Metagame: The Highlights on Bloomburrow's Third Week!

With Duskmourn spoilers set to begin on August 29 and the first cards from the Foundations JumpStart booster packs being revealed last week, it's easy to get lost in all the new stuff in the Magic: The Gathering universe - but it's still Bloomburrow season, and the third week of Challenges has brought some innovative decks and strategies to various competitive formats.

From Boros Mice in Standard to extreme meta calls in Pioneer with Mono White Yorion and the first appearance of Shifting Woodland in a major Modern event Top 8, formats continue to evolve and develop around the changing Metagame and the search for the most optimized versions with Bloomburrow.

The Standard Metagame is set. With Golgari Midrange and Domain Ramp occupying the top of the format, players are starting to take advantage of the gaps they leave to fit in, and we have a dozen viable strategies.

Two strategies were new to the format this weekend, both with results in the Top 8 of the Challenges: Boros Mice, aiming to extract the most from Bloomburrow, and Dimir Midrange, which follows the opposite path and has almost no cards from the new expansion in its list.

Boros Mice

Boros Mice is the new addition to Standard among Aggro and aims to extract value from Valiant combined with the typal interactions between mice creatures. It tries to combine the best of both worlds between Boros Convoke and Gruul Prowess, putting it in a relatively advantageous position in the current Metagame, but it loses speed in some matchups.

The lists still don't have a standard ideal amount for each card, but they follow the line of approximately 28 creatures, eight pump spells and between 4 or 6 flexible slots for removal and/or protection spells.

Dimir Midrange

The Dimir Midrange was one of the most relevant decks at the end of last season and returns to Standard with basically the same core that made it popular, being basically a pile of the best cards in the colors the format offers, with few changes compared to old lists.

Pioneer remains in one of the worst Metagame states in the history since the famous combo triad in Theros Beyond Death, and proof of its state is in how players are adapting their lists to achieve good results - whether it's including Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord and Vein Ripper in any list with a shell, or making heavy meta calls, like the Mono White Yorion that emerged this weekend.

Mono White Yorion

Inspired by Mono White and Boros Tokens in Standard, Mono White Yorion uses the core of Caretaker’s Talent with token generators for its sources of card advantage and combines them with powerful Planeswalkers for go-wide strategies like Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Elspeth, Sun's Champion.

But what stands out about this list is the amount of Meta Calls it makes to deal with Pioneer's current state, with four copies of Hallowed Moonlight in the maindeck - an excellent hate against Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, Return to the Ranks and Arclight Phoenix - and a sideboard almost entirely dedicated to dealing with those three matchups, although Knockout Blow and Damping Sphere serve for other popular matchups.

Meta Call or no, Mono White Yorion is a new strategy with a lot of potential, and it might be a good time to consider how the deck can be built after the likely bans on August 26.

Azorius Flash

Azorius Flash is another proposal that has benefited from the current state of the Metagame and proven the need for Meta Calls in Pioneer, with four copies of Containment Priest in the maindeck to respond to the three main archetypes of the format, in addition to the possibility of also including Hallowed Moonlight in the Sideboard if necessary.

Golgari Crimes

Outside the heavy Meta Call and more towards innovation, some players had good results in Challenges with a new variant of Golgari Midrange, named Golgari Crimes due to the interaction of Freestrider Lookout with Iridescent Vinelasher and Chevill, Bane of Monsters, being a promise for the post-ban format while, today, the addition of instead of guarantees access to Pick Your Poison.

I wonder if including Jegantha, the Wellspring is worth giving up other powerful cards within this theme like Kaervek, the Punisher, which reuses cards from graveyard alongside Iridescent Vinelasher.

Gruul Omniland

During the preview season for Modern Horizons 3, Shifting Woodland was considered by many one of the cards with the greatest potential to be the “new” Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. In the end, it was Nadu, Winged Wisdom who took that spot and the land never saw much play in the Challenges.

Aspiringspike brought a proposal for the land's combo with Omniscience, based on self-mill effects that search for permanents to fill the graveyard and a Delirium package with Traverse the Ulvenwald to search for the land in addition to a “toolbox” with Karn, the Great Creator to win the game with or without the combo.

Once Omniscience is in play, we can use Karn, the Great Creator to search for Aetherflux Reservoir and Ancestral Statue to gain infinite life and deal lethal damage to the opponent, and we have Griselbrand in the maindeck to search with Traverse the Ulvenwald and draw cards until we have the right pieces.

Izzet Wizards

Thundertrap Trainer has found a home in Modern in more control-oriented versions of Izzet Wizards, where it enables Flame of Anor while searching for more answers or sources of card advantage. Another important detail of this list is the interaction between Crackling Drake and Arena of Glory to create a pseudo-combo for four mana - and this list also gains style points for running Sideboard Vendilion Cliques in 2024.

Mono Blue IsoRev

The Isochron Scepter with Dramatic Reversal combo is one of the most famous in Commander, but we don't often see it in Modern either. In the list played by watdoink, the combination is used along with artifacts that generate mana and Kitsa, Otterball Elite to create a snowball effect, ideally making Emry, Lurker of the Loch mill cards from the deck until finding Walking Ballista for infinite damage.

Jund Gardens

Black Gardens has been relatively absent from the Pauper Metagame since the release of Modern Horizons 3, perhaps due to the addition of Gruul Ramp to the format and its difficulty in dealing with Broodscale Combo when the opponent has a lot of protection. Pavelval sought to revitalize the archetype this weekend with a Jund variant running Writhing Chrysalis, which motivated Gruul's return to the format.

Blighted Bogles

It's been a few years since we've seen Bogles add Blighted Agent to their lists for a “combo kill” in non-interactive matchups and/or where there is an abundance of Lifegain.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thank you for reading!