Justin Vizaro
7/9/2012 11:01:00 AM
this article! - or -
Those of us who will be in central Florida this weekend likely have a bit of a one-track mind this week, but even if you're not planning to go to the
TCGplayer Orlando Open, the M13 Standard format is upon us, and it is critical that we all focus on adapting decks to suit the changes, and to take advantage of the increased card pool that we will have for the next few months. The Open event is a unique one in that it will likely reflect a few of the changes one could expect as a result of the new product being available, but it will also be limited by the fact that the cards will only have been available for less than 24 hours by the start of the event. This will likely mean a greater impact from certain cards, with some of the favorites like Ajani and even
Thragtusk being under-represented. Most people already have a deck choice, but is it really that difficult to begin thinking about the things that one might encounter at this event and others that will occur in the coming weeks?
For the past couple of months, the gauntlet has been fairly diverse, regardless of what people might say about Delver decks. Below is a summary of the format before M13:
- Delver and UW Midrange
- Birthing Pod Decks
- Zombies
- Esper Control and Solar Flare
- RG Aggro
- Ramp
- Reanimator (Grites, Frites, etc)
Cards that are expected to have an immediate impact on the format:
Archetypes that get an obvious boost from M13:
- Infect (Adds Rancor)
- RG Aggro (Open to Flinthoof Boar, Rancor, and Thundermaw Hellkite)
- Birthing Pod Decks (Access to Thragtusk)
- Get 'er Dungrove (Access to Rancor and Mwonvuli Beast Tracker)
Given the above information, it seems unlikely that decks which struggle to interact with
Rancor will be able to compete, especially in the tournaments immediately after the release of M13, as
Rancor was a common in Urza's Block, and as such, access to that card is less restricted than most others. There is also a larger number of decks that benefit from the inclusion of
Rancor, so odds are good that if you're planning to attend the
Orlando Open this weekend, your deck's
Rancor package will either win you games or lose you games. If you don't have a means of interacting with
Rancor yet, I suggest investigating your options immediately.
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This card is one of my top 10 favorite cards, and I have ridden it to many victories. The decks that benefit the most from having this card available are Mono-Green Dungrove, RG Aggro, and Defiant Infect. I expect a large number of players to pick up a Dungrove deck this week, as it has a terrific matchup against Delver when Elder does hit the table.
Mwonvuli Beast Tracker will also help as extra
Green Sun's Zeniths that bring a body in tow that can pick up a sword if necessary. It used to be that Dungrove Decks were trash without the swords in play, so they went by the wayside. With Swords,
Rancor, and Tanglewurm all granting the evasion necessary for these decks to break through tokens and other small blockers, I
Foresee a sharp increase in the deck's presence in the near future.
Infect is a deck that always shows up at tournaments, along with
Tempered Steel, mostly as the wild card guy who wants to try to run the gambit and get there. With
Rancor in the mix, however, it might be necessary to board a little extra against this deck, or at least keep it in mind when you're deciding how to use the final two-four slots in the sideboard.
RG Aggro is another deck that stands to benefit at least a little from the inclusion of
Rancor, and it was a deck before that anyway; with turbo bacon now in the mix in addition to
Rancor and a new 5 cmc finisher in
Thundermaw Hellkite, I think RG Aggro will be one of the decks that is positioned extremely well moving forward into October.
Rancor's effect will be slightly less on the RG Aggro archetype, mostly because the deck is already seeing a bit of play, but because that single card will pull decks like Infect and Dungrove into the format in addition to making one of the more popular decks more powerful, I have to say that
Rancor is the most important card to consider going into this weekend. Here are some ways you can manage its effects:
- Mental Misstep: Probably the best option against Rancor, as it is also extremely good against the entire format at the moment. Misstep will be a dead draw in roughly 10% of your game ones, and will hardly ever be a card that can't come in from the board. With the expected increase in decks trying to run Rancor, I can see sneaking one or two Missteps into the maindeck this week. If nothing else, the card is pretty decent against Zombies, most Birthing Pod lists, RG Aggro, and many Delver decks as well, so you could do worse than throwing this card into your brews.
- Revoke Existence: some people will opt for Erase, as it is capable of the same things as Revoke at instant speed for one less mana, but with Wild Defiance, Rancor, and possibly some anthems being the only Enchantments in the format, I don't think Erase is much better than Revoke anyway. When the choice for board space comes to Erase and Revoke Existence, I think I have to go with Revoke so that I don't have to also dedicate board space to artifact removal.
- Surgical Extraction: There are some other cards that will make you want to play Surgical Extraction anyway, so there's a chance that this card is slightly more playable with Rancor in the mix. Rancor's Trigger goes on the stack, so there is time to cast Extraction and get rid of the entire menace before it gets the chance to bounce back to the grip. Again, Extraction is also valuable against Strangleroot Geist, Geralf's Messenger, Lingering Souls, and the entirety of Reanimator decks. It's never been that great in many players' eyes because it doesn't directly affect board or hand state, but in the case of Rancor, it technically does affect hand and board state, so it's slightly more justified. Like Mental Misstep, this spell is free for all colors to use, so it's another option that will be reviewed excessively this week.
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Beyond dealing with
Rancor and the decks that will improve or begin to exist with more regularity as a result of it being in M13, I think the next most-impactful card of the week will be
Thragtusk for those individuals capable of securing a playset.
Birthing Pod decks go bananas over this card, as many of them are now playing
Restoration Angel as well. The value generated by casting this guy is well above that of other cards that have filled similar roles like
Kitchen Finks and
Obstinate Baloth. I will always think of
Loxodon Hierarch was the marquee stabilization tank (one which has been outclassed by nearly all of its contemporaries), and with him as my benchmark, I'd put
Thragtusk in another league entirely. Aggressive decks that fail to win by the time
Thragtusk hits the table will likely be unable to do so at all, which dampens the effectiveness of decks making the audible to
Rancor. All things considered, we will likely discover by the end of the weekend that
Birthing Pod decks are the most well-positioned in the format when they reach four mana, and
Thragtusk will be one of the driving factors of that reality.
To be honest, there really aren't that many ways to avoid Thragtusk's value from the perspective of the aggro player. Because Thragtusk's ability is a leave play trigger, it's not even possible to minimize value with cards like
Red Sun's Zenith and
Oblivion Ring, but I will tell you this: it's almost always going to be better to trade 1 removal spell and 1 creature for
Thragtusk instead of 2 creatures. If your opponent can gain 5 life and kill two of your dudes for five mana, there is absolutely no hope of getting back into the game. Pulling the trigger on the removal as soon as possible will also be critical, as
Restoration Angel looms if you choose to sandbag it.
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The next card on the list is
Vampire Nighthawk, as I think this card is one that will appeal to a long list of players. Those who can remember playing Nighthawk not too long ago remember that it always just ate
Lightning Bolt, but there is something special about a Black card that costs three mana and has three separate lines of text. Some players will be inclined to make a mono black list with the new Liliana,
Lashwrithe, Nighthawk,
Mutilate, and a few other staples, but I'm not so sure if that kind of deck will show up this weekend, if at all in Top 8's. Show me
Corrupt or
Tendrils of Corruption in Return to Ravnica and we might be able to talk about Mono Black being a deck when the rotation comes around.
The Nighthawk has many uses, though, and I can actually see him making UB Fliers a possibility with the return of
Welkin Tern also playing a role. Here's a list to get your mind going if you want to try racing the format through the air- it's completely untested, utterly speculative, and likely not going to win you the
Orlando Open this weekend, but it's definitely a neat place to start if this could potentially become an archetype.
The decklist above is actually a perfect segue into the final part of the discussion that I'd like to contribute today- a list of the cards that may or may not be worthy of further consideration this weekend and further as M13 settles into Standard.
Sword of Body and Mind is actually worthy of consideration at this juncture because of the projected increase in played Green cards. Feast and Famine is just as effective at granting protection from Green, and does so while also protecting from Black (which is good if Zombie decks continue to roll), but producing
Wolf Tokens might be the biggest reason to consider adding this card to decks. Feast and Famine will likely outweigh this card when it comes down to power level against the field, but there's a distinct possibility that a few decks exist that would benefit more from generating wolf tokens.
Flames of the Firebrand has pretty obvious interactions with the field, but mostly provides support for aggressive decks that want to get around
Timely Reinforcements and other tokens that pop up from time to time like
Lingering Souls. There will be quite a few decks that scatter some X/1 and X/2 creatures about as well, and in the event that this card becomes a 3 mana
Arc Trail, it really isn't so bad.
Thunderbolt is a domino card whose playability moves with the format- the more Delvers, Nighthawks, BOP, and
Restoration Angels we see in the top 8 lists, the more often it will be acceptable to jam this card into the sideboard. Slamming 3 to the dome isn't that bad as a scrub out for a card with enough utility to stop both acceleration and highly valued creatures.
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Silklash Spider is a card that I have been calling for since the beginning of Innistrad block, and I am very excited to see it back in Standard. I think the card stabilizes so many different things that it's critical to have access to it- especially in a format with
Lingering Souls and
Thundermaw Hellkite. Hellkite is essentially an uncontrollable force in a format without
Silklash Spider, and
Lingering Souls Tokens can easily get out of hand as well. His cost is steep, but any creature with such a heavy body and strong ability ought to be a bit expensive. I like the fact that this guy is searchable, and right now fits very well into most Green-based decks as a one- or two-of.
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We discussed this card above, but with all of the other things happening in this article, I wanted to make sure nobody misses this one.
Mental Misstep is likely the most important card to consider for sideboard strategies this week and in the next couple of weeks, mostly because many of the decks that are good right now and those that are poised to do well tend to rely on having a fairly active first turn or otherwise have very important 1 CMC spells like
Birds of Paradise, Ponder, and
Rancor. Because any deck is capable of playing
Mental Misstep, don't be surprised if some of the people in your local meta begin to jam this card into the sideboard and even the maindeck.
I hope to settle upon my deck choice for this week's
Orlando Open as soon as possible, and I wish all of you the best of luck whether you plan to participate in that event or not. Be sure to catch us for the live coverage - it's bound to be an exciting weekend, and Florida has a lot to offer in terms of talent in its player base, so matches on camera will certainly be worth watching. Good luck and thank you all for reading.
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