Finance: Early June Winners and Losers

Using the awesome MtgGoldfish standard indices, this week's winners and losers:

- 5 of the top 7 winners are cards in the GWB Aristocrats deck.
- 5 of the top 6 winners are Innistrad block cards (rotating from standard in September).

Voice of Resurgence at $50 makes enough sense; it's third-set mythic that goes into a whole bunch of standard and modern decks. The fact that it is still peaking online about 5 weeks after the prerelease (and 2 weeks after it won the PT) tells me, as a speculator, that it's OK to buy in on blue-chip cards even a bit after they spike -- more buyers always show up; players will keep buying the new decks for some weeks after they first appear.

- 9 of the 10 losers cost 4 or more mana to cast
- 6 of the 10 losers are Innistrad block cards that will rotate.

It makes some sense that Sphinx's Revelation dropped, since standard has shifted away from being a Revelation-based format, but it's a surprise to see Advent of the Wurm drop this week. That card keeps showing up in new decks and wasn't really overplayed before in standard.

For the giant drop it took in these charts, Bonfire of the Damned (20.12) is still worth more than Domri Rade (14.86) when we look at the listings. Bonfire is an Innistrad block card that is not played outside of standard and has been replaced by Mizzium Mortars in most decks. Domri Rade is a 4-of in the likely best deck in standard. I expect to see Bonfire of the Damned under "top losers" again for the next few weeks.

Momir: Should you play 9-drops?

9-drops are sometimes worth making in Momir Basic.

Using the Gatherer lists of all the 8-drops or bigger you could make, plus my own arbitrary evaluations in this doc, 9-drops are a bit more likely than 8-drops to steal games, but they're also a bit more likely to do nothing.

In most Momir scenarios, if you get to 9 mana somehow, you'll want a big flyer (or a big haste creature or such) to drop on the board and attack / block with -- that means you should make an 8. A lot of 9's have disappointingly low power and toughness.

If the board is stalled out or it looks like the game will go long for some reason, 9's have about the same average value as 8's, since now you can grind incremental advantage from the blue, red, or green Bringer.

Bernhard Zander points out that Denizen of the Deep and Akron Legionnaire are 8's which almost automatically lose you the game. He thinks that this makes 9's slightly better overall, and he calculates the chance of hitting a suicide creature at 1% or 2%. A good rule would be to play 9's if you're winning and 8's if you're losing or if the game is close. (If you are certain to win, he recommends just making a 6.)

(Of course, you should never miss making a drop just to get to 9 mana -- the optimal plan is still maxing out at 8 by starting on turn 2 or 3. The choice of 9-or-8 should only come up after you get a random creature that generates extra mana.)

It also turns out you shouldn't play 10-drops in Momir Basic:

By my count, of the 14 possible creatures you could get for ten mana, only 3 are awesome (Jin-Gitaxias, Kozilek, and Progenitus) while most are either ineffective or have big upkeep costs. Better to just make an 8 or 9 and leave up some mana.

The 11- and 12-drops are pretty good though:

None of the 11's or 12's has haste or an enters-the-battlefield bonus, so you can activate Momir for 11 or 12 after combat without losing value.

There are no 13s or 14s. If you pay 13 or 14 to a Momir avatar, you will get nothing. If you pay 15, you'll get either an Emrakul or a 9/14 trample creature. There's no reason to pay more than 15.

Standard: WGb Virtue Tokens

Michael Jacob's stream tonight involved a 4-0 with a WGb tokens deck that wasn't Aristocrats -- it was an Intangible Virtue deck with copies of Midnight Haunting and Collective Blessing main. Deel 4-0ed with a similar list yesterday:

This version breaks down to:
- 24 land + 4 Pilgrim
- 20 token-makers + 3 Voice of Resurgence
- 2 Putrefy
- 7 Anthem effects

I forgot to take a screenshot of Jacob's version, but I assume it cut some of the "weird cards" for the 4th Voice of Resurgence, 4th Call of the Conclave, and 2nd Gavony Township -- if Aristocrats can run 2 Gavony Township, then certainly this deck can.

Other 4-0 decks from this same event include Agnara's GW Ethereal Armor deck (no Hexproof), huggins' UW control with 2 Runechanter's Pike main, and nielsen333's GW Elf-Ramp deck with 4 Elvish Archdruid and 4 Soul of the Harvest.

Standard: Jund is the slowest

Some opening hands
From M3G1 of Michael Hetrick's Jund videos -- an opening hand on the play:

t1 nothing
t2 nothing
t3 Putrefy
t4 possibly nothing

Hetrick:
"Even if we draw a red source quickly enough, this hand doesn't do anything, still, for quite a while. The best that we could draw would be Farseek, obviously, but we'd still need to draw the correct card after that. This being an unknown matchup, I'm gonna have to mulligan. This hand just wouldn't be very good against aggro."

Here's the six we find:

t1 nothing
t2 Ground Seal
t3 probably a Keyrune
t4 probably a Huntmaster

Hetrick:
"Alright. Sure."

The second hand casts some spells by turn three, but against aggro, it wouldn't offer any resistance until the turn-four Huntmaster.

Though they're both better than a mull to five, neither of these hands is very likely to win against aggro.

Does Jund not run early drops?
Not really.

For three mana or less, a normal Jund deck has something like 8-10 removal, 4 Farseek, 2 Keyrune, and 2 Ground Seal, plus possibly maindeck Lilianas. This represents 16-20 of the 35 or so spell slots in the deck -- but only the removal and the Lilanas will affect the board.

Discounting the "set-up" cards (mana acceleration and cycling Ground Seals), we can expect about 10 spells from a Jund deck that will affect the board for three mana or less. A lot of aggro decks run 30+ spells that affect the board for three mana or less.

Does Jund need early drops?
Maybe not.

Jund is capable of fighting aggro with stuff like t3 Huntmaster or t4 Thragtusk. On the play, the Farseek plan can actually work against Champions of the Parish and Flinthoof Boars.

But probably yes.

Jund decks have a ton of Pillar of Flame, Tragic Slip, Vampire Nighthawk, and other cheap anti-aggro spells in the sideboard. The transformative aspect of this implies that the optimal plan for beating fast creatures is the opposite plan from how the deck is built. We could say that Jund decks are pre-boarded for Reanimator and other big-spell matchups.

Owen Turtenwald's Jund article this week mentioned that Farseek is the best card in the deck and basically showed that no hand with Farseek should ever be mulliganed. Turtenwald plays Keyrunes to supplement Farseek; traditionally, turn three mana acceleration in constructed is a sign of a slow format. The giant importance of a Rampant Growth that doesn't even block should illustrate how slow the Jund deck is.

How can such a slow deck be good?
It is good when the other decks are slow.

As far as I know, Jund does poorly in aggro matchups and really well in matchups where it can win with Rakdos' Return and Sire of Insanity. This means that it's a good deck in top 8s and day 2s, but it mostly loses in online daily events, where grinders play 19-land mono-red decks (for budget reasons and clock reasons).

Do the blue decks have early drops?
Yes -- they have Augur of Bolas and Azorius Charm.

The UWR decks floating around Magic Online these days are all big spell decks, with counterspells, Planeswalkers, and Sphinx's Revelations. A typical blue deck doesn't use many slots for pure removal (burn spells or Detention Sphere), but Augur of Bolas and Azorius Charm mean UW can play 8 two-drops that both draw cards and slow an aggro rush.

Standard: UWR vs BWG Aristocrats

From Guillaume Matignon's stream, here's a BWG Aristocrats deck curving out on the play and still having zero chance of winning:

Pretty brutal. Matignon seemed not to know his opponent's deck, but his commenters gave a pretty clear explanation:

Pas le bon! A mieux deck against aggro (as seen in Brad Nelson's wins against Zombies and Naya Aggro) but much less bien against Rea -- and apparently against blue decks.

Matignon kills a Skirsdag High Priest with the Staticaster / Restoration Angel combo, and the opponent scoops early.

Another note: Matignon's version of the deck, intriguingly titled "UWR Wafo," plays 2 Rewind, 2 Restoration Angel, and a handful of other creatures.

UPDATE: From R3 of the same tournament, here's how Junk Aristocrats can beat UWR -- double Voice of Resurgence:

Matignon lost this match. Renounce the Guilds did a lot of work for him, but Turn // Burn seemed weak against armies of tokens.

Standard: Weekend standard scoreboard

Using the top 8 from Baltimore SCG Open, the top 4 decks from this weekend's online premier events, and the 4-0 decks from this weekend's posted dailies, here are some new standings from the horse-race for best deck in standard:

- The UWR deck has a core of Snapcaster, Revelation, Think Twice, Dissipate, Azorius Charm, and a lot of burn spells, judging by its MtgGoldfish profile. Both the Goldfish aggregate list and VFS's PE-winning list only use 2 Supreme Verdict. A lot of players have cut Restoration Angel and play a nearly creatureless version.

- The Rg decks here are all from DEs.

- The Naya Aggro finishes are all from the SCG top 8 and all follow Aaron Barich's 0 Burning-Tree Emissary model.

- akiaya's 4th-place BRW Control deck is a bit of a surprise. Highlights include 2 Nearheath Pilgrim and 2 Underworld Connections main.

- TinMan354 made a PE finals with a version of 4c Reanimator that used 2 Rolling Temblor and 2 Pillar of Flame instead of the usual Lingering Souls or Harvest Pyre.

- I called it control on the table, but pelli's Esper deck had the reanimator engine of 4 Forbidden Alchemy and 3 Unburial Rites to put Angels of Serenity into play.

- A lot of the decks marked "control" on this table are creature-based control decks. Those include mikev1919's GB deck (with 4 Desecration Demon, 4 Geralf's Messenger, and 3 Mutilate), MattsuN and aldevab's Loxodon Smiter Bant decks, smh's RUG deck (featuring 2 Izzet Staticaster and 3 Ral Zarek), and Jake Taft's BUG Control (with 3 Mutilate and 3 Warped Physique).

- A 4-0 deck that was closer to pure control was mikebrav's WB deck, featuring 3 Terminus and 3 Blind Obedience.

Standard: 4-0s from last two dailies

Creature decks (listed fast-to-slow):
(lands / creature curve / other spells)
- ThySaintsSurround playing Naya Humans (20 / 12-16-4 / 8) including 4 Hamlet Captains and no Avacyn's Pilgrims
- Silverwave528 playing Red (20 / 9-15-4-8 / 4) including 4 Volcanic Strength as the only non-creature spells
- Gereffi playing Red (21 / 8-15-6-4 / 6)
- werebear03 playing Rg (20 / 8-12-5-8 / 7)
- sneakattackkid playing Rg (21 / 8-12-4-8 / 7)
- Pandabeast24 playing Naya (22 / 8-8-8-6 / 8) with 4 Silverblade Paladin and 4 Rancor
- Jilesoftrees playing "big" Naya Humans (23 / 8-12-7-4 / 6) with 2 Unflinching Courage main
- normajean playing GB (23 / 6-8-10 / 13) with 2 Ulvenwald Tracker, 2 Ranger's Guile and 4 Putrefy
- Thalai playing Junk Aristocrats (23 / 7-15-7 / 8) with 4 Skirsdag High Priest main
- MagicLair playing BWr Aristocrats (24 / 8-10-6-5-2 / 5) with no Boros Reckoners and 2 Zealous Conscripts as the only maindeck red cards
- Dzy playing Edel Naya (24 / 6-10-7-3-4 / 6) including 4 Domri Rade and 4 Thundermaw Hellkite
- bone55 playing Ken Yukuhiro's Big Naya deck (24 / 4-4-8-8-4 / 8) including 4 Huntmaster of the Fells

Reanimator decks:
(lands + elves and farseeks / mulch, grisly salvage, and faithless looting / non-elf creatures + unburial rites / removal)
- orgneone playing Guadelajara-style Junk Reanimator (22+8 / 7 / 19+4 / 0)
- egdirb playing Junk Reanimator (23+7 / 6 / 15+4 / 5) with Loxodon Smiter, Farseek, and Abrupt Decay

- BigPrads playing Junk Reanimator (24+6 / 7 / 18+4 / 1) with Centaur Healer, Farseek, and Blood Baron

- Walka playing Danabeast's 4c Reanimator (23 / 12 / 17+4 / 4)

- Zwischenzug playing 4c Reanimator (23 / 12 / 17+4 / 4), Danabeast's list but with a Voice of Resurgence instead of the Sire of Insanity

- TikyTon playing 4c Reanimator (23 / 12 / 18+4 / 3) with 3 Huntmaster of the Fells

Blue-based control decks:

(lands / card draw / creatures / removal / counterspells)

- peter780107 playing UWR control (25 / 5 / 12 / 16 / 2) with no Azorius Charm or Think Twice, 2 Ral Zarek, and 2 Aurelia the Warleader

- littledarwin playing UWR control (26 / 7 / 5 / 17 / 5) with 3 Azorius Charm and 3 Think Twice

The blue control lists are a bit fuzzy to break down -- lots of cards serve multiple purposes and lots of cards are different between the two lists. Neither of them played more than 3 copies of any spell.

Lists are from the posted DEs on May 29 and 30.