Standard Singleton: In the Wake of Worldwake

Posted on February 18, 2010 by ChrisKool

I know it’s a tad late to jump on the set release band wagon, but Worldwake is about to land in our little, digital paradise, so jump on I must! Now Standard Singleton has been my obsession of late (and WWK offers little for StdSing’s big, 100 Card bro), so it’ll be our focus today. (And it definitely helps this article’s relevance that Worldwake offers about a 20 percent increase to the card pool already riddled with stipulations.)

Ugh: A Way of Life (and an Excuse to Become Temporarily Sidetracked)

During new set releases, I always find it hard to practice self-discipline. Imagine that you found presents hidden in a secret cache at your place of residence, and those presents were addressed to you! (Are you getting as excited as I am?)

Whoa, buddies- calm down! Now these presents can be opened whenever you please (in contrast to many hidden presents), but there is a cost-associated with instant gratification. If you open the presents now, you pay 60 dollars (or 60 Event Tickets). If you open them tomorrow, it only costs 25 tix. If you have the self-control to last all the way to next Friday (the day, not the movie), it doesn’t cost anything extra!

Ugh, waiting sucks. And when you only have to spend a few extra dollars and scream, “Gimme, gimme, gimme!” while frantically trading to obtain crap Rares, random “Limited-only” cards and that one super duper overpriced Mythic, why wait?! Although, I usually will only pay the “Must have now!!!” premium for only one deck. (And at least for Singleton, it only involves overpaying for one of each card!)

Welcome to a New Set Release!

If we can look past my rambles about finances, this article is actually about the game of Magic (or more specifically, constructing decks to play a niche iteration of the game of Magic…). But before I start spawning lists based on mere theory and my personal card preferences, there is work to be done.

First, I like to dissect a new set (bring out my Bone Saw and be a real Corpse Connoisseur, and all of these other cute, morbid card references that surely more acceptable than the obscure goregrind/death metal references that I’d prefer to include) to figure out what seems good or playable in some regard. As I am going through these cards, I compile a pretty list of cards I want based on what I perceive their usefulness to be (to fill out my assumed comprehensive Singleton collection, of course). Then, I build decks, judge the lists against each other on merit and affordability, and acquire cards for one or two decks. After my purge of tix, I muster up the strength to wait until drafting starts up to acquire the rest of desires.

What I Want from Worldwake

My initial dissection left me with 85 cards in about 6 different groupings: Lands and Mana (which are probably the most significant contribution from WWK), Other Highly Desirables (all the sweet, sweet cards that I yearn for), Sideboard Stars (some might make main decks, but they predominantly will sit on the sidelines), Dumb Vampire Cards (which I probably don’t care about), Dumb Ally Cards (which I unfortunately do care about), and Random Stuff (all the chaff that I might use in a blue moon).

Precious Mana

I wish I could convey some information here that you didn’t already know… Of course more mana fix is good for Standard Singleton. Of course manlands are every player’s favorite enters the battlefield tapped lands. I like Stirring Wildwood and Creeping Tar Pit the most, due to activations costs and powers of three. Plus, I have a crush on White-Green decks.

The colorless lands all have roles to play in various mono- and multi-colored decks, but some will definitely see more love than others. I have a hard time playing more than one or two colorless lands in a multi-colored deck, and even mono-colored decks need a heavy amount of colored sources to operate at peak performance. I imagine that Dread Statuary and Tectonic Edge will be the most loved of this bunch.

More important than the colorless lands are the other colorless mana cards: Everflowing Chalice and Pilgrims Eye. These two gems (or perhaps gem encrusted whatevers-they-are) can smooth out the mana situation of any deck in the format. (The Pilgrim provides a bit of color fixing, while the Chalice speeds you up by a turn or two in mana accumulation). I also love how the Pilgrims Eye is essentially Civic Wayfinder. LOVE IT!

To round out the gifts from the mana deities, different colors even get little treats! While Arbor Elf, Harabaz Druid and Explore provide different functionality, they each offer something to please the plenty Green mages of the format. And each color gets a fancy tapped land, but I really only am excited about the Blue (Halimar Depths) and White (Sejiri Steppe) offerings (which is why the other three aren’t included in this section).

What Really Tickles My Fancy!

From the Mythic rarity:

  • Jace, the Mind Sculptor is clearly the number one valuable card in the set. Sadly, he is also a must-have for Std Sing Blue Control decks. He also might fit into some weirder Midrange decks.
  • Dragonmaster Outcast might be a disappointment, but he at least belongs in some decks with Ranger of Eos and RDW; it’s pretty straight forward in application. On the other hand,
  • Wrexial, the Risen Deep is an interesting beast/squid/leviathan thingy (that could have easily been a character in the recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie series); a high defense makes it great against Red removal and attackers and it’s ability looks great versus more aggressive opponents.

From the normal Rares (not a lot jumped out as immediately necessary; manlands being the main exception):

  • Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs and I will be hooking up as soon as possible. I love tokens, and I love the prospect of my opponent not able to swarm me (due to a plethora of 3/3 buddies joining my team during said opponent’s declare attackers step). (Siege-Gang Commander is probably better, but he is not as nifty.)
  • Wolfbriar Elemental should be my favorite Rare. He’s made for my beloved Green-White deck. Because of this guy and a few other all-star Green goodies, a nearly mono-colored deck might pop up. I also think that this is the strongest incarnation of the Multikick ability in Standard Singleton.
  • Stoneforge Mystic pretty much lives for Behemoth Sledge, but because of the equipment tutor, Basilisk Collar will probably see some action. This guy and a few others might also might make White Weenie (possibly splashing Green) a deck that can actually contend.

From the Uncommons:

  • Loam Lion (or “Kird Kitty” as some people insist on calling him) is another fairly innocent card in a long list of recent printings to further the creature power creep. Ranger of Eos is smiling (and I am informing Elite Vanguard that he should probably look for a new job if Zoo or Green-White lists are his current employer).
  • Vapor Snare will be something to watch out for. It’s essentially a second Mind Control (unless you’re splashing it), but stealing your opponent’s best guy has proved to be entirely unfair in Limited and Singleton formats. It’s drawback might even be a boon in some decks!
  • Bestial Menace appeals to me and my token affection, but I fear it might take a back seat to the Wolfbriar. The 1/1 guy is probably only good for chump blocking, but an Eldrazi Monument or Ajani Goldmane could quickly make this card “the nuts.” Sadly, this guy also competes with about a billion other high quality 5cc spells.
  • Smother and Leatherback Baloth are just efficient. I am sure the removal will get a lot more attention than the horribly-costed (triple Green, yuck!) Baloth, but there isn’t really much insight to confer beyond the obvious (assuming I was even capable of such a thing)!

From the Commons:

  • Searing Blaze and Goblin Roughriders are most likely going to be constrained to mono Red decks (why would you play Roughriders without the goblins cards?!). The Blaze is a fine card, but it has a demanding mana cost for a small removal spell.
  • Calcite Snapper really excites me. It’s basically a puny Wall of Denial, but it has the ability to attack for a hefty amount of damage (if the situation presents itself.) Cards like this make me really miss damage on the stack! Shroud has proved to be very powerful in this format, and I doubt that the Horned Turtle upgrade will perform to the contrary.
  • Treasure Hunt makes much of Blue’s current card draw suite (Jace Beleren, Divination, and Couriers Capsule) feel like the destitute Limited cards that they are. Sure, Treasure Hunt is a crapshoot, but its expected power level looks high.

Main Decks Aren’t Everything

Worldwake offers a plethora of color-hating traps, of which Richochet Trap looks to be the star. Jund, RDW, Naya and even some of the Control decks gain a one mana spell to mess up counter—magic (and maybe more… Mind Shatter yourself?).

The non-Loam Lion cycle of creatures also looks like they belong in sideboards. If anything, Slavering Nulls and Sejiri Merfolk will be giving Control and Aggro decks, respectively, fits.

The most impressive sideboard (and maybe main deck) card is clearly Kor Firewalker. He’s good against Jund, okay against Naya and should auto-win against RDW- sick card, bro. He doesn’t get 100 percent of the spotlight time though- I fully expect Chain Reaction and Thada Adel, Acquisitor (stealing Obelisk of Alara in against Control!) to make players’ lives miserable after board.

Other Cards and Stuff

I can see myself experimenting with many of the cards above, but none of them (sans perhaps the Abyssal Persecutor) piqued my interest. I usually will wait to acquire cards like these until I feel like I need them or they seem dirt cheap.

The two tribes (Allies and Vampires) seem underpowered and understaffed. I have to admit that I will play around with both decks, but I bet they will be Casual/Tournament Practice Room decks, not 2-man/competitive decks. Kudos if you Top 8 with either- I would be happy to see your masterpiece deck list!

That’s All Fine and Dandy- So What?

Well, individual and group card evaluations don’t really convey highly useful information for Constructed formats, but in this case, we can examine what strategies are likely to be playable and/or contenders in this new era of Std Sing based on the individual cards added to the pool (phew, my nearly useless rambles are turning out to be more valuable than I thought).

The metagame for Standard Singleton has been anything but concrete ever since we got past the six plus Jund deck Top 8 era. Blue-White-Red Control, Esper, Grixis, 4-5c Greed Control, several flavors of Jund, Naya, Naya+Jund hybrids, Green-White Tokens, Red Deck Wins, and even Bant have made showings throughout the weeks. I don’t expect any of these decks to go away post-WWK, but I do expect to see the rarities appear with a high frequency.

Control decks are the big winners or Worldwake- sure, they now have manlands to deal with, but they also gain manlands to fight (and win) with! They also gain the most from Pilgrims Eye and Everflowing Chalice. The mana boost will tune up their performance and ensure their five plus mana costed spells start impacting the game state. But the most important additions to Control are (of course) spells that involve the magical Island-yielded mana! Blue cards make the Control mage’s heart beat, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Calcite Snapper and Treasure hunt will fortify an already dangerous Blue base for many decks.

Here is an example of the type of insanity that I imagine we will see:

StdSing Esper Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt format

New Jace, Elspeth and Sorin, oh my! The above Esper list is by no means perfect, but it does a great job showcasing how powerful Control decks will be: three Planeswalkers, seven large, flying creatures, twenty-seven mana sources and an overstock of card draw, counter-magic and removal. I’m anxious to see how lists like this fare against Jund, RDW and Green-White. I think the win ratio will be much higher than pre-WWK.

Speaking of Jund, I don’t think the deck gains much in terms of new and exciting cards. However, it’s mana gets a HUGE boost. Here’s a generic, greedy Jund Control list:

StdSing Jund Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt format

As you can see, this main deck only adds Worldwake cards that are lands or deal with lands. But that’s more than fine! One of the biggest hurdles for the Shard decks pre-WWK was overcoming their own shoddy manabases. While the above list is far from perfect (cascade into X spells much? And perhaps 24 lands is too little…), it is a nice example of how the StdSing format is changing- decks will be more consistent in their ability to actually cast their cards. Yay for reduction of variance!

Time of the Rainbow

If there was any common theme throughout this article, it would be: Worldwake is here to fix Standard Singleton’s mana woes! While this is will make less games decided by color screw (assuming players are playing enough lands…), we will also probably see a lot more of the 4-5c greed/goodstuff decks. Maybe the format’s meager land destruction will shine in response (Goblin Ruinblaster isn’t the only land destruction spell…). I, for one, am anxious to see what everyone does with this new mana blessing bestowed upon us.

Cheers!

ChrisKool/Kuehl

 

  2. Your wishlist pretty much fits mine for Singleton. I am especially excited about the new duals. I find it insane that you get mana fixing AND a creature in the same package.