Shape of the Throne

After over a month of release time, Throne of Eldraine's Limited metagame has nearly settled.  Expect some more shake-ups after the coming Mythic Championship in Richmond, as many of the best players in the world will debut strategies that have been kept under wraps in preparation.  Since release I've heard it all; descriptions of Throne of Eldraine's relative speed or metagame ranging from incredibly fast to incredibly slow and everything in between.  Despite the huge variance in perceived speed, Throne of Eldraine is defined by slow and grindy cards, and the current metagame only represents how the playerbase is choosing to attack them.

Not Format Warping, Format Shaping

Amidst all of the speculation and opinions strongly presented, the format has some hard facts that have a huge influence on the format.  Defensive creatures are generally X/3s and X/4s, and offensive creatures generally have 2 or 3 power.  In general, a cheap defensive creature will hold a comparable cheap offensive creature at bay.  Removal spells are strong, enabling positive trades on mana and often have bonuses, such as Bake into a Pie's Food or Searing Barrage's 3 damage to the player.  Card draw is plentiful, existing at good rates on multiple commons.  Combat tricks are also strong, but weak and expensive to compensate for attached creatures, and not just strong as combat tricks.

If we can take all of the above for granted, we already know a lot about what our decks need to look like in a broad sense.  Aggressive decks can't just get invalidated by a few high-toughness blockers, meaning we should seek evasive creatures, and cheap ways to push through them such as Rimrock Knight and Outflank.  We can also attack slower decks with Brimestone Trebuchet and Tempting Witch, as they can't be blocked.  Folding to a removal spell or two is also not an option, raising the stock of Order of Midnight and Forever Young.

Defensive deckbuilding now builds off this aggressive blueprint.  We want lifegain to beat cards we can't block, and instant speed removal to beat out combat tricks that get past our high toughness blockers.  Beating evasive creatures has obvious importance now, so we'll need fliers of our own or lots of removal to stop them from getting past us.  Aggressive decks now must function in a world where opponents know and compensate for their ways of getting an edge. This is how the metagame forms, as players try to beat the strategies that are beating them, having the higher level strategy to both beat out opposing counter play while keeping intact whatever made the initial strategy functional.

The Suspects

As in any Limited format, lots of cards have an influence on how good one another are, so I'm not going to try to highlight them all, just the biggest ones.  These aren't the necessarily the strongest cards in the format, but the ones decks must be able to beat.

Merfolk Secretkeeper

The bane Arena players everywhere, Merfolk Secretkeeper is the defining defensive creature of the format, playing double duty as early defense and win condition for a cheap price.  Merfolk Secretkeeper pressures slow decks to have a way of not decking out, such as Forever Young, and faster decks to have cheap tricks to get through it, such as Barge In.

Biggest Influence on...
Rimrock Knight.  Boulder Rush is the most effective way to beat out a Merfolk Secretkeeper based strategy, as there's a huge punishment for blocking, the only thing Merfolk Secretkeeper can do.

Edgewall Innkeeper

Keeping the keeper theme intact, Edgewall Innkeeper forces decks to have removal spells.  Not effective removal spells, but actual ways to send creatures from the battlefield to the graveyard or exile.  No deck no matter how aggressive or defensive is immune to an opponent up a billion cards, putting a premium on killing this powerful uncommon.

Biggest Influence on...
Scalding Cauldron.  White, Blue, and to a lesser extent Green really struggle to actually kill something dead, and Scalding Cauldron insures that your deck has a way of not just losing to Edgewall Innkeeper.

Revenge of Ravens

Small creatures really suffer against Revenge of Ravens, such as the tokens from Improbable Alliance, and defensive creatures like Corridor Monitor or Tempting Witch suffer a similar fate.  Even 2 power creatures aren't effective facing down Revenge of Ravens, as you're effectively paying life to reduce your opponent's at a 1/1 rate.  Every deck needs some way of beating this, whether it's mill, a disenchant, or big creatures.

Biggest Influence on...
Turn into a Pumpkin.  Improbable Alliance decks generally have the toughest time beating Revenge of Ravens, so you can use Turn into a Pumpkin to kill your opponent in one swing, or bounce it to counter it later on.

In the face of a constantly functioning format speed, keep in mind the powerful cards that the format is swinging around, rather than the metagame of the day.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg