Well, there's also Unmoored Ego. If Sultai is reliant on winning via Krasis, Unmoored Ego can single-handedly win the game, even if playing it is card disadvantage. Unmoored Ego isn't that narrow either, being a reasonable sideboard card against Nexus decks.
I grant that Krasis is a big deal though. Answering it isn't easy. Hostage Taker is a clean answer, but the cast trigger is huge, and it can be recurred.
Lol, just as I was thinking that I'll play Wilderness Reclamation this season (since Esper midrange is clearly not T1), they go ahead and ban Nexus of Fate in BO1. Hah. At least I'm not much of a fan of BO1.
EDIT: Ouch, I watched a Nexus of Fate video and boy does that deck look miserable to play. Constant manual pauses, non-stop floating mana, etc ... sheesh. I get that it's strong, but it's also soooo miserable to play.
EDIT #2: Maybe I'll just play multiple decks. I already have most of monoblue. Then I can play Wilderness Reclamation as well when I'm feeling spikey, and try to tune something more to my tastes when I'm not. I still kind of want to play with Trostani & March of the Multitudes. Adding a third color is probably mandatory at this point, but why not, the deck has tons of lifegain and can handle it, and there's afterlife as well to help beat sweepers.
I was staring at some excess mythic wc a couple days ago and wishing they were rares. Ended up crafting 4 Nexus since I had the rest of simic nexus covered - the easiest alternative would be a couple history of benalia and a resplendant or two, but I'm a fair amount of of rare wildcards away from those actually being useful and I already need rares for other decks.
Seems like the metagame isn't as settled as I thought, with two archetypes that weren't very well known in the top 8. Having said that, I'm kind of short on motivation to play right now. I just log on, jam some BO1 games with monoblue without really caring if I win or lose, and then log off once I have 4-5 wins for dailies. A losing streak in the hour before reset (lol ...) made me miss reaching 4 wins for daily ever since I started playing Arena. I haven't crafted the Nexus deck either, even though I've been meaning to, because I don't see myself wanting to play it.
Considering that Standard is the healthiest it's been for a while, this is quite surprising to me.
This might sound really dumb but one of the main things I don't like about Arena is no AI.. In Arena, as soon as an opponent fears they're going to lose, they concede and the game is over. In Duels, I could actually let my combo finish and play out the rest of the game.
This leads to a race to the bottom get your 4 or 15 wins and done.
It’s diverse for sure, but the top decks are no fun... the rakdos pile seems interesting, the whirler combo must be fun to pull, I have been having decent results with Gruul but Sultai its just too good IMO, I’m still learning the tricks here and there while trying to optimize the pile... the mana bases are not an easy task... coz jamming every dual land is not optimal, but overall sultai is the deck to beat.
Mono red is also resurrecting and Esper is loosing ground.
I wish we could make Mardu crats or Esper midrange a T1 deck, those decks are very fun.
If I evaluate your play style correctly I think you should try Esper midrange, that deck is fun and quite competitive IME.
I think I've played against that Radkos midrange. It's pretty nasty. Unless I'm thinking of something different, seems more aggro to me.
Nevermind, that is not the deck I was thinking of.
I think one of the draws for nexus of gates is that it's a lot more flexible than bant nexus in some ways. Like you can side out of nexus/wilderness reclamation completely in game 2 if you want and go for gatebreaker rams and colossus aggro plan and the rest of the deck works just fine with that. If your opponent is taking out their removal and bringing in duress/ego/etc then it's real nice for you, and if they know about your sideboard and go half and half or something then it's still good.
I've not played the deck so I can't really say how effective that is, but it seems pretty good at least - ram into ram/colossus into krasis sounds like a beating if they've cut removal.
You can do the creature sideboard plan with "normal" Nexus though: cards like Hydroid Krasis, Gatebreaker Ram and Biogenic Ooze are all quite common in Nexus sideboards.
What's in the Bant Nexus deck that's worth it compared to straight Simic? Simic has been, AFAIK, the best performing Nexus variant.
Yea I like simic (though that's probably because I've built it seeing as I had all the cards apart from nexus) and the sideboard is fun. I think the bant version has more tools, a bit more well rounded I guess, and can play a very controlling game if needed - basically Teferi is one hell of a card. Simic seems a bit more singleminded, though I really love that I can bring in the Immortal Sun out of the sideboard, and is super weak to thief to the point that my sideboard has 3 sagittar's volley in it where bant can bring in deputy of detention which is a much more flexible and powerful card. I think bant is also better placed against aggro with 4 revitalise and 4 deploy.
I think simic is better against control decks maybe (not played the new version of bant so might be talking crap here), I don't think I've lost a match to esper control as simic. Krasis and Frilled Mystic dodging negate is pretty strong, well krasis is just strong vs control in general.
I crafted the Simic deck and was immediately impressed. More on that in the Constructed subforum.
@divinevert: Omniscience? What deck are you running?
I just hit an elfball deck, and I didn't find a decklist, so I googled and found a youtube vid - deck seems funny, but naturally loses to sweepers.
However, since it runs mirror march, there is some coin-flipping involved. heads/tails is 50%, so there will be streaks of mirror march doing f-all and then there will be the times where it just surprises you.
Could there be a spot for such a deck in the current meta? or will it simply fold to control?
What a hilarious deck. Looks like a total blast to play. Hella memes.
I don't see it being better than T3. Idk how it beats control (scooping to sweepers), and Serious players don't want to be at the mercy of coin flips - but I imagine it'd be fine on the Bo1 ladder. Not sure how it holds up to Chainwhirlers, but it looked fine vs WW and Sultai Midrange in that vid. Looked great vs creature decks, but I doubt it'd look so hot vs control.
Wouldn't be just control: Gates Ablaze, Nexus, well-timed removal, etc, should all beat that. It might beat monoblue though, especially on the play.
Yeah, gates ablaze is a sweeper and it's clear sweepers wreck this strategy. I'd have to see it vs Nexus. Fogs don't stop a fireball to the face, so really depends on the build, I think. I wouldn't be too worried about spot removal - it doesn't have any one creature that's essential, so not worse than any go-wide strategy in that regard. Enchantment removal kills the memes, but in general it doesn't seem more susceptible to well timed removal than any other creature heavy deck.
I don't think it'd contend as a Serious deck, but it looks like a fun deck that's good enough to play on the ladder and not lose to everything. That's why I'm thinking T3. Able to beat some higher tier decks, but not enough of them to break into their plane.
Esper's metagame share sure seems to have crashed. Also, surprisingly no Gates deck.
Nexus... Bant, Sultai or Simic?
URGB Combo Control. It's a weird one.