The Magic: the Gathering Standard metagame format is looking stable this week as the top deck archetypes are already identified. These are the top two: Mono-Green Aggro, and Izzet Turns Control. This is then followed by Mono-White Aggro, Dimir Control, and Gruul Aggro. The other deck archetypes look to be working against a specific top-tier deck but could not be consistent in winning their matchups on other archetypes.

As for today’s blog topic, we identify what are the most used spot removals that these top decks are using and how to counter them. Lets us start with Izzet’s top removals, Demon Bolt, Cathartic Pyre, Burning Hands. These are the early stoppers to your aggro assault or curve, and the Burning Hands against Mono-Green decks’ fatties. They usually let you cast your creature and kill them off at the end of your turn. That way, they save their counterspells to your best threats.

For the Izzet Dragons version of the deck, they utilize a playset of Dragon’s Fire which most of the time deals 4 damage to the target creature or planeswalker by revealing Goldspan Dragon or having it in play.

For Dimir Control deck, we have the popular instant, Infernal Grasp. The 2 life loss is a little drawback to what it can do in killing any creature you play. They also have Soul Shatter which can also deal with your planeswalker if you get to play it on an empty board. Power Word Kill also sees play but only as a support spot removal. That is the same with Bloodchief’s Thirst.

It is unavoidable in most matchups but the best course here is to play out more threats than their removals though this also gets you to walk into their mass removals instead. Just be wary of how they play out their spot removals which at times may reveal that they don’t have a mass removal spell on hand.

Also, try to resolve cards like Esika’s Chariot which is a great board advantage and token generator. Going with the basics, board in spells that gives hexproof or indestructible to your dudes such as Snakeskin Veil. Heck, maindeck them if you have to. if you have access to Blue, counterspells like Negate can do the trick. Decks such as Temur and Azorious Aggro are already having Blue so they can deal with the control matchups well in the long game.

As a wrap-up, this weekend will the Magic: the Gathering Worlds, and I will be staying tuned for their coverage and probably check out more deck builds as they play it out for the championships.

Until the next blog post.