The StarCityGames Invitational took place in Los Angeles last weekend, and many of the best players in Magic: the Gathering battled in both Standard and Legacy. I’ll stick to the Standard side and analyze the decks and cards played by the top 16, as well as take a look at the Standard metagame.

The Top 16 Decks

The following graphic provides some high-level details on the top 16 decks of the Invitational, including deck types and colors played. I loaded the decklists into the Decked Builder app to get the average mana cost for the main deck, as well as prices in dollars and MTGO tickets for each list. The graphs provide a look at the overall strategies, archetypes, and colors used by the top 16 players.

Reid Duke won the Invitational with his Bant Control deck. The link might say “4-Color Control” but don’t be fooled, this is the Andrew Cuneo Bant Control list that splashes black to activate [card]Nephalia Drownyard[/card] as part of the “games go really long nowadays, maybe I’ll just deck you” plan.

Second place went to Ben Wienburg and his Naya Humans list. Wienburg added red to WG Humans for [card]Huntmaster of the Fells[/card] and [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card]. He played thirty-four creatures, all humans with the exception of four copies of [card]Restoration Angel[/card].

It was a good weekend to be playing a tempo deck. Flash decks accounted for five of the top 16 decks. Adam Prozak finished eighth and stuck with good old blue and white, piloting a list very similar to the one he pioneered several weeks ago at SCG St. Louis. Gerry Thompson added red to the mix in order to include effective ZombieÂ repellentÂ four [card]Pillar of Flame[/card] in his main deck and four [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card] in his sideboard.

UWR Tempo, a deck that saw a lot of play and success earlier this Standard season, has returned with two pilots in the top 16 of the Invitational. It’s less “flashy”, due to having to tap out on one’s own turn to play [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card] or [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card], but shares many of the same cards as the Flash decks.

BR Dragon Zombies, an unholy alliance between efficiently aggressive zombies and constructed playable dragons, was shut out of the top 16 after dominating Standard the last three weeks. The sole Zombies representative was a BG Zombies deck in seventh place piloted by Leon Kornacki. His deck featured fifteen one mana creatures and a curve that tops out at three. This super aggressive brew included four [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] for reach and four Rancor for raw pummeling power.

Cards of Choice

The following graphs will show you the most played creatures and removal spells in the top 16 decks. The number of copies in the main deck (blue) and sideboard (red) are displayed. The table below each graph adds additional detail: the number of top 16 decks the card appears in, as well as the average number of copies in the main and sideboard.

Welcome to the graph Izzet Staticaster! This wizard is a one woman wall in Zombie matchups. [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card] can hit the table early enough to help against an aggressive start and three toughness blocks [card]Gravecrawler[/card] and [card]Diregraf Ghoul[/card] without dying. She can tap and ping any number of [card]Gravecrawler[/card]s back to the graveyard and neither [card]Pillar of Flame[/card] nor [card]Ultimate Price[/card] can kill her.

This top 16 is all charm with [card]Azorius Charm[/card], [card]Selesnya Charm[/card], and [card]Izzet Charm[/card] making today’s graph. The Charm cycle was touted as some of the best cards in Return to Ravnica during spoiler season and the Invitational results back up the early hype. [card]Azorius Charm[/card] remains one of the most popular spells in Standard and is a fixture in blue and white tempo decks. [card]Selesnya Charm[/card] is a staple in Naya lists and is the only non-creature spell in Ben Wienburg’s Naya Humans deck. [card]Izzet Charm[/card] has found a home with 1-2 copies in the main of UWR decks.

Standard Metagame Overview

The following graphs track the deck archetypes with the most top 16 finishes at major Standard tournaments. The top graph shows results in the last month, and the bottom shows results since Return to Ravnica rotated into the format in October 2012.

Dragon riding Zombies still top the charts over the last month, despite no top 16 finishes in the Invitational. UWR decks seem to be coming on strong and the combination of [card]Pillar of Flame[/card] and [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card] is effective against the Zombie early game. Is it enough to challenge Zombie strategies in the long run? We will see when the StarCityGames Open Series resumes next year.

Closing Out the Column (and the Year)

That does it for the Standard Analysis of the SCG Invitational in Los Angeles. I’ll provide additional details on the tournament and metagame in the comments, so check back here and follow me on Twitter for more.

Nick Vigabool (@MrVigabool)