The Beauty of Format Solving Itself Out

During the holiday season with no MPDC tournaments out there, the meta didn‘t have a chance to change much, but weeks before marked strangely unglorified, but very important event - Dimir‘s fall from the throne. While the archetype is still a strong contender in Standard Pauper, it stopped winning back-to-back tournaments, while BigBee and his White Weenie reigned supreme. So what has happened that an unbeatable deck taken into consideration for a ban couldn‘t win anymore?

I personally believe that players quickly adapted to the meta,letting various aggro decks invade the tournaments, with White Weenie standing strong in the front and Mono-red as well as colourful bestow strategies just a little behind it. Consequently with Dimir‘s rise, the numbers of Mono-black and other midrange strategies (the best match-ups for Control) have dwindled too. Those Mono-black players, who decided to stick to their guns now pack a bunch of disruption in Duresses and Mind Rots, making post-board games much more of a challenge. The biggest change, to my despair, was that EVERYONE began to play Razortip Whip, undoubtedly the best card against Dimir Mill. While a resolved Whip is beatable, the probability is low and the game has to contain successful Crypt Incursions to give Control player additional time. An interesting line against Dimir is not play anything and don't give opponent a chance to fill your graveyard with creatures, when Whip is in play. In order to beat the Whip with my deck, I have chosen splashing a third colour for artifact removal, but I haven‘t put up any good results since then and I can‘t convince you that this is the best choice.
 

The art might not be telling much, but the power of this card is underwhelming.

For a moment, I would like to let it sink in, how beautifully our narrow format with only four sets of commons in the pool managed to deal with a threat to it‘s diversity. Efficient answers were found and newly available archetypes stepped onto the scene. Since the rotation the metagame of Standard Pauper never actually became stale and kept moving. I no longer believe that playing control in an unfriendly meta right now is the best choice for a tournament. If you have a new deck to handle the rushes, or a more efficient and consistent aggro deck than the current, I‘m eager to see it! In a format, explored by a limited number of players, probability of „breaking the format“ has to be high, right?

Here is a short wrap-up list of recent changes in our format:
* Dimir is no longer unbeatable.

* In order to beat it, you should have Razortip Whips between your 75.

* If you're playing Mill, splashing additional colour could be helpful to beat Whips.

* Aggro decks make up a big part of the metagame, your deck has to be able to stop aggression.
* With Control getting weaker, Mono-black is getting stronger.

* Mono-white currently seems to be the strongest deck.
* Format never stopped evolving and there still is space for improvement.

That's all I wanted to say to break the silence, see you in the next MPDC tournament!