This past weekend, we had the Arena Championship Qualifier. I was qualified in almost every way possible. While I haven't fully begun exploring the format, I used this opportunity to pick a deck and learn it a little bit.
I wanted fast games, since I didn't want to spend my weekend playing midrange grindfest with zero practice. If I was going to lose, it should be quick.
Regardless, high-stakes events are great for practice. Since I have an event in Atlanta in just over a month, I wanted to explore at least one deck.
My weapon of choice this time was Mono Red Aggro. I got the list from a friend of mine, Daniel Brodie, and got some tips from him, too. I made a small tweak here and there based on almost no information, except I expected to play almost half mirrors. I was wrong in retrospect, and while I don't think there's a way to figure out an exact metagame, I played five matches: two against UW Oculus, two against Domain, and one mirror.
Being unfamiliar with the format cost me some games in my 2-3 run, but this deck was flawed and looks worse than the Gruul Prowess version.
While the deck's mana is smooth with its zero lands that enter tapped, it has an issue with needing to draw a specific number of lands and does not get any value out of its fifth land. I dislike this deck style, especially on a 21 land count, as it winds up being too inconsistent and almost never winning those close top-deck games.
I played an extra Shock to account for the mirrors, and on day two I was going to switch it back for a Monastery Swiftspear.
Lithomantic Barrage was awful. I played against Oculus decks, but the Oculus almost always comes into play as a 6/6 with Recommission. You can't have a card like this that is inconsistent in what it's trying to accomplish. If a card said to flip a coin and kill a creature for one mana, it would be unplayable, yet this is often what was going on. I did bring Barrage in against Zur, but it doesn't help much if they have a Leyline Binding in play already. I'd prefer Gruul's Sideboard tools to Mono Red's.
While playing red, I felt like I could never beat well-timed removal. I had to jam my cards and hope they got through, often walking into cards like Elspeth's Smite or Unsummon.
Once I lost tempo, I was often stuck with low-impact cards that couldn't carry me over the finish line.
Gruul piloted by Seth Manfield was able to take home a slot in the Arena Championships.
Gruul looks to be able to play a longer game with cards like Questing Druid and Inkeeper's Talent in grindier matchups. Pawpatch Formation is the kind of sideboard card I want in this metagame out of an aggressive deck, as well.
On top of not knowing the format, everyone was prepared for Mono Red in this event. I played against so many narrow sideboard cards that it felt silly like I walked right into a buzzsaw. While Mono Red is certainly playable, and potentially will even be good if people ignore it at any point, I don't see that happening any time soon.
Now that I have that deck out of my system, I need to make a plan moving forward for what I want to figure out.
First, I want to try Oculus. The deck seems powerful and consistent. While the deck is great against aggro, it seems like it can grind well and might have a lot of potential sideboard options to explore to give it a different angle to attack. While I don't have any specific ideas in mind, that's definitely on my agenda.
The most important thing I can work on is figuring out what is the best black midrange deck, specifically which flavor of Dimir.
Dimir is an interesting archetype with so many reasonable options that it's difficult to decipher the right split of creatures, removal, and counter Magic.
I'll need to play a lot with the archetype to know, but that's my first plan moving forward. I likely will devote next week to it, unless I decide the deck is not worth the effort after a day or two. I suspect that will not be the case.
The metagame is so open right now that the best approach I can take is to play a few games with each deck that looks interesting and get a lot of reps in. I suspect I'll like the playstyle of Dimir the best, especially in an open-entry event. Overall, the player pool will be weaker than at the PT, and if I know my stuff, I should be able to get a reasonable edge.
I have no interest in playing any Domain deck. I've always loathed that approach to Standard where I play a control-style deck that's not proactive but also is playing so many colors my mana can become an issue.
My top three choices right now would be:
1) Dimir Mid
2) Gruul Prowess
3) UW Oculus
This is by no means an in-depth informed analysis. This is mostly a vibes-based approach based on how open the format is and how well I think I'd do with said decks.
Right now, I don't like red much and will likely not return to test that one without a solid new plan. I likely won't even test Domain, as it doesn't seem good enough that I have to play it, and it doesn't pass the eye test for me. Moving forward, I'll keep you, the reader, in the loop with how my testing is going, and if I'm able to rule out any decks.
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