Midrange Pt 1: My Early Magic Career

My Introduction to Midrange Through Standard

I was introduced to magic through two intro decks, one being a black vampire deck and the other being a white wheenie aggro strategy. I immediately fell in love with turning creatures sideways. I was a novice and lost many of those early games to life-linking vampires flying over my 1/1’s. My friend and I played for weeks before I worked up the courage to walk into an LGS. The next step for me was buying an event deck (slightly more competitive than intro decks) from the first Zendikar set. This one funnily enough contained a banned card I was allowed to play if the deck remained unchanged, which was Stoneforge Mystic. Round one of that evening though I met what would become the bane of my early magic career: Midrange…

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The magic wiki defines it as: A typical midrange deck has an early game plan of mana ramp and control, but begins to play threats once it reaches four to six mana. A midrange deck will often seek to play a reactive, attrition-based game against aggro decks and a more proactive, tempo-based game against control decks. Colloquially, this is referred to as "going bigger" than aggro and "getting in under" control. This is a very reasonable definition of Midrange, but it is a bit vague. The issue we encounter when discussing Midrange is just how broad and all-encompassing the archetype truly is. An easy rule of thumb is... a Midrange deck is not looking to be all-in on aggression, combo or control. It is looking to borrow elements from aggressive strategies and control shells, but plays somewhere in the middle, thus MIDrange. This makes defining cards as 'Midrange' cards a bit of a subjective matter and so readers of this Midrange discussion may disagree with certain assessments regarding the archetype and that is expected. It indicates a clear problematic element of Midrange which is to say, it is not only difficult to nail down for proper criticism and analysis, but also ubiquitous. Keep this in mind going forward.

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At that FNM it was mono-black midrange deck with things like Phyrexian Obliterator, Skithiryx and Lashwrithe that pulverized me into dust. My poor aggro creatures were no match for a pile of black good stuff backed up by removal from Zendikar and Mirrodin block. Skithiryx easily flew over my board after my opponent stabilized to deal me lethal infect in one turn. As it turns out, go for the throat is damn good at killing white idiot creatures. I stubbornly took the wrong lesson from this moment of my magic career and that was: Midrange is broken! I desperately clung to white wheenie and RDW strategies even when they were not the right meta call. Despite that I slowly become a better magic player. In my years of standard play, I saw a myriad of tough midrange decks blocking my path to tournament wins. These included… Restoration Angel blink decks with Thragtusk. Jund monsters hosting Sylvan Caryatid and Polukranos. Mono-black devotion with the likes of Thoughtseize and Pack Rat. Abzan Midrange filled with siege rhinos and hero’s downfalls. Jeskai Black with Jace Vryn’s Prodigy, Crackling Doom and treasure cruise (somehow). Explore strategies featuring Jadelight Ranger and Ravenous Chupacabra. Jeskai Vehicles flying over people with Smuggler's Copter and Gideon Ally of Zendikar. And of course, the countless energy decks with Rouge Refiner and Attune with aether. I shudder just thinking about these menaces to standard. Something happened during my time slamming red spells and burning my opponents through both good standard formats and ugly ones; I started to grow to accept the fact that I was going to have to play midrange if I wanted to spike a tournament larger than FNM.

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Let’s go back to those beautiful days of siege rhinos as far as the eye could see stomping through standard months before the card roast was even spoiled. This deck was dominant. As it turns out a 4/5 trample creature that lightning helix’s the opponent is pretty damn good. Enjoy those Lightning Strikes you idiot red player. When the best way to kill a siege rhino is to play black, you may as well sleeve up your own set of rhinos. The deck was so ubiquitous, that almost every player was rocking the deck in the top tables at the time. If you were not prepared to beat Siege Rhino, you stood zero chance. I was fed up because I had somehow made it through months of grey merchant of asphodel invalidating my red and white creatures without caving into the temptation to buy a playset of Thoughtseize. Then Wizards went and printed yet another midrange monster. At my wits end I decided, enough was enough. Burn and aggro would have their time in the sun eventually, but for now it was time to go rhino hunting. Behold, the deck that made me into the magic player I am today: MARDU MIDRANGE. Stubborn as I was, red and white were going to be in my deck. My plan was to create as many efficient plays in the deck as possible to counteract their mana ramp creatures with Stoke the Flames while also making their 1-for-1 removal less effective against tokens swarming the board. Once the late game hit, my pro-white Stormbreath Dragon would invalidate their removal and fly through Wingmate Roc. Then Butcher of the Horde plus Crackling Doom acted as a counter to Siege Rhino because life swings could be mitigated easily. Plan C was to slam powerful planeswalkers that outclassed their own. I had made the necessary concessions, I sold my soul to the midrange gods, because it meant I finally had a shot at beating siege rhino and winning my first larger event.

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This was back in late 2014 when paper magic was alive and well with things like SCG invitational qualifiers hosting some 70+ people every month in San Diego. It was the absolute dream of magic grinders because it felt like there was always something bigger than just an FNM to prove your mettle. After a tournament filled with Abzan Midrange, I arrived in the finals against that very deck. The first two games were close and I played tight, but in the end it came down to the final game. In game 3, I was able to cracking doom every single siege rhino off the board before sticking an Elspeth to close it out. On the car ride home it clicked in me, I didn’t hate midrange, I was unsatisfied with the idea that Wizards printed random good stuff that uninspired magic players could slap together in a deck with little thought beyond "yeah these cards seem good". No synergy. No theme. No last minute epiphany of cards interacting that clever brewers discovered that no one else had seen. Of course, this concept was nothing new and has existed since the beginning of Magic. They used to call Abzan midrange just “junk” because it was a bunch of trashy green, white and black cards thrown together that somehow held its own in a field of aggro, combo and control. As it turns out, putting the best cards of 3 colors together without any regard for a deeper concept can still be terrifying. Moreover, I had many years of magic ahead of me to continue to evolve my understanding of midrange. A pile of good cards... sure, but that was such a limited understanding of the strategy from someone who was biased against it.

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Is This Modern Magic?

Modern was my next step in magic. When I was younger, I couldn't afford modern cards, so I mostly watched it while I played Standard. I was captivated by the rise and fall of decks like Splinter Twin and Birthing Pod, held in check my Wizards banning them. As it turns out Modern was vastly different from Standard. Constantly in need of Wizards, Modern was characterized by the banning of cards that simply broke the format in half. Sure, I got to see Jund run the top tables eventually giving way to Abzan and other midrange piles, but I distinctly remember broken delve spells, insane dredge strategies, turn-2 Primeval Titans and of course the Eldrazi menace. When I was able to finally afford modern, the format was in a healthy place. I piloted a lot of decks before finally settling on Mardu pyromancer in 2018 (a few months before Gerry Thompson took it to the pro tour). I went on a legendary run of 24-0 in matches at local tournaments, eventually winning a store invitational. I was being carried by the undiscovered power of faithless looting. Back then we were only getting back lingering souls, but eventually Arclight Phoenix let the cat out of the bag and get us yet another Modern banning. This deck was so much fun to play in a format of linear strategies that I think it solidified my eventual love for midrange. I loved the feeling of turning that very tight corner within a format that felt so infested with decks playing peddle to the metal. I loved the idea that everyone around me was being as much of a degenerate as possible and I was simply making tokens with Young Pyromancer. It took me time to realize my perception of midrange had changed. How far I had come from the days of reluctantly jamming midrange to beat other midrange decks to now piloting it because it felt like the most fun thing to be doing. I had come from a format where midrange seemed like the villainous best thing to be doing and was now seeing it as the hero of a format which gave me actual games rather than turn 4 infect or combo kills. Additionally, my reasoning behind the deck being 'brain-dead' was way off. Linear strategies were 'brain-dead' while those of us trying to play proper magic as Richard Garfield intended were the real big-brains.

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Modern taught me why Reid Duke was always registering a Jund 75.

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There was that tiny window where Modern was absolutely lovely before shit started hitting the fan again in Modern. With the release of Modern Horizons and magic's F.I.R.E design, Modern saw more bans than ever. Linear strategies were king and the format suffered for it. cards coming in from Standard sets were even causing problems. Enough was enough. This era of magic was the first time I took an extended break. It was the perfect time too because paper magic was about to be put to the test thanks to COVID. I returned in 2022 to start playing Pioneer the latest format Wizards had announced. I immediately sleeved up the strongest midrange deck the format had to offer and felt right at home on Rakdos Midrange. The format felt like the old Modern where I had fallen in love with casting fair Faithless Lootings. Funnily enough, Modern is now in a seemly great place with midrange piles making a strong showing in large events. Regardless of how each person feels about Modern Horizons 2, good answers like Fury and Solitude have pushed the format into a more fair direction. These two developments between Pioneer and Modern got me thinking about my relationship with midrange as a strategy and the future of magic meta games. In the next article, we will discuss how Midrange is affecting the newest eternal format Pioneer.