#caw-blade

By now I'm sure you saw or heard about the SCG Boston Standard Open results: 7/8 Caw-Blade in the top 8.  It was a lame day full of boring mirror matches wherein the player who landed the first turn two Stoneforge Mystic almost always (other variance aside) won the game.  This is often how late standard seasons go: there is a best deck, everyone plays it at competitive events and you can get hip or go home.  Everything people have tried to beat the birds excepting RDW has proved too inconsistent.

So why not just play RDW?  Well, because now there are Kor Firewalkers to deal with.  And in the future, you may also have to deal with Sword of War and Peace AND Batterskull, depending on the meta.  Meaning, it gets worse for RDW who, in my estimation, does not get any new tools anywhere on the level.  Dismember shows up for taking apart Firewalkers, but the cost is not insignificant and it's not a reliable trump to the new equipments.

In short, I think things are as narrow as they seem.  Your deck cannot try to 1-for-1 the Caw deck and expect to win.  Your deck cannot rely on damaging a life total and expect to win.  Your deck most likely cannot play the long game as well.  Your deck cannot rely on early Planeswalkers, either, due to Spell Pierce and the fact that Despise will be run against the Birds.

On Infect

Without seeing what's in M12 and given the arrival of Batterskull and Sword of War and Peace, I think the best positioned strategy to compete with Caw-Blade may be Infect.  The reason being that it can play the short and long game (Skithiryx, Contagion Clasp, Inkmoth Nexus) pretty well and does not have to be concerned with life gain.  Let's look at some templates:

Mono-Green - we're all familiar with this strategy.  It gains Glistener Elf and Mutagenic Growth.  It basically tries to connect with a few Infect dorks and then plays a bunch of pump spells.  It is more resistant to burn than to removal like Doom Blade.  It gets some reach from Putrefax, Inkmoth Nexus and Contagion Clasp.  It's not too concerned with Oust, but does not like Condemn (requires Vines of Vastwood), Gideon Jura and Tumble Magnet too much.  It may be able to compete if it main-decks Viridian Corrupter and Glistener Elf and relies less on Plague Myr.

Mono-Black - this one attempts to beat the Caw largely through discard, Phyrexian Crusader, Skithiryx and Clasp.  Very similar to UB (below), but without any counter-magic and with more threats.  I think it's another option, given the resurgence in Tectonic Edge.

RB - usually based on Assault Strobe and/or Tainted Strike, this is another all-in deck which tries to quickly kill using only the cards in hand.  In general, given Spell Pierce, Condemn, etc., I feel like unless Mental Misstep helps enough, this deck is worse than Mono-Green simply because it does not have as much redundancy in its strategy and does not have Vines of Vastwood.  Depending on the strategy (Kiln Fiend or Immolating Souleater), it may be stuck in the position of having to fall back on trying to kill via normal damage if the key creatures do not naturally have Infect.

UB - I've played this deck to some success as has Brian Kibler.  It has the unfortunate tension of having a Jace problem and not having enough room to fit in Jaces without going too low on threats.  This strategy benefits chiefly from Despise and potentially Tezzeret's Gambit, but could potentially benefit from Mental Misstep more than its opponent since it only runs Preordain at one-drop, typically, but dislikes Oust, Condemn, Spell Pierce and crew.

GB - This would effectively be a Putrefax/Skithiryx hybrid deck, meaning that currently it has bad mana.  However, it benefits from having both pump spells and removal as well as discard and some proliferate options.  I think this is probably weaker than mono options simply because of no enemy dual mana option.

Of all these strategies, for reasons at which I hinted above, I think you want to be in mono-B/G or UB.  The Caw can easily punish bad mana-bases and easily stop cold the all-in strategies with no reach.  But, I'll be honest.  I think it's pretty grim for now.  Stoneforge Mystic is simply the best play in the format right now, the mana base is pretty reliable, the deck has un-matched card advantage, nothing really punishes it successfully/reliably and there's an equipment option for basically everything.  Your best bet is probably to master the Caw mirror and just try to draw/mulligan really well and win a lot of die rolls.

There's also a possibility that some kind of MBC build will develop, probably based on Despise, Inquisition, Geth's Verdict (good against the turn 2 Mystic with Feast and Famine), Gitaxian Probe, Obliterator, Grave Titan and so forth (Mimic Vat?).  I don't know this archetype very well, so I'll leave it to others to sort that one out.

Conclusion

Did you see the #mtg Grand Prix in Dallas/Fort Worth?  If you watched live coverage, you noticed that a vast majority of all matches featured a Caw-Blade deck and there were many Caw-Blade mirrors.  The top 8 featured an even split of two decks:  Caw-Blade and RUG.  RUG is commonly believed to trump Caw-Blade, but it still lost in the finals and the matches did not seem overly close.  Caw-Blade is plain dominant.

Here's why beating Caw-Blade is so hard:

If you get hit on turn 4 by a Sword of Feast and Famine, you pretty much lose the game.  You are down at least two cards (the Sword was free + you had to discard) and they will counter or Oust/etc. your answers for a few turns, stick a Jace and do you in.

If that doesn't happen then you still have to beat Caw-Go, which was a perfectly formidable control deck, for the rest of the game with the threat of the Sword always looming in the background.

Bottom line, if you are considering a deck which cannot reliably stop that initial Sword swing, consider a different deck.  I would actually say that most people are going about this wrong.  You can't rely on a 3-drop like Tumble Magnet to stave off the first crucial hit because it is too easy to Spell Pierce and only fast enough on the play.  It's still a good card as it's excellent in the mid-game, but it's definitely not a trump for early Swording.  Manic Vandal is even worse, early on.  It's not instant speed, so they get to hit you with the sword, untap and counter the Vandal.  Even if you nab a Sword, you're playing a vanilla 2/2 that destroyed a card they got for free.  You did Squire them, but that's probably not going to be enough.  Burning out their dorks with Searing Blaze to also get damage in and getting card advantage through Mortarpod are probably just better. 

Duress/Inquisition is a good play, obviously.  You have a rough choice, though.  If you open with Duress/Inquisition and take Stoneforge, they still have their equipment in deck and can access it very easily later.  If you Squire them, you effectively got two-for-one'd since the card you made them discard was free.  And you really want to be using your discard to win the Jace war.  As we saw in Dallas/Fort Worth, Wafo-Tapa just didn't have a discard in his opening hand (and chose to draw) against Caw-Blade and therefore just flat out lost.

So, let's take a look at all the factors that make for a good, reliable trump to the turn 2 Stoneforge Mystic on the play or on the draw:

Not black, green or blue in roughly that order (or, when NPH comes out possibly not Red or White either).

Less than 3 converted mana cost.

Handles a 3 power ground or flying creature with upwards of two toughness.

Bonus - Can't be Spell Pierced.

Bonus - Stops Celestial Colonnade.

Bonus - Stops Goblin Guide, Vengevine, and other common anti-Caw strategies.

Bonus - Cheap to replay if bounced?

I think these are all the essential ingredients for a successful strategy against Caw-Blade right now.  I looked around and this is what I found:

A cheap, colorless, re-usable blocker that can hold down Mytics, Hawks and Colonnades, given access to a green mana.  It also hits quite a few of our bonus points above, although admittedly I stacked those in favor of the wall since I thought about all this before I started writing.  Take that, fourth wall!  The Defender keyword also means that it can't be forced to attack by Gideon Jura.

TL;DR Summary

If you get hit early on with a Stoneforge Mystic equipped with Sword of Feast and Famine, the game is probably over.

Many of the current strategies for dealing with this game plan are too conditional or too optimistic to be reliable.

Wall of Tanglecord seems like a good option.

Even if you don't like that option, re-think how you plan to beat the Caw deck.

Your win percentage in the Caw mirror is heavily, heavily, heavily influenced by the die roll.  More so than I have seen with most control mirrors in some time.  That reduces, although it doesn't eliminate the impact of skill on the game and so if you want an unadulterated edge and consider yourself a good player then I recommend trying to brew right about now.

Eating My Own Dog Food?

I'm not.  Muahahaha.  This Friday, I will be playing Legacy (with pauper sidegames) at FNM.  Hopefully sanctioned, but if not then unsanctioned in preparation for a weekend tournament that some team members are attending.  I will be sitting out the tournament to attend a wine tasting with my hot wife and her interesting friends.  But I will post results from the Legacy action over the weekend for sure.

Playing some #mtg in DC this weekend? Playing UB Control in the new meta? Maybe you're comfortable with that deck. You don't have Gideons or Mystics. Whatever reason, you're going to be that guy. Here's my advice: be the one with the

Here's Why

I was going to call this section "What, you say?" again, but the whole move zig thing probably should be left for dead.

What is the #1 contender going in to this weekend? Caw-Go. The one with the Swords. You know, that one. Everyone will be playing that deck or have a plan for that deck. It dominated Paris and it seems like a strict upgrade over the prior version which, for the record, was no slouch. Before I got tired of bumming Gideons, I went on a massive cash-winning hot streak with that deck. It could win any match and had a lot of sideboard space.

People looking to metagame against what is possibly going to be a Faeries or Jund-like metagame loaded with Caw-Go^ may be looking to the good old Vengevine. Vengevine is pretty good at demanding blocks, and sometimes you'll get him bin'd for free thanks to Sword of Feast and Famine. He goes well with the type of decks that can play Viridian Zealot and/or Acidic Slime around Spell Pierce for value, doesn't mind Day of Judgment much and has always been reasonably good at off'ing Jace.

So I expect to see him show up. Which is why you want to be the one with the Trinket Mage. Because that means you're also the one with

and

and to a lesser extent, the rolling life gain anti-aggro combination of Speedbump Mage and Elixir of Reset Goblin Guide Advantage. Elixir also means that you can afford to use your Go for the Throat and Doom Blade plays early on Vengevines and still count on them later in the game for bigger threats. Plus, you have Black Sun's Zenith too, which hangs around for later in a convenient fashion. What's more, in a pinch you can always speedbump a Mystic with a Trinket Mage and then optionally pitch a tutored Chalice that you don't need to play to offset the Sword advantage for a few turns while you try to power out a Wurmcoil Engine or Precursor Golem or whatever your heart desires.

I'm Not Saying

This is a better option than playing Caw-Go and just mixing in some Condemn/Journey action. I'm just saying that if you're going to be the one with UB, you might want to be the one with the Trinket Mages. Also, keep in mind that sometimes it's more fun to Inquisition on turn 1, leave the Mystic, take the Squadron Hawk, let the Mystic resolve, then Inquisition again to take the tutored Sword. Ow. Try it. It works well against Johnny Wagner!