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Main » Articles » Dude, What's Even Good Now?

Dude, What's Even Good Now?

Michael Flores
Posted on October 11, 2022
 Reddit

In the unlikely case you haven't seen the news yet, The Meathook Massacre has been banned from Standard play.

I personally thought this was a weird choice. In Ian Duke's update on the matter, the nice people in Renton, WA didn't really see a single Black culprit... Just observed that a lot of the performing decks (many multicolored) included Black.

As someone who has recently completed his fourth or fifth Mythic run with Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Limited, I would have been fine if they somehow decided to ban that card in forty-card decks. Whereas, if anything, The Meathook Massacre has been the good guy in Standard for the past year or so; killing little White creatures and even making math difficult on Time Walking Birds tokens on occasion.

But, okay; The Meathook Massacre is banned in Standard. What's even good now?

How about this one to start?

Domain | DMU Standard | Edel, 8th Place MTGO Standard Challenge 10/8/2022

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Edel - Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Famer and frequent featurette in this column - played the only deck to make Top 8 of the October 9 Standard Challenge to not run The Meathook Massacre!

Which is not to say his deck wasn't ambitious; expensive; or for that matter, full of powerful enchantments. Plenty of his expensive Rares are even Black! It's just that none of them are specifically The Meathook Massacre.

Leyline Binding

If you haven't played with or against Leyline Binding yet, it's an extremely novel card in a deck like Edel's.

While nominally six mana, Edel is unlikely to be paying retail for his Leyline Binding. Before even considering actual basic lands, his deck plays a ton of the cycling triples from Streets of New Capenna.

Jetmir's Garden
Raffine's Tower

Spara's Headquarters
Xander's Lounge
Ziatora's Proving Ground

Now imagine Edel plays a first-turn Jetmir's Garden. That's the one he has four copies of, yeah? Go with me on this. It enters the battlefield tapped, so he won't be doing anything that turn.

You make your whatever play. Maybe nothing; whatever.

Now Edel - not very quick on the draw - just follows up Jetmir's Garden with Raffine's Tower and passes.

Uncreative Black mage that you are, you play a Tenacious Underdog. 3/2 for two mana, it's priced to move; and man can it move! Hasty sometimes! And super resilient against removal! Go go g-

Not so fast.

Jetmir's Garden is a Mountain and a Forest and especially a Plains. Raffine's Tower is also a Plains... But more importantly both a Swamp and an Island. Between these two lands in play, EDEL already has all five sorts of basic lands in play. So, when you pass the turn with your supposedly Tenacious Underdog, he just taps for w and exiles it with what is meant to be a 6-drop! With only one land untapped! Bonkers, right?

Leyline Binding is doing a pretty good Swords to Plowshares impression here; although unlucky you... You don't get paid back the three life. The catch is in order to not be embarrassed by his Leyline Bindings, Edel has to play a goofball mana base. But he is actually getting a lot out of that part of the deck anyway.

In addition to all those basic-aping triples, Edel has every kind of actual basic land in this deck. He can obtain whichever kind he needs via the back half of Herd Migration.

So, what does he do with all this diverse mana?

This isn't really a Ramp deck. While EDEL has access to all five colors, his Rampant Growth is more of a Lay of the Land with a Healing Salve tacked on. It isn't about getting more mana; merely more colors.

What ends up coming out the other side - with one notable exception - looks remarkably fair. Here's a 1/3 with some abilities you might want for two mana. Then again you might not want them at all. Workshop Warchief is a great card if you're in the market for five-mana Green dudes that sometimes have haste. But also sometimes don't. Unleash the Inferno sure feels powerful when you cast it; but it's ultimately a one-for-one for four... And what did you expect for all those colors at that CMC price?

But then there's The Kami War // O-Kagachi Made Manifest.

The Kami War // O-Kagachi Made Manifest is the real payoff for playing all these colors.

Chapter II is conditionally a re-run of Chapter I; but sometimes you just get double value by returning your own Ertai to hand; or maybe resetting a Reckoner Bankbuster. Provided they have one in hand, your opponent has to lose a second card no matter what. After all that abuse they then have to beat your 6/6 super Ophidian Dragon!

Is this deck one of the better ones now that The Meathook Massacre has been banned? Despite plenty of access to black, EDEL didn't deign to dip into that Mythic Rare.

If you're interested in another look, how about this one?

Domain Ramp | DMU Standard | RyanWu, 9th Place MTGO Standard Challenge 10/8/2022

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EDEL was the only non-The Meathook Massacre player in that Challenge Top 8; but RyanWu was close on his heels at 9th place. This is also a deck topping up on The Kami War // O-Kagachi Made Manifest, but features a number of key differences.

Remember when we said that EDEL's deck wasn't really a Ramp deck? Well, RyanWu answers with Topiary Stomper. There are, again, plenty of basics to find; but if RyanWu runs out, Herd Migration can always just make a ton of 3/3 threats. Boo hoo.

I actually just love the implied operations of this deck. Drag to the Bottom is a potent Wrath effect for the cost [in this deck]; and between it and all the flexible point removal (which is going to include The Kami War // O-Kagachi Made Manifest), most opponents are going to have a hard time keeping threats on the battlefield.

From there, RyanWu can play a grinding game with the awesome two-for-one Green creatures or Reckoner Bankbuster. How the game is won is actually going to be a function of overwhelming card advantage; but details-wise it'll probably end abruptly via multiple 6/6 Dragons or even more 3/3 Beasts.

I love how this deck can transform into a medium Counterspell deck after sideboarding; complete with Sphinx of the Clear Skies as its in-theme finisher. My nomination for coolest non-The Meathook Massacre deck of the week!

Now on the subject of Counterspell decks with big fliers, make sure you're keenly aware of deck like the following if you're grinding Standard ladders, playing events, or returning to paper sixties on Friday nights:

Mono-Blue Delver | DMU Standard | VerdantCards, 13th Place MTGO Standard Challenge

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The Mono-Blue deck in Standard has a lot of things going for it; but the most important is just that it's a plausible Delver of Secrets deck.

If you weren't playing the first time Delver was legal in Standard you might not have quite experienced the Delver draw. Like, if you just play Island, Delver of Secrets on turn one and then reveal Mana Leak Make Disappear on your second upkeep the game is probably already over.

Delver is such a fast clock!

The speed of an offensive clock might not seem intuitively important to you. This is a Counterspell deck, right? Sure; but it's not generally capable of complete control of the game. The way you should think about it is that your Insectile Aberration is a call-it-six-turn clock. All you have to do is prevent the opponent from killing your 3/2 or killing you in the next six turns and it will fly over for lethal damage in relatively short order.

This gets really crazy if you just draw two Delvers in your opening hand. Opponents on the draw; opponents with lots of lands that enter the battlefield tapped (like the two amazing Domain builds we were just talking about) or any kind of legitimate control deck are all just meat to Insectile Aberration.

It's an extremely weird feeling to play a couple of 1/1s for one; never hit your third land drop; but also never even come close to possibly losing a game! This deck will give you that weird feeling again and again.

As I said a moment ago, the Mono-Blue isn't really capable of full control. There are a lot of cards in this deck that are unbelievably great... Sometimes. Essence Scatter versus Negate is the best and most obvious example. Sometimes you need to stop a clock; or a potential blocker. And others you just need to keep removal (which might cost four mana, good gawd) off your attacking Delver(s). Best hope you drew the right one!

Haughty Djinn is mostly a terrible Delver of Secrets; but its enormous toughness relative to, say, a Lightning Strike is pretty good. You'd be surprised at how low the Djinn's power will be. I think a lot of people who have never actually played the strategy imagine how big the numbers on its power can be versus how much operating mana they actually have before the Djinn hits the battlefield. Don't get crazy. It's 2/4 way more often than it is 11/4. But the fact that it's 11/4 at least sometimes is part of the range and can make for an effective clock.

The one card I cut immediately from this deck is Ledger Shredder. This deck misses land drops a lot. First of all, you don't have very many; and secondly you often have to skip opportunities to manipulate your library or draw extra cards because you had to leave interplay Islands open. You really don't have that much operating mana, so Ledger Shredder is remarkably medium. Fine; I guess it's a pretty good blocker for two mana but that's not really that exciting.

The two cards I found to be really impressive were Slip Out the Back and Tolarian Terror.

Slip Out the Back is just a great protection spell for so little mana. Beyond great! At one mana, it is often the last "permission" spell you'll play in a fight. The opponent will almost always be spending more mana than you during a back-and-forth; and Slip Out the Back's built-in buff layers on that delicious feeling of insult over injury. Don't forget it can also get a blocker out of the way in a pinch! That's never a very reliable long-term play, but it can stave off lethal damage or might not matter if you're not planning on playing another turn.

I have loved Tolarian Terror every time I've ever drawn it; but I can understand why VerdantCards chose to play only the one copy. It's super exciting if you're playing a 5/5 Ward for one or two mana... But clearly you need a lot of interplay before you get to that point. It's not exactly an All-Star in your opener.

My major complaint about this deck is that you often win by the skin of your teeth; but have relatively little to say about it when the opponent is actively blowing you out. Despite having a ton of cards that either explicitly or implicitly counter spells, there are no - "no" as in "zero" - real hard counters anywhere in this deck. Make Disappear is remarkably ineffective in a long game. The same can be said of Spell Pierce; only that is even more conditional.

Essentially you need to be able to generate a lead, and then use your spells to hold that lead for as short a period as you are able. Delver of Secrets is an outstanding way to get the lead (because it's so cheap)... But even your best turn one or two play (with backup!) can be underwhelming if you just don't flip it. You're mostly relying on the top of your deck for that, and sometimes it just gives you more Islands and leaves you with a dopey 1/1.

Still, Mono-Blue is the deck I've played the most in this Standard so far and I really like the fact that there is a viable Standard deck, finally, that is a little less rares-intensive but can still be competitive. More of this please, nice people in Renton, WA.

So, what do you think will be best now? Now that The Meathook Massacre has itself been massacred from Standard?

LOVE

MIKE

TAGS articles, standard, metagame, constructed, analysis, decklist, michael flores, dmu standard, 10112022

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