1. Elephant Oath 19-11 (44-30) 100.0
2. Arcane Denial 19-11 (44-30) 98.98
3. Noble Fish 18-12 (41-29) 95.85
4. Expedition Stax 18-12 (41-31) 90.23
5. Eastman Remora 17-13 (37-39) 65.90
6. Turtle Dredge 16-14 (43-38) 77.64
7. Nature's Claim Tez 15-15 (37-33) 78.11
8. Root Maze Oath 15-15 (37-36) 71.63
9. Jace Drain Tendrils 15-15 (37-39) 66.89
10. Fatestitcher Dredge 14-16 (40-37) 74.74
11. Uba Stax 14-16 (37-39) 66.58
12. Misdirection Tez 14-16 (34-39) 61.17
13. ANT 13-17 (35-40) 61.22
14. Mud 12-18 (31-42) 52.00
15. Emrakul Oath 11-19 (31-46) 48.49
16. TPS 10-20 (26-47) 40.47
I started testing about 3 months ago so newer lists such as Trygon Tez are missing. Some of these lists have undergone substantial improvements since three months ago.
An example is Meandeck Mud which I anticipate would do much better now that Smokestacks have been added to the main.
This time I played straight round robin where every match up was played with each deck on the play.
This means every deck was tested an equal amount.
The one deck I really should have tested was NYSE Stax. That deck has now top 8ed two years in a row at worlds without running Black Lotus!
In hindsight I was foolish to test Emrakul Oath when I could have been testing NYSE Stax. Doing this left me with no "proven" Shops deck in the gauntlet.
TPS 10-20
I cannot figure out what happened here. A similar TPS list basically tied for first last time. There were several key changes, but nothing that should cause a first to worst swing.
Part of what happened is the meta shifted against TPS. There were more Spell Pierces and Resistors this time. Certain new decks like Eastman Remora and Mud are just a nightmare for TPS so it may be that the meta shifted against TPS more than anything else. Also, I did notice last time that TPS was averagish against the field, but did well against the other decks that were finishing high such as Oath and Dredge. In round Robin all decks are counted equally so I suspect that this more than anything else
was TPS's problem.
Emrakul Oath 11-19
Basically I took Root Maze Oath and swapped out the Root Mazes and Tyrants for main deck Vault/Key, Emrakul and Dragon Breaths. I ran a full set of See Beyond in place of Balance, Mystical, Ponder and a mana source.
I also dropped Strip and Wastes for Rainbow lands. I had so convinced myself that this deck would be good that I tested it and Root Maze Oath when they are really only a few cards apart. This did not work out. Dropping Wastes and Strip for Rainbow lands (actually I dropped 4 lands and only added 3) makes the Shop matchup much worse.
You cannot remove their Shop and with fewer mana sources you are buried by Spheres more easily.
Emrakul gets randomly stuck in hand which hurts.
There were losses to Sad Sac.
There were losses because Emrakul was flipped before Dragon Breath so no disruption after first Oath activation.
There were no losses to Emrakul being last 2 cards, but that easily could have happened.
A few months ago someone asked me if it was Argivian Finds + Enlightened Tutors that were Root Maze Oath's strengths or Root Maze + Tyrants.
After testing Emrakul Oath I think I can say it is Root Maze + Tyrants. Obviously you need the Finds and ETs to find the Root Maze, but Finds + ETs are not enough.
The similar test I did a while ago but forgot about was Turbo Oath. That deck also ran a full set of Finds and ETs to go with Null Rod, but it did poorly so ETs and Finds are
not necessarily good in Oath.
If I were to test this again I would maindeck Ancient Tombs. I would also probably run Jace instead of See Beyond. Jace crucially allows me to put Dragon Breath on top before I Oath. This would also make cutting to 2 Dragon Breath less painful.
Meandeck Mud 12-18
Basically I ran into a lot of City of Traitors problems where I either felt forced to keep bad hands or mulliganned into worse hands.
There were other issues as well. Playing against 3 Oath decks was tough. Also Uba Stax which does not exist in real life ran Crucibles, Welders and crucially
Ensnaring Bridge which gave it a huge edge in this matchup. Part of the problem was definitely running into decks like Root Maze Oath and Uba Stax that
do not exist in real tournaments, but there is a fundamental mulliganing/consistency issue that needs to be resolved.
The one matchup where my results disagreed with what I read in tournament reports is Noble Fish. It seems like Meandeck Mud wins 75% of matchups against Noble
Fish when I read the results forum, but when I test Noble Fish has the edge. It might be that this particular Noble Fish list (with maindeck Predators) is just better
against Fish or perhaps I am making crucial play mistakes to hurt Meandeck Mud's chances.
ANT 13-17
Suffered from a large number of Spell Pierces and Resistor effects. ANT has not been doing that well for a while for me so there was not much new here.
Misdirection Tez 14-16
This was strong last time, but not this time. More Dark Confidants was a big reason why. Last time I tested most of the Dark Confidant decks were knocked out early. The last deck to have Bobs was I think Arcane Denial which finished maybe 9th out of 16. This time there was a high Density of Dark Confidants which make life difficult for Tez
and circumvented Misdirection.
Uba Stax 14-16
This is an unconventional "hate" version of Uba Stax. It runs maindeck Ensnaring Bridges and Null Brooches. This gives it game against Shop Aggro and Oath.
It is still less broken against Drains where it can be outdrawn. At 14-16 it did decently.
Fatestitcher Dredge 14-16
This did surprisingly poorly. In the past I have rated decks based on each game which tends to over inflate Dredge or any deck with a high game 1 win %.
For instance Fatestitcher Dredge still had a winning game % just because game 1 is so lopsided. The Fatestitchers themselves were very good.
I tend to hate out Dredge more than others when I design decks which makes it tough on the Dredge decks in my gauntlet.
Root Maze Oath, Uba Stax, Arcane Denial and Emrakul Oath all had massive Dredge hate.
Also, Fatestitcher Dredge had no removal or alternate win conditions preboard so Ensnaring Bridge was a huge threat from Uba Stax.
This deck probably missed Dakmoor Salvage. Adding 1 should be mandatory at least in the board.
Ichorids are definitely missed, but they do not further the combo game 1. Basically this is why this list is not as good as Turtle Dredge.
You lean too hard on winning game 1 and give up some anti hate post board.
Jace Drain Tendrils 15-15
My impressions are not positive based on my testing in the sense that I never felt like I was wielding a powerful deck, but the results are solid. This was a tough gauntlet and DT finished with an even record so clearly this is a competitive deck. Where this deck shined was its ratios were well balanced. The ratio of disruption to gas to acceleration was very good such that you did not feel like you had broken hands, but you always seem to draw into enough to win. Unlike some of the decks mentioned later
that had very consistent first turns this deck was sort of consistent by turn 3ish. You just suddenly find you have the right cards. This could be lucky top decks,
but I think more likely it is good deck design.
Root Maze Oath 15-15
Dropped pretty far from last time. This basically tied for first last time. It still had an even record this time. There were various factors here.
One is that there were more Spell Pierces making ET for Oath weaker.
Another factor is that Jace can bounce Tokens delaying your Oath a turn. Then there were Nature's Claims and Leyline of Sanctities.
Noble Fish suddenly started running maindeck Meddling Mage and Trygon Predator making that matchup much harder!
Basically the hate factor against Oath has been turned up a notch and this had an impact.
Nature's Claim Tez 15-15
This was Tez with maindeck Nature's Claims. Tez did much better than last time. Having these outs against Stax and Oath is huge and they can hit Remora or Key/Vault so I was pleased with them, in most matchups. This deck had an exceptionally good record post board indicating how hard it is to hate out Tez and how flexible green allows Tez
to be.
Turtle Dredge 16-14
This is Voltron's list with Leyline of Sanctites, Chaliices and Unmasks. It has an excellent game preboard against Combo (part of TPS and ANT's problems)
Also, some of my lists were still Tormod's Crypt heavy which this list can abuse. The game 1 win % was considerably worse than Fatestitcher Dredges, but this was fixed post board. Ironically Fatestitcher Dredge seems to beat Turtle Dredge in the mirror despite the Leyline of the Voids simply because it is faster using the Fatestitchers and pre boad is heavily favorable for Fatestitcher Dredge due to its extreme speed and ability to just go huge.
Leyline of Sanctity makes life difficult for Oath and Combo alike post board.
This looks like the way to go with Dredge right now.
Eastman Remora 17-13
I loved this deck's consistency. Having Dark Confidants or Mystic Remoras available to play on turn 1 allows you to get out of the gate quicker. Also the inexpensive disruption was nice. Although this deck had a very solid 17-13 record overall it actually had a losing game record overall. Usually this suggests that you have a solid 75 card, but perhaps the wrong ones are in the main. For the life of me I still cannot understand why there is no Time Walk in this list, but clearly it did well. I do have 2 complaints.
The first is Chalice@1. Chalice@1 is brutal for this deck. Basically it cuts 18-20 spells in the main depending on if you count Repeals. It then cuts off 4 Nature's Claim post board. If I suspect any decent amount of Chalice@1 I would probably want some other removal spells.
Second, I would probably jump to 8 anti-dredge cards. Spell Pierce is so good when protecting hate. It is a shame to have it when you have no hate to protect.
One possibility is to just run 3 Echoing Truths in the main instead of Repeal. I know Repeal is better for bouncing Remora, but Echoing Truth can do that too
and having more mays to bounce Chalice@1 and Bridge tokens makes it seem worth it. I am somewhat outside of my element playing a deck like this so I could
be totally wrong.
Expedition Stax 18-12
Like Eastman Remora, the key to this deck was its consistently. It always has solid turn 1 disruption.
This list has room for improvements as has been mentioned in other threads. I think Rishadan Ports are the first change I will make. Basically throwing down a ton of Spheres while threatening a Strip lock is tough for decks to deal with. A known issue is Trygon Predator which only showed up against Noble Fish, but this will have to deal with now.
Oath is also tough to deal with.
Noble Fis 18-12:
This list had maindeck Predators to go with Qasali Pridemage and Meddling Mage to hate out Oath. Those cards are also amazing against Stax. Combine that with the normal disruption of Daze, Pierce and Force against combo and you have a solid deck that could fight anything.
Post board Fish brings in 7 Dredge hate to combine with 5 Waste/Strip to give it game against Oath. This deck felt very strong the whole tournament.
I hear Noble Fish is dropping off in the real life tournament scene, but it continued to be strong here for me.
Arcane Denial 19-11
This is another deck with consistent turn 1 plays. Options include Denialing extra Moxen or Baubles, Dark Confidant, holding Spell Pierce mana up or holding Denial Mana up.
This does not even count Force of Will or just Cycling Baubles.
This deck was averagish last time, so it might just have gotten lucky but there are some developments that favored it.
One is the disappearance of Stifle. Stifle messes up the whole Arcane Denial draw engine because they can tap out and then Stifle the Denial trigger on their upkeep and make a nice 3 for 1 or 2 for 1 trade for only
. Next, there are more bombs with Jace in the format. Usually you are looking to Denial your own spells to draw cards, but if Jace is played you Denial it if you must. Basically having 16 hard counters for Jace is nice.
Nature's Claims show up in the main now. Against Denial they do not do anything more than hit a Mox.
Post board there are a lot of options. 5 Waste/Strips help with Shops and Dredge. Explosives help against Remora, Shops and Dredge.
The Dredge board may need to be reconsidered to a certain degree. Originally Tormod's Crypt was in there because you can Denial it to draw 3.
In the real world, if there is not Chalice or SIngularity out then you would never actually want to do this since you would rather have the Crypt.
If you do expect Chalice and Singularity you are better off with Jailer. Switching to Jailers might make sense.
Elephant Oath 19-11
This was the top deck. Jace helped a lot against other Oath decks. It allowed winning token wars, bouncing Tyrants, Brainstorming back Oath if you have lost the token war and a host of other strategies. The diversity of win conditions and general strategies make it tough to hate out. This deck trashes Uba Stax for that reason and also had a much better game against Fish than the other Oath decks. The main problem is that the primary strategy which is to use Oath is hurt by having some suboptimal creatures.
I hate Oathing into Sphinx against combo where I just did nothing, but that price is worth paying for the overall flexibility and resiliency.
