Take a look at these numbers obtained via Gatherling’s metagame reports:

Conclusions?

White has been the most dominant color in XPDC for the past five weeks, if not longer. White weenie builds have become popular thanks to a pair of recent wins by Krosanbeast9359. Orzhov Blink is always popular because of its raw power and ease of play… and because Loot_Backwards finished Season 6 with it. Khirareq has been putting Faerie Blink on the map for a while now, and with two wins under his belt already is poised to make quite a statement. Then there are a few other staple archetypes, such as Cogs and Stripes, that make use of white.

When white dominates the metagame, lifegain dominates the metagame. Momentary Blink dominates the metagame. Journey to Nowhere and Oblivion Ring dominate the metagame. Instant-speed removal falls short against opponents who can blink their men to dodge it. Burn-out strategies fall short when the opponent has endless recurring lifegain.

In other words, red is a bad color to play when the metagame is so crowded with white.

The trouble is, decks that pack white usually have some clever way to gain massive card advantage while they are gaining tons of life. They exploit every resource to its maximum, while effectively negating your own attempts to control their board. Red has no way to disrupt the lifegain strategy, and is only now starting to get cards that provide any kind of “card advantage.” (I consider Goblin Bushwhacker and Kiln Fiend to be cards of this category, because they both have built-in +X/+0 effects which previously came on other cards.)

Black can re-use the graveyard, and blue can draw cards. One of these two colors is the beginning of the foil to white’s superiority.

As I wrote in a previous article, I believe green 3/3 monsters could be the core of an effective strategy against all the 2/2 and 2/3 ETB creatures seeing play. NecroSavant543 quipped that he couldn’t give up his Mulldrifters, but he doesn’t have to. Green-blue beatdown with counter backup (Remove Soul, Essence Scatter, others) might be a way to go.

Mostly-black control with a blue splash for counters is another option to explore. Tendrils of Corruption has a decent lifegain clause and could handle the long game.

MUTC and Steam Machine are other archetypes with a good record against ETB blink decks.

Aggro decks won’t be able to hang in a world so full of white’s lifegain and card advantage tricks. Until the skies are swept clean of Aven Riftwatcher, Kor Skyfisher, Shrieking Grotesque, and Blind Hunter, metagame solvers need to look elsewhere for effective answers to hate out the white mana hegemon.

If you have any additional ideas or thoughts on this topic, please leave a comment below.