Throne of Eldraine Standard: First Impressions
Wow! Is this set powerful or what! I'm beginning to believe that this format is MORE powerful than the last format. Throne of Eldraine has more power than dominaria/ixalan/m19 combined!
Wanted to share my initial thoughts of some of my questions/predictions of the last article
https://b3rgmtg.blogspot.com/2019/09/throne-of-eldraine-standard-preliminary.html
So, What are my first impression of best/most warping cards of the format? Is the best agro deck mono Red? Is the top of the format all elemental/field of the dead decks?
Most warping/powerful cards in Throne of Eldraine
1. Oko, Thief of crowns, is absurd. It may be the most powerful card in standard. I honestly have no idea how they decided to give it so much loyalty? It's too early to call it, but my gut tells me this card was a major design mistake and even has a chance of being banned. Regardless, It will certainly warp the format.
How Oko warps the format:
-You cannot attack it profitably unless you are way ahead. Loyalty is so high, that best case scenario for you is it ONLY gains 10 life for your opponent.
-Big creatures or artifacts that do not generate ETB value are rendered close to unplayable. 3 teferri already made this somewhat true, now it's VERY true. Hastey big evasive creatures still have the chance to snipe an oko, but it's not what you want to be doing.
-Going under Simic is also going to be much harder because the high loyalty, life gain and 3/3's is a nightmare for agro decks that cannot deal with it via a single spell.
-Subtly, creatures with +1/+1 counters on it are better in an oko format, because when that creature is transformed into an elk, they keep their counters.
-The way to beat Oko is by going very wide or ramp such that where no indvidual threat matters, lots of planeswalkers or have plenty of ways to kill it via a spell.
2. Murderous Rider
Hero's downfall with an extra card attached to it is even better than you think. It's just so much value and a 2/3 lifelink body is great, even if it is slightly overcosted.
If this card isn't everywhere it's due to the weakness of playing a lot of black mana. It is the best black card in standard by a lot.
-Planeswalkers and expensive creatures that get minimal value on etb lose a bit of value. 6 mana Liliana, 3 mana Gideon, 4 mana Chandra all come to mind.
-Going under or over murderous rider is where I'd want to go, The 2 life loss can add up if you are going way under it... You can also generate too much value through field of the dead/elementals/hydroid krasis that you don't care if one threat gets removed.
3. Gilded Goose/ Wicked Wolf/Food package
Oh boy did I underestimate this package. Wicked wolf is a Ravenous Chupacabra on steroids when there's food to eat. Gilded goose allows you to turn 2 Oko and shits out food for both the wolf and oko. All these cards are incredible and when combined with go big spells like Nissa/Hydroid krasis/Elementals makes it very difficult for decks to go either under or over you.
These decks are the deck to beat in week 0.
4. Bonecrusher Giant
This card has impressed me so much in both my builds of Mono R and even more so in Gruul agro.
It may be the best card in the Gruul deck.
2-3 mana 2/2's that don't generate value on ETB are in for a world of hurt if this card becomes popular.
Unfortunately, red as a color has unimpressed me outside of this card. Maybe someone can figure out a great build of red, but at the moment, I don't think it's there until the next set.
5. Castles
Both the black and white castles combined with built in 2 for 1's in adventure cards makes grinding out decks with mere removal + card draw near impossible in this format. Control will need to either have a combo element, or be able to beat down. Otherwise it will be a niche metagame pick at best.
My Early Brews
The failed decks I couldn't get to work were Mono R, Esper artifacts (Doom foretold deck that other people are playing is way better, shimmer dragon is fail) and Esper control.
1. GW Adventure time
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/0Wh9I5KVww
This has been the best deck I've built. Edgewall innkeeper is the real deal. While the deck does have some natural predators, I'm convinced it will catch on. It's nut draws are so absurdly powerful, you beat people so bad that they will have to try it out. Once upon a time helps you with your broken starts.
Unfortunately, it's bad draws are quite weak. So I'm still not sure how good the deck is. High variance but I've been winning a ton. Going wide extremely fast is a viable strategy to keep up with the power of Oko, food and good ETB fight creatures.
Turn 1 Edgewall innkeeper
Turn 2 Double 1 drop (draw 2)
Turn 3 2 creatures + Venerated Loxodon
Nut draws like this are not too rare and no decks not running early removal or sweepers can keep up.
Still working on the particulars. Think I want to go up a land.
2. Mono B agro
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/WGPLutz-F
Either have the highest or second highest win % with this deck, but it does struggle with the Oko/Wicked wolf shenanigans that everyone seems to be playing. I recommend this deck.
I first built it a little grindier as an extension of the last format, but realized there's so much built in card advantage to the aggressive cards, it's better to build the deck to be faster. Hence the playset of blacklance paragon and rankle. You aren't going to outgrind the green decks no matter what.
Oko makes the black cavalier worse than it used to be, and the plentiful ETB fight creatures make the BBB Sacrifice queen too slow.
It grinds unbelievably well for an agro deck with the combination of the adventure cards and castle locthwain.
3. Gruul agro
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/Sj9xPilm-a
While I was winning, I think this deck is ultimately a fail. The mana is too bad and you need to be fast and consistent with your hay-makers. I first built it lower to the ground but that was much much worse than when I went up to include Skarggan hellkite and cut the other 1 drops/2 drops.
It's possible this deck should have zero 1 drops and be more red based.
However, that's probably too slow for the format to beat the oko decks.
Most of the green 2 drops performed poorly except for the troll, which was ok. The GG cost hurts tho.
Over-performers were the Bonecrusher giant and Embercleave. Questing beast was very good, but not broken.
Mono G stompy is definitely not a thing in this format. Red is needed...
Wanted to share my initial thoughts of some of my questions/predictions of the last article
https://b3rgmtg.blogspot.com/2019/09/throne-of-eldraine-standard-preliminary.html
So, What are my first impression of best/most warping cards of the format? Is the best agro deck mono Red? Is the top of the format all elemental/field of the dead decks?
Most warping/powerful cards in Throne of Eldraine
1. Oko, Thief of crowns, is absurd. It may be the most powerful card in standard. I honestly have no idea how they decided to give it so much loyalty? It's too early to call it, but my gut tells me this card was a major design mistake and even has a chance of being banned. Regardless, It will certainly warp the format.
How Oko warps the format:
-You cannot attack it profitably unless you are way ahead. Loyalty is so high, that best case scenario for you is it ONLY gains 10 life for your opponent.
-Big creatures or artifacts that do not generate ETB value are rendered close to unplayable. 3 teferri already made this somewhat true, now it's VERY true. Hastey big evasive creatures still have the chance to snipe an oko, but it's not what you want to be doing.
-Going under Simic is also going to be much harder because the high loyalty, life gain and 3/3's is a nightmare for agro decks that cannot deal with it via a single spell.
-Subtly, creatures with +1/+1 counters on it are better in an oko format, because when that creature is transformed into an elk, they keep their counters.
-The way to beat Oko is by going very wide or ramp such that where no indvidual threat matters, lots of planeswalkers or have plenty of ways to kill it via a spell.
2. Murderous Rider
Hero's downfall with an extra card attached to it is even better than you think. It's just so much value and a 2/3 lifelink body is great, even if it is slightly overcosted.
If this card isn't everywhere it's due to the weakness of playing a lot of black mana. It is the best black card in standard by a lot.
-Planeswalkers and expensive creatures that get minimal value on etb lose a bit of value. 6 mana Liliana, 3 mana Gideon, 4 mana Chandra all come to mind.
-Going under or over murderous rider is where I'd want to go, The 2 life loss can add up if you are going way under it... You can also generate too much value through field of the dead/elementals/hydroid krasis that you don't care if one threat gets removed.
3. Gilded Goose/ Wicked Wolf/Food package
Oh boy did I underestimate this package. Wicked wolf is a Ravenous Chupacabra on steroids when there's food to eat. Gilded goose allows you to turn 2 Oko and shits out food for both the wolf and oko. All these cards are incredible and when combined with go big spells like Nissa/Hydroid krasis/Elementals makes it very difficult for decks to go either under or over you.
These decks are the deck to beat in week 0.
4. Bonecrusher Giant
This card has impressed me so much in both my builds of Mono R and even more so in Gruul agro.
It may be the best card in the Gruul deck.
2-3 mana 2/2's that don't generate value on ETB are in for a world of hurt if this card becomes popular.
Unfortunately, red as a color has unimpressed me outside of this card. Maybe someone can figure out a great build of red, but at the moment, I don't think it's there until the next set.
5. Castles
Both the black and white castles combined with built in 2 for 1's in adventure cards makes grinding out decks with mere removal + card draw near impossible in this format. Control will need to either have a combo element, or be able to beat down. Otherwise it will be a niche metagame pick at best.
My Early Brews
The failed decks I couldn't get to work were Mono R, Esper artifacts (Doom foretold deck that other people are playing is way better, shimmer dragon is fail) and Esper control.
1. GW Adventure time
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/0Wh9I5KVww
This has been the best deck I've built. Edgewall innkeeper is the real deal. While the deck does have some natural predators, I'm convinced it will catch on. It's nut draws are so absurdly powerful, you beat people so bad that they will have to try it out. Once upon a time helps you with your broken starts.
Unfortunately, it's bad draws are quite weak. So I'm still not sure how good the deck is. High variance but I've been winning a ton. Going wide extremely fast is a viable strategy to keep up with the power of Oko, food and good ETB fight creatures.
Turn 1 Edgewall innkeeper
Turn 2 Double 1 drop (draw 2)
Turn 3 2 creatures + Venerated Loxodon
Nut draws like this are not too rare and no decks not running early removal or sweepers can keep up.
Still working on the particulars. Think I want to go up a land.
2. Mono B agro
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/WGPLutz-F
Either have the highest or second highest win % with this deck, but it does struggle with the Oko/Wicked wolf shenanigans that everyone seems to be playing. I recommend this deck.
I first built it a little grindier as an extension of the last format, but realized there's so much built in card advantage to the aggressive cards, it's better to build the deck to be faster. Hence the playset of blacklance paragon and rankle. You aren't going to outgrind the green decks no matter what.
Oko makes the black cavalier worse than it used to be, and the plentiful ETB fight creatures make the BBB Sacrifice queen too slow.
It grinds unbelievably well for an agro deck with the combination of the adventure cards and castle locthwain.
3. Gruul agro
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/Sj9xPilm-a
While I was winning, I think this deck is ultimately a fail. The mana is too bad and you need to be fast and consistent with your hay-makers. I first built it lower to the ground but that was much much worse than when I went up to include Skarggan hellkite and cut the other 1 drops/2 drops.
It's possible this deck should have zero 1 drops and be more red based.
However, that's probably too slow for the format to beat the oko decks.
Most of the green 2 drops performed poorly except for the troll, which was ok. The GG cost hurts tho.
Over-performers were the Bonecrusher giant and Embercleave. Questing beast was very good, but not broken.
Mono G stompy is definitely not a thing in this format. Red is needed...
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