VML Season 13 Week 5 Metagame Update

Regrettably, I don’t have time to write a blurb this week, so we’re going to immediately dive into some numbers!

Last Week’s Results

Last week’s most successful deck was Boros Prowess, the enchantments-based offshoot of red prowess decks, with 4 players having a 100% win rate.

Domain Ramp’s shiny new toys have propelled it to success, with an 84.6% win rate across its 15 players. The new Overlords are certainly cards to watch out for!

Mono-White Token Control and Dimir Midrange also ended last week with positive win rates. Mono-White’s 5 players earned a 60% win rate, while Dimir’s 11 players earned a 55.6% win rate.

Two of last week’s most popular decks, Gruul Prowess and Golgari Midrange, found themselves with tough matches. Gruul’s 19 players earned a 42.9% win rate, with many people finding the Leyline combo a little harder to pilot than it first seems. Golgari’s 14 players achieved only a 35.7% 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. (Note: Duskmourn may throw off the matchups; I’ll still do cumulative results for this segment, but in the post-season wrap-up I’ll note any big difference between pre- and post-Duskmourn.)

Gruul Prowess

Overall Win Rate: 52.6%

Counterpicks: Dimir Midrange (91.7% game win rate vs Gruul Prowess, 4 matches), Orzhov Midrange (88.9% win rate, 3 matches), Mono-White Token Control (77.8% win rate, 3 matches), Golgari Midrange (53.3% win rate, 5 matches)

Domain Ramp

Overall Win Rate: 60%

Counterpicks: Azorius Control (55.6% game win rate vs Domain Ramp, 3 matches), Azorius Tempo (55.6% game win rate, 3 matches)

It seems that the many flavors of Azorius tend to do well against Domain, as Azorius Tokens and Azorius Aggro have also each won a match vs Domain.

Golgari Midrange

Overall Win Rate: 50.7%

Counterpicks: Jeskai Convoke (70.8% game win rate vs Golgari Midrange, 8 matches), Dimir Midrange (60.6% win rate, 11 matches), Domain Ramp (60.6% win rate, 11 matches)

Week 5

We’re continuing the theme of experimentation with Duskmourn cards this week. Though not as popular as it was last week, Gruul Prowess has held onto the top spot in terms of popularity with 14 players and a 12.5% metashare.

Three decks tie for second this week: Mono-White Token Control, Domain Ramp, and Azorius Tempo with 10 players and a 8.9% metashare each. Tokens has been well-positioned as one of the better control decks in the meta, and the new addition of Enduring Innocence Enduring Innocence in some builds has increased the consistency of the card draw in that deck. Domain, as I mentioned last week, has lots of new tools with the various Overlords from Duskmourn (who knew that creating an everything-typed land for 3 mana was good?). Azorius Tempo is on the rise with the powerful Abhorrent Oculus Abhorrent Oculus replacing Monastery Mentor as the best reanimation target in many builds.

Dimir Midrange has knocked Golgari Midrange out of the top 5 decks this week, having 9 players and an 8% metashare compared to Golgari’s 8 players and 7.1% metashare.

Spice Corner

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 Bryndis T’s 5-Color Doors, janMelantu’s Mono-Red Punisher, and Winnie’s Simic Ramp.

Bryndis’s “Doors to space and other universes.” is a door-main enchantments deck focused on the new enchantment subtype, Rooms. Marina Vendrell Marina Vendrell fills the hand with enchantments and cheats the various room cards open (or re-locks them for additional value with the “when you unlock this door” effects on some of them, like Roaring Furnace // Steaming Sauna Roaring Furnace Steaming Sauna
). There are some fun and funky effects on the room cards, including an alternate win condition in Central Elevator // Promising Stairs Central Elevator Promising Stairs
, rewarding Bryndis for unlocking 8 different Rooms (a relatively easy feat when there are 8 different cards among the 12 Room cards in the deck!).

janMelantu’s “Kink belongs at Pride” is a Mono-Red burn and tax deck aimed at punishing their opponent for taking normal game actions like drawing cards (Razorkin Needlehead Razorkin Needlehead ) and playing nonbasic lands (Furnace Punisher Furnace Punisher ). Screaming Nemesis Screaming Nemesis can prevent lifegain –a good call given that their opponent this week is on Boros Token Control– and they have plenty of ways to deal damage through attacking (and saving their creatures from dying to blockers with Norin, Swift Survivalist Norin, Swift Survivalist ) and burn (Pyrotechnic Performer Pyrotechnic Performer is a spicy choice).

Winnie’s “orzhov midrange” is a Simic beans deck aimed at getting valued off casting Tolarian Terror Tolarian Terror and Eddymurk Crab Eddymurk Crab while Up the Beanstalk Up the Beanstalk is out on the field. The deck runs plenty of self-mill and card draw to fill the graveyard, and it can remove tough creatures even before it gets a Terror or Crab out thanks to Monstrous Emergence Monstrous Emergence . This Town Ain't Big Enough This Town Ain't Big Enough also lets them protect their own creatures (and get more beans value) while removing threats on their opponent’s side of the field.

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.