Sultai Midrange Is A Beatdown Deck

“How's your Jund matchup?”

It's June 2010. Bloodbraid Elf is still legal in Standard despite literally nothing stopping Jund Cascade since October. Rise of the Eldrazi brought some new hope to the format. My friends were convinced through extensive testing that Simic Polymorph-Emrakul, Naya Vengevine, and Mono-Red Aggro all beat Jund. Bant Mythic, a Noble Hierarch and mythic rare threats deck, was another supposed bad matchup.

Three ten game sets later, I went 7-3 or better against all three rogue decks. I went 3-0, 6-0 against Bant Mythic at the Grand Prix.

This wasn't luck, I was playing the matchups in a different way than most Jund people and my opponents couldn't win.

So here we are in 2019. People are saying stupid stuff like “Sultai is 45% against everything”. And here I am winning 75% of my matches with Sultai.

Oh boy are they all doing it wrong.

Let's break down the old example, examine the past, and see the present in that light.

Simic Polymorph aimed to beat Jund with positioning. Cheap counterspell, single creature, and then there's an unbeatable Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.

Mono-Red Aggro beat Jund via speed and inevitability. Get Jund low on life, keep throwing four damage spells at them.

Naya Vengevine won via recursion. Removal on Vengevine was largely ineffective, and eventually it would grind out the ultimate attrition deck.

Bant Mythic won via a large number of must answer, often hard to kill threats. Planeswalkers, Knight of the Reliquary that immediately held up protection via Sejiri Steppe, and trying to do all of this fast.

Meet Putrid Leech, breaker of spirits, an old school wrecker of plans.

If Simic Polymorph just kept taking four damage, they didn't have time to wait for protection. Or maybe they went off and still died because Emrakul had to wait a turn to attack.

If Mono-Red Aggro just had less draw steps, less turns to unearth a Hell's Thunder, they died.

If Naya Vengevine started needing to chump block, Jund's removal on Vengevine mattered as it ensured other things died.

Bant Mythic’s planeswalkers could die in combat. They could die if you got a bit ahead and snipped their mana by Bolting the Bird.

It wasn’t even just Putrid Leech. Bloodbraid Elf, Lightning Bolt, and Blightning were all great ways to apply quick pressure to your opponent’s life total. They all were good cards at blocking and trading off for threats, but they also killed opponents.

Just because all your cards provide card advantage doesn't mean you have to win by running them out of cards.

“If they are trying to do almost any strategy, of of the best counters is to just go fucking kill him” - Day9 (Sean Plott)

Sultai Midrange today has the same role to play. Merfolk Branchwalker and Jadelight Ranger are really messed up. Every other deck has to pay mana to fix their early draws with a spell. Sultai Midrange gets to do that and put significant power on the battlefield. Other decks have proactive two drops and three drops, but Merfolk Branchwalker and Jadelight Ranger match them on sizing while still putting you up cards or selection.

If your opponent starts bending their deck to be controlling, then your attrition tools come online. If your two-for-one attackers start drawing answers, your opponents will run out of cards due to things like Hydroid Krasis.

Your Izzet Phoenix opponent is trying to pull off some Arclight Phoenix recursion, Crackling Drake, maybe Niv Mizzet or Ral Zarek plans. Just kill them with a 4/3 Jadelight Ranger.

Your Mono-Blue Tempo opponents are trying to assemble these weird protected contraptions of fliers and what not. Just hit them with Wildgrowth Walker and they die.

For some reason the term aggro-control and the idea of changing your role got prescribed to blue decks with Delver of Secrets, but every green midrange deck has all the tools the enact the same role-selection game plan.

If your opponent lets you trade all of your cards for theirs, you don’t have to be the aggro deck. You can bury them in card advantage. But that line has largely been cannibalized out of the format because Sultai Midrange is so good at it, with a few hold outs from Azorius Aggro, Gruul Aggro, Mono-Red Aggro, really anything that says it’s aggro or other creature-based midrange decks.

Sultai's strength is being able to attack opponents who don’t trade for your cards because they are trying to do some wonky stuff to avoid it, then to punish them with raw card advantage if they try to become the control to your aggro. Your removal is utility aimed at the most pressing threats they have that let them outclass your baseline two-for-one bodies.

The pattern is the same as it was in the days of Putrid Leech. If you play Sultai Midrange as an attrition-control deck, that’s when it’s a 45% deck. When you play it as a proactive deck with punishing anti-interaction attrition tools and a good answer set, that’s how you win 75% of your matches.

Fundamental Caveats, aka making fun of Boros Angels: 

-The midrange-beatdown plan specifically works as a window exploit where you have long game to back your optional early game. If your "midrange" deck is just casting non-value fours and fives, your opponent can effectively become the control deck and your deck is only good if your entire threat package is an exploit to the answers of the format, aka if no one has Vraska's Contempt for your Rekindling Phoenix and Adanto Vanguard.

-The midrange-beatdown plan really requires your early drops to be able to play offense and defense. Otherwise your Adanto Vanguard deck might have to play against a different Adanto Vanguard deck that hits you harder while you draw two mana do nothing creatures.

-The midrange-beatdown plan needs to be a relevant clock for the format. Jadelight Ranger is right now. Knight of Grace without your own black permanents to pump it really isn't.