The Holidays are a quiet time for the competitive Magic the Gathering Standard scene. There was no StarCityGames Open or Standard Grand Prix to analyze this week, so I considered skipping my column, but the world needs graphs, so I pondered what to do. Then it came to me: with 2012 coming to a close and 2013 rapidly approaching, I decided to take a look back at the Standard season to date. In today’s article I’ll analyze the metagame that started with the release of Return to Ravnica in early October. I’ve analyzed the decks that have finished in the top 16 of a major tournament and will discuss the most played archetypes, creatures, and removal cards.

Metagame Evolution

This standard season has seen several competitive decks. The following graph shows the deck archetypes with the most top 16 finishes.

The most successful decks so far have been Reanimator, which has been a contender in tournaments since rotation, and BR Dragon Zombies, which started dominating more recently. Jund Midrange was an early powerhouse, and Bant Control has been the most successful control deck.

This graph helps us understand overall success, but it doesn’t do much to chart archetype results over time. Let’s take a look at the top finishes by month of this standard season: October, November, and December.

Now we can more clearly see trends like how Jund Midrange dominated in October, dropped off in November, and all but disappeared in December. UW Flash sprung up in November as one of the top strategies but diminished in December when BR Dragon Zombies rose to prominence. Decks like Reanimator and Bant Control have consistently been top decks month after month.

Let’s take an even closer look at the ups and downs of the top six archetypes of Standard.

Many an angel, beast, and behemoth found new life this season and were unburied from their planeswalker’s graveyard. The Reanimator archetype is tied for the most top 16 finishes with 23. It’s been a very consistent deck with at least one pilot in the top 16 of every tournament save SCG Baltimore.

The necromancers of the past standard season faced stiff opposition after rotation and took a beating early. Left with little choice, they made a deal with a devil and a dragon to create a monstrosity of a deck. BR Dragon Zombies, featuring [card]Hellrider[/card] and [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card], crawled, cackled, and shrieked to the top, winning GP Charleston. The deck flew high above the metagame from there, with eight top 16 finishes at SCG Baltimore and seven at GP Nagoya.

In the beginning, Jund Midrange ruled the world of Standard. Huntsmen and beasts dominated the battlefield as socialite vampires circled overhead. The deck started out strong with two copies in the top 16 of the inaugural tournament of the season, SCG Cincinnati. Jund powered through the next three weeks with big shares of the top 16 at Providence, Indianapolis, and New Orleans before giving way to other decks in November.

Bant Control is the old faithful of this Standard season, appearing in every top 16 thus far. No revelation here: the ability to play some of the most powerful creatures, removal, and other cards in the format is a recipe for success.

UWR Tempo put a blue-based tempo strategy back on the Standard map in late October at SCG Indianapolis, stealing a pair of spots in the top 16 from creature-heavy midrange decks with the help of counterspells, burn, and Unsummon effects. UWR Tempo was also the arrival party of [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card] in competitive Standard. The deck hit a high point at SCG New Orleans, claiming four of the top 16 before passing the tempo baton to UW Flash. It might be back, however, with a couple top 16 finishes in each of the last several tournaments.

UW Flash was born when Adam Prosak dropped the red from UWR Tempo and went instant speed at SCG Seattle. The deck stayed consistent with at least two top 16 finishes in each of the next five major tournaments. It slumped for a couple weeks but has remained in the mix in December.

The Cards

Let’s move now to the most played cards of Magic’s Standard metagame. I did an analysis of the cards played in the top 16 decks of every StarCityGames Open Series so far. To give some perspective on volume, here are some quick stats:

There were 160 decks more than 10 tournaments

Those decks contained 282 unique cards, about 25% of the Standard format card pool

There were 12,010 total cards in these decks

The Creatures

Creatures have ruled Standard so far this season, and an average of 23 creature cards were played top 16 decks. Let’s check out some graphs (everybody likes graphs) to breakdown the creatures played by type, mana cost, power, and toughness.

It’s been a midrange kind of a year: 58% of creatures had a converted mana cost (CMC) of three, four, or five and a power of two or three. Fifty-nine percent had a toughness of 2 or 3. If we were to sketch out the profile of the average creature in today’s Standard metagame it would like something like this:

This is a KYT. As you can see, he has the following very mundane stats:

Creature Type: Human

Converted Mana Cost: 3.1

Power: 2.6

Toughness: 2.5

KYT may seem unplayable, but in reality he represents a tough road for aggressive decks, in part because KYT does not actually have average abilities. Nineteen of the 20 most-played creatures, in terms of number of cards, have very relevant abilities, and 13 have more than one. Ten of them have enters the battlefield abilities. So maybe KYT is a little stronger, a little tougher, and enters the battlefield carrying a Healing Salve for whomever casts him. Perhaps he is a little less powerful, a little tougher and has flying, deathtouch, and lifelink.

Time to move away from hypothetical cards and take a look at the most played creatures of this Standard season. The following graphs show the most played creatures in top 16 decks this season. The one on the left ranks them by total number of cards, and the one on the right is ranked by the percent of the total decks (160) the card appeared in.

The top of the charts should come as no surprise to anybody who follows Standard, especially if you read my column every Monday. [card]Thragtusk[/card] has appeared in nearly half (46%) of the top 16 decks and has been a staple in many of the most popular decks of the format including Jund Midrange, Naya Midrange, Reanimator, and Bant Control.

[card]Restoration Angel[/card] is right behind the beast appearing in 41% of decks. She has been a mainstay in decks like UWR Tempo, UW Flash, Reanimator, Naya Midrange, and some versions of Bant Control.

The Removal

Now we’ll talk about the tools every good player needs to deal with opposing creatures: removal spells. The following graphs summarize the removal cards played this season by mana cost, type, color, and whether they are targeted, a board sweeper, or have options for both due to overload.

Removal in Standard has been cheap (62% cost one or two mana), overwhelmingly targeted, and mostly at sorcery speed. Three cards: [card]Pillar of Flame[/card], [card]Azorius Charm[/card], and [card]Searing Spear[/card], accounted for 27% of the total removal cards played and had a big impact on these numbers. Return to Ravnica has a number of multi-colored cards, known as gold cards because of the frame color on the card, and many of them are popular removal spells like the Charms, [card]Supreme Verdict[/card], and [card]Detention Sphere[/card].

Let’s take a look at the most played removal spells. Again, the graph on the left ranks them by number of cards played and the graph on the right by the percent of total decks they appear in.

[card]Pillar of Flame[/card] is far and away the most played removal spell in Standard and is the second most played card overall, behind [card]Thragtusk[/card], in both total number of cards and percent of decks.

Closing Out the Column (and the Year)

That’s all the Standard Analysis I have for you this year. I hope you enjoyed this review and I invite your feedback. As usual, I’ll provide some bonus details on the Standard season in the comments and on Twitter (including links to some bonus graphs), so check back and follow up! I will be back on January 7 with analysis for SCG Open Columbus, but until then have a Merry Holidays and Happy New Year!

Nick Vigabool (@MrVigabool)