Glorybringer finally gets a chance to live up to its glorious destiny with Aetherworks Marvel's departure. It went from being a fringe sideboard card to 20-25% of the online meta and one of the scariest threats in the format. It turns out that when you don’t get punished for tapping out by Ulamog, Glorybringer is the next best thing. Most notably, Gideon and Chandra get held somewhat in check by the threat of a flying Dragon coming down and eating them for free. While not as oppressive as the Jace test of old, creatures that can survive a blast from Glorybringer get a bump now.

Who didn’t see this one coming? Constrictor was one of the scariest turn-2 plays even when Marvel was legal, and everyone being forced to play fair makes the Snake that much stronger. G/B Delirium and Energy both run this as a 4-of and I would expect to be playing against it for the foreseeable future. Fatal Push is in such high demand in no small part because of the 2/3 stats of the Snake.

While Harnessed Lightning has this edged out in raw numbers, I’d say Fatal Push is the most played removal spell in the format among the best decks. All early indications point toward this format being full of decks that can snowball an early edge into an easy victory. Having the ability to deal with Winding Constrictor, Toolcraft Exemplar, Longtusk Cub, and Cryptbreaker on the draw is a big deal. Right now nearly every top deck has black in it for access to Push.

Zombies was the biggest winner in the metagame from the Marvel banning. Cryptbreaker is the best card in the deck and a big reason why other decks are having problems keeping up with it. Pretty much every deck with a valid 1-drop like Cryptbreaker, Thraben Inspector, etc. all get a boost in this meta. About half the viable decks take turn 1 off to play tapped lands, Attune with Aether, or just have no turn-1 plays. Between this and Fatal Push, the Zombies player can fully utilize their mana even on the draw.

I’ve actually seen less Gideon now than even when Marvel was the best deck in the format, probably because it's debatable whether Mardu has any outright positive matchups anymore. Meanwhile, both Zombies and Temur Energy shrug off Gideon quite well, even with Heart of Kiran doing its best offensive lineman impression. Still, Gideon is one of the few cards that must be dealt with quickly or he takes over the game. Time will tell whether Mardu Vehicles is his only home.

Chandra was initially compared to Gideon when first revealed. While she’s had a presence, she never quite reached her lofty expectations. With Marvel gone, that’s begun to change. She grinds out a game nearly as well as Gideon and can immediately remove a threat, which is valuable with so many decks being creature-based. While Chandra has many of the same issues that face Gideon, Temur Energy tends to have an easier time protecting her. Expect her popularity to only grow.

This card took a bit of a tumble from the pre-Marvel meta. The crew requirements are getting harder to fill without making sacrifices. While Heart certainly gets better now that people aren’t willing to maindeck quad Dissenter’s Deliverance, there’s still enough Fatal Push and artifact destruction being played that it frequently needs to be boarded out. It’ll be interesting to see if Gideon and HOK rise or fall over the next couple of weeks.

Quite the curveball, eh? A WW deck built around Oketra’s Monument, Bygone Bishop, and efficient utility white creatures sprung up and has been doing reasonably well in the Leagues. Time will tell if it’s anything more than a flash in the pan, but for now it’s one of the more interesting and scary decks around. Having played on both sides of it, Monument can get completely out of control. Few decks have good answers to a flood of 1/1 vigilant attackers, especially when backed by Avacyn, or they could be fed to Westvale Abbey in a pinch.