Starting with today’s blog post, I will be delving more into a detailed Magic: the Gathering strategy and not only sharing updated Standard decklists. This is on leaning more on describing the deck’s game plan like in certain deck matchups, and early and late-game scenarios. The strategy that I was using back in the paper Magic events.
I am kicking this off with a Standard deck archetype in which the colors are a personal favorite. What I liked about it is that it utilized more cards from the recent two sets in which I will detail later on. First, we look at the decklist.
Maindeck
24 LANDS
4 Branchloft Pathway
4 Cragcrown Pathway
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Needleverge Pathway
3 Overgrown Farmland
1 Plains
3 Rockfall Vale
3 Sundown Pass
22 CREATURES
3 Briarbridge Tracker
3 Brutal Cathar
4 Elite Spellbinder
4 Goldspan Dragon
4 Prosperous Innkeeper
4 Reckless Stormseeker
3 INSTANTS and SORC.
3 Fateful Absence
11 OTHER SPELLS
4 Esika’s Chariot
4 Showdown of the Skalds
3 Wrenn and Seven
SIDEBOARD
2 Burn Down the House
3 Burning Hands
2 Reidane, God of the Worthy
1 Skyclave Apparition
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Thundering Rebuke
2 Tovolar’s Huntmaster
This was played by username atarka711 in the recent MTGO Standard League with the record of 5-0. The other deck archetypes with the same record as his are still composed of the same top-tiers in the Standard metagame. I’d expected also that his matchups were a few of those decks.
Now, we see that the deck is semi-midrangeish with most of the creatures’ mana costs are on three. A playset of Prosperous Innkeeper is the only two-drop that can ramp and fix the colors with its Treasure Token.
Looking at the specific card choices, most of them deliver card value and are not only efficient attackers. Worth the mention are Elite Spellbinder, Brutal Cathar, Reckless Stormseeker, and Goldspan Dragon. This bunch works well in disrupting opponents’ board and with the Haste granted by the Stormseeker gets you to attack right away.
The inclusion of three copies of Wrenn and Seven along with the playset of Showdown of the Skalds means that the late-game plan is powerful enough to finish the game in the case that the early aggression was dealt with. Wrenn generates a Treefolk that gets bigger as you control more lands which are already got you the value as they now needed to deal with two threats.
Fateful Absence supports the Cathar in dealing with opponents’ creatures but the instant also can instakill troublesome planeswalkers.
The sideboard list is more on the switching of inefficient cards for certain matchups. One example is Mono-White Aggro wherein Wrenn, Showdown and the Dragon can be pretty slow to cope up with them. Thus, you can switch them to Burn Down the House, Skyclave Apparition, and Thundering Rebuke. As more Mono-Green, you have Burning Hands to kill their fatties.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Reidane, God of the Worthy can be disruptive to Izzet and Dimir Control but you have to play around with their counterspells and removals while trying to optimize your damage as much as possible. I call it “Spell baiting”, to see if they got the counter available. Carefully check the untapped lands on the possible spells that they got to deal with your threats. They can Dragon’s Fire your creature or Divide by Zero your Chariot or planeswalker.
In this build, you can just maximize one spell per turn early on until you build your mana so it is important not to miss your land drops. I see Izzet as a tougher matchup as they have Spikefield Hazard to deal with your Thalia but try to play threats after threats each turn. Of course, familiarization with the usual cards these decks play is also important.
To conclude, I would recommend this build of the Naya Aggro deck in its current list. In which case you’d feel that your local metagame is composed more of the aggro decks, then you can just replace a card or two in the three-drops or cut one Wrenn and Seven for a lower cost creature or additional spot removal.
That is a wrap, thanks for your time reading this post and until the next one.