Week 3 Throne of Eldraine Standard Deck Analysis + Temur Food
In this article I will be sharing my thoughts on the various standard decks in the format that I've played enough games with to comment on.. as well as share my own semi-unique deck for attacking the format. Temur Food.
Meta Format Analysis:
First off, unless you've been living under a rock, the focus of the format the past week has been on Golos and Field of the dead. After playing the deck a couple dozen games, I can confidently say that it is the "best deck" I've seen in a vacuum. I got all the way to mythic #6 with Jeremy Betarioni's Fires of Invention version of it (http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/133306) . It crushes mid-range, it crushes brews and no deck can realistically go over the top of it.
7/8 of the top 8 decks in the Starcity team open were Golos based for good reason.
http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/Star_City_Games_Team_Open/2019-10-05_standard_Philadelphia_PA_US/1/
However, the sky isn't falling. Golos is far from unbeatable. This isn't a situation where you are a fool if you play anything but Golos.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get over a 60% winrate vs Golos, and Golos has multiple 75%+ matchups in it's favour .. It also has a clear advantage over the second most powerful deck in the format. Those are the hallmark properties of a best deck and the format is going to have to warp around it.
In my opinion, the second best decks in the format are food strategies built around the core of Gilded Goose, Oko and Wicked Wolf. That trifecta package is unbelievably good against small ball decks that despite having a bad matchup against the Golos decks , have a clear place in the metagame. I have yet to find a good deck (sorry simic flash) that beats food decks AND Golos decks.
If you are looking to play neither food , nor Golos, you must beat one of those decks and not lose too badly to the other. That is a tall order... but not impossible.
Deck Breakdown:
The decks I haven't tried where there MIGHT be something there, but I'm skeptical of... are Jeskai Fires of Invention, Golgari/Jund Adventures , Simic Flash, BR Sacrifice Agro and
Knights w/ Embercleave.
The decks I havent tried but I think are terrible are:
Mono W, Mono G, Uw Control, Esper Doomfortold, Any control deck.
Mono black is good , but my build of it is too outdated to give a meaningful impression on. I kept getting wrecked by food decks, but perhaps a more sacrifice based build or 4x drill bit might get there in that matchup. Black is also worse against Golos than Red/Gruul.
Selesnya Adventures
A deck that's near and dear to my heart, since I brewed/tested it before anyone else did and even inspired Reid Duke to try it out for the MPL!
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/competitive-gaming/eldraine-split-sapphire-division-decklists
Since then, Aaron Barich adapted the list to a golos metagame spiking an SCG classic.
http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/Star_City_Games_Classic/2019-10-06_standard_Philadelphia_PA_US/1/
Andrew Elenbogen just posted an article on the deck on Starcity games premium
http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/39191_Scrutinizing-Selesnya-Adventures-For-Throne-Of-Eldraine-Standard.html
First off, I wanted to share my inspiration for playing/building this deck and why that has changed.. and why the deck is likely ok, but not tier 1.
It is an aggressive deck that beats other aggressive decks, while having a positive Simic Food matchup... By scaling fast and wide with Innkeeper or march of the multitudes, you are able to over-run food decks before they go off with Nissa/Krasis. Your individual threats don't matter too much, so the powerful fight abilities and Oko's +1 don't do too much to you.
In the first week of the format, it seemed like everyone on arena was experimenting with food decks + aggressive decks and only a few people were experimenting with Golos or sweepers.. Thus, it was a good choice to ladder with.
The next week, the format shifted towards Golos and people started realizing sweepers were effective against food decks (clearing out mana dorks + Nissa lands + Oko 3/3's), sweepers became more and more prevalent. Even Golgari Adventure decks adopted main deck massacre girl + Find//Finality.
Sweepers are the Achilles heel to the march of the multitude plan, and thus the move away from that card and the adaptation to main deck Questing Beast/Gideon that Aaron barich and Elenbogen adopted.
While I think that's a reasonable adjustment to the current metagame, I think that makes the deck fundamentally worse.. and potentially a strictly worse version of Golgari Adventures game 1.
Going wide is Selesnya's strength. In a format where that strength can't be leveraged, I question playing the deck to begin with.
The deck is on the shelf for me right now, but if Field of the Dead gets banned and/or sweepers take a large downtick, I will take another look at it.
Mono R
The next deck I've had success with, and the deck I've had the best Golos winrate by far with is Mono R. I went on an absurd initial stretch with it, being paired against almost exclusively Golos players and had a 75%+ winrate for 15 games or so.
Unfortunately, after that stretch, I stopped being paired against Golos. My winrate against most decks besides Golos was poor, that ultimately led me to search elsewhere. For example, you literally cannot beat Jeskai Fires w/Cavaliers.
The biggest innovation that lead me to start winning with it was realizing how good Torbrann was (always play 4 main, it's not close), how bad experimental frenzy was against Golos/Food and that Embercleave is a solid card in the archetype.
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/EOYFnHAn
Is where I finished with the deck before putting it on the backburner.
The list goes a bit "bigger" since the best cards in the deck were more expensive and you can still have a fast clock.
I really liked bonecrusher giant, but some lists have been moving away from it... as it is on the slower side. I think abandoning it completely from the main is a mistake though. There's so much value built into the card, while maintaining a reasonable aggressive rate. In any grindy matchup it's your best card and while not good, it's not embarrassing against Golos.
Yesterday, Martin Juza won fandom legends with this list without Bonecrusher. I would recommend his list over mine, but I would tune it a bit.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2365493#paper
The changes I would make to it would be to cut a couple Rimrock knights and the Footlight Fiends..
Add 2 Bonecrusher Giants, an Embercleave and a mountain.
4 of each 3 mana planeswalker seems excessive too.
I too liked maindeck Tibalt in this format and also have not been loving light up the stage. It messes with your curve a lot and your effects aren't redundant such that the opportunity cost of mis-sequencing your spells has been big. Flooding on the effect loses games. It's also tougher to trigger spectacle this iteration of mono-red compared to last standard season.
Gruul
While I was impressed by the mana (3 color food isn't that much less consistent than Simic food) and the power of Oko/Goose/Wicked Wolf, I was less impressed by casualties of war. In some matchups or situations it's very underwhelming. Even against Golos, it has to be backed up by a lot of pressure to be good. They have so many ways to recover from it.
The more I played, the more I realized you have to out-tempo Golos, not outgrind them, which is what my casualties plan was trying to do.
The color best suited for that? Red.
Enter. Temur.
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/18E2GvTko
Golos manages the early game with sweepers and they don't have many answers to planeswalkers... In the mid game they can clog up the ground, but not the skies.
The royal scions helps punch through damage, give an additional way to accrue value off a turn 1 gilded goose.. and now with a bunch of 3 mana planeswalkers, Sarkhan can generate a ton of hasty damage.
You can lean much harder on this package post board, including one of the best cards against golos in embercleave. You have plenty of high powered creatures and mana to cast it.
The food package is there to ensure you don't get overrun by aggressive decks and can likely do the heavy lifting by itself. Red gives some good cheap interactive spells post board to kill early must kill threats like Runaway Steamkin or Priest of the Forgotten Gods.
In fact, I started out this build much more aggressive. I cut Nissa/Krasis entirely and added cards like Roalsk, Apex hybrid and more Sarkhans/Royal Scions.
While that should improve your golos matchup, it suffered dramatically against the mirror.. which is way too common on arena. Nissa/Krasis is the ultimate mirror breaker combo.. and is also quite a bit better than Sarkhan/Royal Scions against agro.
The more you lean on the aggressive elements, the more your deck suffers against the mirror.. I decided that the tradeoff was disproportional.. such that I want to only have a touch of red game 1, and leverage the Sarkhan plan postboard.
I haven't played with it quite enough to be confident this is how to build food decks in a Golos world.. But I like it in theory, and played with it enough to know that it's not clearly worse than the straight Simic build.
Conclusion
My initial impressions are that Golos Field decks and Food decks have the most inherent power in them by a large margin, and that the format should be warped dramatically by them.
Any other deck will just be metagame calls. If you aren't playing these decks, you better have a damn good reason!
If I were playing an open, Id be playing one of these decks for sure.. if it was a pro tour or smaller invite tournament where all the players were skilled, there may be room to try and play a deck that focuses on beating Golos thoroughly, without being dead to the other decks that beat Golos.
But, it's still early.. Innovation is still possible at this point. Excited for what the Mythic Championship brings!
Meta Format Analysis:
First off, unless you've been living under a rock, the focus of the format the past week has been on Golos and Field of the dead. After playing the deck a couple dozen games, I can confidently say that it is the "best deck" I've seen in a vacuum. I got all the way to mythic #6 with Jeremy Betarioni's Fires of Invention version of it (http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/133306) . It crushes mid-range, it crushes brews and no deck can realistically go over the top of it.
7/8 of the top 8 decks in the Starcity team open were Golos based for good reason.
http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/Star_City_Games_Team_Open/2019-10-05_standard_Philadelphia_PA_US/1/
However, the sky isn't falling. Golos is far from unbeatable. This isn't a situation where you are a fool if you play anything but Golos.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get over a 60% winrate vs Golos, and Golos has multiple 75%+ matchups in it's favour .. It also has a clear advantage over the second most powerful deck in the format. Those are the hallmark properties of a best deck and the format is going to have to warp around it.
In my opinion, the second best decks in the format are food strategies built around the core of Gilded Goose, Oko and Wicked Wolf. That trifecta package is unbelievably good against small ball decks that despite having a bad matchup against the Golos decks , have a clear place in the metagame. I have yet to find a good deck (sorry simic flash) that beats food decks AND Golos decks.
If you are looking to play neither food , nor Golos, you must beat one of those decks and not lose too badly to the other. That is a tall order... but not impossible.
Deck Breakdown:
The decks I haven't tried where there MIGHT be something there, but I'm skeptical of... are Jeskai Fires of Invention, Golgari/Jund Adventures , Simic Flash, BR Sacrifice Agro and
Knights w/ Embercleave.
The decks I havent tried but I think are terrible are:
Mono W, Mono G, Uw Control, Esper Doomfortold, Any control deck.
Mono black is good , but my build of it is too outdated to give a meaningful impression on. I kept getting wrecked by food decks, but perhaps a more sacrifice based build or 4x drill bit might get there in that matchup. Black is also worse against Golos than Red/Gruul.
Selesnya Adventures
A deck that's near and dear to my heart, since I brewed/tested it before anyone else did and even inspired Reid Duke to try it out for the MPL!
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/competitive-gaming/eldraine-split-sapphire-division-decklists
Since then, Aaron Barich adapted the list to a golos metagame spiking an SCG classic.
http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/Star_City_Games_Classic/2019-10-06_standard_Philadelphia_PA_US/1/
Andrew Elenbogen just posted an article on the deck on Starcity games premium
http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/39191_Scrutinizing-Selesnya-Adventures-For-Throne-Of-Eldraine-Standard.html
First off, I wanted to share my inspiration for playing/building this deck and why that has changed.. and why the deck is likely ok, but not tier 1.
It is an aggressive deck that beats other aggressive decks, while having a positive Simic Food matchup... By scaling fast and wide with Innkeeper or march of the multitudes, you are able to over-run food decks before they go off with Nissa/Krasis. Your individual threats don't matter too much, so the powerful fight abilities and Oko's +1 don't do too much to you.
In the first week of the format, it seemed like everyone on arena was experimenting with food decks + aggressive decks and only a few people were experimenting with Golos or sweepers.. Thus, it was a good choice to ladder with.
The next week, the format shifted towards Golos and people started realizing sweepers were effective against food decks (clearing out mana dorks + Nissa lands + Oko 3/3's), sweepers became more and more prevalent. Even Golgari Adventure decks adopted main deck massacre girl + Find//Finality.
Sweepers are the Achilles heel to the march of the multitude plan, and thus the move away from that card and the adaptation to main deck Questing Beast/Gideon that Aaron barich and Elenbogen adopted.
While I think that's a reasonable adjustment to the current metagame, I think that makes the deck fundamentally worse.. and potentially a strictly worse version of Golgari Adventures game 1.
Going wide is Selesnya's strength. In a format where that strength can't be leveraged, I question playing the deck to begin with.
The deck is on the shelf for me right now, but if Field of the Dead gets banned and/or sweepers take a large downtick, I will take another look at it.
Mono R
The next deck I've had success with, and the deck I've had the best Golos winrate by far with is Mono R. I went on an absurd initial stretch with it, being paired against almost exclusively Golos players and had a 75%+ winrate for 15 games or so.
Unfortunately, after that stretch, I stopped being paired against Golos. My winrate against most decks besides Golos was poor, that ultimately led me to search elsewhere. For example, you literally cannot beat Jeskai Fires w/Cavaliers.
The biggest innovation that lead me to start winning with it was realizing how good Torbrann was (always play 4 main, it's not close), how bad experimental frenzy was against Golos/Food and that Embercleave is a solid card in the archetype.
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/EOYFnHAn
Is where I finished with the deck before putting it on the backburner.
The list goes a bit "bigger" since the best cards in the deck were more expensive and you can still have a fast clock.
I really liked bonecrusher giant, but some lists have been moving away from it... as it is on the slower side. I think abandoning it completely from the main is a mistake though. There's so much value built into the card, while maintaining a reasonable aggressive rate. In any grindy matchup it's your best card and while not good, it's not embarrassing against Golos.
Yesterday, Martin Juza won fandom legends with this list without Bonecrusher. I would recommend his list over mine, but I would tune it a bit.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2365493#paper
The changes I would make to it would be to cut a couple Rimrock knights and the Footlight Fiends..
Add 2 Bonecrusher Giants, an Embercleave and a mountain.
4 of each 3 mana planeswalker seems excessive too.
I too liked maindeck Tibalt in this format and also have not been loving light up the stage. It messes with your curve a lot and your effects aren't redundant such that the opportunity cost of mis-sequencing your spells has been big. Flooding on the effect loses games. It's also tougher to trigger spectacle this iteration of mono-red compared to last standard season.
Gruul
Gruul is good, but I don't think it's quite good enough. It sports a positive Golos matchup, and a respectable food matchup (it's a bad matchup but not devastating).
The mana is a big issue for any configuration. The deck isn't powerful till it reaches 4-5 mana, and yet there aren't great mana sinks. You occasionally stumble, and by that time those effects get outclassed. You want to be explosive, but your mana base constricts your explositivity sometimes.
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/6HE4BZhD
Is where I ended up last week before moving on to different decks. If I had to revist it , I would change a few things. For example, 4x cindervines was a relic of the days when people were playing esper doomfortold. I've seen some decks running more red and more 2 drops (Robber of the rich and zhuur-tha goblin) .. unsure about that. They all have their pros/cons.
Key take aways if you are interested in the deck are, Questing beast + embercleave + bonecrusher giant + Skarggan hellkite are the meat of the power of the deck. The paradise druid enables the mana and helps get to 4-5cmc fast. The deck felt much better when I abandoned the GG two drops and leaned heavier on those cards.
Domri's ambush is very important for the deck as it is one of the few ways to deal with an oko before it gets out of hand. Questing beast + Ambush can kill any creature.
Golos Fires
Don't have anything innovative to say about this deck and it is a topic that has been thoroughly explored by writers at SCG with more experience with it in than me.
http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/39180_The-Definitive-Ratings-For-Every-Nonland-Card-In-Bant-Golos.html
Is a good one. There isn't too much room for innovation in the main deck, only mild changes.
The fires of invention version I talked about earlier has the most power, but has the least room for countering what your opponent is doing.
Golos is fundamentally a ramp deck, and fires of invention gives you an absurd amount of free mana, provided you can use it.. which is something a ramp deck wants.
Kenrith + Fires can do some very very stupid things. Hasty 30 trample damage out of no where kind of stuff.
Fires of invention + Fae of wishes + Kenrith is much more powerful than what any other golos variant is doing with their flex slots, but it comes at the cost of a sideboard and slightly less consistency.
Is the increased power worth less flexibility/consistency? I would argue no.. not when golos has a target on it's head. If Golos wasn't targeted... then yes, I think the fires version is better. I haven't played enough with the bant version to be confident in that guess.
Simic Food
I spent a solid 5 days playing exclusively these decks, trying out all sorts of configurations of cards and color combinations.
First off, I wanted to mention that my simic build naturally evolved into something nearly identical to what Matt Nass piloted at the latest SCG tournament http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/133299.
This was very validating that I was going in the right direction... As I didn't use another decklist to work off of.
The key insights were:
The mana is a big issue for any configuration. The deck isn't powerful till it reaches 4-5 mana, and yet there aren't great mana sinks. You occasionally stumble, and by that time those effects get outclassed. You want to be explosive, but your mana base constricts your explositivity sometimes.
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/6HE4BZhD
Is where I ended up last week before moving on to different decks. If I had to revist it , I would change a few things. For example, 4x cindervines was a relic of the days when people were playing esper doomfortold. I've seen some decks running more red and more 2 drops (Robber of the rich and zhuur-tha goblin) .. unsure about that. They all have their pros/cons.
Key take aways if you are interested in the deck are, Questing beast + embercleave + bonecrusher giant + Skarggan hellkite are the meat of the power of the deck. The paradise druid enables the mana and helps get to 4-5cmc fast. The deck felt much better when I abandoned the GG two drops and leaned heavier on those cards.
Domri's ambush is very important for the deck as it is one of the few ways to deal with an oko before it gets out of hand. Questing beast + Ambush can kill any creature.
Golos Fires
Don't have anything innovative to say about this deck and it is a topic that has been thoroughly explored by writers at SCG with more experience with it in than me.
http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/39180_The-Definitive-Ratings-For-Every-Nonland-Card-In-Bant-Golos.html
Is a good one. There isn't too much room for innovation in the main deck, only mild changes.
The fires of invention version I talked about earlier has the most power, but has the least room for countering what your opponent is doing.
Golos is fundamentally a ramp deck, and fires of invention gives you an absurd amount of free mana, provided you can use it.. which is something a ramp deck wants.
Kenrith + Fires can do some very very stupid things. Hasty 30 trample damage out of no where kind of stuff.
Fires of invention + Fae of wishes + Kenrith is much more powerful than what any other golos variant is doing with their flex slots, but it comes at the cost of a sideboard and slightly less consistency.
Is the increased power worth less flexibility/consistency? I would argue no.. not when golos has a target on it's head. If Golos wasn't targeted... then yes, I think the fires version is better. I haven't played enough with the bant version to be confident in that guess.
Simic Food
I spent a solid 5 days playing exclusively these decks, trying out all sorts of configurations of cards and color combinations.
First off, I wanted to mention that my simic build naturally evolved into something nearly identical to what Matt Nass piloted at the latest SCG tournament http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/133299.
This was very validating that I was going in the right direction... As I didn't use another decklist to work off of.
The key insights were:
1) Risen Reef/Elemental package is too slow to compete with Golos, and leaves you further vulnerable to sweepers, which most of your deck is already vulnerable too. It doesn't do much to help your game against agro either.. It's really only good against the mirror and the few other decks that grind.
2) To win a match against Golos you have to leverage tempo. You cannot win the long game against field of the dead.
3) 12 mana accelerants aren't necessary. It leaves you very vulnerable to sweepers and gives you many anemic top decks. Paradise druid is better than Leafkin Druid.
4) Once upon a time is incredible in the deck and solves the issue of not having too many slots dedicated to mana creatures. It maximizes frequency of the most powerful thing the deck can do (Goose -> Oko). In the late game, the deck often has an abundance of mana and finding a Hydroid Krasis is about the best thing you want to be doing.
Nissa -> untap forest -> end of opponents turn once upon a time -> find Hyroid Krasis is a common sequence.
5) Brazen borrower has overperformed. It has all sorts of great interactions... Returning a permanent stolen from agent of treachery, disabling an embercleave mid combat, making opponent sac food for a wicked wolf, then bounce it etc.
It's easy to find a spot where you can at least do something mana neutral with the tempo, and it's common you generate value or make a positive gain.
Having less mana creatures, also means there's an increased need for early turn interaction. A playset of brazen borrowers gives you effectively 4 more cheap plays.
The body itself is solid and great against Golos at chipping in the last few points of damage before they go off.
It's also nice to be able to find interaction with once upon a time in the desperate situations you need it.
6) Questing beast is a necessary evil in the Golos world we are currently in and is one of the keys to leveraging tempo in that matchup and winning before they go off. Questing beast is the critical ingredient to leverage a tempo victory.
I often board copies out in other matchpus. It works less well if you are trying to win by out grinding the opponent and is worse post boards where more efficient answers to the beast are available.
Temur Food (brew)
My first foray into the wild wonderful world of Oko was inspired by realizing that Casualties of War is great against Golos and Jeskai Fires. Maybe a Sultai food deck that had the anti-agro food package at the bottom-middle of the curve, and a Tamiyo -> Casualties loop at the top end could be what the format needed.
2) To win a match against Golos you have to leverage tempo. You cannot win the long game against field of the dead.
3) 12 mana accelerants aren't necessary. It leaves you very vulnerable to sweepers and gives you many anemic top decks. Paradise druid is better than Leafkin Druid.
4) Once upon a time is incredible in the deck and solves the issue of not having too many slots dedicated to mana creatures. It maximizes frequency of the most powerful thing the deck can do (Goose -> Oko). In the late game, the deck often has an abundance of mana and finding a Hydroid Krasis is about the best thing you want to be doing.
Nissa -> untap forest -> end of opponents turn once upon a time -> find Hyroid Krasis is a common sequence.
5) Brazen borrower has overperformed. It has all sorts of great interactions... Returning a permanent stolen from agent of treachery, disabling an embercleave mid combat, making opponent sac food for a wicked wolf, then bounce it etc.
It's easy to find a spot where you can at least do something mana neutral with the tempo, and it's common you generate value or make a positive gain.
Having less mana creatures, also means there's an increased need for early turn interaction. A playset of brazen borrowers gives you effectively 4 more cheap plays.
The body itself is solid and great against Golos at chipping in the last few points of damage before they go off.
It's also nice to be able to find interaction with once upon a time in the desperate situations you need it.
6) Questing beast is a necessary evil in the Golos world we are currently in and is one of the keys to leveraging tempo in that matchup and winning before they go off. Questing beast is the critical ingredient to leverage a tempo victory.
I often board copies out in other matchpus. It works less well if you are trying to win by out grinding the opponent and is worse post boards where more efficient answers to the beast are available.
Temur Food (brew)
My first foray into the wild wonderful world of Oko was inspired by realizing that Casualties of War is great against Golos and Jeskai Fires. Maybe a Sultai food deck that had the anti-agro food package at the bottom-middle of the curve, and a Tamiyo -> Casualties loop at the top end could be what the format needed.
While I was impressed by the mana (3 color food isn't that much less consistent than Simic food) and the power of Oko/Goose/Wicked Wolf, I was less impressed by casualties of war. In some matchups or situations it's very underwhelming. Even against Golos, it has to be backed up by a lot of pressure to be good. They have so many ways to recover from it.
The more I played, the more I realized you have to out-tempo Golos, not outgrind them, which is what my casualties plan was trying to do.
The color best suited for that? Red.
Enter. Temur.
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/18E2GvTko
Golos manages the early game with sweepers and they don't have many answers to planeswalkers... In the mid game they can clog up the ground, but not the skies.
The royal scions helps punch through damage, give an additional way to accrue value off a turn 1 gilded goose.. and now with a bunch of 3 mana planeswalkers, Sarkhan can generate a ton of hasty damage.
You can lean much harder on this package post board, including one of the best cards against golos in embercleave. You have plenty of high powered creatures and mana to cast it.
The food package is there to ensure you don't get overrun by aggressive decks and can likely do the heavy lifting by itself. Red gives some good cheap interactive spells post board to kill early must kill threats like Runaway Steamkin or Priest of the Forgotten Gods.
In fact, I started out this build much more aggressive. I cut Nissa/Krasis entirely and added cards like Roalsk, Apex hybrid and more Sarkhans/Royal Scions.
While that should improve your golos matchup, it suffered dramatically against the mirror.. which is way too common on arena. Nissa/Krasis is the ultimate mirror breaker combo.. and is also quite a bit better than Sarkhan/Royal Scions against agro.
The more you lean on the aggressive elements, the more your deck suffers against the mirror.. I decided that the tradeoff was disproportional.. such that I want to only have a touch of red game 1, and leverage the Sarkhan plan postboard.
I haven't played with it quite enough to be confident this is how to build food decks in a Golos world.. But I like it in theory, and played with it enough to know that it's not clearly worse than the straight Simic build.
Conclusion
My initial impressions are that Golos Field decks and Food decks have the most inherent power in them by a large margin, and that the format should be warped dramatically by them.
Any other deck will just be metagame calls. If you aren't playing these decks, you better have a damn good reason!
If I were playing an open, Id be playing one of these decks for sure.. if it was a pro tour or smaller invite tournament where all the players were skilled, there may be room to try and play a deck that focuses on beating Golos thoroughly, without being dead to the other decks that beat Golos.
But, it's still early.. Innovation is still possible at this point. Excited for what the Mythic Championship brings!
Great article!
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