This past weekend gave us the first chance to take a close look at what the Battle for Zendikar standard will look like, with the first SCG challengers grinding to solve the format quickly.

Now, traditionally, week one of standard is dominated by the red deck wins style of strategy, with the red deck trying to capitalise on all of the other players trying fun or unproven decks in a brand-new meta. So, no points for guessing which deck took down the first tournament of the format:

1st Place at StarCityGames.com Standard Open on 10/3/2015

Brian Demars – Atarka Red

Creatures (17)                                                                                                         Spells (22)

4 Abbot of Keral Keep                                                                                            4 Atarka’s Command

2 Lightning Berserker                                                                                            3 Become Immense

1 Makindi Sliderunner                                                                                           3 Temur Battle Rage

4 Monastery Swiftspear                                                                                        4 Titan’s Strength

2 Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh                                                                                  4 Wild Slash

4 Zurgo Bellstriker                                                                                                 4 Dragon Fodder

Lands (21)                                                                                                                Sideboard

1 Forest                                                                                                                   4 Hangarback Walker

8 Mountain                                                                                                             2 Goblin Heelcutter

4 Bloodstained Mire                                                                                              2 Thunderbreak Regent

2 Cinder Glade                                                                                                       2 Fiery Impulse

2 Windswept Heath                                                                                               3 Arc Lightning

4 Wooded Foothills                                                                                               2 Roast 

The general consensus in the build-up to the weekend were that four and five colour decks would be the best decks to be playing week one. This is because they would be the decks that allowed you to play powerful gold cards such as Mantis Rider, Siege Rhino and Bring to Light, which  win through their sheer power and card quality, but Brian Demars had other plans.

Whilst mono-red ended up winning the finals, there were only 3 other red decks in the Top 64, with only 6 making it to day two. The biggest share of the metagame went to Abzan Aggro with 24 copies followed by Jeskai and Esper Dragons with 9 and 7 copies respectively.

I don’t think we can read too much in to the week one metagame, especially with a Standard Pro Tour less than two weeks away. However if you’re planning on attending a Standard event before then you’ll need to be prepared to beat the decks listed above, or you could join them, I’ll be back later this week with a couple of decks that I’ll be considering ahead of a Standard PPTQ this weekend.

As always I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with the format this past weekend and any predictions that you’d like to make ahead of the Pro Tour. All I know is that, given his price-spike over the weekend, I want to find the best way to beat the Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy decks. Catch ya later!