Why Not Run?

Watching this weekend's SCG open coverage was a lot of fun for me. Among my friends, Daniel Dusang made top 16 in standard and top 32 in legacy, Sam Davis made legacy top 8, Will Craddock won the first draft open, and Tyler Lytle didn't do too shabby either. As my friends get better at Magic though it become harder and harder to see myself being on their level. For one thing I'm a college student now, so I no longer live in my hometown with my normal Magic community, which was a big loss no doubt. Of the times I've been home I learned that I hated the new mono-red, nothing against it but in my hands the deck just feels wrong. Also winning prereleases is mad fun, playing Innistrad limited is one of the most fun things I have done in a while. But what I want to focus on right now is the Standard format.

I have already stated my dislke for monored despite the fact that I think it is a very powerful deck and fits well in the metagame. It has great cards for current standard. Brimstone Volley is an extremely exciting card that seems lackluster until you get to five someone to the dome. Hero of Oxid Ridge is still a major beating as he will usually come down and dominate a game. The true masterpiece of the possibilities though is probably Gut Shot, it is so well positioned in the meta game that it is almost irresponsible to play the card: killing early birds, nobles, infectors, and pumped Inkmoth Nexus' is just amazing. Where the deck falls down in my view though is that it fails to break through what appears to be the new most popular deck in standard Wolf Run Ramp.

Solar Flare seems to me to be a good deck in a metagame that wants to play against it, making it seem much worse than it actually is. Unburial Rights is a great card when paired with the draw suite and creatures being played in the deck. But I think the deck starts to fall in the current meta when it trys to be an esper graveyard-based control deck with only top end creatures and counter spells. It gets very divergent and I think the superior option becomes to play a more Mage-blade style deck or a UB control deck.

The new wave of human decks aim to fight the meta game with a fast paced deck that can protect from the strategy of Wolf Run decks while also being fast enough to deal with other decks in the format. The white based aggro decks however have a favorable option: G/W Township Overrun, the deck is so bonkers it is hard to deal with the threats and it has a very favorable matchup against Wolf Run.

Even with all this information at my fingertips I really like playing the boogyman Wolf Run Ramp deck. I have no qualms about it, at The Game Closet I played the more monogreen version with Dungrove Elder's before Brian Sondag took down an SCG open with the slagstorm version. The deck just fits how I like to play (some would call this autopilot, but I argue that it's just me doing what I do)I play big things and trample over your little things, CONSISTANTLY. In case you didn't get that subtle hint, I really like my deck to be consistant. If my opponent stumbles on mana I have a way to punish them for it and take down games that way, or I can just win with one of the various other plans. The decks that just jam in wolf runs are not my cup of black coffee, but the monogreen version is just where I want it to be. Dungrove Elder is really difficult for opponents to deal with, it says hey, wrath me or potentially be trampled by a 15/9 dude. and who didn't like swinging with 15 power creatures?

Suprisingly this blog post is not trying to convince you to play wolf run however, it is trying to play the deck you feel at home with. When I spoke of monored it was obvious that I disliked it, it just doesn't go down the same path as my mind. So find the deck that makes you feel like you're enjoying the game and take it to the top.

Always open to suggestions for future stuffs: Twitter: @A_Payne1