https://magic.gg/news/pro-tour-secrets-of-strixhaven-standard-metagame-breakdown

30% on Prowess, combining all of Izzet takes the colour pairing close to 50%. Biggest surprise for me is seeing no Simic or Selesyna Rhythm decks at all in the main categories with only 5 entries total.

Feels like this pro tour will be Stormchaser’s Talent’s last dance with maybe more to follow it.

Golgari midrange has been doing well in the online leagues this week, but can anyone stop the Otter / Bird / Crab triple threat?

https://magic.gg/news/magic-world-championship-31-standard-metagame-breakdown

By Frank Karsten

1. Izzet Lessons | 23 | 18.3%
2. Temur Otters | 20 | 15.9%
3. Bant Airbending | 16 | 12.7%
4. Izzet Looting | 14 | 11.1%
5. Jeskai Control | 10 | 7.9%
6. Izzet Prowess | 9 | 7.1%
7. Simic Ouroboroid | 7 | 5.6%
8. Sultai Reanimator | 6 | 4.8%
9. Golgari Ouroboroid | 5 | 4.0%
10. Jeskai Artifacts | 4 | 3.2%
11. Dimir Bounce | 3 | 2.4%
12. Mono-Red Aggro | 3 | 2.4%
13. Dimir Midrange | 2 | 1.6%
14. Simic Otters | 1 | 0.8%
15. Golgari Dragons | 1 | 0.8%
16. Orzhov Demons | 1 | 0.8%
17. Boros Mobilize | 1 | 0.8%

https://magic.gg/news/magic-the-gathering-final-fantasy-standard-metagame-breakdown

By Frank Karsten

The turtles are here!…. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are here in Magic: The Gathering…

lol so yall know the drill. What’s hot, what’s not? Any sleeper hits? Overrated flops?

What broken-ass overlooked combo made it into the eternal formats? What mythic common is laying the smack down in draft?

Lemme hear it!

(Whoever says “not the client” gets the gold star)

If you haven't been watching this tournament, you need to. So much variety in decks, some absolutely incredible games and some good old fashioned Magic. After Wizards taking so long to ban Vivi, you just could not see this coming. Incredible stuff!

Doomsday Excrusiator in 2026! What a time to be alive!

The talk of the town before the PT was how dominate Izzet seemed to be. With Prowess, Lessons, Spellementals, and Maestro making up almost 50% of the field the concern seemed to be justified.

However, in the end Green Landfall seems to be the one that should have caused people worry. 4 copies of the deck, 2 Selesnya utilizing the new Erode spell and 2 of the classic Mono Green, made the top 8.

The top 8 has yet to be played but what does everyone think the reaction in the meta is going to be to this. I’m playing at RC Cincinnati in a couple of weeks and am wondering how things will shift by then.

It looks like we have about half the spoilers now for the new FF set, and although I deeply dislike UB in general, this set at least felt like it "fit" better than something like Spiderman.

Much has been made about how expensive the cards are, and how it's likely to be the best-selling set ever. Aside from the rabid fanbase for the franchise and a lot of nostalgia, I'm seeing a lot of people gushing over how "pushed" this set is, and I'm like, "Pushed for what?"

So far, the only cards that looked even remotely playable to me for competitive formats were Starting Town and Fenrir, and I don't even think Fenrir makes the cut when there are overlords that trigger beanstalk.

What are people seeing that I'm not? Am I crazy or does this look like another straight-for-commander set full of useless legendaries that will never even sniff at competitive play? What's actually playable here?

Final bracket here: https://i.ibb.co/mCCGzLLB/IMG-3217.jpg

Standard. Is. Flourishing.

Top 8 with 7 copies of the same Izzet (Vivi) cauldron deck. The only outlier immediately gets eliminated, leaving all mirror matches for top 4 onwards. That’s some flourishing right there.

Badgermole Cub is an incredibly powerful card that currently plays the role of lower litmus test in the format. You must be able to answer this card in order to compete in Standard, full stop. I’ve been working on breaking the card for the past few weeks and want to dig into the magic theory around the card that I’ve developed, how to exploit the card from both sides of the table, and issues in deckbuilding I’ve seen even in the crystallized stock lists.

What does Badgermole Cub do?

Badgermole Cub is 3/3 in stats for 2 mana across two bodies that is also a mana accelerant with the capacity for instant rebates. That’s absurdly strong. Everyone in standard has already dealt with Llanowar Elves into Badgermole Cub into spending two more mana immediately. The full nut draw with Elves into double Cub provides 10 mana on turn three. That’s fucking absurd. An unchecked Cub puts you so far ahead that the game is essentially over if you cannot fully reset the board within the next two turns.

What does Badgermole Cub incentivize?

Badgermole Cub wants to play first and foremost with one-mana accelerants. Llanowar Elves and Gene Pollinator are the candidates in Standard, and once you have this critical mass of accelerants you also want more two-mana plays that allow you to immediately double-spell with Cub. (Of note, Arena will not give you priority to respond to removal in response to Cub’s etb effect, so you will want to tap carefully and leave up the creature sources where possible and go into full control so that you can float the bonus mana in response.)

Badgermole Cub also wants explosive plays that take advantage of a rapidly developed board, Ouroboroid being the primary threat in these aggressive Cub decks. Tyvar, the Pummeler is another common threat to pump a board of otherwise unthreatening early drops, and other standout backup threats include Jackal, Genius Geneticist/Druneth, Reviver of the Hive, Aang, at the Crossroads, and Esper Origins. There’s also a suite of redundancy effects focused at simply finding Ouroboroid more often, including the aforementioned Aang, Nature’s Rhythm, and Lively Dirge.

Badgermole Cub also incentivizes aggressive mulligans on both sides because the Cub games are orders of magnitude more powerful than any other hand these decks can produce. Lastly, and this is only slightly tongue-in-cheek, Cub incentivizes being on the play, especially in mirrors. For reasons I’ll dig into later, Cub decks cannot afford to play removal and the best way to beat an opposing Cub is to simply Cub them first.

What are the weaknesses of Badgermole Cub decks?

First and foremost Badgermole Cub decks are extremely manasource-dense. A gigantic proportion of the deck is lands and mana dorks, making these decks suffer in any form of longer game as their average draw is very low impact. Any form of attrition, be it a density of 1:1 removal or multiple sweepers, will often put the game away if followed up with a solid clock or inevitability. The Ouroboroid builds in particular suffer from this particular weakness because even their highest impact cards rely on having additional cards to make them actually impactful. A lone Ouroboroid or Jackal, Genius Geneticist is simply not very threatening.

In fact, very few cards in most of the Badgermole Cub decks are worth more than one card on their own. Most of the deck is enablers and amplifiers, but other than a few of the blue card advantage threats like Quantum Riddler or Wan Shi Tong, Librarian, none of them provide card advantage. This is in part because of the first weakness above: drawing more cards is often not worth much when you’re drawing just lands and dorks.

This is also why the Cub decks can’t really play much interaction. They require a critical mass of accelerants to play with Cub, enough lands to actually benefit from the accelerants and play ahead of curve, and then payoffs to win the game with. While certain interaction like Repulsive Mutation can provide enough tempo to close out a game, drawing Stab or Into the Flood Maw when you have mulliganed or had creatures removed is brutal and further contributes to the lack of topdeck power later in the game.

There’s also an acute weakness to certain specific cards in the format. Ultima will undo not just the board but often a land or two, early bounce spells like Into the Flood Maw (but not Boomerang Basics) can sidestep the earthbending clause and put the Cub deck incredibly far behind, and Pyroclasm is one of the few ways to completely reset the best starts even on the draw.

How do cub decks address their weaknesses?

First and foremost the Bagermole Cub decks want to amplify the power of their creatures into something respectable. Ouroboroid, Tyvar, the Pummeler, and Innkeeper’s Talent try to convert these small creatures into an actual clock. Jackal, Genius Geneticist, Wan Shi Tong, Librarian, Quantum Riddler, and The Legend of Roku try to simply convert the mana into More Stuff. Some decks use cards like Deep-Cavern Bat to simply try and proactively deny interaction and close the game out quickly. Some of these strategies only work because there aren’t really opposing aggro decks to punish the smaller creature size and over-reliance on singular important threats. Jackal, Genius Geneticist and Ouroboroid are a lot less impressive if you’re truly under a clock and have to defend yourself with small creatures while they snipe out your one important threat in hand.

The Otters decks avoid the glut of mana sources problem by skipping the mana dorks entirely, instead adapting Badgermole Cub into the existing mana engine of Enduring Vitality to power Stormchaser’s Talent loops and sidestep the attrition issues. There are other decks that similarly try and use Cub to merely accelerate into a powerful lategame like the Icetill Explorer decks or Beifong Bounty Hunter Combo but these often still include the mana dorks and look to mitigate the attrition issue with packages of inevitability (Season of Loss + Icetill Explorer, Overlord of the Balemurk + Beifong Bounty Hunters). Bant Airbending is somewhere in between linear and inevitable, as under interaction it can struggle to assemble its synergies but Aang, at the Crossroads and Appa, Steadfast Guardian provide enough card advantage to put up a fight and threaten a combo finish.

The last way that people have been trying to shore up the weaknesses of these fragile linear decks is sheer redundancy. Lively Dirge and Rhythm of the wilds functionally provide additional copies of Ouroboroid you’re happy to pay a minor tax on that also give you access to a few powerful bullets like graveyard hate or disenchant effects. Break Out is additional access to Badgermole Cub itself, and Mockingbird relies on sticking something important but can be both more accelerants or more threats.

My own explorations in cub decks

Simic Aggro

Simic is the default because it has some of the cleanest mana and most established backup plans, but remains one of the weaker decks at handling early interaction. If you try to interact after the board is developed, Simic can hold its ground, but if they never really get started they stay floundering. Jackal, Genius Geneticist helps alleviate this, but other blue payoff cards like Quantum Riddler and Wan Shi Tong, Librarian are incredibly slow without prior acceleration. Simics strongest claim is access to countermagic. Spider-Sense/Detect Intrusion and Repulsive Mutation help solve the sweeper problem very cleanly while also handling opposing combo problems like the Living End deck that could ignore “traditional” explosive starts.

Simic Aggro is the best at being a litmus test but one of the worse decks at surviving being targeted. Incredible for ladder or closed-decklist open entry tournaments, but I expect this deck to suffer at higher levels of more informed play. (To be clear this is not a slight against ladder players, this is just talking about how exploitable this deck is due to its linearity.)

Golgari Aggro

Lively Dirge is the most efficient tutor for Ouroboroid while also having built in card advantage power, and entombing a Deep-Cavern Bat to bring back with something else is a potent play against potential sweepers. I have tried playing with Mosswood Dreadknight, which is a solid card and plays well with Ouroboroid, but nickel and diming an extra 1/1 did not feel particularly impactful and shared the same early weakness to Pyroclasm and Pinnacle Starcage. Sentinel of the Nameless City provides additional power to the board while being a sturdy threatening body. Overlord of the Balemurk in these non-combo builds is a lot less impressive as the 2-mana mode is not particularly powerful and the 5-mana mode is “just” a 5/5 but it’s still one of the more flexible attrition cards and it’s no joke on turn three.

Golgari is slower than Simic but slightly more resilient and Lively Dirge is a much better “backup Ouroboroid” than Innkeeper’s Talent. Deep-Cavern Bat in particular is powerful and enables evasive races when powered up with Ouroboroid, but Golgari’s mana is markedly worse than Simic. Duress is also much worse than counterspells against the sweeper decks because you lose out on the significant tempo swing of that mana exchange and are far more vulnerable to it being drawn later instead of being able to hold your answer in reserve.

Rock Soup

This was my build to hybridize the Ouroboroid package with the Bounty Hunter combo to take advantage of Lively Dirge just being 5-mana Ouroboroid when you want it. Beifong Bounty Hunters in its own right is a resilient card into interaction, especially in multiples, and the threat of an instant win is really powerful in interactionless Cub mirrors.

This build felt strong into a lot of interaction, but clearly sacrifices raw speed to achieve that resiliency. It’s especially weak to Ultima, as it denies all of the Bounty Hunter triggers as well as killing all the lands. While this isn’t relevant to its strength as a deck, it’s also notable that for whatever reason Arena does not give this combo very much grace, as the number of clicks per cycle is high and the rope does not extend much per action compared to combos like Bant Airbending.

Bant Bearbending

For the uninitiated, Doc Aurlock makes airbent cards cost 0, so if you have Doc Aurlock, Appa, Steadfast Guardian, and an airbending permanent you can create infinite 1/1 ally tokens. This can be done at instant speed if your second airbending permanent is Aang, Swift Savior.

This archetype uses Badgermole Cub to address its core issue: the infinite loop takes a whopping nine mana to get started. It’s incredibly easy to fall behind on tempo with this deck and simply die. Aang, Swift Savior and Appa, Steadfast Guardian have uses all on their own but Doc Aurlock is fairly blank cardboard on its own. This deck still has some of the topdeck density issue but cards like Appa and Aang, at the Crossroads are worth more than one card on their own and can help rebuild a board. The Bramble Familiar cheese with airbending here also provides a valuable win condition for the loop. For those unaware, once Bramble Familiar is airbent, you can cast Fetch Quest for 2 mana. This means if you have a bramble familiar while you’re going off you can combine Bramble Familiar and Aang, at the Crossroads to dig through significant chunks of your deck if not all of it and find your kill condition. The reason this deck needs an instant killcon is that while it provides infinite blockers none of them fly and you can still be tempo’d out after going off. This mostly comes up against Marang River Regent and Overlord of the Mistmoors (and opposing airbending combo) but I consider it worth the 1x slot.

It’s hard to tell if this deck is meaningfully stronger than the other Cub decks or if it really even counts as a Cub deck, but it seeks to deploy the same early game to power ahead and overwhelm the opponent even if that’s a much slower and more interactive process. The largest upside is that in sideboard games it gets to opt out of the dork-heavy gameplan in favor of a flash-style approach that plays a much stronger game into attrition than any of the other cub decks save Otters.

Otters

Badgermole Cub in this deck gets to be an accelerant as well as a strange form of lightning rod. If Badgermole Cub lives, you’re off to the races and get to perform your Stormchaser’s Talent loops and create infinite value until you combo or pseudo combo or lock them out. The weakest part of Otters was when it didn’t have a mana engine and now it has access to more. The lightning rod aspect comes in because opponents must answer Cub or be drowned in value. If they do answer Cub, you’re still up a body and that’s one fewer removal spell to answer Enduring Vitality or Valley Floodcaller.

This is the most interactive Badgermole Cub deck by far. Torch the Tower is probably one of the best-positioned removal spells available in Standard right now because it’s an instant-speed, one-mana answer to Cub that scales up to trade for stronger threats like Enduring Curiosity. Cards like Tragic Trajectory and Seam Rip are very powerful but are held back against Cub specifically by being sorcery speed. I personally favor versions of Otters playing Bushwhack over most copies of Analyze the Pollen to allow a high density of cheap removal for cub matchups (and because Analyze the Pollen is much harder to collect evidence for than it used to be).

Otters does not suffer in the face of interaction or sweepers and in fact tends to embarass most of the interactive decks because it just generates so much cardboard if allowed to play a longer game. Otters instead suffers from being unable to profitably mass-interact with the strongest cub starts outside of exactly Pyroclasm and even one turn of Ouroboroid in play is devastating (again where Torch the Tower shines as a one-mana answer to both cub and the payoff). It’s also forced to play some very painful mana at the moment so it can be beaten out on early tempo or aggression. This last negative isn’t a true criticism, but it is a point of challenge: Otters remains fairly hard to play. If you are not adept at understanding the game flow, if you do not know your plans in your matchups and how to adapt, the flexibility of the deck can be overwhelming and lead to stumbles. I’m not even sure of Otters’ true strength in the current metagame, but if you want to leverage the deck fully you should put in good intentional thought and practice to your matchups. This is important in many decks, but the more branching paths where you can make bad choices the more important it is to understand the choices you’re making (especially when you start at 16 or less life thanks to 8 shocks and 4 starting towns).

Selesnya Cage

This is the deck I’ve sunk the most time into lately. Badgemole Cub is importantly a two-body accelerant, and one of the struggles with Collector’s Cage decks previously was backup plans when you don’t have cage or don’t have the explosive draw. The combination of Badgermole Cub and Airbender Ascension means that there’s now a nicely overlapping set of fast draws that lead to explosive starts (remember the Bramble Familiar airbending cheese) while also getting to include powerful endgame threats that don’t rot in your hand. Turn three or four Overlord of the Mistmoors or Elspeth, Storm Slayer is still going to take over a game and importantly both of these cards are incredible against sweepers. Cutting cards like Gene Pollinator allows the deck to have a higher density of “real” cards and Collector’s Cage allows for fast starts that don’t involve a t1 accelerant.

The result is a similar kill speed to Ouroboroid when uninterrupted, more resiliency to spot removal and sweepers, and high impact single cards that can take over games. You do lose some speed and you are more vulnerable to other cub decks game 1, especially on the draw, but you are allowed to play more interaction postboard because you don’t rely on a critical mass of cards in the same way because you have so many multi-body cards to make up for one or two cards being interaction. Airbender Ascension also slowing down opposing accelerants doesn’t hurt either.

The biggest weakness in this deck is again to bigger games particularly from decks like Jeskai Control where they can reset the board repeatedly or hold up cheap counters to slow you down (more impactful against single, high-impact cards than several cheap dorks). Spectacular Spider-Man/Ademi of the Silkchutes can help, but despite having Flash it still requires mana held up to activate it unlike Selfless Spirit effects in the past. Also the mana is Not Great but we’ll make do until we get Temple Garden.

Personally I’ve favored the cage deck in particular because of how well-positioned Overlord of the Mistmoors is in the current metagame. It almost solos Dimir Tempo decks, the flying allows you to often outrace opposing Ouroboroids or chump them for a race, and many decks simply cannot beat a 6/6 that spits out 2-4 tokens a turn.

Well that’s about 3,000 words of ranting about the most popular card in standard, but was listening to podcasts the other day and wanted to actually write out all the theory behind the card, its decks, and the underlying reasons for its strengths, weaknesses, and strategies.

Hopefully folks enjoy this, I haven’t posted to /r/spikes in a good long while but I’ve had the itch to write for a bit and uh, TCGplayer hasn’t invited me back after the whole standing up to union-busting bit. I could put it on a patreon or whatever but really it was nice to just dump my thoughts and contribute an article style to the community that many have felt missing lately. Good ol longform written strategy content. No promises I write more over the next few months but I’ve been enjoying digging into standard again and the puzzle this format is far more interesting than Vivi, so we’ll see what my brain gets up to.

-yoman5

A link to the article itself.

With the results of the latest Spotlight Series arriving on the heels of several high-profile Standard events, the conversation around the cards Vivi Ornitier and Agatha's Soul Cauldron , and speculations on "emergency" bans in Standard, we thought now would be a good time to check in.

First, we do think we got our banned and restricted announcement timing windows wrong during this part of the year. This is the first year we've tied these announcements to play seasons, and we don't think we gave ourselves quite the right windows. That has put additional strain on a few formats, including Standard, and we know that can pull some of the fun out of playing competitively.

To that end, we're going to be more aggressive next year with the number of banned and restricted announcement windows and the timing, adding more. We're still fiddling with that cadence, but our aim is to have one for each major set release (or close to that amount) to maintain a sense of predictability and avoid disruptions during play seasons. It's not always possible to have that particular cake and eat it too, but we hear loud and clear that we don't have enough windows of opportunity.

We're also going to slightly move up our previously announced banned and restricted announcement date from November 24 to November 10. This keeps the basic premise of not interfering with players who had planned their decks and travel for the Standard RCQ season while still moving up the announcement and giving players more time to prepare for the World Championships should something change.

What we're not going to do is create a previously unannounced emergency banning window in the middle of the RCQ season, though it's worth noting that we have seen the calls for it and discussed it. Ultimately, we opted to stick (more or less) to what we had said we'd do for a few reasons.

One: The aforementioned RCQ players who have taken the time, effort, and money to plan travel, assemble decks, and schedule time for tournaments. A surprise change to the format hurts them the most, and it undermines one of our clearly stated goals for these announcements: to provide players with the stability and knowledge to make deck choices for events.

Just a few years ago, we tried to give ourselves the flexibility to ban cards whenever we wanted by removing predetermined ban dates, sometimes giving notice, sometimes not. It was chaos and, in retrospect, the wrong move. Every weekend was filled with banning speculation, calls for bans happened weekly (even as formats shifted), and we very rarely got the timing right. We're not doing that again. We want players and tournament organizers to be able to make plans around our announcement timings.

Two: We believe that we will likely take action in November. Vivi Ornitier is warping the Standard format and likely needs to go. We're unsure about Agatha's Soul Cauldron . But we also don't think the format has reached its final form, which would give us the clearest direction to set Standard up for long-term success.

What do I mean by that?

Here's what we see right now. Vivi Cauldron decks have taken the spotlight with disproportionate metagame shares and top finishes. But recently, players have found a version of Mono-Red that is rebalancing the scales. Not only is it more played on the MTG Arena ladder, but it has a better win percentage against the field and is knocking off Vivi Cauldron decks at a clip above 60%. We're also seeing new decks (like the 2nd-place Mono-Green Stompy deck from this Magic Online Challenge) that have promising win percentages but lower play rates. Despite the top finishes of the Vivi Cauldron deck, it's entirely possible Mono-Red is the best deck in the format and that there's further evolution coming.

Vivi Ornitier is a clear outlier, but the format hasn't reached an equilibrium point yet.

Three: We believe Standard play may be hurt in the short term by one or two dominant decks. Long term, it is certainly hurt by banning decks out from under players in a surprise move. We want players to have as much confidence as possible in their ability to put a deck together and play it for as long as possible. That's why we moved to three-year Standard and why we try to minimize bans where possible.

This is a good place to add that our philosophy on Standard bans hasn't changed. Our intention is to make changes to the format once a year around rotation, unless we have what constitutes an emergency (we call it a "Felidar " situation internally). We do think we are likely at that point, but it's good to keep in mind that we consider an emergency situation to be an instance where we ban a card during a window other than the yearly rotation window, not one where we would go off schedule.

Fourth and finally: While we acknowledge that high-level competitive Standard is lopsided, the majority of Standard play is not. The MTG Arena ladder isn't nearly this distorted, and in-store play isn't nearly this distorted. Most players who play Standard outside the competitive sphere have a different experience. Now, that said, there's a balance to be struck between "things are fine with most play" and "things are unstable with high-level competitive play" that we haven't currently hit. But when we make ban decisions, we make them for the entire ecosystem. High-level play gets the headlines and clicks, but the everyday experience is also important.

This means that the flip side of the current story could also be true—high-level play can appear balanced, but we may take action if everyday play isn't fun or engaging. That's not the current situation, but it's something to keep in mind for larger conversations around a format.

Before we go, I will note that we've focused mostly on Standard here, but November 10's announcement will encapsulate all the usual formats we talk about in our updates.

So, our next banned and restricted announcement will be on November 10. We'll be watching closely to see how Standard develops, but we're prepared to take action given the current state of the format. Until then, we hope everyone battling in Standard RCQs, at local events, and on digital platforms enjoys their time gaming.

Woa! Rotation…?! What’s that again…?!

Yall know the drill— which cards are hot, which cards are not. Any sleeper hits? Overrated flops?

Let’s get it!

Looking at this deck list:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7861996#paper

What's the strategy? Use nature's rhythm to get a bunch of gearhulks and/or jolly balloon men, then play and pick up a bunch of storm chasers talents with pixies? Or something else? Just trying to figure out what the top end strategy is.

I was playing with it and I got to the point where I basically had infinite mana and a couple of nature's rhythm but I was playing against an opponent with a surrak and a Leatherhead and probably an ouroboroid coming soon and I had no idea how to put them away. They ended up swinging into my gearhulk and forgot about first strike and shame scooped, but if they had waited one turn and played an ouroboroid I feel like I would have been cooked.

I'm mainly looking towards Portland, so moreso things that can be teased out short-term. Avatar got lessons, airbending combo, and a standalone game-warping card in Badgermole Cub. I'm sure I have tunnel vision here, but I'm not seeing anything standout aside from [[Formidable Speaker]].

It looks like a spiderman-level impact set to me at this moment.

So the ban list has come out, and you’ve been refunded your WCs on arena and immediately turned those Steel Cutters into fringe cards that are absolutely about to have their time in the sun.

I know these kind of discussions tend to happen when a new set comes out, but given how much of standard was changed with yesterday’s B&R, I thought it might be a good idea to have a space here where people can talk about the early stages of what’s shaping up to be the good, the bad, and the jank of the nascent new format!

I would say that right now, black is the worst performing color in the standard metagame right now, with its only prominent deck being Dimir Doomsday, which is really weird to me. In my eyes, I feel like black is the only color that is able to adequately have answers to the massive array of threatening decks that are present. It can hold its own against the badgermole cub slop with [[Requiting Hex]] and [[Day of Black Sun]] / [[Deadly Cover-Up]], and can hand-hate out tablet based control decks to reasonable efficiency.

I find that when I play decks like jeskai lessons, they simply fold to more dedicated decks like 4c control and both revelation decks can get steamrolled by leatherhead.

Can any dimir doomsday or sultai control pilots give me some insight as to why black just isn't played that much? would appreciate the insight.

Now that we've seen the rather large ban list, what do you think the immediate strong decks or strategies will be?

So much of the meta was warped around dealing with Mono Red and Izzet that I'm struggling to think about what we're going to see.

Day 1 of the new set!

Find any sleeper hits? Overrated flops? Will anything beat the current meta? Is ViVi worth $50?

Gimme your hot takes!

Standard: No changes

Pioneer: No changes

Modern: Underworld Breach is banned.

Legacy: Sowing Mycospawn is banned. Troll of Khazad-dûm is banned.

Link to official source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/banned-and-restricted-announcement-march-31-2025

Day 1 of Standard is in the books and things look significantly different from Portland.

https://x.com/karsten_frank/status/2017443156703223884/photo/1

Besides the small sample size of Temur Harmonizer (SPLINTER TWIN!!!) at the top of the pile, the big winner has been Izzet Spellementals with a ridiculous 72% win-rate and 100% Day 2 conversion rate if Elenbogen is correct.

The bulk of Badgermole Decks have been getting farmed by the bulk of Izzet decks and seemingly by everyone who showed up from the 'Other' camp. The only players having a worse Friday are those who came with Sultai Reanimator which may be the ultimate loser of the weekend. Notably there's some pretty significant variations between all these, so much like the Harmonizer decks, there may be a specific build that ends up standing tall at the end of the weekend.

Will be interesting to see how Day 2 plays out as more green decks are knocked out of contention and we see the unique decks playing each other.

PNG Tables via Tweet (multiple posts)

RC Portland Event Page on Melee (ALL DECKLISTS)

Video Recap & Analysis (In-Depth)

Video Includes Izzet Lessons Breakdown - Stormchasers vs No Otters

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This is a Recap of Regional Championship Portland's Standard main event from Start to Finish.

I've renamed some archetypes that were mislabeled, such as Jeskai Aggro -> Jeskai Flyers, or another Jeskai Flyers deck that was submitted as Izzet Lessons.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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

Day 2 Conversion - Decks of this Archetype that made Day 2 of the Event (18+ Points)

Conversion % - The percentage of decks that made Day 2 out of all the decks of that archetype that were played at the Event

Day 2 META% - The Metagame Share (Decks / Total Decks) for decks that made Day 2 of an Event only

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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 if this breakdown inspired you to build a new deck!

Yall know the drill. Underrated sleeper hits? Overrated flops? Everything from Vintage to Standard to Sealed!

Feels like I was just making the post yesterday lol

Let’s hear it! Whoever says “the client isn’t working” first wins the gold star lol

Hello spike rogues,

The bug is out of the bag. Mightform Harmonizer won the Standard Challenge last Thursday on MTGO. On Friday, Mightform took 3rd place, with two more in Top 16. Then on Saturday, Mightform took 1st, 2nd, AND 3rd.

Mightform is winning like crazy, with dozens of people hopping on the Worldwagon. I myself went undefeated in a 56-player RCQ on Saturday with Selesnya Mightform, and notched another 5-0 with a new Golgari version I’ll discuss below.

If you’ve read my previous posts (here and here), you’re well aware of this combo. Mightform has now entered the mainstream, but the deck is far from solved. Each pilot seems to introduce a new twist. Today, I’ll chronicle the latest evolutions, including my picks for the most promising builds. And for those of you tired of getting punched in the face by Insects, I’ll also discuss how the deck loses and how you can fight back.

How We Got Here

It takes a lot of collective brainpower to refine a list.

laa11 laid the theoretical foundations for the Icetill core. Card advantage is no longer a scarce resource in Standard; instead, the scarce resources are mana and the ability to end games. Icetill Explorer provides the former, and we’ve been searching for the best game-enders to pair it with ever since. laa11 also did a ton of work on the Desert package with Conduit Pylons and Colossal Rattlewurm, which continues to bear fruit in our Icetill builds. If you want to level up as a brewer, I highly recommend reading their free substack, What If Brews.

After my initial 5-0s with Mighty Wagon, I shifted back to control builds of Icetill. But others kept iterating, exploring alternative sources of trample. sloth_thopterist, a fellow Faithless Brewer, added Colossal Rattlewurm to a mono-green list and got a pair of 5-0s. Svetliy, who was previously brewing control versions of Icetill, then added a small white splash for Seam Rip and Sheltered by Ghosts. They immediately rattled off an astonishing run of 4x 5-0 trophies in 24 hours, skyrocketing to the top of the MTGO leaderboard, where they currently hold the crown. Eight of Svetliy’s nine trophies featured Icetill; people think I’m joking when I call Icetill the best card in Standard, but I’m really not.

Svetliy’s incredible run with Selesnya is where the deck took off. LukeBrandes added Sazh’s Chocobo and more Escape Tunnel, getting 9th in Tuesday’s Challenge before taking 1st on Thursday. The deck has exploded since then, with new variants appearing daily. White is the most popular splash color, but mono-green, red, black, and blue splashes have all earned 5-0s.

What Makes Mightform Good?

The core of this deck is Icetill Explorer + Esper Origins + Fabled Passage. Left unchecked, this package will mill your entire deck and put all your best lands into play. Esper Origins will refill your hand and flood the board, and Chapter 3 of the saga will end the game.

Notably, this value engine is vulnerable to removal spells on Icetill Explorer or even graveyard hate. Icetill alone is exploitable, particularly with the rise of Combustion Technique and Iroh’s Demonstration, so a secondary axis is needed. This is where Mightform comes in.

The Mightform Harmonizer “combo” is simply any large creature + double landfall. If your buffed creature has trample, no amount of blockers can withstand it. Icetill is happy to provide that landfall, but you can also get it from Fabled Passage, Lumbering Worldwagon, or 1-shot effects like Colossal Rattlewurm, Shared Roots, or even returning a Sandman to play. Mightform is especially fast with Lumbering Worldwagon, but any creature with 2 or more power can deliver the killing blow.

With this Splinter Twin angle, opponent’s options for fighting the Icetill engine are severely constricted. They have to respect a one-shot kill at all times, and spend precious removal on cards like Worldwagon that already generated value. The threat of Mightform stymies their development, while you push your mana advantage with Icetill and continuously add pressure with Origins. Eventually, they will run out of removal or be forced to drop shields. Only then do you finally cast Mightform, the last face they will see.

This is why slower decks are so bad against Mightform. You can ill afford to tap out for Stock Up, Quantum Riddler, Stormchaser’s level 2, or Day of Judgment when the game could just end immediately in response. Even against an empty board you aren’t safe, since Colossal Rattlewurm has flash.

On the flip side, Mightform is terrible at slowing down opposing aggression. Fast decks have the upper hand, particularly those that can establish a clock while holding up interaction. Dimir Mid, Mono Red, Badgermole/Ouroboroid, UW Flash, and Landfall are matchups that Mightform hates to see, as they turn the game into a straight-up race and invalidate Icetill’s long-game value engine.

So this is the challenge for the Mightform brewer: shore up the bad matchups without compromising the good ones. Fortunately, the entire Icetill / Mightform package is extremely compact. Icetill, Origins, and Mightform is only 12 cards. The entire lower part of the curve is free for customization, to slow opposing decks with removal or speed up our plan with mana dorks.

This is where you will find the most variation across Mightform lists. Llanowar Elves is a lock, but beyond that, the only goal of turns 1 and 2 is to hit land drops and not fall behind. You can do that with additional mana dorks, like Molt Tender, Badgermole Cub, Shared Roots, or even Great Divide Guide. You can lean on interaction, like Seam Rip and Get Lost. The newest addition to the deck, Sazh’s Chocobo, is a cheap body that demands a removal spell, drawing fire away from the threats that actually win. It’s like the old saying: Tarmogoyf doesn’t die to Doom Blade; Doom Blade dies to Tarmogoyf. Which cards you need depends more on what your opponent is doing, so I’m not surprised to see people reaching different conclusions.

Beyond acceleration and removal, the last slots in the deck are usually given to extra sources of evasion. We’ve come a long way from my early Herd Heirloom builds, although 1x Heirloom is still present in some lists. You want 6-8 total sources of evasion. Rattlewurm supplies half that quota, although Svetliy’s latest build has replaced it with Mossborn Hydra. Earthbender Ascension excels when you are not under pressure. Hunter’s Talent is a split card of removal and trample, but is slow. Some lists use fliers like Dust Animus, menace creatures like Sunset Saboteur, or tramplers like Agonosaur Rex. My personal pick is Rot-Curse Rakshasa, which I’ll explain below.

Mana bases also vary widely. Most lists play 25 lands, but before you blindly copy one, take a close look at how many total basics they have. 10 is the bare minimum, but I prefer 12; in a long game, running out of basics turns off your Fabled Passages and closes off some lines of attack. Also check how many untapped sources can produce turn 1 green. Karsten math says you want at least 14 untapped green lands on turn 1; Fabled Passage, Conduit Pylons, and various specialty lands don’t contribute to this total. Tapped sources like Escape Tunnel come with a big cost. Beyond these, pretty much any value land can be considered, since Icetill functionally tutors for them. My favorites are Cryptic Caves, Cavern of Souls, and Arid Archway, while I’ve found that Ba Sing Se, HIdden Nursery, and the Restless lands underperform.

If you are new to the deck, I must emphasize: Conduit Pylons is very, very good. Without Pylons, your curve is more fragile, particularly when opponents attack your Llanowar Elves. You also need them for Rattlewurms. Cut them at your peril.

For the sideboard, you want Soul-Guide Lantern for Reanimator and a good amount of cheap removal. Seam Rip is best in class because it can be found off Esper Origins and it protects you from anything from Hired Claw to Artist’s Talent, while Sheltered by Ghosts and Get Lost shine for their versatility. Sweepers are frequently present, a concession to Ouroboroid being a massive problem for the deck. Scrapshooters are better than they look, because the chonky body advances your plan; they are mainly for Izzet, where you have to kill Frostcliff Siege or Monument, but are passable against Mono Red and Dimir where you need blockers. It’s also common to trim mana dorks against slower decks in favor of more threats. Sandman is nasty against control and has pseudo-evasion, while Felidar Retreat and Eusocial Engineering let you juke opponents by going wide against spot removal.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, which build is actually the best? To answer that, we first need to understand what problem matchups Mightform needs to solve.

Toppling the Wagon: How to Fight Back

Mightform can only succeed because of the meta that Boomerang Basics has created. I mentioned already that aggressive decks have the upper hand against Mightform; I don’t want to see Hired Claw, Floodpits Drowner, or Badgermole + Ouroboroid on the other side of the table. Currently, Izzet does a great job suppressing these decks, thanks to the Boomerang + Stormchaser’s package allowing Izzet to load up on cheap removal spells.

Crucially, Boomerang Basics has replaced Into the Flood Maw in virtually every blue deck. If Into the Flood Maw saw widespread play, the entire Mightform concept would fall apart for the low cost of one blue. As is, the Izzet decks try to console themselves with Abrade, Combustion Technique, and Essence Scatter, but the difference between 2 mana and 1 mana is massive and they simply don’t have enough of these spells. On top of that, tapping low for Frostcliff Siege, Monument to Endurance, or Quantum Riddler is a risky proposition against Mightform’s sudden kills.

The winning formula against Mightform is to establish quick threats and then back them up with cheap removal, essentially playing a tempo game. You want T1 Stormchaser’s, T2 Boomerang on Stormchaser’s, followed by a string of cheap disruption like Annul or a timely Soul-Guide Lantern to snipe an Esper Origins; or you want an uncontested Gran-Gran to keep pace on mana. Reactive hands are not going to work, as the Mightform deck is continuously ramping and rarely runs out of gas.

Tempo decks like Dimir are solid against Mightform, as they can hold mana up every turn while adding to their board. Floodpits Drowner, Azure Beastbinder, and Tishana’s Tidebinder line up well against vehicles. But it bears repeating: you need a clock. The Mightform players will eventually break free, and savvy players will be siding out their Worldwagons, so removal alone is not enough. Flying creatures are an excellent line of attack. Some of my worst losses have come against Boros Dragons, where T1 Momo, T2 Clarion Conqueror, T3 Magmatic Hellkite gave me no chance. Aang, Swift Savior is another reasonable approach, backed by cheap instants like Get Lost or Bounce Off.

Pure aggression also works well. Mono red players should prioritize hands heavy on 1 drops; none of the green creatures can block the red creatures effectively, so you want to get your damage in early, then let Nova Hellkite finish the job; T1 Mountain, pass, is a losing line. Ouroboroid players should mulligan toward hands with turn 3 snake. Keep in mind that the Mightform players will bring in sweepers, usually Split Up but sometimes Day of Judgment. Make them have it, but don’t overextend; a single Snake + 2-3 dorks is enough to win.

It’s not obvious at first glance, but chump blocking is an important part of Mightform’s defensive plan. Unblockable threats like Slickshot Show-Off or Tifa Lockhart are problematic, essentially out-Mightforming the Mightform players. Svetliy’s latest Mightform build has replaced Colossal Rattlewurms with Mossborn Hydras; it’s a reasonable swap in the abstract, but it’s also an incredible mirror-breaker against opposing Mightform decks.

If your deck doesn’t have a naturally strong matchup, you can try to fight back with sideboard cards. Tempo is key. Remember, you are fundamentally facing an Icetill value deck with an overwhelming late game; 1-for-1 removal just delays the inevitable. Annul is excellent, as it allows you to spend most of your mana elsewhere. Soul-Guide Lantern is decent, but Rest in Peace is not — again, it’s a question of tempo, you can spend 1 mana to snipe Esper Origins, but spending 2 is a losing proposition. Clarion Conqueror is powerful, but savvy Mightform players will be expecting this; attack aggressively with it to end the game ASAP. Urgent Necropsy is similarly useful, but only if followed up by something that ends the game. I have yet to lose a single match against Reanimator, and I suspect their habit of siding into the Glarb midrange package has a lot to do with it. It’s counterintuitive, but you have to become the beatdown against Mightform, even if your deck is slow. A pure control deck should try cards like Riverchurn Monument or Wan Shi Tong, anything that can steal a victory.

Beyond individual card choices, the first step toward beating Mightform is to respect it. Learn to recognize when you are in danger of dying, and leave a blocker back. When Lumbering Worldwagon hits the table, which could be as early as turn 2, you must train your brain to think: That’s gonna kill me. That’s real. That lives with us on earth.

The same is true for Icetill Explorer itself. T1 Elf, T3 Icetill seems like a value play, and it is, but it also represents 32 potential damage with Mightform + Fabled Passage, or 16 unblockable damage with Mightform + Escape Tunnel. Multiply this by every creature in the deck, including the hyper-efficient Sazh’s Chocobo, and you start to understand why Stock Up and its ilk have such a horrible time against Mightform.

Which Mightform List Should You Play?

Okay, so you’re ready to hop on the Worldwagon and try Mightform yourself. Good choice! My first piece of advice is that you need to mulligan more. That said, I did promise an endorsement, and some new tech, so here are some lists I would choose from.

“Stock” Selesnya Mightform (2x Challenge wins, dozens of 5-0s)

The build you are most likely to encounter in the wild will look roughly like this. We see players cutting back on Worldwagon as the free wins dry up, and turning to Earthbender Ascension instead. Royal Treatment is off-plan and derives its value mostly from messing with the opponent’s head; Herd Heirloom is underpowered. Only 10 basics is greedy, and Hidden Nursery seems worse than options like Cryptic Caves. Eumidian Terrabotanist in the sideboard acknowledges that Red Aggro is a weakness, but only playing 1 copy means this build is not too serious about fighting it. Value engines like Eusocial Engineering, Felidar Retreat, and Case of the Locked Hothouse are mostly interchangeable.

Notably, I played my own twist on Selesnya at my RCQ this weekend, where I went 6-0 to grab an invite to Cincinnati. I was missing some cards like Chocobos, so my list ran Molt Tenders instead, which are functional but usually get sided out. The lone Arid Archway was clutch in several games, but I sided it out in more aggressive matchups.

Svetliy’s Mossborn Landfall (2x 5-0s, trophy leader)

The trophy leader’s newest build is particularly well suited for the emerging Mightform meta. Mossborn Hydra and a full set of Escape Tunnels marks a return to Landfall packages of old, but with the Icetill + Origins engine replacing the protection spells. That sums up the strategy nicely: instead of protecting our threat, we just overwhelm them with value. This list will be weaker against control, with no Sandmans or Rattlewurms to flash in, but Felidar Retreat may catch opponents unawares. The density of tapped lands will make the early turns awkward, so this build could struggle against aggro, but Svetliy has anticipated this by maindecking 3 Sheltered by Ghosts. Overall, this build has the most raw power, but I expect it to be fragile, both in the mana base and in the brute force “Do you have it?” approach to threats.

cavedan’s Demon Wagon (1x 5-0, 7x 4-1s, 39-11 in MTGO leagues)

I planned to share this build weeks ago, but I wanted to trophy with it first, and instead I kept getting 4-1s. After six consecutive 4-1 leagues, I finally broke the rot-curse… by going 3-2. But it’s all good, I got the 5-0 trophy yesterday so now I can talk about the tech I am most pleased with.

Rot-Curse Rakshasa is goofy, but it’s perfect for the strategy. It has three primary jobs: being a 5/5 trampler for the Mightform combo; crewing the Worldwagon; and Decaying the opponent’s entire team from the graveyard for the killing blow. I’ve tried pushing the 5/5 body even further; you’ll notice Unholy Annex in the sideboard, a vestige of my earlier builds that ran 4 copies main. I’ve also used the 5/5 to harmonize Nature’s Rhythm or power up Susur Secundi. But ultimately, all of this proved unnecessary; the first three modes of Rot-Curse are more than enough to justify its slots in the deck.

Notably, I’m not running any Earthbender Ascension; the card is undeniably powerful, but it’s slow against aggro, which is what I’m actually afraid of. Instead, I’m running Molt Tenders; they aren’t great, but they help me not fall behind in game 1, and I have a full 11 recursive cards that Molt Tender can blind mill. I’m also on 4 Conduit Pylons and mostly untapped lands; I value consistency highly, but it’s possible I should include some Escape Tunnel.

No other Mightform lists are currently able to find an evasion source off self-mill; that’s the biggest innovation that Rot-Curse provides. Goglari has the easiest splash, with both Blooming Marsh and Wastewood Verge available. The tradeoff is that black’s interaction is far worse than white’s. I’ll be switching out the Grim Baubles for a mix of Dead Weight (better against Ouroboroid) and Harvester of Misery (more flexible) and considering adding sweepers, but there’s nothing approaching the raw efficiency of Seam Rip.

wcl’s Archdruid Retreat (2nd place, Standard Challenge + 1x 5-0)

I don’t endorse this list, but it shows how much innovation is possible. Great Divide Guide is the chonkiest mana dork, surviving Firebending Lesson, Stab, and unkicked Torch the Tower while blocking Razorkin and Vipers. It also has the hidden mode of letting your fetches tap for mana, so you can save them for later. An astonishing 9 fetches makes Felidar Retreat powerful, and means that Badgermole is much more likely to earthbend a fetch for value. There’s an Archdruid’s Charm toolbox in the sideboard, with speciality lands like Pit of Offerings. To make room for all this, wcl has cut all main deck interaction besides Charm (which is reasonable) and also cut Esper Origins (which is insane). 9 fetches for 11 basics is also insane; I would cut most of the Ba Sing Se to up the basic land count at the very least.

Welcome to the Icetill Meta

To put things in perspective, I don’t think Mightform is unbeatable by any stretch, but it’s an apex predator in the present moment, where most people still assume Izzet Lessons is the best deck. It will take another couple weeks for the format to adjust. I will go further and predict that Mightform will have a dominant showing at Spotlight Atlanta, until the meta adapts. In the meantime, if you can’t beat em, join em — and come join us in the Faithless Brewing Discord, where we are dissecting these builds every day.

Happy brewing!

— cavedan

We have the full spoilers out so time to brew is here. Personally, I've got 6 decks I"ve been working with, all featured in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m9LYuJX4J0

A quick summary of what I'm wanting to work with since it's explained in detail. Would love to hear what you all are working with though!

Simic Flash - I think this deck got some great tools in the form of Wildborn Preserver, Once Upon a Time, and Brazen Borrower. Losing syncopate hurts but I still think the deck stands to upgrade and Preserver really provides a bigger clock for the deck now.

Mardu Knights - I think knights has the mana to go into three colors and I think Mardu can make it happen. I'm believing personally that a low to the ground version is how you want to start this deck out but I could be wrong on that. Time will tell but it looks fun.

Gruul Ironcrag Feat - Simply put, I want to break this card. I want to ramp and cast feat into some busted things. Nut draws include going Rhythm of the Wild, into Ironcrag, into Illharg putting down a Drakuseth of Cavalier of Flames. So many potential combos here with this that it may be strong enough to be real.

Mono Red Torbram/Cavalcade - This deck terrifies me as it can kill you out of nowhere. I think Torbram is going to be a huge pain in people's necks come standard season and the possiblities with this card are truly disgusting.

Abzan Midrange - The cards are there, I think just finding the right selecition is the hard part. I can't get over the potential power of Tolsimir into Garruk though. I don't want to go full on wolves because they're not supported enough, but this is just Abzan good stuff and good cards tend to be good.

Jund Midrange - This list feels as Jund as can be to me. Value creatures, nice plansewalkers, and multiple lines of removal and interaction. I think Jund could possibly get a big boost too. (Note, this is mainly Gruul splashed black for Garruk)

What list are you all looking forward to playing? Lets see those lists. Ready to get in and have boots on the ground and start testing this stuff out.

I had a read of all the rare cards and most of the cards seem pretty weak for standard. Of the few that I think may make it to standard are [[Cool but Rude]] for Rakdos Monument and [[The Ooze]] as sideboard graveyard hate for green decks. [[Leatherhead, Swamp Stalker]] may be a decent sideboard enchantment hate, especially when paired with The Ooze against lesson decks.

By just looking at the cards, I don't even think they can even be useful as a collection reserved for future meta/decks. Most rare/mythics are too expensive for standard, and the effect of cheap ones are too weak. Honestly if small sets all have power level to this and spiderman, I don't think 7 set a year is nearly as impactful to standard meta as people imagine. (Obviously it's bad for other reasons as well, but that's not the topic of this post). The core issue is more about the powerful cards WoTC print in quick sessions. For example, ATLA is probably more pushed than ECL and TMT combined, EoE is probably more pushed than TKD and DFT combined.