Standard Decks for Nationals

With Nationals this upcoming weekend, there's been a lot of buzz about what the best decks to play are, as well as the "tech" that will give you an edge. I will be going to Nats and attempting to grind in, so here's what I think about the format right now.



First of all, there's only one true combo deck: Pyromancer's Ascension. This is a deck that seeks to use the namesake enchantment, power it up, and make copies of Time Warp and Call to Mind returning Time Warp and another Call to Mind to take infinite turns. Eventually the deck kills at leisure with Lightning Bolt.

Given that this deck has been pretty heavily endorsed by name pros like GerryT and LSV, people will be aware of its existence and it will comprise a nonzero portion of the metagame. Its strengths are the 16 cantrip effects given it extremely solid mana and threat development. In addition, its win condition is cheap to deploy and thus protect with countermagic.

Its weaknesses are its only early action is Lightning Bolt, so it is vulnerable to an aggressive start ala Steppe Lynx or 4/4 Knight of the Reliquary. Additionally it is weak to Jund in the maindeck as it has little to say about Blightning and Maelstrom Pulse. A weakness that isn't currently being exploited is the fact Ascension is reliant on the graveyard to charge up, so a Relic of Progenitus or Bojuka Bog can buy many turns if not completely locking down the deck's functionality.

I chose to talk about Ascension first because I feel it is one of the cornerstones of the format. Any deckbuilder needs to decide whether to include maindeck/sideboard hate for the deck or to just ignore it. Much like Monored and Dredge in the past, Ascension is a deck that doesn't get enough respect so people tend to skimp on hate for it and get crushed. While if you dedicate enough slots you can ensure you don't lose to the deck.

Next up is Jund, aka the Boogeyman. Jund is a deck that has been dominating the format since Faeries left, and almost to the same level of supremacy until very recently. Jund seeks to generate card advantage via Sprouting Thrinax, Blightning, and the Cascade ability, while maintaing a strong removal suite via Terminate and Maelstrom Pulse.

Jund's strengths lies in its ability to grind out any deck. Its creatures are good on their own and usually come with some kind of card advantage, and all of its spells with the exception of Terminate benefit the caster in some way other than just making a guy dead. In addition Sarkhan the Mad is a premier threat and very difficult to answer in the current metagame.

Jund's weakness lies in decks that don't care about grinding, ala Monored. Jund is not able to interact with the stack, so 20 to the face will kill it every time. Additionally Jund's mana will always be 1 land drop a turn, so it is very capable of falling behind to an accelerated start from an opposition deck powered by Noble Hierarch or Lotus Cobra into a finisher Jund cannot deal with on curve. An example being a turn 4 Sphinx of Jwar Isle or Primeval Titan. Lastly Jund is soft to X-spells like Martial Coup or Mind Spring that can equalize all the card advantage it gained via Cascade, and if these X-spells are backed by Planeswalkers, which equate to time gained by the opponent as Jund spends resources removing the walkers, Jund can be left in a rough spot in the endgame. Vengevine is a last obvious weakness of Jund, as it is a creature that just will not die, and thus causes headaches for a deck whose primary win condition is attacking on the ground.

If you intend to play any standard event, thorough knowledge about Jund is required, as it will be played, and it will destroy you if you aren't prepared.

Next up is Naya Shaman, which is a spawn of the previous Boss Naya deck that saw a resurgence in popularity with the printing of Fauna Shaman in M11. The reason for this is that the Shaman on her own swung around the U/W matchup from miserable to favorable. Shaman represents a must kill threat that isn't vulnerable to Condemn. Additionally, on the play it is active before the opponent has a chance to Oblivion Ring it. Given sufficient time it will tuck away Vengevines safely in the graveyard ready to teach your opponent the importance of eating his vegetables. Shaman also allows for a "toolbox" of creatures, like a singleton Realm Razer or Qasali Pridemage which have strong utility in certain matchups.

The weakness of Naya Shaman is its inability to play noncreature spells. Due to the nature of needing to maximize the probability a Bloodbraid will cascade into a creature so as to trigger Vengevine as often as possible, most Shaman maindecks do not include more than an equipment or two and few if any removal spells. This leaves it very vulnerable to a board dominating effect like Baneslayer Angel or Sovereigns of Lost Alara. Another point of consideration is the necessity of most Shaman sideboards to feature noncreature spells to address specific problems (ie Path for Baneslayer or Manabarbs for control) that make its Bloodbraid Elves much less consistent postboard.

The current builds of Bant have almost universally become a hybrid of Next Level Bant and Mythic Conscription. The most stock builds have 4 Fauna Shaman, 2 Sovereigns and 2 Conscription to allow a fast kill through almost any board position. Most of these decks have adopted Vengevine/Wall of Omens as an engine that compliments Shaman, though due to the lack of red there is no easy way of Bloodbraiding to victory. In exchange, the bant decks can play Jace the Mind Sculptor and counterspells to combat control decks.

The strength of Bant is that unlike Naya, it includes the Conscription "combo" to quickly kill an opponent. This is especially important against Pyromancer's Ascension and some U/x control decks that will be able to craft an endgame superior to that of Bloodbraid Elf plus Vengevine. Conscription's ability to just sometimes turn 3 Sovereigns people into the ground is not to be underestimated in an open field like Nationals, where random decks are sure to be found in the early rounds.

The weakness of Bant can be summed up by one card. Cunning Sparkmage. It is actually nearly impossible to beat an accelerated Sparkmage backed up by any amount of removal, as the manabase comprises 12 mana creatures that die to Sparkmage. Another important point is that the Conscription endgame, while very strong, is not the most compelling endgame in standard, and thus mana accelerators are an absolute necessity to ensure you reach your endgame before your opponent reaches his. So the deck is stuck in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situtation with regards to mana creatures.

The last deck, and certainly the one gaining the most attention right now is the R/G/x Primeval Titan deck. The most famous of these is probably the Japanese PTQ-winning deck that was straight R/G, topping off with 4 Titan, 4 Siege-Gang Commander, and 4 Avenger of Zendikar. The rest of the deck was ramp spells, which combine with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle to form a compelling endgame. Recent developments have lead to splashing colors into the R/G core as well as experiments with Summoning Trap as well as a certain U/G Frost Titan deck created by our own Kurtis Droge.

The strength of the Titan deck lies in the ability of the Titans immediately getting value even if the creature is removed. As long as a Titan hits play, the game changes immediately. Whether it is the 2 Valakuts brought along by Primeval Titan or the Jace Beleren rebought by Sun Titan the board state always radically changes. Due to this resistance to removal and the fact that each Titan is very capable of dominating the board and winning very quickly if not removed, every Titan deck can devote far less spots to win conditions and more spots to acceleration and threat control than traditional control decks with less powerful finishers.

Weaknesses of the Titan decks are apparent, as with all ramp decks. The necessity of drawing the correct proportion of ramp to threats at the correct time makes the deck inconsistent. Furthermore there is a glaring weakness to counterspells, as most of the cards that actually do anything cost 6+ mana to hit play, by which time your opponent can very easily have set up an Elspeth, a Wall of Omens, and be waiting with Mana Leaks and Deprives. Furthermore all the Titan decks have weak combo matchups, as non of the maindeck cards interact with an Ascension or a Howling Mine.

There are some fringe decks that pop up now and then. Among these are Polymorph, Howling Mine, Monored, Monogreen, R/G Monument, Monowhite Eldrazi, and U/B(r) control. These decks usually do not account for more than 5% of the metagame, but each have had their 15 minutes of fame when the metagame was ripe for exploitation.


My advice for anyone playing in Nationals and wondering what deck to play would be to bring a proactive deck. Unless you're an Ascension master, I don't think a deck that sits around and does nothing for 4 to 5 turns other than manipulate your library is where you want to be. In a field where you won't necessarily know what your opponent will do, the safest place to be is to just kill your opponent before they can do whatever you're not prepared for.

Good luck to any readers attending US Nationals! And remember, don't be a bitch.


Bonus Feature:
10 most powerful cards in Standard, by Kai and Matt (in no particular order)

1 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Jace the Mind Sculptor
3 Destructive Force
4 Knight of the Reliquary
5 Elspeth, Knight Errant
6 Path to Exile
7 Fauna Shaman
8 Primeval Titan
9 Raging Ravine
10 Sun Titan

My personal plan for deckbuilding may be to play as many of these in the same deck as possible. This should be wild. And fun.