End of Q2 Meta Analysis
This new installment is exactly what it seems, I am going to dive into the top and bottom decks of our meta. I will do a top 4 and bottom 4, each with a deck to watch for / honorable mention. The top 4 I had a cutoff of 8 games to have enough data, and the bottom 4 does not have a true cutoff for data. I weight the number of games pretty heavy into the placement as well for the top decks. Lets dive into this now.
Top Decks in the Meta
#4 – Walls | 5-3 record | 62.5% win rate
I am the owner of this deck, and truly I still not can come to grips with it being in the top of the meta. It was the first EDH deck I ever built (interest sparred from a Merchant Brawl video a couple years ago). Truly I believe this is a great deck to have as a first commander, but that is a topic for another article that will come in the future. At heart it is a battle cruiser with card draw stuffed in the command zone. It has low cost high “power” beaters. Where it shines is the one sided board wipes it hold. It hold 4 wipes that are normally one sided; Dusk, Fell the Mighty, Slaughter the Strong, Wave of Reckoning. Being able to one sided wipe and then beat down with big fatties is an easy way to close the game in a turn or two. Evasion baked in like Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive and Levitation helps make the rolling walls untouchable. This deck is a blast to pilot with a pretty nice toolbox of items to answer issues on the board, and additionally can be put together on a low budget.
#3 – Alela | 5-4 record | 55.56% win rate
This deck was not in the league very long, but while it was it made it’s presence very very well known. This monstrosity was put together by Keegan, and has become his baby. I truly believe that out of all of the decks in the league, this one has had the highest level of raw power, enough so that I wrote an article about it. Alela triggering her tokens off of the casting of artifacts and enchantments is beyond broken, but the real power comes from Keegan’s build he made. This is a stax deck that has a hidden subtheme of artifact/enchantment toolbox. His plethora of tutors help hit the necessary toolbox items when needed, and they in turn help feed his win condition… that is baked into his commander. I will not dive any deeper, look at the article if you want more. But if this deck makes a comeback into rotation I will pick it every single time I roll a natural 20.
#2 – Kaalia | 5-5 record | 50% win rate
Seeing Kaalia at #2 may be a surprise, it has the worse win rate so far, but it has the most games. And that holds weight to me, and on this I could be wrong. But hitting 10 games we have more data than the others, and this deck speaks for itself. It is highly targeted when it is put out, but has still had enough power to push through and kick ass. I believe Sean one game cast her 6 times from the zone and once from hand. She is hands down the most targeted commander in our league.
What puts her above Alela for me outside of data is that she has little to no protection. Alela has a toolbox of enchantments and artifacts that keep her protected from an onslaught of attackers. Kaalia does not have these in the same numbers, it relies on Kaalia staying out and portaling bangers. Which is a very tall order.
I am not going to dive into pieces in this list due to just about every creature in the deck could get a mention. Tutors help enable the right creatures are gotten at the right times, and lands like Maze of Ith allow Kaalia to attack into a contested airspace and trigger but she stays protected. She will be leaving on next rotation, but if she shows up again it will be a force to be reckoned with.
Honorable Mention: Obuun | 5-1 | 83.33% win rate
This Obuun build is from Sean and is a true power house. Due it only showing up 6 times I cannot toss it into the rankings, but it has the same number of wins as #2-4. This deck is a fantastic build of landfall aggro, and showed up in a couple week stint that it dominated through. It has a good mana base and ramp support in spells like Kodama’s Reach, Harrow, and Roiling Regrowth. Landfall enablers like Exploration, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, and Rite’s of Flourishing help facilitate Obuun’s ability while ramping out to closing spells. It has a fantastic suite of additional landfall payoffs in Phylath, World Sculptor, Avenger of Zendikar, and Omnath, Locus of Rage just to name a few.
Overall this deck is a house and only missed the top 4 due to the lack of data it currently has. It is a top deck in our meta easily, and the scary part is that it still has room to grow. I would love to see all of the possible fetch lands in there, as well as a swapping a couple of the ramp spells out for a bit lower cmc ones that drop untapped lands to keep the spells coming. I would also like to see a Craterhoof Behemoth and End-Raze Forerunners added in; with a Natural Order, Finale of Devastation, and Green Sun Zenith package to get them at will to close a game.
These are just my personal biases, and as the data shows, this deck does not truly need them(scoreboard). But I wanted to properly showcase Obuun because he has been sleeping for a while and when he wakes up I hope I get him every game.
#1 – The Locust God | 6-2 record | 75% win rate
Our current top deck in the meta, as well as the deck with the most wins, is none other than the Locust God. This is another creation by Sean (who holds the current record for the most winning decks at 53.49% deck winrate). This deck has been an evolving creation of Sean, one that I remember telling him many times to build since he had such a good kitchen table build of it before we started playing commander. The God is a true representation of Sean’s playstyle as well: I just want to draw.
The deck runs a thin 30 land mana base, but is supported by a good number of rocks to aide in the ramp and pseudo land drops. The main win condition is in the command zone (which I love), but has other options such as Psychic Corrosion to mill everyone out, and Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind to burn the table out. The draw is well supported by many cantrips, but key pieces are Howling Mine, Teferi’s Puzzle Box, and Rhystic Study (why do we never pay the 1???). He also has Narset, Parter of Veils in the 99 as a way to lock out the table with puzzlebox, a cruel move but one I absolutely love. The deck’s true bangers come in the form of a Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Consecrated Sphinx, Expropriate, and Temporal Mastery (fuck I love miracles, so on flavor with Locust God as well).
This deck I believe has such a high win rate due to the fact that it silently snowballs. We all know that Locust God is a brutal engine to fight, but before he makes an appearance not much seems to be happening on his board. Normally there is an enchantment or two and couple mana rocks, but no standing threat. This allows the player to setup a turn where The God can make an appearance and have counter magic protection. It truly makes my heart happy that a spell slinger deck is atop our meta at the end of the second quarter.
Bottom Decks of our Meta
#4 – Rhys | 2-7 record | 22.22% win rate
Gauging why a deck is at the bottom of a meta is a tough thing to do. Rhys on paper is very powerful, but he has had a major set of issues that keep recurring for seemingly unknown reasons. The one major issue of the deck was that it had only 21 lands in it. Keegan has been harassed for a while about his decks never having lands, but this is a prime example. It is a low curve deck and is an elf deck, so creature mana is rarely an issue. But the largest difference between a 60 card elf deck and an EDH one is the lack of playsets and number of board wipes present at the table. Not having playset of Llanowar Elves, Arbor Elf, and Fyndhorn Elves makes a low land count hurt a lot more. Additionally, having 3 opponents with often a handful of sweepers at 4-6 mana makes it tough to keep the mana dorks around for as long as they are needed, and amplifies the low land count.
There has been whispers of a Rhys rebuild on the streets, which I personally look forward to greatly. Outside of the mana, this deck is Keegan’s best colors to build with, and a tribe that is very well known to him. The deck also lacked any token doublers, which is just purely to it not getting the attention it needs. If this deck makes another appearance in league with a rebuild I believe that it will be a force to be reckoned with.
#3 – Kodama | 0-5 | 0% win rate
Kodama is a mono green partner build that Alex put together because he both loved mono green and needed 5 decks for the league. This deck is composed of all big green spells, many of which were from Alex’s collection and pieces he bought from Deal Me In to build the deck. It currently has a Birthing Pod package, and is stuffed to the gills with big etb creatures.
After the Q2 cup I held pre departure council, as is tradition, to smoke and talk about the night and decks. Truly I believe that this deck is just not great for our meta, and will see a departure in the coming cycle. It relies on dropping 2 creatures and emptying the hand. But this leads to a severe loss if there is a sweeper. It had good ramp and the creatures are viable, though not the best. It relies too much on being uninterrupted, and would benefit from an Eldrazi Monument like effect. But to be entirely honest, I just do not like the deck that much. It is repetitive to play and sort of a one trick pony. I think that Kodama is much better in the 99 and that there is other much more fun mono green builds Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma, and Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar.
Truly, I am glad that I am finally able to wave goodbye to this deck. It has underperformed and been a stale deck, one that is not a bummer to get but also not an exciting one. It is the vanilla ice cream of our meta. You never choose it when you go to an ice cream shop, but you are moderately happy when you find a tub in the back of your freezer.
#2 – Lathril | 0-8 record | 0% win rate
If Lathril is Harry Potter, then Ryan is Vernon Dunsley. This is a commander that has become known as the “the lesser elf deck”, which in hindsight says a lot since Rhys was at #4 on this list. Not to roast Ryan too hard, but this deck is bad not because of anything but his neglect to the list. From the bottom of my heart, I do not think this is an 0-8 commander. And although tied in record with #1, it truly does not reflect the power of the commander.
Black and green is an odd combo of mana for the deck, but has had a small bit of legacy support and much more in recent times. This deck has the colors to make lots of tokens for Lathril’s main payoff. It is not a full upgraded precon, which off the rip gives it a lower power level. The current list Ryan has posted has it 39 lands, which is far too high for a deck like this. As well as not a single upgraded dual and 5 taplands. It is missing big token generators like Doubling Season and Parallel Lives to help payoff Lathril. The creature package is lackluster currently, with it lacking the needed suite of elf lords and bangers that will help enable and pay off the commander.
Being Golgari colors yeah, fuck you Witherbloom there is a very cool path of options this deck could take. It could be an elf token deck with a subtheme or either reanimator or graveyard matters. It could be a golgari “midrange” deck with a focus on control and grindy win conditions while keeping the elf hordes as blockers. That is just two options for the deck, but I know there is a multitude more.
To end my love letter to Lathril, Ryan please look to upgrading this list. You have a unique and fantastic elf commander that has is open to it being just about any kind of deck you would want. Put some time into her and I believe the dividends will be apparent on the next meta analysis.
Honorable Mention: Marisi | 0-3 | 0% win rate
Although Marisi has only seen 3 games, it has yet to post a result. The honorable mention was tough to pick for the bottom due to the nature of the format producing 3x the number of losers than winners. She has not been part of the meta for very long, so I cannot give loads of insight into her. Additionally, she has been seen in 2HD where she is essentially negated, which needs to be noted for this.
I think that this deck is actually very good and has just had bad fortune given to it. Alex fucked himself with the weird goad lock that he forced and ended up getting himself killed. I just thought it needed the mention because I want to see this deck stay post rotation and give it some time to breathe and show it’s strengths.
#1 – Zombies | 0-8 | 0% win rate
Fuckin’ zombies man. This is a deck that I created and own, and it was my first foray into my true love, black. Although it put up the same record as as Lathril, I know undeniably that this is the worst deck in the meta. Lathril has just been neglected under the cupboards, but this deck was shown the care and love that Dudley Dursley had.
The original commander was Gisa and Geralf, but later they went into the 99 and Wihelt, the Rotcleaver took over the reigns. I spoke at lengths with Keegan about upgrading this deck to be a competitor, I spent hours looking at other lists as well as zombies and support I may have been lacking. I upgraded the manabase to be as consistent and abundant as it could be. But it did not matter in the slightest. This deck was just not going to succeed.
Let us start with the original commander. Gisa and Geralf milling 4 ended up being dogshit. “Lottery” decks in commander are inherently severely inconsistent. Often times you hit nothing but non-zombie permanents and lands. So I tried cutting all the fat and adding more zombies. Then Sean hit back to back 4 land mills. Just fuck me. The deck was slow and attrition based, but playing spells to ramp or control in the 99 was counter productive to what the commander wanted due to a % increase in a miss. In a casual sense, this deck is a blast. But in a competitive league, it is just not viable.
Post upgrades and swap with Wilhelt at the helm I thought that there would be more success, but that was all false hope. I did not add enough sac outlets due to myself making Korvold at the time and it would have just been Korvold LiteTM. Also Teysa was next on the slot and a sac based deck. So maybe I set Wilhelt up to fail, but I still do not think it would get there. His power just did not match snowball commanders like The Locust God. It just was not a viable option for the meta.
So I replaced him with Korvold and went took a page out of Donnie’s book from The Wolf of Wallstreet and went into the country side and opened the door and said “You’re free now!” You know? Like, “Run free!”
