It’s safe to say that Magic: The Gathering’s Standard format is in a bit of a rough spot right now. Vivi Cauldron is dominating to an absurd degree, to the point where many players are calling for an emergency ban just one month after the last major ban wave. It’s not a great time for deck diversity, needless to say, but there are some glimmers of hope.
Players are continuing to experiment with new brews in the hope that one can finally dethrone Vivi Cauldron. One of these decks is Abzan Midrange, which made top eight in Monday’s MTG Online Standard Challenge.
While that title sounds innocuous, this is actually a pretty wild list. It combines elements from several different archetypes, adopting a real ‘kitchen sink’ approach to deck design. If there’s a problem, chances are this deck can solve it. This huge flexibility does come at the cost of consistency, but it also makes for a deck that theoretically has a chance in any matchup.
Abzan Midrange Returns to Standard
The Abzan Midrange deck in question comes via MTG player MikeEgan, and it’s one of the only examples of the archetype in Standard right now.
In some ways, you can view this deck as Golgari Midrange with a splash of white. It runs a full playset of Llanowar Elves, the only four-of in the deck, which gets things going early. It also plays a bunch of Golgari classics like Preacher of the Schism, Sentinel of the Nameless City, and Maelstrom Pulse. On top of that, it also plays the well-established Demon package. You’ve got Unholy Annex/Ritual Chamber here as a card advantage engine, and Demon Wall to power it up early.
In most decks, this would make up the entire strategy. You’d curve out early, generate advantage with Annex, and grind your opponent out. In Abzan Midrange, however, it’s just the beginning. White lets the deck play two of the best recent Standard creatures, Voice of Victory and Clarion Conqueror. These add a bit of a stax element, letting you play out your turns without worrying about opposing interaction. Conqueror does shut down some of your own plays, but more importantly, it deals with both Vivi and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron at once, which is huge right now.
Cards like this aren’t typical inclusions in Midrange, but they are well-chosen for the current metagame. Both are also reasonably aggressive, which lets you switch up your game plan when needed. Flexibility is the name of the game with Abzan Midrange, after all.
Jack Of All Trades
This flexibility becomes especially evident when you look at how many one-ofs MikeEgan is packing here. You’ve got Harvester of Misery as a board wipe or cheap removal, Scavenging Ooze as graveyard hate, and Aclazotz as a hand attack finisher. These creatures are all great answers in different situations. Only playing one of each is rough, but you can tutor them up via Analyze the Pollen, another of the deck’s one-ofs.
While it sounds fairly traditional so far, MikeEgan is playing a good number of Edge of Eternities cards here, too. Ouroboroid comes in as a three-of, giving you a solid scaling threat in games where you’re the aggressor. The intriguing Elegy Acolyte is another one-slot wonder, giving you an extra draw engine alongside Unholy Annex. It also helps you build a wide board over time, which is excellent with Ouroboroid.
The other Edge of Eternities additions here are Seam Rip and Tragic Trajectory: two excellent one-mana removal spells. They support a solid removal suite that includes Shoot the Sheriff, Get Lost, and Bitter Triumph. As with the rest of Abzan Midrange, the quantities here are lower than usual, but it still has a lot of answers to creatures.
Throw in a lone Qarsi Revenant as a decent proactive three-drop, and that’s all she wrote on MikeEgan’s Abzan Midrange. It’s a truly intriguing list, with some choices that are especially bold in the current metagame. Spreading out and playing a wider array of one-ofs, rather than a more refined list, is definitely a risk. In MikeEgan’s case, that risk has somewhat paid off. A top-eight finish in a Standard Challenge is impressive, but a 3-3 record overall means there’s definitely more work to be done here.
Master Of None
If Abzan Midrange is going to continue to grow in MTG Standard, the biggest hurdle it needs to overcome is inconsistency. Running a ton of one-ofs gives you a wide suite of answers, but also makes it pretty unlikely that you ever draw any of them.
Consistency is important in general, but particularly so right now. As mentioned above, Vivi Cauldron is absolutely crushing Standard currently. This is a very consistent deck, and one that can pull off its plan even with Vivi in the graveyard. Leaving things up to chance against Cauldron is a bad move, especially when established strategies like Dimir Midrange are failing to beat it even with refined lists.
Abzan Midrange has some great answers to Vivi Cauldron, like Clarion Conqueror and Scavenging Ooze, but it barely runs any copies of them. Upping the numbers on these cards could work in the short term, but that would likely weaken the deck against the rest of the field.
An alternative fix for Abzan Midrange would be to simply run more copies of Analyze the Pollen. It’s not hard for this to be a one-mana creature tutor, which greatly improves the deck’s toolbox potential. Case of the Stashed Skeleton is another good option for an on-color tutor effect. Running cards like these lets the deck maintain its signature scattered nature, while upping its consistency.
As of right now, even with changes like the above, I don’t think Abzan Midrange is destined for the big time. The idea of an answer-everything deck like this is intriguing, but until Standard stops being a one-deck format, it’ll likely remain an interesting experiment and little else.
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