-by KingOfTheDepths
Greetings Noble gamers! It's been 3 months since the October Quarterly, which means another tourney is upon us. The last three months saw a handful of minor shake-ups for the format; notably, the set release of Lost Caverns of Ixilan (LCI), and the banning of two format staples, Mystic Sanctuary and Engineered Plague, as well as the unbanning of Power Artifact.
The October article was a comprehensive look at the format; so rather than looking at every single deck that's viable again, I'm going to use this time to focus on new decks that have entered the format since October, and I'll make recommendations on what to play in the upcoming tourney based on the new metagame.
New Decks Since October:
Tinker Tempo
The first new deck I want to talk about combines new LCI card Spyglass Siren with multi-format staple Tinker in a way very reminiscent of a dominating force in Pauper, UW Affinity. Tinker Tempo put up 3-0 and 2-1 results in its first tourney on the Noble server.
Decklist: https://mtgdecks.net/Other/noble-uw-tinker-tempo-decklist-by-kingofthedepths-1847801/visual
Archetype: Tempo
The Gameplan: Tinker Tempo is, as it sounds like, a Tempo deck making use of artifact synergies to rapidly apply pressure and disrupt while using Tinker as a top-end to close out.
Key Cards: Tinker, Thoughtcast, Banish to Another Universe, Michiko's Reign of Truth
Best Archetype Matchup: Combo
Worst Archetype Matchup: Off-Axis
Strengths: 8x White Exile removal spells can answer anything, and a huge number of cantripping threats gives the deck strong grinding potential.
Weaknesses: Artifact Hate
Grixis TPI:
An early format favorite, Third Path Iconoclast is officially back thanks to the banning of Engineered Plague. Grixis TPI combines Blitz-like threats with blue cantrips and the Probe + Therapy pairing in favor of Force of Will to tread the line between control and aggro in a way reminiscent of Legacy Delver. Grixis TPI likely put up a 3-0 finish in its first league!
Archetype: Midrange
The Gameplan: Overwhelm the opponent with high-quality card advantage thanks to Expressive Iteration, disruption like Cabal Therapy, and the best low-mana-value threats that synergize with those cards. It sideboards into a much more disruptive deck as needed.
Key Cards: Third Path Iconoclast, Cabal Therapy, Expressive Iteration, Force of Will
Best Archetype Matchup: Control
Worst Archetype Matchup: Off-Axis
Strengths: Flexible and powerful proactive answers, great card selection, and a mana base largely immune to wasteland.
Weaknesses: Inherently slower than similar decks like Blitz or Mono Blue thanks to its mana base; decks can go under it.
Jeskai Micromancer
This list saw a renewed interest in Micromancer + Ephemerate decks late in 2023:
Archetype: Control
The Gameplan: Reminiscent of Familiars or Tron in Pauper, this list is trying to use removal and counterspells to control the early game, then goes deep on Ephemerate in the late game to buy back powerful ETBs. It eventually loops Fire//Ice or Galvanic Blast for lethal.
Key Cards: Ephemerate, Micromancer, Archaeomancer
Best Archetype Matchup: Midrange
Worst Archetype Matchup: Tempo
Strengths: This deck has an insane late-game that can power through most of what the format can throw at it
Weaknesses: Artifact Exile, it's slow so decks can go under it.
The next two decks did not yet pick up tourney wins, but are strong contenders thanks to sleek deck construction and inherently doing broken things!
Mardu Pyromancer:
Archetype: Midrange
The Gameplan: This deck is an almost card-for-card rebuild of the popular circa-2018 Legacy and Modern Mardu Pyromancer list. A true midrange deck, Mardu Pyromancer runs a plethora of discard and removal, synergistic threats Young Pyromancer, Dragon's Rage Channeler, and Lingering Souls; with Hearth Elemental to provide late-game grind.
Key Cards: Young Pyromancer, Faithless Looting, Cabal Therapy, Lingering Souls
Best Archetype Matchup: Control
Worst Archetype Matchup: Off-Axis
Strengths: This deck does inherently broken things with the graveyard, thanks to 14 flashback spells and DRC, Faithless Looting, and Hearth Elementals to put cards there. It feels like it never runs out of gas!
Weaknesses: Graveyard Hate, Sweeper, but recovers well from both.
Gruul Worm Storm
Archetype: Combo
The Gameplan: Goblin Anarchomancer go brrrrrrr! This deck combines the best aspects of storm with a solid aggro beats plan to enable some truly insane turns and fast kills.
Key Cards: Memory Worm, Manamorphose, Goblin Anarchomancer, Grapeshot
Best Archetype Matchup: Midrange
Worst Archetype Matchup: Combo
Strengths: Worm Storm is extremely fast and resilient to removal, disruption, and Countermagic. The green sideboard means you have cheap ways to beat hate.
Weaknesses: This list trades speed for resilience, which means some dedicated combo lists will be faster!
The New Metagame:
To talk about the new meta, I'm mostly going to address the decks that have seen tournament success in the new meta.
The first tourney back, the October Monthly, unfortunately did not see any major changes, with Bones Control, Esper Vial, and High Tide (all decks with good finishes in the last tourney) taking the top three spots. Also at 2-1 was old favorite Boros Cycling.
The November Monthly, however, was starkly different, and showed a metagame adapted to the presence of Up the Beanstalk lists, with Infect and Red Storm taking the top two spots. Jeskai Micromancer and Grixis TPI also picked up nice 2-1 finished.
The December Monthly showed a much more developed metagame, and had a huge showing from new deck Tinker Tempo, snagging a 3-0 and 2-1 spot. The other deck to top was Grixis TPI, while Cascade Beans and old favorite Abiding Grace also picked up 2-1 spots.
Since the December Monthly, there has been a renewed interest in Micromancer lists, old staple Izzet Blitz, the old "best deck" Orzhov Kitty, and both Abiding Grace and Storm strategies.
While it isn't overly present on the leaderboards, I would say this metagame has warped around the card Up the Beanstalk to arrive at the present state. Control pilots quickly gave up on wanting to try and out-grind the Beans late game, and fast decks that can win in the first few turns became more popular to punish the slow Beanstalk starts. Accordingly, midrange Cabal Therapy decks that can punish the fast decks while also having enough disruption and pressure to beat Beans rose in popularity and continue to be the decks of choice for many experienced pilots.
The banning of Engineered Plague has been felt in the format by the renewed presence of token decks, especially with TPI and Young Pyromancer, both of which could effectively be shut out of the game before. The absence of Mystic Sanctuary on the other hand has largely not been felt, as the control pilots favoring the card have been down on control altogether for the last few months.
Power Artifact was considered to be a safe unban due to the presence of much faster combo decks in the meta; however, Power Artifact is very compact and can be played alongside some of the other best cards in the format like Mana Drain or Tinker. There hasn't been a list floated around yet, but I'm excited to see one!
There is one more card that deserves mentioning: Stone of Erech. The banning of Engineered Plague naturally led many players to believe that Skullclamp would be back and better than ever (and it is), but it has been held partially in check by the powerful hate piece Stone of Erech from the Lord of the Rings set. Stone has been a 2-3x in almost every sideboard as a potent card against Skullclamp, Abiding Grace, and many Artifact and Graveyard strategies, and has become a true format staple with one of the highest play rates and win rates.
What To Play - Recommendations
Now for the hard part. What deck do you play in the tourney? I will start by saying that no deck wins every matchup, and that careful piloting and skill will always pay dividends over selecting "the perfect deck". Play something you're familiar with and know how to optimize.
If I was registering for the tournament tomorrow to try and win it, I would be playing Gruul Storm. It is able to both win on Turn 3, out-grind control and midrange decks, and has great matchups into most creature-based strategies thanks to Grapeshot and a plethora of blockers. It has two pretty terrible matchups, Izzet Blitz and Cracked Burn, but you can sideboard fairly extensively to beat those as the deck is so favored against the general field, and especially pre-board.
Some other decks that seem like great choices to me:
Kitty, thanks to its great aggro matchups, its massive metagame improvement thanks to the banning of Engineered Plague, and its overall raw power level being extremely high. Plus you have 8 maindeck ways to remove Stone of Erech, so your Skullclamps can usually run free.
Izzet Blitz, which frankly has been a great choice in every metagame since taking down the Quarterly last March. It packs speed and disruption, got multiple fantastic new printing this year, and can splash almost any card post-board then dig for it thanks to its mostly-5c mana base.
Storm, either High Tide or Red Storm, always seems like a good place to be in a format with limited answers, and especially with blue Force of Will decks generally on the decline thanks to the prevalence of Beans and Cabal Therapy. If you can build a storm deck that beats Therapy, you've likely built a storm deck that can beat the current format.
Conclusions
That's it for the format report! We've got a handful of cool new decks, a fairly developed metagame compared to last quarter, and several exciting new set releases looming on the horizon. It's been a fantastic Autumn! What deck are you bringing to the Quarterly?
-KingOfTheDepths
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