to lose the catacomb sifter is based on the idea we can’t afford to lose our curve of 2-drops/1-drops in terms of speed, and Eldrazi Displacer/Reflector Mage’s are too strong to cut. Essentially Catacomb sifter is our filler slot in every iteration because it’s powerful in game ones, but easy to board out for a stronger option games 2/3. If they aren’t rocking tragic arrogances or other wrath effects, feel free to board out the negates/invasive’s for game 3 and bring the sifters back in as they’ll help you ramp into D-Lord Atarka, which is our goal after all.

B/W Control – Transform board time. I did this in the Pretq and smashed through B/W Control.

+3 Invasive Surgery

+4 Negate

+4 Sylvan Advocate

+4 Pitiless Horde

-4 Elvish Visionary

-4 Catacomb Sifter

-3 Dragonlord Atarka

-4 Cryptolith Rites

We turn into a tempo deck.

All other control archetypes that we face will cause this deck to sideboard with the transformation board.