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By: Psychobabble, PB
May 13 2015 12:00pm
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Sometimes when you play standard you just want to find a deck that you can play week in, week out, and know you'll always be competitive. Maybe you tweak your maindeck here and there, maybe you change up your sideboard strategy, but you know you'll at least be competitive no matter what everyone else is doing. Today's deck is the absolute epitome of that ideal. No one would ever accuse Abzan aggro of being flashy, innovative or surprising. But you can also never count it out, and that's a hugely attractive feature for a deck especially in a format that's as fast moving as the current Standard.

Metagame overview

For all of the much publicised big picture metagame shifts and innovations in the format, the numbers this week are remarkably similar to what they were two weeks ago. Here's my adjusted MTGGoldfish metagame numbers (see further explanation of what I do to the numbers they publish in last week's article)

Some commentary about the format based on these numbers:

  • Rx aggro holds its place at around 18% and moves up to the most popular winning deck in the metagame. People might pretend that they have a good matchup against it with various decks, but mono red can win any match with the right draw and is a firm staple of the format. Due to some combination of Goblin Rabblemaster and (Eidolon of the Revel), it's not the cheapest option in the format so unlike in previous seasons, I wouldn't chalk its numbers down to its budget attraction - it's the real deal.
     
  • UBx control slips off the boil somewhat as the strategy becomes more of a known thing and decks adjust to it. In particular the megamorph package of Den Protector with or without Deathmist Raptor have proved to be a subtle but powerful change that gives a wide range of different decks a much better game against the UB or Esper control decks.
     
  • Gx aggro decks approximately doubled their representation, taking advantage of a newfound interest in Collected Company. While the splashy "mono blue splashing Collected Company" deck that top-4ed SCG Portland has done nothing online (2 decks out of 762 reported), the green or green white versions have been doing quite well.
     
  • Siege Rhino decks appear underrepresented, but only because of the somewhat artificial divide between Abzan aggro and midrange/control. Combined they make up the largest share of the metagame, which is reflective of the power of the powerful rhino that is at the heart of the deck - ignoring it as one of the defining threats of the format is simply incorrect.
     
  • GRx midrange of a number of different (non-devotion) flavours has established itself as the second tier deck of choice, while other previous contenders such as devotion, whip and heroic have trailed off sharply. Many of these are the well-known GR dragons, but there's quite a bit of Temur being played out there and even some more adventurous souls trying out Naya or Jund.

 

Abzan Aggro

First, a discussion on classification - what separates Abzan aggro from Abzan midrange or control? Once upon a time (circa 2 months ago), it was the presence or otherwise of Fleecemane Lion, but now everyone's on the 2-mana cat plan. The difference nowadays comes down primarily to Rakshasa Deathdealer and some number of Warden of the First Tree being in the aggro lists, which generally are almost completely off the 5-drop plan. While early versions of Abzan aggro stretched to play Wingmate Roc or multiple copies of the more defensive/resilient Sorin, Solemn Visitor, with additional cheaper options such as Warden of the First Tree and Dromoka's Command now available the deck is able to become subtly but powerfully more focused. Here's a couple of lists I've been playing with:

 

 

 

 

I've featured these two decks because they show the subtly different options available to the deck quite nicely. They're fundamentally the same deck, but they're positioned fairly differently. Brad's deck is built a bit bigger. It has Wingmate Roc, 4x Abzan Charm and Sorin to try and fight the long game. By contrast, Boswell plays the full playset of Warden of the First Tree, Brimaz at three instead of Abzan Charm and Ultimate Price to fight the aggro and midrange decks, while costing percentage against UB control and to a lesser degree the mirror.

Ultimately both decks have performed well for me in testing online, and I can't unequivocally recommend one maindeck over the other. As a general comment though, I've found that Warden of the First Tree has over performed for me. While it's somewhat awkward in the early game, it's the decks only way of going completely over the top in the very late game against cards like Fleecemane Lion, Elspeth, Sun's Champion (but only once!) and Mastery of the Unseen. Being able to repeatedly pile five tokens on that bad boy when my opponent's removal had been exhausted won me a lot of games that no other card would have. The "Slightly bigger" features of Brad's deck though do tend to shine in the mirror. Wingmate Roc doesn't match up particularly well against Thunderbreak Regent and Stormbreath Dragon, but it's amazing against Abzan decks without flyers. It also provides an out to the deck's true achilles heel, Elspeth, Sun's Champion.

There is an absolute wealth of sideboard options, as demonstrated by these two lists which hardly share a card. The one common thread is Drown in Sorrow, which is a necessary evil against red-based token/aggro strategies. Beyond that are powerful, albeit occasionally narrow, cards like Self-Inflicted Wound (heroic and Ojutai), Glare of Heresy (the mirror and Elspeth), and Valorous Stance which serves a dual purpose of wrath protection and Ojutai/Tasigur removal against control. One card I definitely wouldn't leave home without is Den Protector, which is great against both UB control and bigger Abzan decks. Both of those matchups are of the super-grindy variety where Den Protector shines, and it has the additional advantage of attacking past Elspeth tokens in a pinch.

Some general tips on what cards you should look to sideboard. Anafenza, the Foremost is generally bad against control decks and should come out along with more obvious cards like Dromoka's Command and Ultimate Price - keep Hero's Downfall in though, they frequently have quite a few post-board targets for it such as Tasigur, Dragonlord Silumgar and random cards like Icefall Regent. Against red aggro though, los your three mana spot removal (Abzan Charm and Hero's Downfall), they're just too slow and you'll bring in better options. If you need more slots against aggro, Rakshasa Deathdealer can be pretty average so look ther. Thoughtseize is also generally suspect against aggro, as well as more of a liability than help against the mirror and non-blue grindy matchups.

Anyway, once you've picked your list there's some common and complicated play patterns that arise with this deck. Overall, this I found this a surprisingly complicated deck to pilot. I had naively assumed that this was a fairly simple creature-based aggro strategy, but that couldn't be further from the truth. This issue actually came up on the most recent episode of Constructed Resources and I whole-heartedly agree with the sentiments expressed by Eric Froehlich there - this is one of the hardest decks to pilot in standard. What it comes down to is the sheer volume and importance of the choice you have to make. The choices start with your mana. You have a complicated mix of multi-colored lands, painlands, taplands and cards with very stringent mana requirements. Given that this deck really has to take advantage of the early game to be successful, your early mana decisions are critical. To give an illustration, I lost a game the other night because I played a plains instead of a Caves of Koilos to cast my turn 3 Anafenza. This meant I was unable to double pump my (already on-board) Rakshasa Deathdealer the following turn which cascaded into me losing a game that I thought I was in an unbeatable position in after a good start. There are also extremely complicated mana decisions on the first and second turn, where you need to balance playing early drops and Thoughtseize with a desire to hit your three and four drops on time. And then you also want to play around taking too much pain from your lands with the unfortunate fact that the wrong type of basic land can't cast Fleecemane Lion, Rakshasa Deathdealer or Brimaz, King of Oreskos. There's no general rules to help out here, only an injunction to think VERY carefully about your early turn mana decisions, and think about what you could draw as well as what's immediately in your hand.

Beyond your mana, you simply have so many options for using your mana that it can do your head in. The following cards, in particular, present you with an extreme variety of choices at many points in the game:

Warden of the First tree Rakshasa Deathdealer Fleecemane Lion Abzan Charm Tasigur, the Golden Fang

One of the most common decision points with mana usage in this deck is around Rakshasa Deathdealer against removal heavy decks. The temptation is to keep at least GB up against such decks to blank their removal, but that's frequently incorrect for a number of reasons. First of all, Foul-Tongue Invocation is massively punishing to that strategy as the regeneration is irrelevant. Second, it frequently means that you're putting so little pressure on the control deck that they get to the point where they can completely go over the top of you with cards like Silumgar, the Drifting Death, Perilous Vault, Elspeth, Sun's Champion or Ugin, the Spirit dragon. You need to make sure you are putting enough pressure on-board to justify leaving Rakshasa mana up, which isn't an easy decision but one that's easy to make incorrectly by being too cautious. There's no worse feeling than losing against a control deck with 5 cards still in your hand while they kill you with Dragonlord Ojutai beatdowns. You are the beatdown, and the feeling of inevitability you can have while keeping Rakshasa Deathdealer alive is illusionary if all you are doing is 2 damage a turn while your control opponent makes their land drops. A similar consideration arises with Tasigur, constantly trying to trigger his card draw ability can soak up so much of your mana that you don't put enough pressure on and you perversely allow your control opponent to ignore your card advantage.

Fleecemane Lion is another card that's easy to mess up by being too conservative with the ability. Using the monstrous can be massively game-changing but with cards like Foul-Tongue Invocation and Elspeth running around all over the place, it's not the be all and end all of the game so don't try and maneuver yourself too hard to set it up. If your opponent allows you to untap into monstrous mana, there's a reasonable chance they don't have the removal in hand so you might as well see if they've tried to next level you. But if you don't have enough pressure on board, don't hold Fleecemane in hand until you get to that 7-mana play and monstrous point, because it's not an automatic game ender.

Conclusion
 

The biggest lesson I learned from this deck is that it's one that rewards practice. Like no other deck I've played in a good while, I felt that every time I lost a game there was something I could have done differently to give myself a better chance. I'm not just saying that, I jammed probably close to forty 2-player queue games with this, more than I usually would because I enjoyed the challenge so much. I was nowhere near done learning this deck though, it's deeper than you can learn in a couple of weeks. Luckily, I don't think this deck is going anywhere - if you're looking for a standard deck to invest time, energy and tix into, I can't recommend Abzan aggro highly enough.

3 Comments

Really enjoyed this article. by olaw at Fri, 05/15/2015 - 02:41
olaw's picture
5

Really enjoyed this article. Very well thought out and insightful. I can tell you've jammed a lot of matches with the deck.

I've been interested in getting back into Standard for the first time in a while. Seems like it's in quite an interesting place at the moment. Might dip my toe in at some point.

Thanks man, really respect by Psychobabble at Fri, 05/15/2015 - 07:18
Psychobabble's picture

Thanks man, really respect your opinion. Standard is the best it's been for a very long time, apart from a brief period jamming the aristocrats i haven't had so much fun since I started (circa innistrad).

As an Abzaniac, I can totally by CalmLittleBuddy at Tue, 05/19/2015 - 08:58
CalmLittleBuddy's picture
5

As an Abzaniac, I can totally relate to this article. Folks claim Abzan is 'slam Rhino and pray' deck, but it's actually very much a practice based deck. Especially as you get further towards the extreme ends of the spectrum. Super aggro versions are very hard to play correctly because you have this hand full of great stuff, but a very punishing mana base. You had better know what order to play your lands and your threats and also when to hold up and play reactive removal.

Control is even crazier because of the vast array of choices. You can play two different Abzan Control decks and have a completely different set of options available. Plus it's completely removal based control, which is very hard to play. If you don't line up your 1 for 1 removal right at any point, it costs games.

Thanks for the article.