Sometimes the best way to find a new deck to take on the metagame is to renovate an old one. This can mean taking a deck that has fallen out of favor and revamping or even recreating it or sometimes it can mean combining multiple existing decks into a hybrid deck. This week I took another look at Dredgevine in my latest attempt to solve the metagame. The dominant pieces of the current metagame's Rock, Paper, Scissors have been:

1. Ramp decks featuring Explore, Cultivate, Summoning Trap and Primeval Titan. Typically these are either Mono-green with Eldrazi or Red/Green with Valakut.
2. Aggressive decks featuring Goblin Guide and Lightning Bolt. The primary examples of this are Red Deck Wins, Red/White Landfall and Rebirth Red.
3. Blue control decks featuring Mana Leak, Preordain, Frost Titan and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. These are usually either Blue/Black, Blue/White or Red/Blue/Green Control.

This weekend's events were no exception. The weekend was highlighted by the Invitational in Richmond and the 5K in Atlanta. The Top 8s from both tournaments revealed familiar trends. It's actually pretty amazing how similar the decks in the Top 8s of these two events were. The Top 8 of each tournament had two Boros decks, two R/U/G Control decks, one Red/Black Vampire deck and at least two Valakut Ramp decks. The only other deck was a single MBC deck that lost in the quarterfinals in Richmond. The Top 4 from each was even more similar: one Boros deck, one RUG Control deck and two Valakut Ramp decks. The only difference in the Top 4 from each event was the order of finish: Ramp beat RUG in one final and Boros beat Ramp in the other final.

Clearly, the Scars of Mirrodin Standard metagame still has the same Rock/Paper/Scissors. It's just a question of what the latest versions are:

• Valakut Ramp is still the dominant ramp deck and maybe the dominant deck period. The current Standard season kicked off with a 5K in NYC where a Valakut Ramp deck beat an Eldrazi Ramp deck in the finals. Many people expected the metagame to evolve to make Ramp decks go away, but that obviously hasn't happened. I played a RDW deck at the 5K in Boston because I was expecting lots of Ramp. I made the Top 4, thanks to beating lots of Ramp decks and a dearth of U/W Control. The rise of more Control decks to help keep RDW in check has allowed Ramp to stay viable. Cards like Overgrown Battlement and Pyroclasm have also been making more appearances in the main deck.
• Boros is emerging as the top Red Aggro deck. It has the two best things about RDW: Goblin Guide and burn. It also has Steppe Lynx, which doubles the number of all important awesome one-drops. In addition, cards like Journey to Nowhere and Stoneforge Mystic give it options that mono-red just doesn't have.
• RUG Control seems to be the latest killer Blue Control deck. If you can't beat Ramp, join-em. With Lightning Bolt, Explore, Lotus Cobra, Oracle of Mul-Daya and 4+ creatures costing six mana or more, this Blue deck incorporates much of the strength of Valakut Ramp with the traditional Mana Leak, Preordain and Jaces that make Blue control decks so good.

The thing that all three of these decks have in common is Red. They all main deck Lightning Bolt and after sideboarding, you can expect cards like Pyroclasm and Arc Trail. I made sure to keep this in mind as I worked on my deck for this week:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Memnite

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Riddlesmith

4 Fauna Shaman

4 Lotus Cobra

4 Bloodghast

4 Trinket Mage

4 Arrogant Bloodlord

4 Vengevine

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

1 Chimeric Mass

2 Eldrazi Monument

[/Spells]

[Lands]

4 Misty Rainforest

4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Darkslick Shores

4 Creeping Tarpit

1 Swamp

1 Island

5 Forest

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

1 Elixir of Immortality

1 Nihil Spellbomb

1 Brittle Effigy

1 Gatekeeper of Malakir

1 Aethir Adept

1 Skinrender

1 Sylvok Replica

1 Masticore

3 Obstinate Baloth

4 Overgrown Battlement

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

The key innovations/additions to this deck are:

1. Riddlesmith- This has a few advantages to Enclave Cryptologist. It's a threat. It's a two power creature for two mana. It can be used to cycle stuff into the graveyard, while also attacking every turn. It can even trade with a Goblin Guide. It can be used immediately. You can trigger it the same turn you play it, instead of giving your opponent a window to kill it before you can start using it or worse, in response to you leveling it.
2. Trinket Mage- A good card in general in the environment right now, it plays a strong role in this deck. First, it fetches things to trigger Riddlesmith. It makes a deck with only five actual artifacts seem not crazy to be playing Riddlesmith. It also combines nicely with Vengevine, for three Mana it becomes two creatures played to retrieve your Vengevine. It also represents two more creatures to go with Eldrazi Monument. If you have lots of mana, a Chimeric Mass can be a threat that doesn't care about burn. Trinket Mage is also great for sideboarding. It's nice to have single copies of silver bullets in the sideboard like Elixir of Immortality. The fact that Elixir lacks synergy with Vengevine and Bloodghast is reason not to main deck it, but it's still good enough to bring in against decks like RDW, especially since Bloodghast will come out in those matchups anyway.
3. Arrogant Bloodlord- A 4/4 for three mana seems ideal for this environment. It's an early threat that ignores Lightning Bolt, Pyroclam, Arc Trail, etc. If your opponent plays an Overgrown Battlement, sometimes it will be a fine trade to make, other times it will be better to wait and give it flying with an Eldrazi Monument.
4. Eldrazi Monument- All three bonuses: Flying, +1/+1 and Indestructibility are great for a deck with this many creatures. Normally, in an environment with Red burn, the Monument is a little weak because it will be hard to make sure you have enough creatures in play when you play the Monument. But with recursive creatures like Bloodghast and Vengvine, as well as tough creatures like Bloodlord, you will usually have enough creature power in play to make the Monument a devastating play. It has the added benefit of making your weaker creatures like Birds and Memnite more relevant.
5. Creeping Tarpit- With only Birds of Paradise at one mana, playing this tapped on turn one will usually not lose you any tempo. It's another multi-land to help make your mana base stable and get your Riddlesmith and Bloodlords into play in a timely fashion. It's also another threat that has to be dealt with eventually and that can benefit from Monument.

Against Valakut Ramp, Plan A is to kill them before they get to a critical mass of mana. With a turn one Birds of Paradise, there are lots of super aggressive draws possible:

• Turn two Bloodlord with a turn three Vengevine.
• Turn two Smith, Memnite, Bird, attack with Vengvine.
• Turn two Cobra and Shaman followed by turn three pitch Bloodghast, play fetch land and Monument.

Plan B is to play a Monument before your creatures are completely decimated by Valakut. Not only do your creatures become fireproof, but the +1/+1 and flying is usually enough to win the game immediately. When sideboarding, I would take out a Memnite for a Brittle Effigy.

When playing against Boros, you have to play game one very aggressively. Since you aren't main decking removal or life gaining and you usually can't block flyers, the race is on. Making trades is great, since they will usually run out of creatures before you, but leaving creatures back to block is rarely correct. Not only did you miss an Opportunity to get them closer to zero, but they might just burn it out of the way now anyway.

The matchup improves significantly after sideboarding. Memnite, Bloodghast, Riddlesmith, Monuments and two Cobras come out in favor of everything but the Spellbomb. This gives you lots of life-gain, some removal and tougher creatures. Sylvok Replica gives you an answer to equipment and Journey. You can even put it back into your deck with Elixir.

Most Blue control decks will have lots of trouble with this deck. This deck has lots of elements that pose a problem for them:

• Creatures that don't care about being killed or countered. Bloodghast and Vengevine are major pains for control.
• Lots of early threats. While they want to spend time playing Preordain, Explore and Jace, you're putting pressure on with 12 two power for two mana creatures, 4/4s for three, etc.
• Cheap outlet creatures. If Fauna Shaman or Riddlesmith hits play, then suddenly you can start getting Vengevine and Bloodghast quickly into play without having to cast them.

RUG decks generally have a bunch of annoying creatures like Cobras, Oracles and Walls. I would bring in creature removal: Effigy, Skinrender, Adept and Gatekeeper, while pulling Chimeric Mass, one Memnite and the Monuments.

Based on the results of the big events this weekend, you should probably be playing Boros, RUG, Valakut or a deck designed with them in mind. Learning how to design, tune, play and sideboard to beat the top decks in the metagame is essential to success in Standard. Be sure to consider the possibility that the best deck for the current environment can often be a deck from a former environment with a new twist. With a little remodeling based on the current metagame, a deck from the Standard junk heap can help make you a winner.