Now that the Amonkhet cards that will be in Duels have been announced, what do you think the meta will look like? Did any of the existing decks get a boost? Will a new deck emerge as being viable?

What do y'all think?

My garbage speculation, more detailed in the upcoming podcast.

- Control decks of varying types get a huge boost in consistency.
- PW are no longer the "safe bet" they used to be.
- Vehicles will still be tier 1.
- Zombies will take work, but there's a build waiting to be busted.

I need to figure out an optimal vehicle aggro build to handle the upcoming Control meyhem before I lose my mind

I think Naya Warriors will be the new go-to Midrange deck. I also think it will have some showing in the next Pro Tour.

It has a very "sliver-eqse" feel to it as these new creatures grant +1/+0, haste, trample in addition to the existing indestructibility, +1/+1, and vigilance from previous sets in those colors. Also, just being about to turn on Rhonas easier is great!

Other than that, Ramp got a new mana dork, token decks got new toys, Zombies will be a bit more prevalent on ladder, and control decks now have a consistent counter in Essence Scatter.

Humans got the biggest boost. They'll be a contender again, imo (not that they really stopped being one)

Midrange also got a lot of help, as did Aggro - seriously folks, we got a lot of new tools in mono red.

I think sweepers will be relevant again.

Ramp could be interesting, especially GUX, but I still have some doubts as it has no (great) removal unless you dilute it to 3 colors.

Control got some new tools, but I still think it's outclassed by other options.

Edit: fling!

We didn't get as much of the hate as I expected we would, so I assume Vehicles will still maintain a good place within the meta.

Control got a good amount of tools and I feel we will see at least a moderate uptake in the amount of Control decks we see around the meta.

Ramp (Simic/Gruul/Temur) got some good tools and will start seeing more play. Not sure if it will be as good as some think it will, but it could definitely have legs.

Zombies will be a thing that shows up everywhere on the ladder. I honestly don't see it overtaking the other dominant builds in the meta, but I feel like at least one or two builds will emerge that are good (not top tier, but still good).

Naya (and to a lesser extent Jund) aren't getting talked about nearly as much as many of the other hype machines of the season, but if we can work out the land for it then it could show up with some serious force.

Tutelage/Fog are getting some great tools as well as some other stuff that merits testing. Doubt it will become any more popular among the meta, but it is worth keeping an eye on.

PWs will maintain their current place of showing up all over the place. Yes we got more effective PW removal, but we also got more playable PWs (which we continue to get more and more of with each set). Going full on Superfriends may not be the obvious answer anymore because of better removal, but in the same token we have more good PWs to be running than ever. Not really sure to be honest.

Still early, but I've seen plenty enough cards to boost control.
Cycle itself as a mechanic can guarantee some degree of usefullness Vs many different shells, so packing the spells always gives some value to the player.

Therefore:

- Ux Control boring the opponent to death
- Rx Fling slow bleed chipping HP onto a full face burst against a tapped opponent
- Old boring Mardu with ol' stuff

I'm still considering Mardu zombies just for the full array of tools and Zombie Natunko onto Fling, but I won't go 3 colors for humans.

I'm on team Naya Humans, btw. That seems like a brutal deck, just waiting to be built. No idea if the mana is good enough, but the curve is ridiculous. It's a midrange deck, but it's a very good midrange deck.

I'm excited to see what can be done with +1/+1 tokens & -1/-1 tokens, at this point I don't know the meta well enough to make a prediction though.

Anyone think mono-white zombies could be a thing?

I can't bring myself to believe it.
Lord, Nantuko for some crats shenanigans, PW and spells related to it are in black. Embalm on its own can't support the zombies enough.

Vehicles look like they'll still be a very safe bet. Since the set missed out on most Naturalize effects the deck lost very little; it gained very little as well, though (maybe one of the Human 2-drops is interesting).

Humans (especially Boros) definitely have gotten some buffs in Glory-Bound Initiate, Samut, Harsh Mentor and Honored Crop-Captain. The buffs to green are Exemplar of Strength and Ahn-Crop Champion, both of which are fine but not exciting.
Whether Humans will stay Boros or splash Green for Samut and maybe Heron's Grace Champion is an interesting and non-trivial question; but it definitely is an aggressive deck to watch out for.

Another deck that got huge buffs is Madness/discard, which might be the fastest deck for next season. It remains to be seen whether the mono-red or the Rakdos version proves more consistent.

If there is a Ramp deck next season, chances are it will be at least Simic, maybe running a third colour. I'm not sure the deck is good enough to hold its own, but I'd like to be proven wrong here.

Orzhov gained some very nice tools for token decks; whether we'll see Orzhombies or other general token shells I'm not sure about. Regarding Zombies btw: I'm not convinced Orzhov is the shell to go over Dimir.

Control decks gained a bunch of new tools and it remains to be seen which ones should be included. Currently it looks like Jeskai and Esper will be the more reliable iterations.

Superfriends will continue to be rather bad. It didn't get too many new toys (Liliana and Nissa being the notable ones) and very little notable improvements otherwise. The deck could try to go for a more pro-active gameplay in Bant, but it will still have its share of problems with both Aggro and Control, which seem to remain the dominant archetypes.

It remains to be seen whether other archetypes emerge (Simic Beatdown) or resurface (Izzet Mill).

There is a card nobody has really hyped much, but it looks kind of nasty:
throne of the god pharaoh
There's a deck waiting to be made right there. Plenty of Artifact tutors, Vehicles to tap stuff at will... The card is 2cc, so its easily cast. Maybe in a token shell or Dimir/rakdos artifacts or even with the Grid...

Btw InfiniThopters can go 3 color now (although that is the jankiest jank can be )

Anyway, Vehicles boros/mardu will still be around (if people aren't just sick to death of it...)

Gruul looks good to me, without really needing to go naya, especially if it goes less mid-rangy.

Tokens boros/orzhov/whatever looks like it has potential. Valor decks, with or without Anointed Procession.

I'm gonna be testing various interations of mono-red, got some ideas a cookin'.

Even mono-black mid-range looks like it can work.

Lots of people are gonna try they're heart out to make-control-great-again, we'll see. Control hasn't been up to snuff this Last season imo, but there are some new toys to play with. But control players seem to have a hard time deciding which cards to run without their precious sideboards... Can't really say what version of control will be best, because its not really my thing, but probably something with blue...

Sorcery speed removal will regain some popularity.

There will be a zombie plague.

Humans will still be around, mono/boros/selesnya/naya.

Ramp will probably become popular again, at least to begin with, especially + whatever...

Rakdos still looks really strong and I for one am gonna try to make it work, aggro, hellbent and mid-range versions.

So there's my 5 cents worth...

There might be a Vizier of Tumbling Sands combo deck!

Duels' card list is strong enough now that the best tournament decks won't be the strongest decks, just the ones that beat the strongest decks.

Right. I have been working on my list based on everything posted in constructed subforum. My deck can consistently 2:0 anything there in page 1.

Seems many are forgetting that vehicle decks gained an additonal giddeon and an indestructable god pilot plus flinging caravans and dreadnoughts if they choose to go that route. Still king of the hill until pushed off and i hope we find a way.

i think humans and madness decks will be contenders. We will see a token reurgance as well and i think that should be fun. Maybe control decks improve but there are so many types of threats without sideboarding its going to be tuff handling all possibilities. If they gear up with sweepers for the zombie horde vehicles.dec will benefit. More instant removal for the cars and they will probably run out of answers to go wide.

should be interesting.

congrats on your deck taking down untuned idea decks posted before the season starts.

It's gonna be a Creeping Mold meta

I'm a hypocrite, but I love playing Esper control and can't wait to see how I can make it work vs the meta. But dear god I hate playing against Esper control. Especially Esper control mirror matches. I just auto quite on turn three or as soon as I figure out it's an Esper control mirror.

whenever I play control and see the opponent drops turn 3 liliana I ask myself what I am doing here?
I hate this kind of auto-loss.
and I hate aggro mirror where luck plays huge factor.

Basically, I need a deck that answers T3 liliana T4 Gideon chain, and also answers T1 Toolcraft, T2 copter T3 motorist + fiery temper. Otherwise I can't feel comfortable playing it. - ok, it has to handle opponent's one counter spell per every turn from T3, it has to answer gaea's revenge turn 4.

luckily one deck exists that meets all the above.