Metagame: November's Last Week on Competitive Events

The last week of November was a busy one for Magic: The Gathering tournaments. As we approach the next Banned and Restricted announcement, the competitive Metagame continues to evolve as players experiment with new ideas.

While Tolarian Terror decks are starting to see more results in Standard, an old Pioneer combo is returning with a new variant that relies on Pawpatch Formation, a staple in both formats. Modern, on the other hand, still suffers from the chronic problem presented by Boros Energy, even as new ideas emerge in archetypes like Mono Green Eldrazi.

This week also saw the return of Delver of Secrets in Legacy, perhaps as a response to a Metagame in which Orcish Bowmasters has become less important, and in Pauper, we had the Brazilian Nationals with over 270 players this weekend, with a player already known to the community becoming a four-time champion.

Turbo Xerox is one of the most famous and successful strategies in Magic: The Gathering, but it is not always possible to play in Standard because the format often lacks cheap cantrips. In the current season, players managed to get around this problem with Simic Tempo, which combines Tolarian Terror and Eddymurk Crab with Up the Beanstalk.

Now, the archetype is evolving and three- or four-color versions are starting to show up in Challenges, motivated by the ease of searching for lands with Bushwhack and Analyze the Pollen, which allows using a copy of a basic land of another color for the splash while the Verges grants greater access to colors if necessary.

The Sultai version features a splash of to solve a chronic problem of Simic Tempo: the lack of interaction, giving it access to some efficient removals and cards against some of the chronic problems of the Metagame.

The Bant version not only gains Sheltered by Ghosts as an efficient answer but also guarantees a complementary threat with Monastery Mentor, ideal for games where “go wide” is a more appropriate option to invalidate the opponent's removals.

Last week, Ajani, Caller of the Pride was present in Azorius Aggro lists to create combos with Regal Bunnicorn comparable to Embercleave, but Foundations has another card that is not only the closest to an Embercleave in Standard but is also an artifact that can come into play for free: Leyline Axe.

With this version, the deck is much more focused on a proactive plan and without worrying so much about responding to what the opponent does in Game 1. Personally, this version seems more efficient in its proposal than the variants with Ajani, although I worry about games where Leyline Axe becomes the worst possible topdeck.

Another new release at the end of November was Selesnya Midrange, or Selesnya Tokens. A plan was focused on Enduring Innocence with low-cost creatures and a pseudo-combo between Collector’s Cage to play cards like Overlord of the Mistmoors for free.

This version has potential as a new Aggro value in the Metagame, but it may be too fair to deal with some of the main archetypes in Standard.

The highlight from Pioneer this week was the new version of Jund Creativity that complements its Indomitable Creativity plan with Zombify, and the splash to green offers, in the maindeck, one of the most powerful cards to respond to the current Metagame: Pawpatch Formation.

This will be one of my test decks for ranked and Leagues play this week, so you can expect a guide soon!

The new versions of Lotus Combo haven't arrived this week, but they're appearing more frequently. Expedition Map allows forgoing green in favor of other colors, and the Izzet variant has been performing well due to the interaction between Artist's Talent and the rest of the list.

There's not much to say about Modern. The results of this week's Challenges continue to show that Boros Energy is the absolute best deck in the Metagame, so it's very likely that we'll see a ban of some card from this archetype by mid-December when the next announcement comes out.

There is, however, one archetype that stood out this weekend.

A new version of Mono Green Eldrazi has emerged in Challenges with some decent results. In it, we run Magus of the Candelabra with the extra mana lands and Utopia Sprawl and Overgrowth to generate an absurd amount of mana very early, which we can then use with Sire of Seven Deaths and World Breaker.

I'm intrigued by where this new version could go if the metagame gets more slow after the next banlist, and even more intrigued if The One Ring will also be banned in the next update.

As expected after the Eternal Weekend, Mystic Forge became a more famous archetype this weekend, with results in several Challenges that bring back the discussion of whether having Vexing Bauble in Legacy as a response to Force of Will and the like is healthy for the format.

On the other side of the spectrum, however, we had a peculiar return of the once king of the format: Delver of Secrets returned to lists with results in Challenges in Dimir shells, perhaps capitalizing on the reduced relevance of Orcish Bowmasters against archetypes like Mystic Forge or Nadu Zenith.

Pauper had one of its biggest events ever this weekend: the Brazilian Pauper Nationals, with 271 players. The event's Metagame didn't differ much from what we see on Magic Online, except for the notable presence of Mono Red/Kuldotha Red as the main competitor with 17% of the Metagame, while Broodscale Combo (11%), Affinity (9%) and Madness Burn (6%) were the other most played archetypes.

The Top 8 decks were:

1 Orzhov Blade

It is also worth mentioning that Galvanic Blast and Deadly Dispute were the most played cards of the tournament, both with over 30% presence in the Metagame.

Alexandre Weber, a well-known player in Brazil and member of the Pauper Format Panel, won the tournament with Grixis Affinity, becoming the four-time Brazilian Pauper champion. The Cards Realm team is in contact with him for an interview about the tournament and the current state of Pauper, which you will be able to check out soon!

Concusão

That's all for today!

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

Thanks for reading!