VML Season 13 Week 3 Metagame Update

Welcome back to your weekly VML stats deep dive! We have one more week until we start seeing Duskmourn cards in VML, so I’m hoping that the extra week of brewing brings new and exciting things to Standard! In the meantime, let’s see how our players did last week.

Last Week’s Results

Golgari Analyst, a lands-based combo deck, was the winningest deck last week, with all 3 players winning their matches. It’s followed by Rakdos Lizards, whose 4 players achieved a 75% win rate.

Orzhov Midrange has topped last week’s battle for the title of “best Bx midrange deck”, with a 70% win rate across 10 players. Golgari Midrange just barely holds onto a positive win rate with 52.9% across 21 players, while Dimir Midrange’s 12 players earned a 50% win rate.

Domain Ramp and Gruul Prowess, two of the more popular decks last week, both had under a 50% win rate.

Top Decks vs Top 3

Each week, I list the deck archetypes that have been the most successful against last week’s popular decks in VML. The suggested counterpicks are based only on data from VML season 13. As the season goes on and we get more data, this segment will get more accurate.

Golgari Midrange

Overall Win Rate: 59.8%

Counterpicks: Jeskai Convoke (60% win rate vs Golgari Midrange, 5 matches)

White-based midrange decks (Mono-White and Orzhov) also have positive win rates, though with 2 or fewer matches each, I didn’t feel comfortable declaring definitively which one is a good counterpick.

Domain Ramp

Overall Win Rate: 56.5%

Counterpicks: Golgari Midrange (53.3% win rate vs Domain Ramp, 5 matches)

I would also recommend some flavor of Azorius (Control, Aggro, and Tempo all have positive win rates). Like with my recommendations for the Golgari Midrange matchup, each of these archetypes has 2 or fewer wins against Domain Ramp overall.

Dimir Midrange

Overall Win Rate: 55.6%

Counterpicks: Like above, there is not enough data to confidently state a counterpick. Rakdos Lizards and Domain Ramp, with 2 matches each, both have an 83.3% win rate vs Dimir Midrange. Rakdos Aggro, Simic Cookies, Boros Midrange, and Mono-White Token Control have also all won their single matches vs Dimir Midrange.

Week 3

I love how the last week of a Standard format brings out all the weird brews. This week, 32 players (over a quarter of those in season 13) are playing 26 unique archetypes as a last hurrah for the Bloomburrow meta.

Golgari Midrange finishes the pre-Duskmourn meta at the top, with 25 players and a 20.5% metashare this week. Distantly following it are Gruul Prowess (with 13 players and 10.7% metashare) and Dimir Midrange (with 12 players and 9.8% metashare).

No other deck this week managed to hit double digits of players. In fact, Domain Ramp (9 players, 7.4% metashare) and Orzhov Midrange (7 players, 5.7% metashare) are the only other decks that have more than 5 players total!

Spice Corner

You all made it really, really difficult to pick Spice Corner decks this week! Each week, I showcase some of the most unique decks in the VML meta (defined as “there is only one person playing this deck” and, as much as possible, showing brews from different players). This week’s most unique decks include GSCNow’s Izzet Combo, Maria Tagi-Zade’s Sultai Reanimator, and Cora Stobie’s Orzhov Discard.

GSCNow’s “Season Of Missed Triggers” is a combo deck that aims to fill its graveyard with noncreature spells through rummage and loot effects, then cast Capricious Hellraiser Capricious Hellraiser to combo off. The one turn kill is to cast Season of Weaving Season of Weaving , copy Hellraiser a bunch, then swing for lethal after sacrificing a Bitter Reunion Bitter Reunion . The deck has plenty of ways to stay in the game until that point, with Chandra, Hope's Beacon Chandra, Hope's Beacon and Ill-Timed Explosion Ill-Timed Explosion to keep the board clear and dig deeper into the deck for combo pieces.

Maria’s “Sultai Reanimator” is, like the name implies, a graveyard deck that hopes to cheat its big threats Lumra, Bellow of the Woods Lumra, Bellow of the Woods and Atraxa, Grand Unifier Atraxa, Grand Unifier out as fast as possible. This deck takes advantage of self-mill effects to fill its graveyard with permanents, then uses Squirming Emergence Squirming Emergence to bring those threats out onto the battlefield. Wail of the Forgotten Wail of the Forgotten is a flexible card, offering removal, hand hate, or self-mill, and it only gets better as Maria’s graveyard grows.

Cora’s “Spooky Scary Skeletons” is a Fae Blade deck, using the power of Nurturing Pixie to repeatedly make use of the deck’s powerful ETB effects, such as the archetype’s namesake Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher Tithing Blade Consuming Sepulcher
. With plenty of cheap permanents, it’s easy to get Rottenmouth Viper Rottenmouth Viper out early to start building up counters, forcing faer opponent to discard and sacrifice more and more. Rottenmouth’s sacrifice cost also solves Case of the Stashed Skeleton Case of the Stashed Skeleton , letting Cora fetch anything fae need.

Full and up-to-date weekly stats can be found here. This season, all my stats articles will be posted the day after decklists are released, due to my schedule this semester making Tuesdays hellish.