The Standard Metagame

Here is a breakdown of the deck archetypes that have finished in the Top 16 of a major tournament over the last thirty days.

No surprise, Reanimator has been doing well the last month with twenty-four Top 16 finishes. Esper Control is a distant second with fourteen, Jund Midrange has eleven, and The Aristocrats eight. Ten other decks have two to five appearances in a Top 16. The Standard metagame is certainly diverse heading into the release of Dragon’s Maze.

Tournament Review

Here are the Top 16 decks from StarCityGames Open: Milwaukee. The graphs display the strategies, colors, and most-played archetypes of the Top 16.

Only one Reanimator deck made the Top 16 in Milwaukee, down in fifteenth place. Jund Midrange, on the other hand, has experienced yet another resurgence, with four copies played, including the winning deck. It’s been very tough to keep the old red, black, and green down in Standard this year. The Aristocrats is the only other archetype with more than one Top 16 finish—three in total including the runner up.

Card Catalog

The charts and graphs below provide some information about what creatures and removal saw the most play in the top 16 decks of SCG Open: Milwaukee so that you can build and plan accordingly.

The list is dominated by Jund Midrange and The Aristocratic creatures given their successes and the diversity of the remaining field. Boros Reckoner and Restoration Angel were popular inclusions in many of the other decks in the tournament. The following chart shows where each of these creatures saw play.

Tragic Slip is a popular card both in and against The Aristocrats, and it’s among the best ways to deal with Falkenrath Aristocrat. Mizzium Mortars is capable of killing most of the top creatures in the format, and with 81% of the Top 16 playing plenty of red, it is not difficult to pay the overload cost and sweep up the battlefield. Check out where the top removal cards from Milwaukee were played in this chart.

Leading Indicators

In this section, I shine the light on cards that were included in a Top 16 deck last weekend but have seen little to no play in Standard Top 16 decks prior to then.

Duskmantle Seer has finally broken into Top 16 Standard at the head of Ashwin Ugale’s thirteenth-place BUG Aggro deck. The Vampire Wizard isn’t the only new card on this very interesting new deck.

"BUG Aggro by Ashwin Ugale, Thirteenth Place at SCG Open: Milwaukee"

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Evil Twin
• 1 Wolfir Avenger
• 2 Snapcaster Mage
• 2 Zameck Guildmage
• 3 Young Wolf
• 4 Dreg Mangler
• 4 Duskmantle Seer
• 4 Experiment One
• 4 Strangleroot Geist

• Spells (12)
• 1 Simic Charm
• 1 Tragic Slip
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Rapid Hybridization
• 3 Spell Rupture
• 3 Rancor

• Lands (23)
• 3 Forest
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 3 Watery Grave
• 4 Breeding Pool
• 4 Hinterland Harbor
• 4 Overgrown Tomb
• 4 Woodland Cemetery

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Deathrite Shaman
• 2 Golgari Charm
• 2 Appetite for Brains
• 2 Human Frailty
• 1 Tragic Slip
• 2 Evil Twin
• 1 Dispel
• 2 Negate
• 1 Abrupt Decay

Buy This Deck

The deck also highlights another interesting interaction that fueled some chatter during Gatecrash spoiler season: Zameck Guildmage removing counters from undying creatures in exchange for drawing extra cards. Ugale added further intrigue to his deck by choosing Rapid Hybridization for part of his removal suite and Spell Rupture as his counterspells.

By the Numbers: The Creatures of Standard

The following graphic is based on creatures played in the Top 16 decks of major tournaments since the format rotated in October 2012.

The Close

That’s it for this week’s article on the SCG Open: Milwaukee. Join me next week for more Standard tournament results, metagame review, and Magic analysis. Thanks for reading!

Nick Vigabool

@MrVigabool