Penny Dreadful - Season 22's first Quarter

It is with a lot of regret for some and relief for others that we say goodbye to the 21st season of Penny Dreadful, which was one of the fastest, and should be followed by another short season. As with Innistrad: Crimson Vow right on the corner, another rotation is scheduled to happen in 6 weeks, around the second half of November, but still without a defined date.

Relief for some that there will no longer be able to Reanimate on turn zero, or play against Hymn to Tourach, and burden for others, like the multicolor decks that used Arcum's Astrolabe as a filter for manabase. Now that Astrolabe is out of format, Mono-Red will be left with its cheerful Price of Progress that wasn't being as effective last season.

Well, no more talking, let's see what's new and the big changes the format has undergone in these first two weeks.

Season: 22

Current week: 3

Weeks until rotation: 6

Qnt. of events: 14

Qnt. of players: 97

Types of decks used: 71

During the rotation, we began to glimpse this new universe to be explored. As we commented in the last article of last season, it was already expected that some cards that left Standard would enter the format, and this was confirmed even with one of our wishes: Lovestruck Beast became legal this season!

This addition, plus a few bombs, made the first deck to win a Season 22 tournament to be a Mono-Green Stompy. That's right, the green color, which had been overshadowed by the others, was the champion deck right away: important new pieces like Steel Leaf Champion and Strangleroot Geist gave gas and closed the front line of this deck.

And since Astrolabe left the format, players decided to focus on monocolor decks. For the first events, the first top8 only lacked a Mono U, but we had Mono G, Mono B, Mono W and Mono R... the latter being the second most present, reaching more podiums so far in the initial tournaments: with the return from some important cards and new bomb entry like Fervent Champion, Goblin Chainwhirler, Hazoret the Fervent and Play with Fire the deck has gained incredible gas.

It's worth noting that Fervent Champion came from the Standard rotation, and Play with Fire, a new card from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, has proven to be very versatile by scrying useless cards, something that Mono-Red hardly could do until then.

Another addition we had this season that cheered many was Smuggler's Copter, a card that already has its high price (probably due to great demand). Today the price is above 0.20 tix, while its average price before rotation was 0.05 tix.

But if on the one hand we had this explosion of more aggro decks, the answer came soon after, in the following tournaments and even in the Penny Kickoff, which marked the opening of the season; Control and heavy removal decks appeared in response and even combo decks that took advantage of a hole in the sideboards, as we now don't have an efficient way to exile graveyards.

And we have some pretty good removals right now:

And pretty good sweepers as well:

And let's not forget about two cards that have been giving nightmares to players due to its interactions with MH2's artifact lands and Cleansing Wildfire!

As the most used deck so far, having 3 participations in the top8 of the Kickoff, the Joku Friends has, as the most interesting point being a deck without green that can ramp. With some variations like Mardu, Rakdos and the more common Grixis, the deck is basically composed of Planeswalkers, ramps (in red) and Land Destructions. As possibilities to stop the deck, we have Sacred ground and/or Lost Legacy, or even trying to somehow prevent it from getting the lands to use mass destruction with discards/counters while reducing its life total to zero.

Among the most used Planeswalkers, we have:

Without efficient graveyard removals as mentioned earlier, now that we've lost Tormod's Crypt, Nihil Spellbomb and Silent Gravestone, all that's left is to try some non-generic removals:

Decks that are taking advantage of this are the Cycling lists (Aggroslide and Astral Slide), as they can play Zenith Flare, as well as decks with the Cat-Oven pseudo-combo, since we have Cauldron Familiar + Witch's Oven + The Underworld Cookbook in the format now, and also some decks that play with Soulflayer + Zetalpa, Primal Dawn.

We also have some Graveyard-Based combos, and the highlights go to Necrotic Ooze (3 tops in 4 participations), Oops All Spells (5 tops in 6 participations) and, of course, Goblins Combo, deck among the top 5 most used, Kickoff champion and with 66% utilization so far, also appearing among the top10 most affordable, costing on average only 2 tix.

Another deck, with few representatives, but with a good percentage of victories and podiums, is Dimir Tempo. With the return of Brainstorm to the format plus Ponder which is still legal, and the new card Consider, we have 3 excellent ways for Delver of Secrets to flip easily.

As news that should be on the radar for possible appearances, we have:

With the departure of Parallax Wave, everyone thought that the blinks decks would disappear, even more without Ephemerate, but there was the entry of a new feature made the deck persist and reinvent itself:

And as for cards that are currently on this Season and that were once staples of other seasons, we have:

Before we get into the decklists, here's a hint of a deck that hasn't shown up yet in tournaments, but which is strong and has all the necessary pieces. I'm talking about Mono-White Heroic, with Karametra's Blessing and All That Glitters coming back into the format. This deck is not to be underestimated, and is always among the most affordable. In addition to it, Mono-Black Devotion is worth mentioning.

And, as I finish this article, here are some decklists from the current season!

I hope you enjoyed the article, we are still at the beginning of the season and surprises might come up over the next few weeks. The spoilers for the next set are also close, so stay tuned for more news, and if you have any tips or suggestions you can leave them in the comments.

See you next time!

Reference sites:

-Official site of the format from which the results are extracted - PD Magic *Only tournament data is counted, leagues are purged.

-Price search site -CardHoarder and GoatBots