"I'm playing maindeck End Hostilities and Duneblast. He's running the more traditional Abzan Midrange strategy-but just barely. In the beat 'em/join 'em question, ChannelFireball big-shot Paul Cheon chose the latter. Not only were all these pros on the deck, but it has by far the most representation in the Day 2 field, with almost 30 players on the deck. This "under" strategy has been going well this weekend. "Caryatid on turn six is awful Rakshasa Deathdealer is actually pretty good." With a bevy of two-drops and nary a Sylvan Caryatid in sight, Eric decided with the under route. I mean, I knew he was good, but I didn't realize how good he was."įroehlich talked about this format being driven by midrange, so the way to rip yourself from the herd is to go over or under them. He continued, "I wanted a deck that could consistently turn on Wingmate Roc, and that allowed me to play four of them." Froehlich said that Wingmate Roc is key to a lot of match-ups, as is, of course, the obvious- Siege Rhino. He went further now, saying that you "can play what you want to play," and that "proactive is a good place to be." Froehlich is known for liking when he can play to his preferences, and this format has given that to him. What caused the shift? Earlier in the weekend, Froehlich already talked about the variability of Standard. This deck choice is a shift from most of the season, when Abzan Midrange was clearly most of the field. "Actually, we all decided to play it independently," Froehlich said. People playing it in Day 2 include: (8) William Jensen, (13) Eric Froehlich, (21) Tom Martell, (1) Owen Turtenwald, and Pro Tour Magic 2015 Top 8er Matt Sperling (who is currently the sole undefeated player) are all on the build. The most name-heavy deck at this tournament is definitely Abzan Aggro. I talked to representatives from a couple archetypes around the Day 2 field to see what strategy people were doing-Beat them? Join them? Over, under, or around? And "around" are decks that have a lot of combo potential, like White-Blue Heroic, Astronomer Ascendancy, or even Jeskai Ascendancy Tokens, that can deal oodles of damage out of nowhere, even if they get a slow start. Decks like Boss Sligh try to go under-stealing 20 points of damage before midrange can get its shoes on. Decks like big control, or "big midrange" (like Sidisi Whip) try to out-advantage midrange with an all-out slugfest. So if you aren't going to be straight midrange, a good strategy is to do one of three things: Go over, under, or around. One of the only truisms of the format is that midrange is good. Every deck type is played in one form or another every clan is played in one form or another and just about everything that's good, can have a deck built around it. Unless you've been living under a Barrage of Boulders, you know that this Standard format is one of the most diverse in a long while.
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