Moving Forward in both Standard and Historic

The Calm before the Storm

With the recently released Dungeons and Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms set release, there has not been that much movement in both Standard and Historic. Fortunately, with both releases like Historic: Jumpstart and the set rotation in Standard coming up, it may be best to use this respite as a time to hone our skills and catch up on what has been going on in the two formats.

Standard

The format currently seems to be in an ebb and flow situation depending on what removal spells are currently being played by Sultai Yorion. As predicted in my previous article, due to the rise of Mono-Green Aggro, many decks were severely dropping the amount of Heartless Acts they played as it was just blanked by the amount of +1/+1 counters Mono-Green Aggro can put up. However, clever players have noticed these cuts, and the rise of cards like Eliminate and Bloodchief's Thirst and have begun to play strategies revolving around Winota, Joiner of Forces.

Dodging both of the aforementioned spells, Winota presents an opportunity for many decks to win out of the blue on turn 4, or generate enough value on turn 3 (via Jaspera Sentinel and Lotus Cobra) to prompt a concession against most opponents. Consequently, in testing the deck falls flat against Heartless Act as the instant speed removal keeps the deck honest with a random assortment of creatures when Winota, Joiner of Forces is not being triggered. Similar to how Dredge was in Modern, it seems the moment decks are not prepared to play against it, Winota will rise up and win a big tournament. That being said, there seems to be a great case for Winota to be a strong contender in the format as its combo potential puts it at the advantage against Mono-Green Aggro, as the deck has very little against Winota.

There is a chance that since Winota decks seem to beat up on Mono Green Aggro so well, Mono Green Aggro may fade away from the format altogether, leaving Sultai Yorion plenty of room/time to adapt. Consequently, this may see the rise of Mono-Green Aggro the moment that Sultai-Yorion becomes filled with 4 Heartless Acts again. At that point, which deck you play, and the removal spells you play in it are all a meta choice depending on what you expect at your local tournament scene.

Historic

Since the Strixhaven Championship players knew that Blue was just a little bit too strong due to some of the power gained from the Mystical Archives. With the suspension of Brainstorm, Wizard's hope is to curb some of its power down just a little bit before introducing Jumpstart Historic into the client. While Jumpstart is seemingly releasing out of nowhere, and very soon (August 12th), the format is still adjusting to the loss of one of its previous tier 1 decks (Izzet Phoenix), and may be still changing by the time the new set is released.

With the loss of Brainstorm and Izzet Phoenix, two styles of decks gained immense footing in the meta. Decks that like to cast hand disruption like Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize, and creature decks that folded to fliers.

In the first category are variants of Rakdos Arcanist and Jund Food, both of which look the same as they did just a few months ago. In the second category, there is a huge rise in Aura strategies (both Orzhov and Azorious) and tribal decks (both Goblins and Elves). As Brainstorm offered a way for blue-based combo decks, or even Izzet Phoenix, to hide away its best cards, targeted discard became much worse. That is not to say that it was bad, but an opponent responding to a Thoughtseize with Brainstorm always left one player feeling a lot more safe than the other. As an example, I cannot begin to count the times that I forced an opponent to discard my Phoenix with Thoughtseize after hiding the 2 other spells in my hand on the top of my library. Fortunately with Brainstorm gone, targeted discard can begin to do what it does best, which is slow games down and keep players playing more honest and fair decks as combo begins to fall out of favor.

The decks in the other category were always able to keep up with Izzet Phoenix in terms of speed, but struggled against it due to its inability to deal with any of its creatures. Both of the Aura decks, Elves, and Goblins, have an incredibly hard time answering a Sprite Dragon on turn 2, and often would let it run away with the game because of it. Now with Izzet Phoenix left much more inconsistent, these decks are the ones running away with most games. Be it a Kor Spiritdancer, Conspicuous Snoop, or Elvish Archdruid not being killed via Magma Spray or Shock, each one of these decks has a plethora of ways to snowball its way into victory.

Personally, if I had to choose a deck to be tier 1 it would most likely be Jund Food as it offers both incredible ways to interact with your opponent and a fast way to end the game. That being said, I think it's nigh impossible to predict everything that will be in the next Historic Jumpstart and how it will shape the format. Be on the lookout for next week's article discussing some of the then spoiled cards from the set, and just how they will fit into the current meta!