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Main » Articles » Going Aggro in Standard

Going Aggro in Standard

Josh Silvestri
Posted on July 21, 2011
 Reddit

Mono-Red

This will be the starting point for many players wanting to get in on the fun with their Grim Lavamancer, Stormblood Berserker, and Incinerate action. This may be the best selection of tools RDW has ever had in a Standard format, trumping even the Deadguy Red era of Red aggro. On the other hand, the influx in power and players this brings to the format means that coming up with actual plans is going to be more important than ever since you will have a bull’s-eye on you if you play this deck.

Players commonly run seven to ten anti-Red sideboard cards on MTGO, and have legitimately different game plans post-board. This means you need to be prepared or you’ll get run over by the anti-Red backlash. You have weapons of your own to bring to the table, though: Chandra's Phoenix and Manabarbs in the sideboard is an even bigger impact for RDW than Grim Lavamancer. Right now, Manabarbs is one of the best anti-control cards imaginable, since it gets around Leyline of Sanctity and certain decks have no real answer to the card.

One big question I have is what kind of RDW will be adopted among the majority of players. There are two routes you can take: one with Koth, other 3- and 4-drops, and twenty-four lands, and the other topping out around 2-drops and only running twenty lands. For the moment, let’s forget about Goblins and just focus on the burn-heavy Red decks. There is a notable distinction between both decks, and it bothers me to see so many people treat the strategy as the same when the games play out very differently in a host of ways.

First, let’s look at sample lists of both:

"RDW"

"Twenty-Land Red"

See the differences? One is focused on hitting 1-drops, abusing Teetering Peaks, and using its burn to clear the way with Shrine of Burning Rage and Grim Lavamancer as a Plan B. The other is far more spread out and is racing with burn and using Red’s more powerful 3- and 4-drops to close the game out. By increasing the land count, you can afford to run cards like Koth of the Hammer and Chandra's Phoenix, whereas the other version really needs to deliver damage early with its creatures to stay in the game. Both styles can work, and they each have a fair amount of support from players instead of just one or two breakaways.

You need to ask yourself what you feel will be more effective in the metagame: early creature rushes and leaning on the pure efficiency of Red’s early drops, or the flexibility and power of Koth and Manabarbs? In this metagame, it comes down to local tendencies until the SCG Open results start pouring in and people begin to enact their hive-mind instincts. Right now, I prefer having access to Koth of the Hammer and Manabarbs because they happen to be amazing against both U/W and U/B control, which are the decks I respect the most right now. If I were more worried about Valakut and Splinter Twin, I would push toward a heavier creature-based rush due to the goldfishing difference, though that isn’t foolproof thanks to the power of Pyroclasm.

Past that, I only offer one piece of basic advice for any version of Red you decide to play: It should have Grim Lavamancer in it. Some people don’t seem to understand this, so it warrants rehashing. Grim Lavamancer is not a card you typically want to play turn one. It doesn’t do anything early in the game with the exception of certain creature-based matchups, and you really don’t want your opponent spending his first removal spell on Lavamancer if you can help it. Between fueling up Lavamancer and just trying to keep it alive, the only real reason you want to drop Grim on turn one is to power up a turn-two Stormblood Berserker—and honestly, you should have better options.

As I mentioned earlier, the theme deck of Goblins is now a real thing with the addition of Goblin Grenade as a powerful finisher that normal Red can’t match. Plus, if people move toward Kor Firewalker, Spellskite, and Leyline of Sanctity to beat up on RDW, Goblins can take advantage of this with its largely creature-based attack force. It also has the best curve to take advantage of Stormblood Berserker if you feel the need for a non-Goblin in the deck.

Vampires

Instead of talking about lazy, boring, mono-Black Vampires, let’s talk about the new hotness of B/U with Trinket Mage. I’m not kidding.

"U/B Vampires (by Megafone)"

As you can see, it’s your everyday Vampires list except with a Blue Stoneforge Mystic added to spice things up. For those who never played Zendikar block, allow me to assure you that Blade of the Bloodchief can get out of hand very quickly in creature-based match-ups. Sylvok Lifestaff also makes RDW into a very good match since now opponents can’t really hope to race or clear the board of threats once you fetch it up.

Right now, Vampires is at an interesting spot in the metagame: If you look at it in terms of strengths and weaknesses, the only glaring weakness for commonly played decks is against Valakut. However, with the Blue splash for Mana Leak or Flashfreeze in the sideboard, you can have a realistic game plan for beating the usual turn-four Primeval Titan or Avenger of Zendikar, which usually locks the game up. While we can’t do anything about the sweeper-heavy hands where Valakut gets its namesake online and wins purely on lands, you can at least beat their Plan A.

Otherwise, what else is really a bad matchup? Perhaps U/W control, since it can grind you out and have an actual answer against Bloodghast in Oblivion Ring. Outside of that, though, Vampires should be favored or at least go even with every other widely played strategy at the moment. This makes it a very interesting choice to stick with, since so many people will be moving toward the allure of RDW, leaving less sideboard room for people to prep against Vampires.

Right now, the only thing I’m unsure of is the exact removal breakdown between the main deck and sideboard. Part of me wants to move toward a three/three/three split between Disfigure, Doom Blade, and Go for the Throat but a big part of that stems from the online metagame skewing back toward artifacts and cheap creatures. In the real world, I suspect four Go for the Throat and a few Disfigures will be enough to the stragglers. Dismember is a popular option and one that often takes the place of either Doom Blade or other cheap removal. It comes down to what you’re using the slots for—if you need a card equally valid across matches (other than RDW), Dismember is there for you. If you worry about the more creature-heavy decks, such as Goblins and Tempered Steel, Disfigure will suit your needs nicely.

So, with some juicy matches and people without experience playing against the newest variation on Vampires, I fully recommend giving this a whirl. Of course, if you still like B/R Vampires, you’re still covered.

"B/R Vampires – second place at SCG: Cincinnati (by Matt Farney)"

Puresteel and Tempered Steel

Puresteel Paladin decks are nothing new if you paid attention to Pro Tour: Nagoya. However, for many of us, seeing it in Standard was quite interesting; they are in essence the spiritual successors of Quest for the Holy Relic decks with a better engine and better Plan B. As of late, they’ve come into their own as a legitimate strategy, and Caleb Durward’s deck is a great starting place for anyone looking to jump into the deck:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Hero of Bladehold

3 Trinket Mage

4 Kor Duelist

4 Puresteel Paladin

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Dispatch

4 Preordain

1 Accorder's Shield

1 Basilisk Collar

1 Sword of Body and Mind

1 Sylvok Lifestaff

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

2 Sword of War and Peace

3 Flayer Husk

4 Mortarpod

2 Mox Opal

[/Spells]

[Lands]

1 Island

7 Plains

3 Celestial Colonnade

4 Glacial Fortress

4 Inkmoth Nexus

4 Seachrome Coast

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

4 Kor Firewalker

1 Negate

3 Dismember

4 Flashfreeze

1 Sword of War and Peace

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

Caleb’s list is unique in that he adds Blue for additional consistency via Preordain and Mana Leak to have some interactive element against decks he’d normally only be able to goldfish against. Between Mana Leak and the potential removal of either Dispatch or Dismember, it creates an awkward position for decks like Splinter Twin that absolutely need to combo off early. While normally they would either wait for counter backup or move all-in early, both moves now come with significant risks attached.

Speaking of combo, people tend to underestimate the damage a fully active Puresteel Paladin can actually cause. Once you’re active and can start swapping around Swords at will, you can often attack with mini-Progenitus every turn while sustaining healthy resource advantages via Sword and Paladin activations. While not as brutal as a resolved Quest into Argentum Armor, the cards have a lot more value on their own and are still strong enough to win quickly.

When you don’t win on Puresteel and Sword blowouts, the deck mainly moves toward an attrition game, leveraging equipment and the (virtual) extra cards Inkmoth Nexus, Flayer Husk, and Trinket Mage all provide through their abilities. While some decks are better suited toward this kind of game, the various protection attributes and ability to top-deck Puresteel and essentially combo out make the deck its own flavor of bonkers.

As for matchups, B/R Vampires can grind you out of the game with the proper removal usage, and combo decks such as Twin and Valakut can effectively ignore you Game 1 and simply race all but your very best draws. On the other side of the spectrum, thanks to the power equipment now holds in Standard, both U/B and U/W control are in deep trouble against resolved Swords. While U/W can offset this with Oblivion Ring and Swords of their own, it’s an uphill battle if your opponent doesn’t have removal for Puresteel and Squadron Hawk. If U/W becomes overly popular, Puresteel can also board its own Hawk brigade in along with Mortarpod and play a very grind-happy late game. Normally, this type of play would fall flat in the face of planeswalkers, but this plan can compete with the planeswalker-light, creature-heavy builds that are doing well right now.

Last-minute update: Caleb Durward came in fourth at the SCG Open this weekend with an updated U/W Puresteel list:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Glint Hawk

2 Kor Firewalker

3 Trinket Mage

4 Puresteel Paladin

2 Etched Champion

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Dispatch

4 Preordain

1 Accorder's Shield

1 Basilisk Collar

1 Sword of Body and Mind

1 Sylvok Lifestaff

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

2 Sword of War and Peace

3 Flayer Husk

4 Mortarpod

2 Mox Opal

[/Spells]

[Lands]

1 Island

8 Plains

2 Celestial Colonnade

4 Glacial Fortress

4 Inkmoth Nexus

4 Seachrome Coast

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

2 Kor Firewalker

1 Spellskite

2 Negate

3 Dismember

4 Flashfreeze

1 Sword of War and Peace

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

On the other hand, we have Tempered Steel, which pre-NPH was written off as too inconsistent, but jumped leaps and bounds with the release of New Phyrexia. It gains little from the transition to Standard if you stick with the monocolored brew, with only Steel Overseer being a notable gain. Of course, if you want to get a little imaginative, you can add a Blue splash; just like the Puresteel deck, you suddenly gain a host of options to interact with the usual cadre of decks that just try to ignore you.

Not much has changed since the last time I talked about Tempered Steel; the deck is a pure racing strategy at heart and has all the tools necessary to win in this format. It still can run tools to stall Splinter Twin (Spellskite, Dismember, and Dispatch), and against removal-heavy control, Shrine of Loyal Legions is nearly as effective as Shrine of Burning Rage from Red. That only leaves Valakut as a strategy to be feared, and some versions of the deck have moved to splashing Blue, which means Mana Leak, Flashfreeze, and Unified Will all become real answers for Games 2 and 3.

I’m honestly amazed at just how much you have to throw at the Steel deck to beat it in a “fair” game. It becomes difficult not to sympathize with some of the Pro Tour players from Nagoya when you get Steel down to two cards, kill off everything your opponent played, including Inkmoth Nexii, and still lose to one pesky Glint Hawk Idol powered by Tempered Steel. I would suggest anyone playing Black keep a close eye on the popularity of this deck, as it gives a good reason to break away from the four/zero or four/one split of Go for the Throat and Doom Blade you usually see.

With all that said, the deck still has some consistency issues and can peter out when it doesn’t have a Tempered Steel to make the weaker creatures such as Vault Skirge and Memnite into real killers. It can also lose to Red decks, which can control the board while dealing the damage necessary to stay in a racing situation. Splinter Twin post-board can also simply push through a Deceiver Exarch; even if Steel sees its sideboard cards, it simply can’t match up with a full set of Spellskite, Dispel, and possibly Mental Misstep as well.

I would keep my eye on both builds, though; here are some lists to get you started.

"Fifth place at SCG Cincinnati (by David Shiels)"

"Ryuuichiro Ishida – Japan Nationals 2011"

That’s all for this week. Next time, we’ll see where we stand now that big event results have started coming in for M12 play. Until then, good luck!

Josh Silvestri

E-mail me at josh dot silvestri at gmail dot com

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, aggro, josh silvestri

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