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Main » Articles » Attacking New Standard

Attacking New Standard

Ari Lax
Posted on February 22, 2011
 Reddit

Coming out of Pro Tour: Paris, Caw-Go and Boros are obviously your decks to beat. Various Tezzeret decks are also contenders, but the results of Squadron Hawk + Stoneforge Mystic decks were dominating. Half of the decks that went 7-2-1 or better played Hawks, and the deck posted a 60-percent win rate. The first and foremost question moving forward is how to combat this engine, starting specifically with the U/W Caw-Go builds.

First of all, attacking with X/1's is something you want to avoid right now, specifically those that will let your opponent trade for a Squadron Hawk. If you are attacking, you would much rather their Squadron Hawks be Reviving Doses (chump-blocking to gain life) than cantrip Lightning Helixes (blocking for life and the trade). The same applies for their Stoneforge Mystics. If you don't really have anything invested in the 1/1 or you are forcing through a large amount of other damage because of it, you are probably still fine. Basically, Goblin tokens are still okay here, but Pulse Trackers are not. If you are dead-set on playing X/1 beaters that involve investing a card each, your best bet is to back them with some value way to punch through Hawks, like Forked Bolt.

Second, if you want to be the aggro, you need a way to fight the combination of Gideon Jura and Day of Judgment. There are a few ways to do this.

  • One is just to plan on killing before they hit. Realistically, of the current decks, only Kuldotha Red can do this before Caw-Go kills with a couple of Hawking salvos on turns two and three. If the opponent doesn't draw the Hawks, a lot of decks can do this, including Boros.

  • The second is just tempoing them off the big spell. Spell Pierce aggro decks are one place I would start if I were looking to develop a beat-down answer to Caw-Go. Steve Sadin has already suggested a Tempered Steel version of this, and lists for other possible shells can be found at the end of the article. Quest also operates somewhere under these last two, as a turn-three Argentum Armor is often lethal, but is so largely because it keeps them off Day.

  • The third option is just having good Wrath recovery to prevent Gideon from turning into a lock. Bloodghast and Vengevine are an option here, allowing you to invest as few actual cards as possible into each wave of creatures. Just having your creatures be massive like Boros's Landfall guys is another option, letting you represent 8 power off only one or two guys. Equipment helps a lot here. Finally, you can have enough reach between haste guys and burn to just finish the job before the opponent sets up. On a play-related note here, consider slow-rolling haste guys for post-Wrath scenarios if the opponent isn't setting up lethal and you have another reasonable play.

  • Finally, you can just trump their trump. The card I have in mind here is specifically Eldrazi Monument, but Planeswalkers (notably Koth) can do this by just being Wrath-proof threats. See the end of the article for a starting point for Standard Elves.

Moving to sideboarding, I would be very wary of bringing in cards just to combat the Squadron Hawks part of the deck unless they have decent utility elsewhere. Standard procedure applies where the best plan for an aggressive deck against control is to be as proactive as possible and generic with its answers.

If you want to switch things up and play the control, and don't want to be Caw-Go, you need an answer to Swords. Divine Offering is okay, but I'm fairly sure you don't want to be main-decking that card. One good answer is just Tumble Magnet to lock down the creature your opponent plans on suiting up. Not only does it answer equipment, but it is strong against post-Wrath bombs like Hero of Oxid Ridge and Koth. In testing against Valakut, it was even good enough to beat a Titan that got Trapped into play with the help of your Tectonic Edges and Spreading Seas.

Tumble Magnet is naturally synergistic with one of the most underplayed control trumps: Venser, the Sojourner. That guy is unreal. There is a reason block constructed control mirrors are basically completely focused around getting that guy to go ultimate or preventing him from doing so. His +2 is enough value—from resetting other 'walkers to hopping a Spreading Seas—to justify his existence, and his ultimate is fast and near-unbeatable. He isn't more than a two-of, but he provides rapid inevitability that only Jace can really match.

If you want to just fight the Sword war in a pseudo-mirror, one spicy card suggested by John Johnson (@jjflipped) is Thada Adel, Acquisitor. Even if you don't want to cast the card you find, you still prevent your opponent from ever Stoneforgeing for it.

Moving to attacking Boros, the best card against it is Slagstorm—by a large margin. Not only does it kill Steppe Lynxes and Plated Geopedes through an untapped fetch land, but it lines up to let you leave up answers for their four-drops on the play.

If you don't want to play that powerful sweeper, you more or less need one-drop removal to keep up. On the play, you can probably get away without it if you have enough other options, but on the draw, it is too easy for opponents just to hit you a couple times with a Landfall guy unless you try to match them up the curve. Oust is probably the best option, as it holds opponents off their late-game bombs or more land, but really anything that will kill a Steppe Lynx or Goblin Guide immediately is reasonable.

If you want to match them on the beat-down, realize that Boros can and will out-removal you. Not only does it have Arc Trail, Forked Bolt, Journey to Nowhere, and burn spells, but it has repeatable removal in Cunning Sparkmage. To beat it on board, you need a lot of good two-for-ones—which is hard to outgun them with given the Hawk-Mystic engine—or ways to establish card-advantage engines like Garruk, Vengevine, or Elspeth. I might just be biased because of how heavy my sideboards in this format are for creature mirrors in general, but I never felt behind against another beat-down deck when playing Boros pre-Besieged.

One general thing to note against both of these decks is that if you decide to play Green, you need a way around the Swords. Body and Mind in particular is bad for a Green deck, as it plays both sides of combat every turn, though the more-or-less Time Walk every hit from Feast and Famine is also a beating. On top of the Swords, there is Mirran Crusader to pile on the Forest hate. I don't have a definitive answer for how you should do this; from the Pro Tour results, it doesn't seem that having a giant trump like Primeval Titan is enough unless you land it very early.

Briefly, on the subject of the Chapin Tezzeret decks, your best bet is to just be attacking them like any other control deck. I've said this many times, but you don't want to find yourself boarding reactive answers unless you are trying to be the reactive deck in the matchup, or your opponent has some completely unbeatable card that you have an unstoppably swingy answer to (e.g., Mark of Mutiny on Titans). Even if you are the control, playing artifact hate for things like Prophetic Prism is not how you are going to win. You are going to beat them by winning the fights over Planeswalkers. Against the Juza build, pretty much the exact opposite of this is true, as that is more of a combo deck, but I expect a significantly lower amount of that build; it didn't Top 8, and Juza is not Pat.

Lists to Start With for Beating Caw-Go

If you want to just trump the U/W end game with Monuments (and feel you can just tromp over a Sword):

"Elves!"

I'm not 100 percent on Green Sun's Zenith. It might be a little slow if you are trying to race an oncoming Sword. A more creature-heavy Lead the Stampede build is also worth looking at.

If you want to play Red cards:

"Durdle Red"

Step 1: What are you at?

Step 2: Target you.

"Burnier Boros"

Journey to Nowhere is not very good now, and the deck needs a bit more reach to punch through Gideon. Staggershock is good value against attempted equipment and a lot more reach than it looks like.

If you want to do nothing and still win:

"Draw-Go"

This list isn't exact, but a friend of mine went 3-0-2 at the Pro Tour with it before missing Day 2 on limited. As evidenced by his record, you need to play fast with this, but it was testing very positively against the field. There weren't Baneslayers in the original build, but it is a realistic answer to a Sword by just trumping the opponent's 3/3 or 3/4. I'm not sure what to shave, but the list might be short a hard counter and a Tectonic Edge or Spreading Seas.

If you just want to be the tempo deck:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Student of Warfare

4 Steppe Lynx

4 Stoneforge Mystic

4 Squadron Hawk

3 Mirran Crusader

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

1 Adventuring Gear

1 Sword of Body and Mind

1 Sword of Feast and Famine

3 Spell Pierce

3 Mana Leak

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Preordain

[/Spells]

[Lands]

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Seachrome Coast

3 Glacial Fortress

4 Arid Mesa

2 Marsh Flats

1 Misty Rainforest

1 Evolving Wilds

4 Plains

2 Island

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

This list is very unrefined, but the idea is to go a level beyond the Japanese Caw-Go deck in terms of aggression. It probably needs a lot of help against Boros and similar decks. For a more refined list of the same beats plus counters theory, look at Christian Calcano's list from the Pro Tour or follow Steve Sadin's advice and add the sideboarded counters to his Tempered Steel deck.

Bonus: Extended

For those (most) of you who still have to grind out PTQs, here are the decks I would suggest.

"Faeries"

This is the list with which Brian Demars lost a close PTQ finals to mono-Red in Detroit last weekend. Up to that point, he was 8-0-2 in matches, and that final match loss was only due to a subtle punt. My personal list is -1 Tectonic Edge, -1 Inquisition, +2 Disfigures in the main, with a bit wilder sideboard. Fae is still as good as it always was, if not better now that Go for the Throat eliminates the games you randomly get mised out by some stupid monster like Baneslayer Angel. If you don't change the main deck, be sure to swap some Peppersmokes for Disfigures in the board at least.

"G/W Trap"

The sideboard is a little rough, and the second Stirring Wildwood main could possibly be another land, but this deck is no joke. If you can't play Faeries, play this. It is simple, overpowers all the other creature decks, smashes bad Fae players, and races Valakut. The current board tries to address the issues it has with mono-Red and Elves, while providing a bit more power against Valakut and Fae. The Gaddock Teegs are probably really bad due to Volcanic Fallout; some other considerations are Safe Passage and Lapse of Certainty.

Best of luck to those on the grind, and I'll see you in D.C. in two weeks.

TAGS articles, standard, metagame, constructed, gauntlet

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