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A Lesson Learned and SCG Regional Results


I have a confession: I love Mantis Rider. A fast flying beater is just a lot of fun to me. When Jeskai Aggro was no longer a top tier archetype during Khans Standard, I was pretty disappointed. The deck had been good to me as I had a lot of success at smaller Standard tournaments, and even placed 2nd at a larger tournament. But I moved on and started playing Abzan like everyone else. Toward the end I moved toward the RW Aggro list that Sam Pardee had success with at GP Denver, and once Fate Reforged spoilers started coming out I continued to work on the deck. I had a few PTQs coming up and knew the deck would be well positioned.

However, during my testing, I ran into an old friend...

Mantis Rider [KTK]

I played against a Jeskai Aggro deck and was beaten pretty soundly by the hasty bug. I was instantly enamored with the deck again. Ignoring the fact that the matchup was bad and I was horribly flooded both games, I threw my deck aside and immediately began tuning Jeskai aggro. I had a week and a half of testing before the first tournament I planned on attending (a PPTQ) and knew I could make the deck work. I tested against all the usual suspects: UB Control, Whip decks, Mardu, Jeskai Tokens, and of course Abzan. After a four hour session with a friend where I only tested the Abzan matchup, I was completely sold on the deck being good. I knew the token strategies would be a weakness, but hoped that Whip of Erebos decks would continue to keep their numbers down. I headed down to my local game store ready to take down the PPTQ. Here's what I sleeved up.

I finished in the top 4 of the tournament and felt pretty good about my results. The metagame was mostly what I expected, with the only real bad matchup of the day being the Jeskai tokens deck that I lost to in the semi finals. The next weekend I was playing in one of the last real PTQs and was excited about my chances, however this changed after seeing the results of the first SCG Open of the season. Lots of Green ramp decks and RW Midrange, both of which weren't favorable matchups. My week of testing confirmed what I knew deep down; the deck was a poor choice. Right? No it couldn't be. I had just done really well the weekend before with it. I pushed on learning the matchups and hoping that my play skill would allow me to maneuver through bad matchups. A few days before the tournament I looked into a RW list I saw do well at the Super Sunday Series and even played a few games with it. The deck performed well, but I was determined to make Jeskai Aggro work. I made a few small changes to the sideboard, taking out the Erase and the sideboard copy of Dig Through Time, adding a Negate and 2 Abzan Advantage, and jumped into the tournament.

Trust Your Testing

I flamed out at 1-3 facing both RW Aggro and Green Ramp decks twice each. While I usually don't let the results of a single tournament disappoint me too much, this one hit me particularly hard. I am a spike in every sense. I play this game to do well and rarely let my emotions get the best of me. I know my metagame, and I knew what my testing told me, but I chose to ignore it. This poor result was very much deserved and after a few days of reflection I'm glad it happened. I had been performing well recently and was starting to ignore the very things that were allowing me to do that.

Hopefully that story helps you out in some way to become a better player, but I'm sure you didn't come here to listen to my sob stories. Standard has somewhat been out of the spotlight the last few weeks with the SCG Opens taking a break from Standard and the Pro Tour being Modern. However, we did have a dozen somewhat large tournaments this weekend in the SCG Regional Championships. Looking at the results of these can provide the status of the current metagame. Usually you would want to look at a little more than the top 8 of any given tournament, but since we have twelve of them to work with, we can focus on the decks that made the elimination rounds.

SCG Regionals Top 8 Breakdown

RW Aggro/Midrange Abzan Midrange Abzan Aggro GR Aggro Mardu Gx Devotion UB Control Gb Constellation Jeskai Aggro Sultai Control Jeskai Tokens Temur Aggro UW Control UW Heroic Temur Ascendency Combo Mono Red RB Aggro Sultai Reanimator Mono Black Aggro 4 Color (WBRU)

  Winner Second Top 8 Top 8 Percentage
RW Aggro/Midrange 3 5 22 22.9 %
Abzan Midrange 2 3 16 16.7 %
Abzan Aggro 1 1 9 9.4 %
GR Aggro 1   6 6.3 %
Mardu     5 5.2 %
Gx Devotion   1 5 5.2 %
UB Control   1 4 4.2 %
Gb Constellation     4 4.2 %
Jeskai Aggro     4 4.2 %
Sultai Control 2   3 3.1 %
Jeskai Tokens     3 3.1 %
Temur Aggro     3 3.1 %
UW Control 1   2 2.1 %
UW Heroic 1   2 2.1 %
Temur Ascendency Combo     2 2.1 %
Mono Red     2 2.1 %
RB Aggro 1   1 1 %
Sultai Reanimator   1 1 1 %
Mono Black Aggro   1 1 1 %
4 Color (WBRU)     1 1 %

 

 

 

You would have to be living under a rock to be surprised that the top decks in the format are based around Siege Rhino and Goblin Rabblemaster. Abzan and RW were far and away the most successful decks at Regionals as they captured almost 50% of the decks played in the elimination rounds. These decks will most likely continue to be the top dogs until Dragons of Tarkir comes out as they are just the most powerful proactive things you can be doing in the format right now. RW is the best deck in the format in providing tempo, and Abzan packs the most card-for-card power. If you are playing a different deck, you better have a good reason for doing so and also have a gameplan for dealing with them.

 

Green based decks filled in a good chunk of the next best performing decks with RG Aggro, Gb Constellation, and Green Devotion. I want to mainly point out the RG Aggro list as it has been performing pretty well in my area and is now starting to put up some other results in paper tournaments as well. The deck puts opponents on the back foot a lot faster than expected. Below is the list that won the SCG Regional in Salt Lake City.

 

 

 

A deck with the ability to pump out a turn 2 Goblin Rabblemaster or a turn 3 or 4 Stormbreath Dragon is a threat which needs to be prepared for. Add in the reach provided by Crater's Claws and a way to put on constant pressure in Xenagos, the Reveler, and this deck is going to be on the rise. It is currently under represented on Magic Online, so don't be surprised if you start to see an uptick in the number of pilots on there as well. The list above does seem a little conflicting however, by running Courser of Kruphix in such an aggressive shell. Shawn Meyer seems to be trying to toe the line between being a Devotion and Monsters deck. While the flexibility may be what allows the deck to be successful, moving in one direction or the other may provide better consistency and would be one of the first things I would test.

 

Conclusion

 

The metagame hasn't really seen a huge shift in results as of late, but I expect that to change when Standard is back in the spotlight with Grand Prix Seville and SCG Houston this weekend. If I were to be playing in either, I feel like being proactive is still the place you want to be: some form of either RW Midrange with a good sideboard plan for the mirror, or a build of RG Aggro. If you plan on going to either, make sure you put in the work to test and trust your results. We all have our pet decks that we want to do well, but sometimes we just need to realize that it's a worse version of a better deck.



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