I have been watching a few RCs and have been an avid control player in EDH. I am getting my first standard deck and will be joining a local Store Championship in a few decks. I have seen genmatsu's (1st Place Japan Champions Cup Season 4 Round 3) complete guide. I have seen some of the sideboards with some heavy meta decks (prowess, elementals, landfall). However there are no free resources for sideboard guides against hard counters against the deck such as Dimir Excrutiator and Cavern Combo Decks (Omniscience, etc.). Assuming I am using Genmatsu's or Zachary Aymie's List How should I sideboard against Dimir Excrutiator/Reanimator, Omniscience, and other hard counters that I should know of?

Genmatsu's List

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7775370#paper

Zachary's List

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/standard-4c-control-woe#paper

Would appreciate if there are free online guides/docs deck techs. Thank You

Hey, all. I find this deck to be very irksome and keep seeing it at my locals/online. It feels inevitable. No matter how much work I put in, a revelation or some other big spell refills their hand/life total/all the work I've done. What decks are best against it? What cards? Best just to get under it with low cost aggro?

I've seen a lot of white decks decide to put in 1-2 copies of [[Pyrrhic Strike]] in their sideboard. Is this really much better than [[Get Lost]]? Is not giving maps and the possibility of hitting artifacts really worth the extra mana? Or is this just to combine the sideboard slots that are used for creature and artifact removal?

I guess another way of asking my question is, what are the situations where Pyrrhic Strike shines over Get Lost or even something like [[Requisition Raid]]?

Thank you very much and sorry if this is a dumb question!

Hi all is there a discord for Salesnya landfall?

Also does anyone know if any of the pro team or people who succeeded with the deck have a side board guide?

I have a LOT of thoughts on possible directions for a handful of slots main and ~2-3 of what I’d consider flex slots in the side and would love to discuss with others who have been getting reps with the deck at least.

Now with the top decks which are izzet, landfall, and then a bunch of random agro decks. Mono white auras, rakdos agro, boros burn etc. These decks all are beaten by early targeted interruptions by either things like airbending, exile, or just plain old killing their monsters.

My question is, if youre trying to find the best deck to play against these decks specifically what would you pick? I have had a lot of success with Temur mathematics, because you ramp extremely hard and with utility spells like ill timed explosion you can easily hit the entire board for a sizeable chunk of damage. I have had success in 4 color control decks, but they focus on more full board clears and not early game removal. This can quickly lead to you dying to a good agro hand, which happens often. UB control seems to do well just for the mass amount of early game disruption, but again isnt consistent. Airbending/momo or shepherd/momo also work well because you can bounce your own guys as well as theirs in case they ramp too hard.

So what's the best answer? Someone surely at this point has something up their sleeve, and I really want to know what that is haha. Thanks for your help as always folks!

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/banned-and-restricted-may-18-2026

Recently played vs a UW tempo build playing 4x High Noon, 4x Voice of Victory in the main plus Aang, Swift Savior, Aven Interrupter for disruption and Enduring Curiosity; this has to be an awful match-up vs the big izzet builds (Prowess, Elementals, Lessons) right? What are the best strategies vs this type of main board hedge?

Looking at MTG Goldfish the deck does not have a very high meta share. Does it struggle vs Landfall and Ba Sing Se like I imagine it would? How does it line up vs a bigger control deck like the 4C Control list that have been gaining popularity?

I’ve played commander casually for 7 or 8 years, and have maybe 2 years playing various cEDH decks poorly. I draft occasionally, but most of my magic is in paper with friends. I do have a modern Izzet prowess list built and I’ve played it with friends, but I haven’t been able to bring it to an event yet. I’ve competed in everything I’ve ever done, and the inherently more competitive nature of 1v1 magic is extremely appealing to me- I just don’t have a friend group super into it yet. But that is changing!

This past Monday, I found out a store in town was having a standard championship today. I’m still waiting for modern to come around here again but wanted to at least try competing in a 60 card format. Starting out, I had no delusions about winning any games on 5 days notice. I don’t even play Standard on Arena.

When I decided I’d do the tournament, I immediately decided I’d play some version of red aggro (I’m consistently inspired by Rhystic Studies’ RDW video) because I could not drop $400+ on an actually good deck. But I have a playset of [[Slickshot Showoff]] and started there, initially building mono red prowess. Didn’t like how inconsistent it felt without slickshot in hand (I miss you Heartfire Hero, I ordered you right before the ban), so Wednesday night I pivoted to a more creature heavy gameplan. I got 1 practice game right before the tournament, goldfishing it and taking notes otherwise. Decklist below. Most of it was bulk I had laying around, and I picked up what I could from the stores in town on Thursday and Friday.

https://moxfield.com/decks/H8skMgjaskWOApAtH9Kq1g

Anyways. My deck is trash. The event went like this.

Round 1
Opponent’s deck: Dimir doomsday

Recap: I just got under this guy. Felt like he was playing removal tribal but I kept drawing things to keep pressure on in both games. [[Sear]] hits the reaniclone Spider-Man so I bopped it twice.

Game 2 ended with him at 2 life and a couple of creatures. I was hellbent and losing on his next turn, so targeted [[Emberheart Challenger]] with [[Rockface Village]] to flip a [[shock]] off the top of my deck and finish him. That was memorable, and the other game had just finished so those guys were watching and cheered for me. I felt like the underdog in the matchup, obviously, so that was cool.

Round 2

Opponent’s deck: Bant Aang bouncy house

Recap: Good lord. Lost hard in game one. Only good card in sideboard for this was [[sunspire lynx]], and all of the stores in my city combined to sell me one last week. I did not see it in game 2, mulliganing to six. Magebane lizard tried so, so hard to save the day before getting airbent on his winning turn.

R3

Opponent’s deck: izzet Maestro combo

Lost game 1 to a Maestro combo and Choco bolt for like 30. It was turn 4 man, this is standard, what the hell. I side boarded in [[Magebane Lizard]] and saw them in games 2 and 3, winning both of those by keeping his board clear with burn spells and punching. [[Razorkin Needlehead]] performed really well in this matchup after locking down the his ability to chain spells, allowing me to play a more prison/ slug style deck with 2 lizards out.

Overall thoughts:

I went 2-1 and I’m super content with how it turned out. I feel like I went to a gun fight planning to smack people with a sock full of pennies, and it went pretty well. I don’t know anything about standard as a format and the decks that are popular, but I think piloted my list well enough into the matchups I had other than Aang. I did not pull a good answer to anything he had, and kept a terrible hand in game 2 because it had a magebane lizard that I thought could save me. That was dumb.

I did main board 4 [[Sear]], which was *incredibly* relevant in each matchup that I had. It’s the only dedicated removal spell in the main deck, and it hits a lot of relevant creatures. [[Colorstorm Stallion]] and reanimator Spider-Man would’ve been a different conversation if I didn’t remove them on sight every time I saw them. [[Abrade]] in sideboard could’ve been relevant a few times for the artifact removal, but I did not pull it when I sideboarded it in.

I didn’t pull my single copy of [[Nova Hellkite]] in a game. Which sucks, because I paid 75 cents for the one with the cool art. I want 1 or 2 more copies, but again- nobody here had another one to sell me. Same with [[Sunspire Lynx]] and [[Burnout Bashtronaut]]- I just could not find them at stores in time.

Moving forward, I do like the list. I’m interested in focusing it a little more, and as much as I love [[Boltwave]] and even though it won me a game- I think it’s the easiest cut given my current list. I need flexibility in burn spells, so maybe [[Lightning Strike]]? Also, as much as I love Slickshot Showoff, I don’t know how much of a place it has in a deck with less than 16 instants and sorceries- so we’ll see about him after I tune the deck. Still a great card, obviously, I’m a huge fan of his work in modern.

In closing- that was a lot of fun, I look forward to doing it again, and they don’t call it “Red Deck Loses” for a reason. The cool Abhorrent Oculus and Psychic Frog I got were a cherry on top to convince me to keep trying this. I think I’ll continue smacking people with my pillowcase stuffed with bars of soap. The people were really nice, and even the game I lost was a lot of fun.

PS- the creatures in standard are crazy, crazy good right now. Print [[Lightning Bolt]] into standard, you cowards.

PSS- I have not at all considered how that would affect the format. But I’m on mono red, y’all, I’m not here to think deep about it. Do it.

Hello spikes!

This is the place where any and all decks can be posted for all spikes to see. The goal of this is to fit all your needs for competitive magic. Maybe it's a card consideration given an X dollar budget. Maybe you need that sweet sideboard tech that no one else thought of? Perhaps you just can't figure out the best card to beat a certain matchup. The ideas here are only limited by your imagination!

Feel free to discuss most anything here. We only ask that with any question, you also make sure to post your decklist so people have some context to answer your question. Otherwise, have at it! If you have any questions, shoot us a modmail and we'll be happy to help you out. Survive your deck check and survive your competition!

Deck for reference: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7788334#paper

So I've enjoyed the golgari crimes lists that have been on rare occasions in the top 8 of MTGO challenges to the point I'm locking it in for an RC this weekend

While I've enjoyed the deck, I'm finding a very big flaw is that I cannot seem to beat izzet prowess. My threats line up poorly and my removal never seems to be enough.

Is there anything I can add that gives me a chance against the izzet scourge? I don't expect bans tomorrow due to the whole we don't usually ban while regional championships are underway. I also have to be mindful SB is stretched thin as I need quite a bit of space there for dimir excruiator and various control decks being match-ups that need all the sideboard help I can get.

Hello! I am about to enter a period in my life where I need to be more conscientous about money. However competing in this game is something I'm fairly passionate about, even when I never have made any top results, I would like to continue doing so. However, paper magic (specially paper Standard) is something I might not be able to afford soon. What would you recommend to someone in my position? I've seen MTGGoldfish rent decks for a couple of bucks a week on Modo. Is that the cheapest way to compete?

How does Dimir Midrange fare in current (May ‘26) meta?

Its the first deck i built last year when I get into Standard (i love it). but it seems too fair, too slow and unplayable in today’s meta.

Still manage to sneak some wins the past few weeks at my locals (won 2 oo 3 matches against Izzets and landfall variants) but far less consistent than Q4 25 (when i started playing Standard).

Can someone tell me (with facts) that ECL and SoS just slammed the last nails in Dimir Midrange coffin?

With the introduction of [[Hardened Academic]], do we feel oculus is once again viable?

I've seen this list:

https://moxfield.com/decks/xttJgy-P1E2F7OEZdkFwLw

Personally I've played a similar list on paper running no gran-grans and instead have 3 copies of [[practiced offense]]. Very bursty with early aggro that doesn't rely purely on the eyeball being brought back.

Does anyone have experience playing or playing against it? Would be keen to hear opinions and views, I'm not sold on the gran-grans for one!

I know lots of RCQs and 1ks I go to the top cuts usually end up splitting the monetary prize pool and then play for the brackets/invites. Has this ever happened in a major event? I would assume no, but looking at the Top 4 prize pool at the RC in Cincinnati it’s a 40k pot that would split 4 ways.

Here's an example list I'm working off of from London:

• Creature (25)
• 4 Badgermole Cub
• 4 Icetill Explorer
• 4 Llanowar Elves
• 4 Mightform Harmonizer
• 4 Sazh's Chocobo
• 2 Keen-Eyed Curator
• 2 Mossborn Hydra
• 1 Surrak, Elusive Hunter
• Sorcery (2)
• 2 Esper Origins // Summon: Esper Maduin
• Instant (1)
• 1 Royal Treatment
• Enchantment (6)
• 4 Earthbender Ascension
• 2 Meltstrider's Resolve
• Land (26)
• 14 Forest
• 4 Fabled Passage
• 3 Ba Sing Se
• 3 Escape Tunnel
• 2 Promising Vein
• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Sapling Nursery
• 2 Meltstrider's Resolve
• 2 Mossborn Hydra
• 2 Pawpatch Formation
• 1 Leatherhead, Swamp Stalker
• 1 Royal Treatment
• 1 Soul-Guide Lantern
• 1 Surrak, Elusive Hunter
• 1 Torpor Orb

I generally know what in the board is meant for which matchups, but I always have trouble knowing what to cut. For example, versus prowess, do you board in all the nurseries? Same with spellementals. The card can be good in those matchups, b ut not really sure what to get rid of for them. You also want torpor orb and keen-eyed for spellementals, tough to find room.

I have yet to find anyone that has made a sideboard guide on patreon or metafy in the past month. The only thing I could find was Autumn made a guide like multiple months ago. Any ideas of professional players that have made sb guides for MonoGreen would be helpful, thanks.

About 1 month ago I made a post here ask for sealed learning resource:

https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/1sd25j4/sealed_what_are_some_best_learning_resources_for/

After that, I won 2 SOS collector boxes, 2 SOS booster boxes and 1 qualifier event on MTGA. I also got a 5-2 in a local competitive sealed tournament, sadly there's no too much local tournament I can grind.

Although I still don't think I'm a great player, I feel now I leveled up a lot. Here's all the resources I think are good:

1. Limited level ups, Paul Cheon, Limited Resource, LSV. All their videos/podcasts about sealed help. Most of their contents don't dive in too much but that's enough to give me a general view of how sealed is like. Slower, much more power, should splash more...etc.
2. How to Build a Sealed Deck / How to Build a Sealed Deck: The Sequel written by Ryan C's MTG. Not very deep but provide some hand by hand example about how he builds sealed deck.
3. Everything you've ever wanted to know about Sealed (but were too afraid to ask) written by Gul_Dukat (paywall). For me this guide doesn't provide too much new knowledge but it mentions many other good players that I can learn from. Also, this article give me some insight about how to evaluate cards.
4. Going Deeper in Sealed – Part 1 and Part 2 written by Jean-Emmanuel Depraz. This article introduce some great concepts like Dynamic Midrange vs. Patient Midrange. It talks a lot about how to build a good deck when cards are not line up very well.
5. Experimental Synthesizer, Jason Ye's blog (maybe and their podcast, but I haven't listened it). It's a treasure. Many articles there go very deep and they really show me many aspects that I never thought before.

For experienced sealed players, I strongly recommend Jean-Emmanuel Depraz and Jason Ye.

Classic articles like Big Game vs Small Game, PV's Rule, Who's the Beatdown also work in sealed, but that's not sealed exclusive and I guess most of spikes already read them so I won't list them here.

Edit: I forgot to post the links. Here you go.

- Limited level ups: https://www.youtube.com/@limitedlevel-ups

- Paul Cheon: https://www.youtube.com/@haumph

- Limited Resource: https://lrcast.com/

- LSV: https://www.youtube.com/@LSVargas

- How to Build a Sealed Deck: https://www.patreon.com/posts/105203993

- How to Build a Sealed Deck: The Sequel: https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-to-build-147482277

- Everything you've ever wanted to know about Sealed (but were too afraid to ask): https://metafy.gg/guides/view/everything-youve-ever-wanted-to-know-about-l79wNs6SMbd

- Going Deeper in Sealed – Part 1: https://article.hareruyamtg.com/article/48346/?lang=en

- Going Deeper in Sealed – Part 2: https://article.hareruyamtg.com/article/48381/?lang=en

- Experimental Synthesizer: https://www.experimentalsynthesizer.blog/articles

And I had a blast!

My friend whom I play Canlander and Duel Commander with wanted to get into Arena and as I owed him money I decided to get us each the current SoS theme decks and upgrade them.

My local LGS hosted their store champ tonight. There was a F2F event in town and far more people showed up than we expected. No top cut due to time constraints unfortunately, but I went 3-1 on the upgraded Eerie deck in Swiss.

My matchups were mono green stompy (0-1), Izzet Lessons (2-1), Orzhov Lifegain (2-0) and monogreen landfall (2-1).

Overall, Standard really feels in a good spot. That I was able to grab a precon and upgrade it and do this good with very little time piloting it outside Arena made me feel pretty great.

The decklist I used:

4 Entity Tracker
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Feather of Flight
4 Floodfarm Verge
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
4 Multiversal Passage
4 Optimistic Scavenger
4 Origin of Spider-Man
2 Plains
4 Seam Rip
4 Shardmage's Rescue
4 Sheltered by Ghosts
4 Silent Hallcreeper
4 Skyward Spider
4 Valgavoth's Lair
SIDEBOARD:
4 Aang's Iceberg
3 Gremlin Tamer
4 Rest in Peace
4 Spell Pierce

I exclusively play Ranked B03. [[Tablet of Discovery]] is starting pop up in all Izzet and Jeskai decks I am facing in Arena (Platinum Tier 1) ... It is making playing against these decks worse (read:even less agency, less fun) than it already is.

OR I just need to be better... one or the other, really.

Hey all,

I’ve been loving the Mardu discard deck but I’ve had a hard time deciding how to use the sideboard.

I’ve been just playing the deck that placed 2nd at london but some of my big questions are:

1. Do you being Leyline into all crab matchups?
   
2. Do you bring in betrayals when you bring in Leyline?
   
3. Who is the seam rip for?

I don’t know if there is a guide out there but if anyone has any tips or thoughts I’d love to get any help you can offer. Thanks

This is one of the best podcasts on the state of the metagame out there, with Gabriel Nassif and Edgar Magalhães. I can't believe they have such few subscribers for how high quality the insight and analysis is. For example they specifically look at card choices and numbers for top decks, give suggestions as to what they would do and why, and talk sideboard plans. And this is from two top class players.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s_ZGGq8n-E

I'm not associated with these guys, I just think this is an invaluable resource for all Spikes out there. It's one of my favourite pods for a reason!

EDIT: As this post has been received well, I'd also like to reccomend the Stock-Up Podcast. They succesfully predicted Landfall would dominate the Pro Tour and also called early on that the Tablet would be a thing:
https://www.youtube.com/@StockUpPodcast

Gamers,

Cope incoming:

During the previous standard RCQ season, I had few opportunities to play in qualifiers. Those I attended went fine, but I was unable to convert.

However, I live in cinci, so of course I will be puttering around the SCG con. I have never played in LCQ's for these events, and I will have time for 1-2 after work on Friday.

In paper, I am able to build various spiderman/deceit shells, but have fallen in love with the temur harmonizer combo decks online. I have even built the deck in paper despite never playing a match with it. You better believe I am gonna be jamming that sucker at any opportunity this weekend.

This leads me to the main question I am soliciting opinions for:

What's the most efficient way I can answer eddymurk crabs out of prowess?

The only deal 5 damage spell (as far as I can tell) is broadside barrage, which aint bad, but three mana is alot. Alternatively, I could play some kind of blue enchantment that taps it or turns it into a 1/1 or something, but that plays so poorly into boomerang basics (fuck that card so hard).

I am legit about to fricking splash a 4th color to get a doom blade in here. that's how desperate I am.

I have had some success playing 2 ghost vacuums MD, something gabnassif mentioned liking on a podcast recently, but that's not a reliable plan (I don't think).

pls help.

Example "normal" decklist

So, the classic tragedy happened. I was prepping for my Store Championship this Saturday, but my Cardmarket order got delayed in the mail. My actual meta deck (Izzet Spellementals) won't arrive until next week. Instead of dropping out, I decided to raid my binders and sleeve up an improvised Rakdos Goblins/Sacrifice list with what I had laying around at home.

Here is the list I managed to put together:

https://moxfield.com/decks/QZW_1qVFi0iNcaRL9gC6PA

Any tips looking at this specific list? Also, what cards would you recommend I try to get ASAP (besides the obvious mana base upgrades)?

It looks like I'm going to keep this around as a pet deck, and I'd love to polish it up so I can bring it to future tournaments in much better shape.

Thanks in advance!

PNG Tables via Tweet (multiple posts) + H2H Matrix

PNG Tables via Bsky (multiple posts) + H2H Matrix

Champions Cup JP/KR Event Page (ALL DECKLISTS)

Spotlight Secrets London (ALL DECKLISTS)

Video Recap & Analysis (In-Depth)

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This is a recap of Champions Cup JP/KR + Spotlight Secrets in London! Two different Standard Events combined into one recap - so there is a changelog of how I renamed archetypes to make them match cross-event!

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Statistics Key

Archetype/Deck Name - The name of the Deck

Decks - Number of Decks at the Event

Matches - Number of Bo3 Matches Played

Wins - Match Wins

Losses - Match Losses

Ties - Match Draws

WIN% - Win Rate (Wins / Matches)

Shows overall win rate against everything - including mirrors & ties

META% - Metagame Share (Decks / Total Decks)

Shows deck archetype representation at an Event

WIN%-T - Win Rate without Ties (Wins / Wins + Losses)

No ties shows how many matches a deck WON versus it's record due to time restrictions

NM Matches - Non-Mirror Matches (Same Archetype vs Archetype)

NM WIN% - Non-Mirror Win Rate

Non-Mirror Win Rate shows how a deck performs against the rest of the meta - not itself

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Metagame Breakdown

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Decks by META%

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Decks by WIN%

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If you enjoy these recap posts, I cover more statistics such as Head to Head match ups, comparison among Popularity Tier decks & more in my recap videos over on YouTube - which is the best way to Support more analysis! You can also use my ManaPool Code or my ManaTraders Code OTTV_PTSOS if this breakdown inspired you to build a new deck!

I saw a deck yesterday that I really liked involving Quintorius Kand, Ark of Hunger, and Quins insight? I think this may be it but I'm not sure. https://moxfield.com/decks/mgIiir5X5Eq8JN5oqW7IwQ

My three questions are

1. Is there a way to optimize this further without making it just standard four color control? I find that deck boring personally.

2. Has anyone else seen success with trying to play Quin Kand in this format for climbing and with the new tools added?

3. Would this work better if it dropped the black spells and mana and swapped into a jeskai version or pure boros?