Hey Planeswalkers!
Welcome to this week’s Friday Night Meta update! The goal is to equip you faster with information in a fast evolving game, and to get you the right information to help you make the decisions you need to make! This is intended to be a comprehensive view with a lens from Magic the Gathering Arena with impacts from the MTG gaming scene.
This week we did have some interesting movements in the Meta, and next week we begin to look forward to what unfolds with Strixhaven. Looking forward to some fresh new takes and decks as always! Please feel free to comment, ask questions, or share your thoughts!
You can check out the weekly coverage here:
Last Week’s Episode
Last Week’s Piece
March Tier Lists:
Week Highlights
I wanted to add in some additional color for other key items that you may find interesting. I have two fun things this week. The first is a shout out to Dafore, an extremely powerful limited player with an incredible magic story. I did a collaboration video with him where we break down his brand, meta, and spend a healthy chunk of time on drafting strategies. You can check it out here, and just a heartfelt thank you!
The other fun point for this past week was a highlight in BO1 around Mono Black Enchantments. This deck was piloted, and hit a number one spot. You can find some additional info on that particular deck here if you are interested!
Recap
The Kaldheim Champion’s Dimir Rogues deck produced a surge, and meta shift towards the game winning Rogues Deck. Along with Rogues we see Mono Red keeping pace, and a rise in Gruul Food readily impacting the BO3 landscape.
BO1’s pressure system is slightly different, we did see Rogues making more gainshare along with Mono Black Auras continuing to break into the space both in win rates & archetype played percent. Mono White Lifegain continued to be under some pressure.
BO1
Certainly some natural progression and leveling out in the BO1 space this week. There are a few key points in this week’s note to dive into. First is the rise of mono white lifegain again, this is a healthy check in the meta against aggro decks like mono red. Additionally, on the flip side we see rogues backing off a bit in the space.
The next rise in decks is one that has a story for the week. That deck is the naya adventures archetype surging back into the meta. You can read more on this later. This is probably the biggest change up this week in the BO1 space. The last note is really around getting through about 10 days of the season which also runs pretty heavy aggro focused usually for those trying to zoom to #1.
BO3
This week in BO3 there really are three key items. The first is the tight knit race between Sultai Ultimatum and Mono Red Snow aggro. It’s a very close race across the board, and when we drill into the more competitive top end of the tiers, red is emerging again as a clear winner.
The next piece is the recession of dimir rogues. The Arne effect is starting to wear off, as we move further away from the Kaldheim Championship. The last part here is the flip side of the Championship effect and rather the newer impact effect from this past weekend’s events I cover below. These events have led to a rapid rise in Naya Adventures. This is they big upshot this week we will watch going into next week.
How To – Jegantha Naya Adventures
This week we talk about how to take down Naya adventures as one of the competitive decks in both BO1 & BO3. This deck has received a healthy boost coming out of the past weekend’s events. This will be covered a tad later on the event impacts.
The best counter to this deck is our last week champs deck Dimir Rogues. You can find an example here. This version of Naya also struggles against cycling decks, and other late game decks. They are still pretty close line ups similar to what we see with Temur Turns.
Event Impacts
There were certainly a slew of events this week from SCG, Big Magic, and Insight. All three certainly show a top end with a consistent theme. That theme was solidified with our feature deck Jegantha Naya Adventures. This is the new flavor of Naya rounding us out to another flavor, and one that is top of the deck pile at the moment.
Naya showed well in the top 10 across all three events. Not all Jegantha, however it is starting to break more into the meta as is discussed in this week’s episode.
What’s Next
We will be right on the edge of Strixhaven next week, and at the beginning of the intersection of much change. There may still be some last minute impacts to the Kaldheim ecosystem from a few lingering tournaments.
I look forward next week to closing out a nice balanced set, and gear up for the ever fast approaching transition we will all begin to navigate.
Feel free to join us in ongoing real-time discussion or to hang out on the discord server.
Sources
I leverage multiple sources like untapped.ggs companion app stats, MTGAzone, Aetherhub, twitter, personal gameplay, tournament matches (mtg melee, magic.gg), this reddit as well as others, personal stats, and consistently hitting Mythic and Mythic Qualifiers.
One last thought I would like to share:
If you have a competitive deck (different than one featured) I am always happy to do a piece on it time permitting. I have several folks that ask, and have done several player featured decks. I rather enjoy this so please don’t hesitate to reach out or ask. I always try to prioritize with the following and timing or relevance – MTGA Rank (1500s)/Top Tournaments down to Plat2Mythic Decks.
One other piece, I have recently started doing collaboration videos. If you are interested please let me know, and I would love to partner!
I wholeheartedly welcome any feedback on how to meet your needs as well as improving your experience! Additionally, for the near term my focus will be on Standard, and I hope to organically add in Historic in the future.
Thank you for your time, and hope you enjoyed this week’s piece!