Melissa DeTora
7/27/2012 10:15:00 AM
This weekend, I'll be attending the TCGPlayer MaxPoint Diamond Event in Providence, RI. Luckily for me, the event is taking place in my hometown, which gives me a few advantages. First, I can get up just a little bit later than most of the players and not have to worry about traveling to the event. Second, I have a good idea of what the expected metagame is going to look like. Obviously, it's hard to predict a metagame for a 300+ player event that people are traveling to from all over, but it's safe to say that the majority of the players will be local. I'm having a hard time deciding what to play this weekend. The format is very healthy, and there are a wide variety of decks to choose from.


The first deck to look at is UW Delver. Delver has been winning PTQs and premier tournaments left and right, and is clearly the deck that you need to be prepared for. Last weekend, we had a PTQ at the same venue that the Max Point Diamond Event is taking place at. The PTQ was won by Anthony Huynh piloting UW Delver. I was pretty impressed by Anthony's play last weekend, especially because he was late to the tournament, received a round one match loss, and then went undefeated for the rest of the day, taking down the PTQ with ease. Here is the Delver list that he played:

UW Delver by Anthony Huynh Finished 1st Place at 2012 PTQ Ravnica - Providence, RI - 7/21 Main Deck Sideboard 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Geist of Saint Traft 4 Restoration Angel 4 Snapcaster Mage Creatures [16] 2 Dismember 3 Gitaxian Probe 2 Gut Shot 3 Mana Leak 4 Ponder 2 Sword of War and Peace 2 Thought Scour 4 Vapor Snag Spells [22] 2 Cavern of Souls 4 Glacial Fortress 9 Island 2 Moorland Haunt 1 Plains 4 Seachrome Coast Lands [22] Deck Total [60] 2 Celestial Purge 1 Day of Judgment 2 Dissipate 1 Divine Offering 2 Hero of Bladehold 3 Phantasmal Image 1 Sun Titan 1 Surgical Extraction 2 Timely Reinforcements Sideboard [15] View a Sample Hand! Solitaire this Deck! Click for full deck stats & notes!

With the release of M13, many players have been trying lots of different things with Delver. I've seen lists with Augur of Bolas, Talrand, Sky Summoner, and even Talrand's Invocation, or "Double Lingering Souls," as I like to call it. There are lots of ways to build Delver, but the deck that won the PTQ was a very traditional, straight-forward list. 4 Delver of Secrets, 4 Restoration Angel, 4 Snapcaster Mage, and 4 Geist of Saint Traft made up the creature base, and the non-creature spells were a mix of Mana Leaks, Vapor Snags, and removal. There was nothing cute going on with this list, which doesn't necessarily mean that the other ways to build Delver are wrong. It simply means that even though players are trying out different things with UW Delver, you can't forget about what the deck looked like pre-M13, and Anthony's win last weekend proved that.

With Delver being the Deck to Beat, what's the best way to approach Standard? Most players will just choose to play Delver and hope to outplay their opponents in the mirror, and just flat out beat everything else. I think the best way to approach Standard is to find a deck that is good against Delver and can put up a solid fight against most of the other archetypes. There are a quite few decks out there that accomplish this goal. Here is an example of one of the more powerful aggro decks:

Mono Green Aggro by Melissa DeTora Main Deck Sideboard 4 Arbor Elf 4 Borderland Ranger 4 Dungrove Elder 4 Llanowar Elves 3 Predator Ooze 4 Strangleroot Geist 3 Thragtusk 3 Ulvenwald Tracker Creatures [29] 1 Dismember 2 Green Sun's Zenith 4 Rancor 2 Sword of War and Peace Spells [9] 22 Forest Lands [22] Deck Total [60] 2 Act of Aggression 2 Beast Within 2 Crushing Vines 1 Dismember 3 Garruk, Primal Hunter 1 Ground Seal 3 Sword of Feast and Famine 1 Ulvenwald Tracker Sideboard [15] View a Sample Hand! Solitaire this Deck! Click for full deck stats & notes!

Mono Green is back and better than ever! Last year, during the 2011 State Championships, Mono Green was quite popular, but it died down very quickly once players learned how to deal with Dungrove Elder.

Now, because Rancor was reprinted, Dungrove Elder is on top again. A Rancor attached to a hexproof creature is incredibly powerful, and you'll never have to worry about your Rancor being countered on resolution if you target the Elder with it. Since Dungrove Elder only dies to mass removal spells, and can't be chump blocked very well if it has Trample, the Elder is one of the biggest threats that an Aggro deck can ask for.

Ulvenwald Tracker actually gives the deck some solid removal besides Dismember, and the rest of the creatures in this deck are nearly impossible to kill without wasting a lot of resources to do so. Strangleroot Geist is still the efficient beater he always was, and Thragtusk provides some amazing card advantage. However, the card that really impresses me is Predator Ooze. Sure, Vapor Snag can do some work on this guy, but being indestructible is highly relevant in Standard right now. The only ways to kill him are with Dismember or other -X/-X effects. If he is wearing a Rancor, Predator Ooze can get out of control very quickly just by attacking once or twice. If you have to play defense against opposing aggro decks, Predator Ooze can just sit there and block while you find the resources you need to take control of the game. He also has great synergy with Ulvenwald Tracker.

The other approach to winning in Standard is to just cram as many cards that give you card advantage into one deck. If all of your threats take multiple cards to deal with them, then you should always come out ahead. There is one deck in Standard that can do that quite nicely. The deck is very good at adapting to different situations, and can play the role of the aggro deck, control deck, and even the combo deck. The deck I am talking about is, of course, Naya Pod.

Naya Pod by Melissa DeTora Main Deck Sideboard 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Blade Splicer 2 Borderland Ranger 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 3 Elvish Visionary 1 Geist-Honored Monk 2 Huntmaster of the Fells 4 Restoration Angel 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 1 Thragtusk 1 Wurmcoil Engine 1 Zealous Conscripts Creatures [31] 3 Birthing Pod 2 Bonfire of the Damned 1 Oblivion Ring Spells [6] 4 Cavern of Souls 4 Copperline Gorge 4 Forest 4 Gavony Township 1 Mountain 2 Plains 4 Razorverge Thicket Lands [23] Deck Total [60] 1 Acidic Slime 1 Act of Aggression 1 Ancient Grudge 1 Bonfire of the Damned 2 Celestial Purge 1 Crushing Vines 2 Hero of Bladehold 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast 1 Mortarpod 1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 1 Thragtusk 1 Wolfir Silverheart 1 Zealous Conscripts Sideboard [15] View a Sample Hand! Solitaire this Deck! Click for full deck stats & notes!

Because of this deck's flexibility, it was the most represented deck at the Providence PTQ last weekend, and with good reason. This deck is incredibly resilient and can handle practically anything thrown it's way. Usually decks that play lots of creatures are vulnerable to mass removal effects like Bonfire of the Damned. However, this deck recovers very nicely after a board sweeper. Almost every creature in the deck provides you with an extra card. That card can be in the form of a token (Blade Splicer, Wurmcoil Engine), a land ( Borderland Ranger), creature removal (Elesh Norn), or even a real card (Elvish Visionary.) This deck is a control deck's nightmare! It's incredibly solid and puts up great results against every deck in the format, and therefore I'm expecting a lot of it this weekend.

Another great thing about this deck is that there are so many ways to build it, and your opponent will never know what to expect or play around. Birthing Pod allows you to play lots of 1-of creatures to tutor up. There are so many options for building Naya Pod, and it's really hard for players to play around everything. Inferno Titan, Thundermaw Hellkite, Fiend Hunter, Wolfir Silverheart, Solemn Simulacrum, and Daybreak Ranger are just a few of the cards that aren't in my list but are great options for Pod. If you like to play more aggressively, Strangleroot Geist, a card that many players have chosen to cut from the list, is another great choice. It beats down and can be sacrificed for extra value!

Playing the Naya colors also gives you some great options for non-creature spells. Depending on your local metagame, there are a wide variety of options for you. If Zombies is popular in your area, you could play Pillar of Flame or Celestial Purge. If you need to beat Ramp decks, you could play Act of Aggression. Being able to play with the best creatures in the format all while having a lot of disruption and a good mana base is more than enough of a reason to consider it for this weekend. Naya Pod mulligan's very well, is resilient and flexible, it has some great matchups, and rewards you for playing well and knowing your decklist inside and out.

I know some of you are control players at heart. It wouldn't be fair to discuss the format's best aggro decks while not even mentioning control. Control decks are definitely under the radar right now. With the rise of aggro decks with Rancor and a weak Delver matchup, control doesn't seem like the best deck to play. The way the format is shaping up, black is a great color for control due to the mass removal spells that it has. Many players have tried to build Mono Black Control but it's just not putting up good results. If you are a control player and are looking for something different to play this weekend, then give this list a try.

UB Tezzeret by Will Eads Finished 5th - 8th Place at 2012 PTQ Ravnica - Providence, RI - 7/21 Main Deck Sideboard 3 Bloodline Keeper 3 Phyrexian Metamorph 3 Wurmcoil Engine Creatures [9] 4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas Planeswalkers [4] 1 ? 3 Black Sun's Zenith 2 Curse of Death's Hold 2 Doom Blade 2 Go for the Throat 1 Grafdigger's Cage 4 Ichor Wellspring 3 Mycosynth Wellspring 3 Nihil Spellbomb 3 Pristine Talisman 1 Trading Post Spells [25] 4 Buried Ruin 4 Darkslick Shores 4 Drowned Catacomb 4 Phyrexia's Core 6 Swamp Lands [22] Deck Total [60] 1 ? 1 Batterskull 1 Black Sun's Zenith 3 Duress 1 Go for the Throat 2 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Liliana of the Veil 2 Ratchet Bomb 3 Torpor Orb Sideboard [15] View a Sample Hand! Solitaire this Deck! Click for full deck stats & notes!

UB Tezzeret is a blast to play, and it has an incredible amount of synergy. The Wellsprings and Pristine Talisman combo nicely with the Phyrexia's Core and of course with Tezzeret himself. This deck can draw lots of cards, and is good at finding it's removal, so it will put up a great fight against opposing aggro decks, and all of the card advantage it gains gives it a decent control matchup as well. This deck even plays one of the most fun cards in M13, Trading Post! If you have never made Goats in Constructed, you don't know what you're missing.

Finally, the last deck I want to show you is UG Poison. It is not a tier one deck by any means, but it is a deck that people will play, it can steal wins out of nowhere, and you need to be prepared for it. My good friend Dan "Damn" Hartman swears by this deck, and plays it at every Standard tournament he goes to. He hasn't made a top 8 yet, but every round I hear the story about how he won on turn 3, or was dead on board but topdecked the Rancor for the win. The deck can be inconsistent at times but is incredibly powerful. Players are always scared of Poison, and I've actually seen Naya Pod players cram extra Melira, Sylvok Outcasts in their sideboard in fear of it.

UG Poison by Melissa DeTora Main Deck Sideboard 4 Blighted Agent 4 Glistener Elf 4 Ichorclaw Myr Creatures [12] 4 Apostle's Blessing 2 Artful Dodge 3 Gut Shot 4 Mutagenic Growth 4 Rancor 2 Ranger's Guile 3 Titanic Growth 4 Wild Defiance Spells [26] 2 Cathedral of War 3 Cavern of Souls 5 Forest 4 Hinterland Harbor 4 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Island Lands [22] Deck Total [60] 2 Dismember 2 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Gut Shot 4 Mental Misstep 2 Negate 1 Ranger's Guile 3 Spellskite Sideboard [15] View a Sample Hand! Solitaire this Deck! Click for full deck stats & notes!

With the Standard format being as healthy as it is, The best choice for this weekend is a deck that you know well and are comfortable with. As long as you have a good understanding of the format and know how to play your deck against all of the decks you could be facing, any archetype has the potential to win. I'll be at the TCGPlayer MaxPoint Diamond event in Providence this weekend, so if you're there, feel free to say hi. Thanks for reading and good luck this weekend, no matter where you are playing.

Thanks for reading!

Melissa DeTora
@AllWeDoIsWinMTG on Twitter