Well, the PTQ Standard season is coming to a close. While I'm sure everyone has had their fill of deck "tech," strategy and "how to beat" philosophies, I think there's always room for more.

First, let's look at the evolution of the metagame. Early on, without a doubt Jund was our leader, our "standard" for Standard if you will. Armed with some of the most powerful cards in the format, Jund is considered to be the most luck-based or mindless deck currently. However, results show something quite the contrary.

Early on Jund was fairly predictable and easy to build as majority of the decklists were the same:

[cardlist]4 Putrid Leech

4 Sprouting Thrinax

4 Bloodbraid Elf

3 Siege-Gang Commander

2 Broodmate Dragon

2 Garruk Wildspeaker

4 Lightning Bolt

2 Bituminous Blast

3 Maelstrom Pulse

4 Blightning

2 Terminate[/cardlist]

This list was quite common, give or take a card. Early on, it was easily atop any and almost all tourney Top 8 lists and in most of the other slots as well. Other decks, like Naya, Bant and Tap Out U/W had small showings. Then came Rise of Eldrazi and the Legion of Superheroes, the "Superfriends" deck:

[cardlist]2 Everflowing Chalice

4 Wall of Omens

3 Oblivion Ring

4 Spreading Seas

2 Negate

3 Path to Exile

2 Ajani Vengeant

2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

2 Gideon Jura

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Day of Judgment

1 Martial Coup

3 Mind Spring[/cardlist]

Not only is this deck expensive to build, there are quite a few Mythics included in the list. This makes it pretty tough to find and harder to build cheaply. Interestingly, this deck hasn't really had a huge share of the victory pie. However, it provided insight into the raw power of cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Gideon Jura. Whether or not just a mere propaganda tool for some websites or really the most powerful cards to come in years, they truly redefined the format. Bant, U/W and one of THE more powerful Mythic Conscriptions deck showcases it's share of the tag team J and G in relatively new revamped versions, which has really forced Jund to either evolve or move to the wayside.

Jund responded swiftly, with versions containing Plated Geopede or Vengevine. These newer Creature-Heavy versions, increased the beat downs with very fast hands. On top of that, provided a relatively new awareness within mirror-matches with Vengevine being the "anti"-Blightning card.

Vengevine-Jund

[cardlist]4 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Putrid Leech

4 Lotus Cobra

4 Sprouting Thrinax

4 Vengevine

4 Seige-Gang Commander

2 Borderland Ranger

4 Hell's Thunder

4 Maelstrom Pulse[/cardlist]

As you may know, this version, performs particularly well vs another opposing Jund player, providing easier discard options to a Blightning. Which are easily returned to play to penalyze the Blightning player for their treachery. Many people believe it also performed well vs the control mages with additional 4 powered creatures to overcome the Wall of Omens by head to head reasoning or evasion in the Thunder. This strategy might have worked, had the other creature decks not instituted the same logic yet benefit from early mana producers like Noble Hierarch or Birds of Paradise. This is one reason why the Mythic Conscriptions deck is arguably the better deck. It uses the value strategy that Jund uses in card value/power yet is much faster and on top of that, uses the seemingly overpowered Mythics J and G.

In addition to Vengevines and Thunders finding more play, Junds sideboard options were even revamped to find more response to the dreaded turn two Spreading Seas play with either Lotus Cobra or Prophetic Prism. Jund has now returned full circle into the what looks similar to earlier versions containing Bituminus Blast, and the reason for this is the competition has so many targets to feed. Here's what Jund looks like now:

[cardlist]4 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Putrid Leech

4 Sprouting Thrinax

3 Siege-gang Commander

4 Lightning Bolt

3 Terminate

2 Sarkhan The Mad

2 Bituminous Blast

4 Blightning

3 Maelstrom Pulse[/cardlist]

Notice the increase in creature removal? Sarkhan The Mad is just ridiculous in the mirror match! He also does very well vs Wall of Omens and decks like that. One of the reasons why Jund took removal out in the first place was it had no place versus Planeswalkers. However, the return to the beginning is primarily to answer for all of the creature heavy decks.

So now that we've looked at the Standard metagame's evolution in a nutshell. What happens now? Bant, Jund, Naya, Mythic Conscripts run a TON of creatures! Jund is now running it's original package that killed a creature and added a creature to the Blast's controller. What to do now?

If I were to play in a PTQ tomorrow, I'd say U/W!!! One of my ONLY problems with U/W this season, was it's ability to come back from a deficit. While Spreading Seas, Wall of Omens certainly buys time to draw into answers/solutions, I felt it really never had a true ability to stabilize. In the past, U/W would gain a tremendous amount of card advantage AND some form of lifegain. Here's what I'd probably run:

[cardlist]4 Everflowing Chalice

2 Baneslayer Angel

4 Wall of Omens

2 Oblivion Ring

4 Spreading Seas

4 Deprive

4 Path to Exile

2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

1 Gideon Jura

3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

2 Day of Judgment

1 Martial Coup

2 Mind Spring

7 Island

3 Plains

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Glacial Fortress

2 Sejiri Refuge

2 Kabira Crossroads

3 Tectonic Edge[/cardlist]

The problem U/W has in it's current form is that it gets down to sub 5 life (Redzone) and Jund would draw a Bloodbraid Elf into a Lightning Bolt or Blightning. With the list I'm proposing, you gain a bunch of card/permanent advantage with the Walls and the Day of Judgments running into Mind Spring. You gain life with Baneslayers (which is also a win condition) or the lands that provide droplets of life to extend your game. With Deprive, you can utilize would could be considered a drawback of returning a land, into a reusable resource of life by playing a life-gain land AGAIN. A midgame or lategame Mind Spring easily spells doom to any deck in the format. Therefore, this lifts the U/W deck into a more advantageous position than it has been previously.

Thanks so much for reading AraS and everyone else!!!

Lee