Their rise caused the midrange demise as collateral damage, so it makes sense for these two archetypes to go in opposite directions. In this case, I believe that cascade decks weren’t specifically targeting midrange decks. Up until now, I’ve considered it natural for two decks that have a polarized matchup to share the same pattern. The reason becomes clearer when you recall that ramp cascade decks happened to share the tempo decks’ ups and downs, as midrange isn’t a good archetype against Walls and Ponza. The surprising part is how they tend to do the opposite of the volatile tempo decks, instead of preying on them. Interestingly, but not shockingly, midrange decks behave more or less all in the same way. The decks that tanked during the Fall from Favor era can also be divided into three groups: Boarding Party and Annoyed Altisaur simply happened to be printed in the same set as Fall from Favor. On the other hand, I believe that the cascade decks behavior isn’t directly related to the other decks in the chart. Izzet and Mono Blue, instead, have been more reliant on cards that had to get banned ( Mystic Sanctuary and Fall from Favor).īogles and Heroic prey on Izzet Faeries and follow its path. Additionally, Dimir decks have always had access to their secondary card advantage engine ( Thorn of the Black Rose). they tend to have excellent matchups and horrible matchups instead of relatively even matchups). Why are Izzet Faeries and Mono Blue Delver more volatile than their Dimir counterparts? First of all, they have more extreme matchups (i.e. Ramp cascade decks (Walls and Green Ponza).Volatile tempo decks (Izzet Faeries and Mono Blue Delver).Here, we can distinguish three couples of decks. This chart shows the decks that grew popular during the Fall from Favor era.

Mtg modern meta spreadsheet