Pro Tour San Diego Standard

Top Decks from Pro Tour San-Diego: http://wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptsd10/topstddecks

Deck lists from Top 8: http://wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptsd10/top8decks

Luis-Scott Vargas made crazy path, but he was stopped by the best deck of the current format.

Gongratilations to Simon Görtzen, who beat Kyle Boggemes in Jund Finals.

Worlds 2009. Results

Jund. jund? jund! 35 % of decks were jund decks. Unbelieavable card advantage made choise of many players from many countries. But there were also another type of decks. So what we have - metagame breakdown:

Archetype	Count
Jund*	143
Boros Bushwhacker	62
Junk	38
Bant *	33
Eldrazi Green	31
Naya *	13
Dredge	11
4cControl *	11
Green-White Aggro	8
White-Blue-Red Control	8
Monored	6
White Weenie	6
Pyromancer Ascension	5
Vampires	4
Ranger Zoo	4
Esper Control	3
Grixis Control	3
White-Blue Aggro	3
Blue-White Control	3
Red-Green Valakut	3
Monowhite Control	3
White-Red Control	2
Turbo Fog	2
Owling Mine	1
RGB Accel	1
Time Sieve	1
Black-White-Red Aggro	1
Total	409

As expected jund, boros and eldrazi green were the most popular decks at Worlds 2009.
Top 8 constist of 3 junds, 2 naya decks, bant, boros and monowhite tokens. Top 8 decks you can find at Wizards of the Coast offical coverage page.
Top 8 player's profiles - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/worlds09/top8playerprofiles.

Top standard decks: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/worlds09/topstandarddecks. Here you can find Vampires 6-0. Many Jund variants, some rogue decks from great players - Joel Calafell with UW "Fog" deck and Conly Woods with 8 ultimatum GBR deck.

And, of course, Congratulation to André Coimbra, who beat Jund in Finals with NayaAntiJund. Congratulations!
You can download quarterfinals, team finals and world final video! Semifinals will be soon.

Top Extended decks - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/worlds09/topextended.

Enjoy! And play magic ;)

California Regionals Standard Report

by TheInferno

This year regionals was held at a venue called Great Escape Games. My girlfriend and I arrive at the scene with neither of us having slept in the last thirty hours. ( No we aren't tweakers we just had a lot to do the night before.) My girl and I immediately get in an argument when we find that mapquest skipped a step when explaining where this place was. Great Escape is conveniently located BEHIND an Old Navy store. When I say behind, I literally mean we pulled into the shopping center drove around all of the stores a few times and then drove into the back of the shopping center where old navy's loading dock was before spotting it. I'm guessing it's called great escape because if your are running from a store that you have stolen something from, this is where you go.
Anyways...

I meet up with all of the other Reno players in the parking lot (Shyft, Jon Stocks, Nick, Brad, and St). I was hoping that one of them would have Mutavaults handy but it's then that a playset of Mutavaults is more expensive than a barrel of oil. The only man with mutavaults in the whole tournament let me borrow them for $40 and $100 in collateral!!!! I have to agree to this seeing as how my deck is garbage without them. I register this deck with one minute to spare and zero hours of testing under my belt...

UW Merfolk
Main Deck		Sideboard
4 Lord of Atlantis 4 Merrow Rejeerey 4 Cursecatcher 2 Tideshaper Mystic 4 Silvergill Adept 4 Sower of Temptation 2 Sygg River Guide 4 Stonybrook Banneret 4 Mana Tithe	4 Sages Dousing 2 Cryptic Command 2 Mystic Gate 4 Wanderwine Hub 4 Adarkar Wastes 4 Mutavault 7 Snow-Covered Island 1 Snow-Covered Plains	1 Venser, Shaper Savant 4 Burrenton Forge-Tender 3 Flashfreeze 4 Sunlance 3 Stone Cloaker

Round 1: Josh ( Faeries) Josh is on the play game 1
Game 1: Josh leads out with turn two Bitterblossom which I'm not very afraid of with two Lord of Atlantis in my hand staring back at me. I play turn one Cursecatcher, turn two lord, and turn three Rejerrey. On my fourth upkeep he attempted to Mistbind Clique which was immediately met by a Mana Tithe.
"MANA TITHE," he yelped, "What kind of garbage are you playing?" Turn 4 Rejerrey, Lord, Lord was enough to take game one.
1-0
Game 2: On the draw I choose to play turn one untapped revealing Cursecatcher and pass. At this point Josh either didn't care or completely forgot about my Mana Tithe that won the last game, but he played Bitterblossom straight through my untapped white producing land. Of course I was bluffing....how obvious could it be? Anyhow, his blossom produced enough faeries for him to beat me down to twelve with and then came back to back scion of Oona's to put me away while stuck on three land.
1-1
Game3: NUTS!! First turn Cursecatcher. Second turn Cursecather, Mana Tithe his Bitterblossom. Third Turn Merrow Rejeerey. Fourth turn Lord, Lord, Mana Tithe his Cryptic Command on my fifth turn for the win! He was a little bit more than angry.
1-0
Games: 2-1

Round 2: Another Josh ( More Faeries) I am on the play game 1
This match was really boring.... Game 1: Josh mulls to five while I'm looking down at Island, Island, Mutavault, Lord, Rej, Catcher, Dousing.
He only played two land this game. My notes for this game were: He M to 5. Oppo= No second land until turn he loses.
1-0
Game 2: This game was as exciting as the first. I played Curse catcher followed by Banneret. After that I doused his next three spells and then Cryptic commanded his first Bitterblossom of the match and beat him down with my two 1/1s and two Vaults.
2-0
Games: 3-1

Round 3: Jeremy (5c Combo simalar to 420.5n) Jeremy is on the play game 1
Game 1: All I can say about this game is with me at nine and him having six permanents on the board, Jeremy sacrificed his Horizon Canopy to draw a card and then proceeded to Firespout to kill my whole team and put counters on his Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcap, and then sacrificed his whole board to put Greater Gargadon in play since I only had a plains open thinking this was the play that would end the game and then…MANA TITHE!!! He effectively Obliterated his half of the board! I drew Silvergill, which drew me a Mutavault, which both attacked four times to win me the game. Try to tell me that this isn't the best punt in magic history!
1-0
Game 2: Jerry drew multiple firespouts to ruin my aggro draw with no counters. He won the game with three kitchen finks and a Horde of Notions.
1-1
Game 3: I lead out with two Burrenton Forge-Tender and a Silvergill Adept with a Mana Tithe for his Kitchen Finks. From here on out I had a counter for every spell he attempted to play for the rest of the game. Thank God for punt of the century!!!
Matches: 3-0
Games: 6-2

Round 4: Miles ( Mono Red Burn) Miles is on the play
Game 1: Due to my lack of any sort of testing I had no clue this deck even existed. His draw was great game one but mine was about par with it. The game came down to him drawing only to a burn spell that did three or more damage and he ripped Rift Bolt for the win.
0-1

Games 2 and 3 my notes were almost identical. Turn one Forge-tender. Turn two Silvergill. Turn three Forge-tender, Flashfreeze his creature and proceed to smash with tender and two Mutavaults for the rest of the game. I find that this match is very easy to deal with if you draw multiple Forge-Tender and Flashfreeze.
Matches: 4-0
Games: 8-3
Round 5: Yong (LARK!!!!!!!1 YAY) I am on the play
Game 1: I didn't know much about the format but I know this matchup was great for me. At this point my lack of rest started to catching up to me. This game I had Sygg River Guide on the board the whole game with him controlling an Island, but I never attacked. Whenever I get close to top 8 I get pretty nervous and when it is mixed with sleep deprivation I am terrible. He plays land-go forever until I get ready to start attacking for the win. He Cryptic Commands three turns in a row tapping down my team; he didn't realize these attacks would have only taken him down to one, so I saved my own Cryptic Command for Wrath of God. He attempted to Wrath, I countered and drew a Rejeerey for the win.
1-0

Game 2: Yong goes into the tank for roughly five minutes while thinking about whether or not to keep his seven card hand and eventually decides to keep it. I play turn one Cursecatcher, turn two Mutavault and Silvergill Adept, and he scoops on his fourth turn becuase of a lack of land and my ability to draw great hands in this situation.
Matches: 5-0
Games: 10-3
Round 6: Jon Stocks (Mono Red Burn) Jon is from Reno and a good friend of mine so we draw with both of us only needing 1 more win to top 8!!!

Round 7: Jacob Mills ( Homebrewed U/G) I am on the play... I think
I am basically asleep for this whole match. I didn't keep very good notes, and I punted three times in game two. Game three I won on turn five of time and burst into celebration. I'm sorry Jacob, I wish I remembered this match. TIME FOR TOP 8!!!!!
I intentionally draw round 8.
During round 8 I met up with the other three players that intentionally drew... We smoked and talked about our decks. Two of them were playing faeries and the other was playing merfolk. Suddenly I'm feeling very comfortable with my odds of going to nationals. I re-entered the room just in time to see another faeries deck take out G/R mana ramp and Jacob beat his opponent. So far I'm pretty sure I have a bye against most of T8.

Top 8: Mark (Faeries) Mark Is on the play
Game 1: My deck shines in this game. Turn one Cursecatcher. Turn two Jeremy resolves a Bitterblossom. Turn two I play Silvergill Adept. Turn three I play Lord of Atlantis, which Mark immediately attempts to smother. I sacrifice Cursecatcher he pays 1 of course, and I Mana Tithe. Turn four Mark attempts to Mistbind Clique which is met by another Mana Tithe. I draw Mutavault and the game is history from there.
1-0
Game 2: My opening hand is Mutavault, Adarkar Wastes, Lord of Atlantis, Lord of Atlantis, Cursecatcher, Cursecatcher, Sages Dousing. Eventually I decided to keep since I was on the draw and this hand had some serious potential. I didn't draw a second blue producing land as Mark's deck delivered and average hand and an average outcome against a land screwed deck. After some joking around and quoting The Office Mark and I get back to it.
Game 3: (What a way to end it) After much contemplation Mark and I both decide to keep our hands.Mark suspends Ancestral Visions. I play Stonybrook Banneret. Turn two Mark Played Bitterblossom. Turn three I played Sygg. Sadly enough he was the best creature in my hand, but I did have three Sages dousing. Mark keeps the aggression on with Bitterblossom but doesn't play anything else. On my fourth turn I draw Silvergill Adept which Mark attempts to Spellshutter Sprite which is met by one of my three Sages Dousings. I draw Lord of Atlantis and Island and pass. On his fourth turn Mark finally plays an Island so I can get in there with my Banneret and Sygg, now that they can't block Mark attacks with his two bitterblossom tokens, putting me at 18. On my turn I draw Lord of Atlantis and go into the tank. Do I play a lord and attack putting him at seven and just cast one dousing on the visions which is coming out of suspend next turn? Do I play both lords since he only has two cards in hand and hope that neither of them is a counter or terror or cryptic command? I decide to attack for three putting him at thirteen. At the end of the turn Mark plays Scion of Oona. This makes things really interesting. Do I douse this or do I double douse the visions and go to nine. I decided to race. But wait! Mark lets the first Sages Dousing Resolve and doesn't pay. I draw Island from Sages Dousing. He attacks for six which puts me at twelve and attempts to play Vendilion Clique I have to counter this because it represents unblockable lethal damage. I draw Adarkar Wastes off of Sages dousing. Mark Terrors my Sygg while I am tapped out. Mark now has zero cards in had with two open land. My draw is another Adarkar Wastes of course. I play Lord, Lord attack with the team which puts Mark at seven and a certain end to his regionals. Mark draws and all of his buddies gasp as he flips over another Scion of Oona. I show him my two land hand and give him a well deserved hand shaking. What a match. Mark is a great kid and an even better opponent. I wish you the best of luck at nationals.
On no sleep, no testing and no Mutavaults when I walked into the room, I top 8ed at regionals. It was an uphill battle, but it was a lot of fun.
On no sleep, no testing I lost to a top deck.

The Power of Black Green Elves. Standard

Worlds has just ended and a three color Doran deck took the trophy home while mono-red Dragonstorm decks were a hit. However, I have noticed the major changes in the metagame include the absence of Cryptic Command decks and a lot of Black Green variations floating around. I can understand that, from the previous, that Monoblue had been consistently losing to Elves due to its speed and Treetop Village, and all Black Green decks featured those elements.

At one point, I was pretty sure I was going to play a Blue Control deck in Worlds, but since I found myself consistently losing to Elves, why not give it a try? The result was fantastic. Here is my exact Elf list that I piloted to a 4-1 result in Worlds;

BG Elves Terry Soh
2007 Worlds, 4-1 Format: Type II - LRW
Main Deck
4 Boreal Druid
3 Civic Wayfinder
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Imperious Perfect
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Masked Admirers
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
3 Eyeblight's Ending
3 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
5 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
2 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sideboard
2 Cloudthresher
1 Liliana Vess
1 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
2 Naturalize
2 Serrated Arrows
4 Shriekmaw
3 Viridian Shaman

This list is almost optimal, although I would still make a minor tweak which I will disclose later. As a comparison, here is Katsuhiro Mori's top 8 list compared to mine;

TarmoRock Katsuhiro Mori
2007 Worlds New York City, NY Format: Type II - LRW
Finished: 5th - 8th Place Number of Players: 388  
Main Deck
1 Boreal Druid
1 Civic Wayfinder
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Imperious Perfect
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Masked Admirers
1 Mirri the Cursed
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Troll Ascetic
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
2 Eyeblight's Ending
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Nameless Inversion
4 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
5 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
4 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sideboard
2 Cloudthresher
1 Krosan Grip
3 Liliana Vess
1 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Phyrexian Totem
2 Razormane Masticore
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Viridian Shaman

As you can see, the Japanese always love their one-of cards plan in the deck. Sure, it will shine in some situations when you need it, but at times, it can be horrible or totally useless. I prefer a consistent plan and a direction to where I am heading to. One of the major differences between my list and Mori's are the Civic Wayfinder vs Troll Ascetic. I was initially using Troll Ascetic in my list, and then a friend of mine told me that some Black Green Elf deck uses Civic Wayfinder and asked me to try it out. It was wonderful. Not only does it give you easier access to black mana, it provides the very needed card advantage to fight battles of Attrition wars with a lot of decks that are designed to beat this kind of deck. Mori's list only played five mana producing elves while I had the full eight. I think the mana elf is really important to have in the opening grip, or else there is not much point in running them. There was even a point I had a Birds of Paradise as the 9th one mana elf in the deck, but I took it out for an additional Civic Wayfinder.

Cards that I ended up not playing;

Troll Ascetic - it is very good in the mirror, but doesn't do much against control. I underestimated the amount of mirror Black Green decks that appeared at Worlds, therefore I didn't run them. Also, it works very well along with Loxodon Warhammer. However, the aspects which I dislike about troll are not being an elf and requiring double green mana.

Loxodon Warhammer - As I tested the deck, I felt it often has an edge against other aggro decks in the field and Loxodon Warhammer is a win more card in this situation. I always ended up wanting for more creature removal to push damage instead of paying 6 mana and clinching some life. Nevertheless, it is a good card against aggro decks, especially mirror.

Nameless Inversion - Tarmogoyf, Bogardan Hellkite, Cloudtresher, Teferi, Guile, Mistbind Clique. These are the cards you simply can't kill with Nameless Inversion whereas Eyeblight's Ending will get the job done. I really don't mind paying the extra mana for the additional list of creatures that you can kill. The biggest downside of Eyeblight's Ending is that it never kills a Imperious Perfect, which could single-handedly win games on its own.

Elvish Champion - There were so many times I had lost because I had to hold Elvish Champion in hand against another Elf deck or its double green requirement. Believe it or not, double green mana is actually something you might not able to assemble in the early game. It also barely does anything against those Red decks and Blue White decks with a lot of mass removal.

Matchup Analysis

Monoblue control
-1 Profane Command
-3 Civic Wayfinder
-1 Garruk
-1 Boreal Druid
-1 Masked Admirer

+3 Viridian Shaman
+4 Shriekmaw

This is your easiest matchup. Out of 10 games, sideboarded or pre-sideboard, you usually win 9 games. Cast your early critters to put pressure and use Thoughtseize to push for your other spells. Usually this is how it goes: turn 1 mana elves, turn 2 Thoughtseize and Tarmogoyf/ Vanquisher or either one of them combined with Treetop. If you are on the play and could play out a turn 2 Imperious Perfect, you have almost won the game. You can still play spells on turn 3, but never on turn 4. I always turn my guys sideways along with Treetop Village or Pendalhaven and said go. The purpose is to clog the control player's hand with counters. Sooner or later, they would have to respond to the board of creatures, and that is where you start unloading your spells. For example, they would need to cast the Teferi or Guile to defend themselves. At that point, you simply try to play the multiple threats in your hand and they can never use all those Counterspells in time. Play tight and you always win this matchup, trust me.

RG Mana Ramp
-4 Imperious Perfect
-1 Boreal Druid

+3 Shriekmaw
+1 Nath of the Glit Leaf
+1 Liliana Vess

Imperious Perfect is totally useless in this matchup. You never want to make guys with him in this matchup; in fact, he always turn sideways along with other elf for quick damage. Game 1 is tough, but if you have multiple Thoughtseize or their has a land heavy hand, which happens most of the time, you can keep pushing with reusable resources like Masked Admirer and Garruk. Speaking of Masked Admirer, this is the card that makes you stands a chance against all those designated Elf killer decks. Sure, Molten Disaster kills all your men, but as long as you kept 1 Llanowar Elf in hand and you have Masked Admirer in your graveyard, you can build up very fast again. I played 2 copies at first, then upped to 3, and finally decided to play 4 copies on the night before Worlds. The downside is, the plan costs a lot of mana though. That is why I chose to play Civic Wayfinder over Troll Ascetic because it supports the plan of Masked Admirer.

After boarding, you have more disruption. The big discarders (Nath and Liliana) is pretty good against any nonblue control decks. Shriekmaw clears the path of any annoying Wall of Roots, opposing Tarmogoyf and also answers late game Cloudtresher and Hellkites. Always try to keep an mana elves in hand if possible if you have a Masked Admirer. It helps a lot when you are rebuilding your force, which happens a lot of time.

Faeries (both UG and UB)
-3 Garruk
-1 Masked Admirer
-4 Thoughtseize

+2 Cloudtresher
+2 Serrated Arrows
+4 Shriekmaw

Garruk is useless in this matchup, as you can never keep him long on the table. Thoughtseize is okay, but losing 2 life for trading a card is hefty in a matchup where both players are racing for damage. Masked Admirer is also pretty irrelevant in this matchup, but it is still slightly better than Thoughtseize or Garruk. If you plan to sideboard more heavily against Faeries, just take out remaining Masked Admirers. Game 1 is less favourable because they flies and you don't, simple as that.

Game 2 is more favourable because you have 4 one sided Wrath of God and 4 additional removals against their lord, Scion of Oona. Bait with some creatures and once you sensed that they are low on counters, go for Serrated Arrows and Cloudtresher (evoked most of the time) and those should win you games most of the time. Always play your cards rather than waiting because this is a tempo oriented matchup, where both players are looking to keep up creatures on board and denying opponent's resources with removals and counterspells.

Mirror Match
Black Green Elf
-4 Thoughtseize
-3 Eyeblight's Ending
-1 Tarmogoyf

+4 Shriekmaw
+2 Serrated Arrows
+1 Liliana Vess
+1 Nath of the Glit Leaf

Black Green Non-Elf
-4 Thoughtseize
-2 Civic Wayfinder

+4 Shriekmaw
+1 Liliana Vess
+1 Nath of the Glit Leaf

This matchup is highly dependant on speed and acceleration, therefore never cut down on mana elves. You will find the board is pretty one sided if one has mana elf and another does not. The difference is in the elf mirror, Eyeblight is utter crap while it is good against the non-elf version of black green. Thoughtseize is equally bad on both matchup,so don't hesitate to side out all of them. It is pretty much you switched all 4 Thoughtseize for 4 Shriekmaw in the board. Nath and Liliana Vess is good because the matchup tend to be slower after sideboard with both players boarding in more removals. Do try to play around Damnation, because some Black Green did have them in sideboard. I mean, you don't have to expect all of your opponent has it, but if you have 2 guys on board and he has none, maybe you can attack with Treetop Village instead of casting the 3rd guy.

Explained above are all those matchups you will expect to face in the current environment. The only deck that I didn't explain is the Monored Dragonstorm, which my sideboard has nothing to board against them. Well, it is supposed to take the field by surprise, and I don't see any decks has prepared against it. I suppose playing cards like Riftsweeper helps a little and additional discards like Stupor gives you some time to kill them before they go off. But none of these directly hit them hard though. Nevertheless, it is a racing game between both decks and Thoughtseize hurts them a lot.

If I were to play the deck again, I would cut a Boreal Druid for a Swamp. I realized that the deck doesn't really lose games when it you has lands in play, but if you has too many mana elves and too little land, it can be a problem due to the massive amount of mass removals in the format. I think 7 mana elf is still a healthy number to go, but going down to 5 or 6 is just trying to cheat yourself. It is so much harder to play one on turn 1 if you keep reducing the numbers. I really like Profane Command as well, but I'm not sure if I would go 4 copies. If any of you really wants to play 4 copies, I recommend cutting a Garruk for it. Overall I like the sideboard a lot, because I have cards to board in for all matchups except for the new Dragonstorm deck. I might switch the Naturalize for Riftsweeper or Stupor for the matchup. Originally, Naturalize was there to fight those pesky UW control decks featuring Teferi's Moat and Story Circle on Modo, but I think those decks no longer survive in the current metagame filled with Dragonstorm decks.

I really liked the deck a lot and how fast games could be ended. My strategy for Worlds is play two aggro decks, because of the tight schedule of 5 constructed rounds and 3 rounds of limited for 2 consecutive ways. In this way, I was able to minimize my Stamina loss on constructed portion and able to concentrate more on the draft portion. Unfortunately, I screwed up in the draft, going 0-3 in the first pod, which hurts my chance of excelling in this tournament. Maybe I should start to practice more drafts and start all over from the bottom again.

Til then, may you enjoy beating down with these friendly elves!
by Terry Soh

Guide to the Post-Worlds Metagame

OK. So Worlds is finally over and after many battles between dueling Vanquishers, Siege-Gang Commanders and Garruk Wildspeakers, one man, Uri Peleg, was able to weather the storm and take home the trophy with a funky little B/G/w deck whose primary selling point was its ability to bust out a fat 5/5 treefolk on the second turn.
(No, I'm not talking about Sheltering Ancient… although I've been told that that card combos pretty well with the Oni of Wild Places Avatar)

In the top 8, Peleg was able to easily dispatch Katsuhiro Mori in three straight games and then take out Kotaro Otsuka 3-1 before facing the Innovator in the Grand Final. This was a matchup between Doran, the Siege Tower and Mono-Red Dragonstorm and, although I was cheering for Chapin all the way, Peleg was ultimately able to emerge victorious in just four games because, you know, Hypnotic Specter can, like, block…




But now that all that's over, the one important thing that we must not forget to do is analyze the aftermath of Worlds and try to deduce the shape of the standard landscape. Whose stocks have gone up? Whose have crashed? What deck should you play at your next Friday Night Magic?

Well, to put it simply, in terms of decks there were three big winners at worlds: Gilt-Leaf Palace, Karplusan Forest, and Spinerock Knoll… let's take a look at each of these in turn.

Public Enemy Number One: Gilt-Leaf Palace

It does not take a genius to work out that the most successful decks to come out of Worlds are those powered by the Elf Dual land Gilt-Leaf Palace. Not only did a variant of the deck (splashing white for Doran, the Siege Tower) win the whole tournament but FIVE players in the Top 8 had the Black/Green land in their deck (Giving us a grand total of 19 copies!). Now of course, one has to always be a little wary of a statistic like this since Worlds is a multi-format event and as such it is quite possible to make the Top8 without having a good standard result. But if you just look a little closer then you'll see that all of the B/G decks in the top 8 posted excellent results in the standard portion of the swiss: Katsuhiro Mori, Yo****aka Nakano and Christoph Huber all went 5-0 while Roel van Heeswijk and Uri Peleg were able to put up a similarly impressive 4-1.

What then, is the formula for success for these G/B decks? Well, like all “Good Stuff” decks, these G/B lists play the best possible cards at every point in the curve, mixing efficient creatures like Tarmogoyf, top notch removal like Shriekmaw, hand disruption in the form of Thoughtseize and card advantage generated by the undeniably powerful planeswalkers so that what we have in a end is a mish-mash of questions and answers. It does not focus on controlling the board or attacking the opponent but is perfectly capable of doing both, playing the role of midrange control against aggressive decks and aggro control against control decks.

As such, all the G/B decks in the top8, although different, are actually built upon the same skeleton. Indeed, all you have to do is

Play FOUR Thoughtseize (Hand disruption)
Add some Tarmogoyf (Efficient creature)
Add some Eyeblight's Endings and Profane Commands (Removal)
Add some Garruk Wildspeakers (Card advantage)
Add some Other Creatures (maybe some Trolls, maybe some Trees)
Add some Other Removal (Shriekmaw, Nameless Inversion and friends)
Add some Other Card Advantage (Ohran Viper and Masked Admirers are the default)
Add some Land (but don't forget 4x Treetop Village!)
Top it all off with some Mana Elves or Birds to accelerate your curve.

Voila!

Run along now, you've got yourself a G/B deck.



OK. OK. It's not as simple as that. In fact, it's a whole lot more complicated since the major selling point of these G/B decks is their ultimate flexibility. And so, while the cores of these decks remain the same throughout, the peripheral cards are endlessly customizable. You can play certain cards over others to give the deck a different feel and indeed, from just the Top8 alone, one can easily spot three distinct archetypes (B/G Elves, B/G Rock and B/G/w Doran), each with their own game plans, strategies and matchups.

B/G Elves

Of these three archetypes, B/G Elves is the most aggressive of the bunch. In fact, this deck is so aggressive that calling it midrange would probably be a misnomer and indeed, the single thing that distinguishes this list from the others is the noticeable paucity of removal; the deck does not run Shriekmaw while the slow but powerful Liliana Vess has also been relegated to the sideboard. Instead, the deck is built around the various tribal synergies, which means that it is capable of consistently casting Wren's Run Vanquisher, the best aggressive two drop this side of Tarmogoyf, on turn two (When Wizards first published the 5-0 Standard decklists, there was a misprint on Mori's and Nakano's decklists. Instead of having Wren's Run Vanquisher, the decks were listed as running a playset of Wren's Run Packmaster. This is of course ludicrous since Wren's Run Vanquisher is the stones while Wren's Run Packmaster is a piece of s#*t.). In fact, one can even argue that it is better than Tarmogoyf since while Tarmogoyf is obviously a better creature in general, the Vanquisher is almost always a bigger, better and more aggressive play on turn two. Indeed, apart from being a 3/3, which is already above average for a two drop, the Wren's Run Vanquisher is also blessed with Deathtouch which is surprisingly relevant. This means that it can not only attack into Wall of Roots without having to worry about being blocked but it also means that it can also hold off much larger, more expensive creatures like Tarmogoyf and Doran, the Siege Tower. This ability to trade with anything that decides to tussle with it in combat also means that you can fearlessly attack into anything. Whereas a Phyrexian Ironfoot can easily hold of a Call of the Herd Token by himself, such a stop sign does not affect the Vanquisher at all. Similarly, whereas a Call Token is loath to attack into five untapped Islands, Vanquisher laughs at the possible of Teferi and charges ahead anyway. Furthermore, in the three-drop slot, the deck also runs the more aggressive Troll Ascetic over the card-advantage generating Ohran Viper while it is also the only deck of the three to pack a full set of Profane Commands, giving the deck some much needed reach.




What this ultimately means is that Elves is a more aggro-control version of G/B; Vanquisher, Tarmogoyf and Troll Ascetic together combine to make quite a fast clock while Thoughtseize does the discard duty. It thus has an excellent matchup against permission decks like Sonic Boom as the winning combination of discard + cheap threats can easily Overload the opposing deck's countermagic. On top of this, due to the faster speed of the deck, G/B Elves is also much better suited towards dealing with tempo strategies like U/B Mannequin and combo decks like Mono-Red Dragonstorm when compared with a slower deck like G/B Rock.

TarmoRock Katsuhiro Mori
2007 Worlds New York City, NY Format: Type II - LRW  
Finished: 5th - 8th Place Number of Players: 388  

Main Deck
1 Boreal Druid
1 Civic Wayfinder
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Imperious Perfect
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Masked Admirers
1 Mirri the Cursed
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Troll Ascetic
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
2 Eyeblight's Ending
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Nameless Inversion
4 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
5 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
4 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sideboard
2 Cloudthresher
1 Krosan Grip
3 Liliana Vess
1 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Phyrexian Totem
2 Razormane Masticore
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Viridian Shaman


The downside to the deck of course is that it lacks midrange power. This does not mean that it is bad against aggressive beatdown decks. In fact, G/B Elves are actually quite good against aggressive decks since its creatures, like Tarmogoyf and Troll, are not only hard to get through but Imperious Perfect is also particularly excellent at breaking stalemates (which often occur when your opponent has multiple goblins tokens from Mogg War Marshalls and Siege-Gang Commanders). Furthermore, the deck does have access to some excellent sideboard options in the form of Razormane Masticore, Slaughter Pact and Loxodon Warhammer. However, what this lack of midrange power does mean is that it can easily fall prey to slower, board control strategies. Indeed, Mori's build of Elves lacks the incremental card advantage provided by cards like Shriekmaw and the third copy of Garruk Wildspeaker (unlike the other G/B decks, Elves only runs two copies of Garruk) which means that it has a lot of trouble keeping up with the slower more controlling G/B Rock lists. On top of this, its lack of powerful late game options also means that it, compared to G/B Rock, is not as good at dealing with removal heavy anti-beatdown decks like U/W Martyr. Indeed, the matchup is nigh unwinnable until postboard when Liliana Vess will come in to give the deck some extra staying power.

The other disadvantage of the deck is the fact that the tribal synergies actually impose some pretty heavy restrictions on particular card choices. Indeed, just as a deck in Legacy will need about 20 Blue Cards to be able to support Force of Will, the G/B Elves deck needs a similar number of Elves (Mori runs 19 Elves in his deck) to be able to consistently cast a turn two Vanquisher. This requirement actually leads to some deckbuilding decisions that many might find baffling. A lot of people have already commented upon the singleton maindeck Mirri the Cursed, describing it as “hella random” and asking why it is there. The problem here however, is that they are asking the wrong question: instead of asking why there is a single copy of the Vampire Cat, they should instead by asking why there aren't MORE copies of the Vampire Cat. Indeed, Mirri the Cursed fits the deck's aggro control strategy quite well. As it has flying, it is great at bypassing roadblocks like Wall of Roots, Phyrexian Ironfoot and Tarmogoyf while the fact that it has first strike means that it will always win in combat against any of the fliers in U/B Mannequin. Furthermore, as it is a Black creature, it is completely immune to Shriekmaw while the fact that it has haste (kind of like a Neo-Solifuge) makes it a perfect aggressive response to a board sweeper like Damnation or Molten Disaster. Thus, it can be said that Mirri the Cursed is the perfect four drop for the deck and we definitely would be playing more if the deck did not require 19-20 Elves to function properly. As such, the deck is forced to run an alternate four drop instead that is an elf; and while although Masked Admirers is undeniably a great card, strategically, it fits much better in a more midrange deck like Huber's G/B Rock. The question as to why Mori has only THREE! Tarmogoyfs and THREE! Troll Ascetics in his deck instead of the full four can also be similarly answered in this manner.

No, it's not because our former World Champion doesn't own a playset.




G/B Rock

Another possible archetype based on the Black and the Green is the more traditional Rock deck. Although the deck runs many of the same cards as G/B Elves, the feel of the deck is completely different. This is because the players who create and pilot these Rock decks have made the conscious decision to give up the power of Wren's Run Vanquisher. Such a decision ultimately has two consequences. Firstly, it means that these decks will not be able to come out very aggressively at all since there are no Black/Green two drops in the current format that are in any way comparable to Vanquisher. Indeed, a turn two Tarmogoyf will often not get beyond Squire stats without assistance from a card like Looter il-Kor, Tarfire or Augur of Skulls. The second consequence of this decision is that the act of eschewing the powerful Vanquisher has the effect of freeing up a lot of deck space. Now the deck no longer has to be filled with substandard elves just to satisfy the elf count but can instead play cards which are better all round (of course, Huber must keep some elves in his deck so as to not have Gilt-Leaf Palace always come into play tapped. But since Gilt-Leaf Palace, unlike Wren's Run Vanquisher, can still be played even if you do not have an Elf to reveal, there is no need to run an extremely large number of them). A simple example of this is how Huber runs 2x Birds of Paradise instead of 1x Boreal Druid and 1x Civic Wayfinder. One of the biggest advantages of freeing up of deck space, of course, is that it grants the Rock player the opportunity to play Shriekmaw. Now that the removal slots no longer have to be taken up by cards which are also elves, Huber can play the insane 187 machine which, of course, completely changes the shape of the deck and its accompanying strategy. Instead of playing out like an Aggro-Control deck, Huber's slower Rock list is much more similar to a midrange control deck that aims to two-for-one the opponent into oblivion with cards that generate small incremental card advantage. As such, more aggressive options like Troll Ascetic are replaced by cards like Ohran Viper, which performs the double role of providing card advantage and defending against opposing Tarmogoyfs, while cards like Masked Admirers fit into the deck perfectly despite the lack of tribal synergies. Indeed, compared to Mori's list, Huber's deck has a much better late game with the curve topping at THREE! copies of Liliana Vess.

TarmoRock Christoph Huber
2007 Worlds New York City, NY Format: Type II - LRW
Finished: 5th - 8th Place Number of Players: 388

Main Deck
2 Birds of Paradise
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Liliana Vess
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Masked Admirers
4 Ohran Viper
3 Shriekmaw
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Eyeblight's Ending
1 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Nameless Inversion
3 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
5 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
3 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sideboard
1 Damnation
1 Extirpate
4 Eyes of the Wisent
2 Graveborn Muse
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Pithing Needle
1 Riftsweeper
1 Shriekmaw
3 Viridian Shaman

Yet this however, is not a decklist that is completely without weaknesses. Although the deck is quite strong against both beatdown decks and should be able to take out slow decks with Liliana Vess, one of the things that you will have noticed about the list is that it is exceedingly fair. Indeed, none of its cards do anything particularly broken and as such, its relative slowness compared to Elves necessary means that it will have a hard time keeping up with a deck like Dragonstorm (Ohran Viper is not exactly the scariest beatdown card). Thoughtseize is generally not enough to win the game unless you also have pressure and this deck will often be incapable of generating enough early pressure unless it has access to a very early Garruk.




Furthermore, as the spells that B/G Rock utilizes are relatively more expensive than the spells in B/G Elves, the Rock deck does run the risk that it will get out-tempoed by either permission or bounce. Indeed, the deck has a terrible matchup against U/B Mannequin as the deck has no real way to regain the tempo lost from bounce effects (Not to mention the fact that many of the cards in Rock are basically inferior versions of Mannequins card—Viper is basically an inferior Finkel while Mulldrifter is usually better than Masked Admirers). Permission is also a problem since what will often happen is that a blue deck will be able to trade a 2 or 3 mana counter for a 4 or 5 mana spell and indeed, unless the Rock player has turn 2 Ohran Viper on the play, the Sonic Boom player is a huge favorite. This of course, explains why Huber has anti-Blue cards in his SB like Eyes of the Wisent while Mori's Elves list does not.

Apart from the possibility of losing to tempo, the final weakness of the B/G Rock deck is that it is actually possible to get out-midranged by a bigger and badder curve. Although the Rock player can gain card advantage at any point in his curve which tops with the very impressive Liliana Vess, some decks are capable of doing better than just merely two-for-one. Indeed, some decks will just continually trade spells with you and then suddenly play a couple of three for ones in succession: a Harmonize into a Siege-Gang Commander and then a Bogardan Hellkite. Shriekmaw is good, but it is after all, only a two-for-one.

The other problem with Shriekmaw is that it is a card that gets progressively worse as the format develops. Indeed, players are often prepared for it and are designing their decks in such a way so as to avoid getting wrecked by it. Back at States, Shriekmaw could kill anything and everything, but now, cards like Phyrexian Ironfoot, Doran the Siege Tower, Nath the Gilt Leaf and Siege-Gang Commander are seeing more and more play.

TarmoRock Uri Peleg
2007 Worlds New York City, NY Format: Type II - LRW  
Finished: 1st Place Number of Players: 388

Main Deck
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Doran, the Siege Tower
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Hypnotic Specter
1 Liliana Vess
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Ohran Viper
3 Shriekmaw
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Eyeblight's Ending
2 Nameless Inversion
2 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
1 Brushland
3 Caves of Koilos
1 Forest
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
4 Treetop Village
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sideboard
2 Cloudthresher
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Riftsweeper
2 Serrated Arrows
1 Shriekmaw
2 Stupor

Uri Peleg's Doran list is actually a very interesting case. While Mori's Elves list could be said to lean more towards Aggro-Control and while Huber's Rock list could be said to lean more towards Mid-range, Peleg's Doran list tries to get the best of both worlds. On the one hand, it can play Aggro-Control since although it does not have access to Wren's Run Vanquisher it can nevertheless generate a blisteringly fast clock by playing Doran the Siege Tower on turn two (Doran is basically Vanquisher +2). This is a potentially fatal threat for the opponent and is extremely difficult to answer. In fact, Doran is nigh unkillable due to the fact that he is a Black creature with more than 3 toughness (this makes him immune to Incinerate, Nameless Inversion, Shriekmaw, Slaughter Pact etc) and unless the opponent is able to muster up an Eyeblight's Ending or an Oblivion Ring very quickly, the Treefolk Shaman will most likely go all the way. When this is backed up by Thoughtseizes and Tarmogoyfs into Planeswalkers, a control deck will have a difficult time keeping up.

Yet on the other hand, Peleg's Doran deck is also able to play midrange control. As he is not burdened by the restriction of having to play 19-20 Elves in his deck, he is able to fill his deck with strong mid-endgame cards like Shriekmaw and Liliana Vess and Nath of the Gilt Leaf from Sideboard. Doran himself is also a great midrange creature since he is so huge and so efficient for his cost that he will almost always lead to a 2 for 1 against beatdown decks. Peleg's 3-0 thrashing of Mori's Elves deck is a testament as to how strong a midrange deck the Doran deck can be.

But then again, nothing is perfect and the one glaring weakness that his deck has is the mana base. Doran costs GWB and is fiendishly difficult to cast. And although Peleg has done an excellent job on the mana, resisting the temptation to play any White cards other than Doran himself, the deck nevertheless still has some consistency issues and mulligans more often than either G/B Elves and G/B Rock.

But then again… that's just the price you pay for power…
Part two is coming soon so stay tuned!
by Kuan-Kuan Tian

Standard Top 8 Decks. December Tournament.

Sonic Boom
1st - XZERO
Main Deck
1 Urza's Factory
1 Tolaria West
3 Dreadship Reef
4 Desert
17 Snow-Covered Island
3 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Guile
1 Draining Whelk
3 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Logic Knot
4 Remove Soul
3 Faerie Trickery
3 Think Twice
4 Cryptic Command
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Rune Snag
2 Pact of Negation
Sideboard
1 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Phyrexian Ironfoot
2 Razormane Masticore
2 Jace Beleren
4 Riftwing Cloudskate
3 Sower of Temptation


UG Mullskate
2nd - Tao
Main Deck
3 Momentary Blink
4 Psionic Blast
2 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Venser, Shaper Savant
4 Mystic Snake
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Riftwing Cloudskate
4 Epochrasite
4 Mulldrifter
3 Forest
5 Island
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Faerie Conclave
4 Vivid Creek
4 Treetop Village
Sideboard
4 Sower of Temptation
4 Quagnoth
3 Trickbind
4 Willbender


UB Faeries
Top 4 - Holzi
Main Deck
4 Rune Snag
4 Thoughtseize
3 Nightshade Stinger
4 Oona's Prowler
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Scion of Oona
4 Pestermite
4 Cloud Sprite
3 Mistbind Clique
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
5 Snow-Covered Island
4 Underground River
4 Secluded Glen
4 Faerie Conclave
4 River of Tears
3 Cryptic Command
Sideboard
4 Flashfreeze
4 Thieving Sprite
3 Sower of Temptation
4 Terror


UB Mannequin
Top 4 - Mtgfanatic01
Main Deck
2 Profane Command
4 Makeshift Mannequin
2 Damnation
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
4 Riftwing Cloudskate
4 Phyrexian Ironfoot
4 Mulldrifter
4 Shriekmaw
4 Epochrasite
3 Snow-Covered Island
5 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 River of Tears
3 Mouth of Ronom
4 Faerie Conclave
4 Underground River
1 Urza's Factory
1 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Cryptic Command
Sideboard
2 Damnation
4 Thoughtseize
2 Pithing Needle
4 Trickbind
1 Nameless Inversion
2 Mournwhelk


RGw Mana Ramp
Top 8 - Fabio
Main Deck
4 Treetop Village
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karplusan Forest
1 Arctic Flats
1 Snow-Covered Plains
3 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Scrying Sheets
2 Mouth of Ronom
2 Highland Weald
2 Bogardan Hellkite
3 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Cloudthresher
4 Wall of Roots
4 Harmonize
3 Incinerate
3 Molten Disaster
2 Search for Tomorrow
4 Into the North
3 Skred
Sideboard
3 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4 Eyes of the Wisent
3 Luminesce
2 Honorable Passage
3 Sulfurous Blast


UB Faeries
Top 8 - Sandmann1
Main Deck
4 River of Tears
4 Underground River
4 Secluded Glen
4 Faerie Conclave
5 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
3 Mistbind Clique
4 Cloud Sprite
3 Nightshade Stinger
4 Oona's Prowler
4 Scion of Oona
4 Pestermite
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Rune Snag
4 Thoughtseize
3 Cryptic Command
Sideboard
4 Flashfreeze
4 Thieving Sprite
4 Terror
3 Sower of Temptation


RG Mana Ramp
Top 8 - Lennin
Main Deck
4 Skred
4 Into the North
4 Incinerate
4 Harmonize
2 Molten Disaster
2 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Cloudthresher
3 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wall of Roots
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Karplusan Forest
3 Mouth of Ronom
1 Scrying Sheets
5 Snow-Covered Forest
5 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Treetop Village
4 Highland Weald
Sideboard
1 Arctic Flats
3 Eyes of the Wisent
3 Sulfurous Blast
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
2 Rule of Law
2 Akroma, Angel of Fury


RG Mana Ramp
Top 8 - Burton911
Main Deck
2 Urza's Factory
4 Treetop Village
1 Pendelhaven
5 Mountain
4 Karplusan Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Forest
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Wall of Roots
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Cloudthresher
2 Bogardan Hellkite
4 Search for Tomorrow
2 Molten Disaster
3 Incinerate
4 Harmonize
3 Fertile Ground
1 Loxodon Warhammer
Sideboard
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
2 Quagnoth
4 Avalanche Riders
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Sulfurous Blast

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The Best Decks in the Worlds – 2007

The Best Decks in the Worlds – 2007
Standard Innovations and insights from the 2007 World Championships.

1 Doran Aggro
2 Dragonstorm
3 Black-Green Elves
4 Black-Green Midrange
5 Mannequin

There is a beauty and a danger to the current status quo, to holding the World Championships at the end of the year, after States and Champs, after Standard has been allowed to germinate for a few weeks on Magic Online. For many spectators, enthusiasts, fans of the game and tournament players both, the coming of the Pro Tour—a Constructed Pro Tour in particular—is a special event. We sit at home, login to magicthegathering.com, and wonder, wide-eyed, what these geniuses will do next.

There is a danger to it. In the old days, Team CMU could spring their mono-blue decks on the metagame, or Tinker-Waters would make the red-green "anti-" decks look silly. But these days, that wonder of the Pro Tour dances precariously on the tip of a raised needle. Remember last year? Most of the undefeated Standard decks were Boros variants, some a little different than others, but nothing awe-inspiring. I suppose that onetime Player of the Year and onetime best deck designer on the planet Gabriel Nassif and his tag team partner Mark Herberholz did us spectators a solid with that Martyr-Tron deck... but the accomplishment was ultimately overshadowed by eventual 2006 winner Dragonstorm.

Ah, Dragonstorm!

There is a beauty to the positioning of the World Championships, too. Remember two years ago, the first of Katsuhiro Mori's three consecutive Top 8s, the one he won? A unified cadre of Japanese players cracked the metagame with their green-white Ghazi-Glare deck, crashing through the tournament, placing numerous paragons into the elimination rounds, and eventually taking the crown. They were able to gaze long into the metagame established by Champs, the sea of Tide Stars and Hinders in those virgin days before the universal adoption of Remand, and really and truly dominate with the two least offensive colors in the history of competitive Magic. They had transformative sideboards, powerful threats, and even maindeck enchantment kill! Wow. Bam! Bravo.

This year's World Championships showcased a new Standard deck of such legend, excitement, and explosiveness that its long shadow hangs over even the format-solving Ghazi-Glare. This deck, a Dragonstorm update innovated by the ingenious deck design triumvirate of Pat Chapin, Gabriel Nassif, and Mark Herberholz is likely the most dominating single-tournament deck since Team ABU put four eventual victims of Zvi Mowshowitz into the Top 8 of Pro Tour–Tokyo.

Patrick Chapin
2007 Worlds Top 8

Main Deck
60 cards
4 Fungal Reaches
4 Molten Slagheap
12 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Spinerock Knoll
24 lands
4 Bogardan Hellkite
4 creatures
4 Dragonstorm
4 Grapeshot
4 Incinerate
4 Lotus Bloom
3 Pyromancer's Swath
3 Rift Bolt
4 Rite of Flame
4 Shock
2 Tarfire
32 other spells
Sideboard
2 Ancient Grudge
4 Dodecapod
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Ignite Memories
3 Sulfurous Blast
2 Wheel of Fate
15 sideboard cards


Gabriel Nassif
2007 Worlds Top 8

Main Deck
60 cards
4 Fungal Reaches
4 Molten Slagheap
12 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Spinerock Knoll
24 lands
4 Bogardan Hellkite
4 creatures
4 Dragonstorm
4 Grapeshot
4 Incinerate
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Pyromancer's Swath
4 Rift Bolt
4 Rite of Flame
4 Shock
32 other spells
Sideboard
1 Akroma, Angel of Fury
4 Dodecapod
2 Ignite Memories
2 Ingot Chewer
2 Martyr of Ashes
1 Pithing Needle
2 Wheel of Fate
1 Wild Ricochet
15 sideboard cards

Rumor has it that a prototype of this strategy had been espied in a side event at Grand Prix–Daytona Beach. Chapin, innovator of the Korlash Standard deck, the man who put Sligh on the Pro Tour map way back in 1996, and a Constructed Grand Prix finalist, was given a simple directive and a short list of scribbled-down cards: play Dragonstorm with Spinerock Knoll. Go!

Pat hybridized the Dragonstorm combo with a Pyromancer's Swath burn strategy (which had a huge amount of natural overlap with Spinerock Knoll) and played the maximum number of Fungal Reaches and Molten Slagheaps. The deck also has a great deal of misdirection to it: Chapin is a popular columnist at StarCityGames.com, and the week before Worlds, he wrote about an unrelated Skred Red update. He was able to bluff one opponent with Snow-Covered Mountain, who played tentatively (as against a board control deck) but was handed a nasty surprise with the explosive Dragonstorm kill.

So how does this new metagame monster work?

Spinerock Knoll is a corner piece to the strategy. This land is basically an Impulse, and allows the mono-red Dragonstorm to play like a "blue" deck. Ideally you will put Dragonstorm under a first-turn Spinerock Knoll. On the second turn you can, say, suspend a Rift Bolt. On the third, you warp in the Rift Bolt for 3, play a third land, play Rite of Flame for a pair of Shocks or Tarfires, and, having fulfilled the 7 damage requirement, reveal the Dragonstorm for another 20.

Of course the deck can just suspend Lotus Blooms, play Rite of Flame, rip counters off the Fungal Reaches, and run out Dragonstorm (or Empty the Warrens, or Ignite Memories) "per normal."

The third plan is to set up mana into a Pyromancer's Swath and a couple of burn cards... With the trademark enchantment in play, you don't need very many.

The Dragonstorm deck is extremely resilient, but all of its pilots expressed a vulnerability to the color black (and unfortunately both Nassif and Chapin had quarterfinals opponents with Thoughtseize and more)... but Wheel of Fate can dig the Dragonstorm players out of even a stack of Stupors. Not only is that card the natural enemy of cheap discard, it is a perfect card to have warping in the turn after you've moved in with Pyromancer's Swath.

So why so dominant? We've seen decks with three or even four copies in the Top 8 of major events before, and you can kind of argue that there were five similar decks in this year's Top 8, whereas Dragonstorm at the World Championships could boast only two... However, typically, for every deck that does well, even decks that defy statistics or perform above and beyond expectation at the end of a big event, there are ten failures scattered throughout the room... Except for Dragonstorm. The deck was extremely impressive, and Chapin, who was staying at Jon Finkel's apartment in New York, was able to infect all his roommates with the fire. Ultimately Dave Williams, Mark Herberbolz, Amiel Tenenbaum, and Finkel himself all finished 4–1 in Standard along with Chapin and Nassif. Bob Maher brought up the rear with a lone—but still better-than-even—3–2. That was it. One 3–2 record in a room filled with the best players in the world, with almost every one of the best players of all time participating. The "underachiever" was a single better-than-average Hall of Famer!

Unsurprisingly, such an exciting new deck caught on like wildfire in the amateur events at Worlds, and many Northeast challengers looking for the right deck to play in Sunday's Win a Car Tournament gave it a whirl. Spencer Reiss, who had won a pre-Worlds satellite in New Jersey, got his build directly from Chapin at the end of Day One. After numerous 8-man practice events, Spencer went into the Win a Car event 13–2 with the new deck, winning quite a few side events.

So will Dragonstorm remain the best deck to play?

Like many metagame breakers, Dragonstorm may not be the right choice for the long haul. Chapin said that besides having several of the best players of all time behind their deck, the Dragonstorm group had the power of surprise behind them. People had no idea how to play against the new build on Day One, but by Sunday, the Top 8 competitors had plenty of opportunity to test. Walking the side events it was easy to see the effect that the deck had on the metagame, even from players who were not themselves adherents. Maindeck Story Circle? It was like Masques Block Constructed 2007 at some tables. Thorn of Amethyst, Imperial Mask, and even more exotic solutions peppered the 8-mans.

Here are a couple of other tools, for existing decks: Our newly crowned World Champion Uri Peleg played three Riftsweepers in his sideboard. Riftsweeper is one of the best cards against Dragonstorm because it can trump Wheel of Fate while helping out against the more common Rift Bolts and Lotus Blooms. Stopping any suspend card while setting up a fast threat can be pretty good, but Dragonstorm almost needs Wheel of Fate to escape heavy discard.

Andre Coimbra suggested Mistbind Clique, a card Faeries is already playing. "You can tap them out, including the Spinerock Knoll, in response to their third spell, before they've dealt seven damage." I know I would be frustrated on the wrong end of that one!




The World Champion
Uri Peleg
2007 Worlds Top 8

Main Deck
60 cards
1 Brushland
3 Caves of Koilos
1 Forest
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
4 Treetop Village
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
23 lands
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Doran, the Siege Tower
1 Hypnotic Specter
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Ohran Viper
3 Shriekmaw
4 Tarmogoyf
23 creatures
2 Eyeblight's Ending
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Liliana Vess
2 Nameless Inversion
2 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
14 other spells
Sideboard
2 Cloudthresher
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Riftsweeper
2 Serrated Arrows
1 Shriekmaw
2 Stupor
15 sideboard cards

In a tournament, and Top 8, littered with the old Golgari colors, our World Champion spiced it up with a little Selesnya, a wee bit of Orzhov. His signature change was merely to add White to a strategy otherwise similar to the black-green midrange decks, to the tune of four copies of Doran, the Siege Tower main, and one planeswalker-answering Oblivion Ring in the side.

Peleg's deck really loves a first-turn accelerator. From Birds of Paradise he can move to Doran, Ohran Viper, or even Hypnotic Specter!

As with a couple of the top decks from this event, Uri played not one but two planeswalkers, both the near-universal Garruk Wildspeaker and the arguably more powerful Liliana Vess. This helped to give him the ability to attack the opponent from numerous angles. Doran actually improves Ohran Viper, making the already dangerous heir to Ophidian a virtual 3/3. Tarmogoyf gets better than ever, going to *+1/*+1 from */*+1 (at the very least giving it the ability to smash another Tarmogoyf to death); even Birds of Paradise starts hitting in the sky, going positively Cloud Sprite. He can swarm or Overrun with Garruk Wildspeaker, finish with Profane Command, or dial it back to 1998 with a black-green "Living Death" care of A Villainess.

Profane Command is some kind of a versatile endgame spell. It allows you to win Fireball-style to the face, win evasively from the Red Zone, or basically entwine a Barbed Lightning (or get even bigger).



The Midrange
Christoph Huber
2007 Worlds Top 8

Main Deck
60 cards
5 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
3 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
23 lands


2 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Masked Admirers
4 Ohran Viper
3 Shriekmaw
4 Tarmogoyf
19 creatures
1 Eyeblight's Ending
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Liliana Vess
1 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Nameless Inversion
3 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
18 other spells
Sideboard
1 Damnation
1 Extirpate
4 Eyes of the Wisent
2 Graveborn Muse
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Pithing Needle
1 Riftsweeper
1 Shriekmaw
3 Viridian Shaman
15 sideboard cards


Roel van Heeswijk
2007 Worlds Top 8

Main Deck
60 cards
7 Forest
3 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
3 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
23 lands
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
4 Ohran Viper
2 Shriekmaw
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Tombstalker
3 Troll Ascetic
23 creatures
3 Eyeblight's Ending
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Nameless Inversion
4 Thoughtseize
14 other spells
Sideboard
1 Cloudthresher
1 Damnation
1 Eyeblight's Ending
2 Eyes of the Wisent
2 Krosan Grip
2 Liliana Vess
1 Profane Command
2 Shriekmaw
1 Swamp
1 Tombstalker
1 Troll Ascetic
15 sideboard cards

My split between these two archetypes (Black-Green Mid-range versus Elves) is fairly arbitrary. For the Midrange decks I basically chose the ones with Ohran Viper and more planeswalkers, and for the Elf decks I went with the decks that have Wren's Run Vanquishers and Imperious Perfects.



The Elves
Yoshitaka Nakano
2007 Worlds Top 8

Main Deck
60 cards
5 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
4 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
23 lands


1 Boreal Druid
2 Civic Wayfinder
3 Imperious Perfect
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Masked Admirers
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Troll Ascetic
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
24 creatures
3 Eyeblight's Ending
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Nameless Inversion
4 Profane Command
3 Thoughtseize
13 other spells
Sideboard
2 Cloudthresher
1 Krosan Grip
3 Liliana Vess
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Nekrataal
2 Slaughter Pact
1 Thoughtseize
2 Viridian Shaman
15 sideboard cards


Katsuhiro Mori
2007 Worlds Top 8

Main Deck
60 cards
5 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
4 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
23 lands


1 Boreal Druid
1 Civic Wayfinder
4 Imperious Perfect
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Masked Admirers
1 Mirri the Cursed
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Troll Ascetic
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
23 creatures
2 Eyeblight's Ending
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Nameless Inversion
4 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
14 other spells
Sideboard
2 Cloudthresher
1 Krosan Grip
3 Liliana Vess
1 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Phyrexian Totem
2 Razormane Masticore
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Viridian Shaman
15 sideboard cards


These decks have many cards in common and function in similar fashion. The Elf decks are more proactive. They can go Llanowar Elves, Vanquisher, Perfect 1-2-3, or, given an accelerator, attack with Mirri the Cursed (!!!) in the sky on the third.

The Midrange decks have a variety of threats that they can bring to bear. Some are high-end Elves like van Heeswijk's Nath of the Gilt-Leaf or Huber's Masked Admirers (still awesome in the late game). Others are the six (!) planeswalkers in the latter. Basically, these decks can attack the opponent from several different angles, taking cards with Nath and Thoughtseize, obviously dominating the Red Zone with crazy threats like Tarmogoyf, or finish long from behind a wall of chump blockers with Profane Command. They can threaten early with Ohran Viper to get ahead in the short term, or jam into a tremendous attrition advantage with the nearly inviolate Masked Admirers. Basically all of these decks have a potential ace against beatdown in Loxodon Warhammer, and all of them play a hefty amount of creature kill. Subtly, the Warhammer can be key against Dragonstorm, too. While that deck is powerful, it is not infinite, and a little life gain can make some games impossible to win with burn.

The Mannequin Deck

Last, but not least, an update to the Mannequin deck...
Kotaro Otsuka
2007 Worlds Top 8

Main Deck
60 cards
4 Faerie Conclave
2 Mouth of Ronom
4 River of Tears
5 Snow-Covered Island
4 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Underground River
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
24 lands
4 Epochrasite
4 Mulldrifter
3 Phyrexian Ironfoot
4 Riftwing Cloudskate
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
4 Shriekmaw
23 creatures
3 Cryptic Command
2 Damnation
1 Loxodon Warhammer
4 Makeshift Mannequin
3 Mind Stone
13 other spells
Sideboard
2 Damnation
2 Liliana Vess
3 Nameless Inversion
2 Persuasion
2 Pithing Needle
4 Thoughtseize
15 sideboard cards

Otsuka's version differs in a couple of places from the decks we have seen coming out of States / Champs or Grand Prix–Krakow. In addition to a little mana acceleration, Kotaro has a real way to say "No" in Cryptic Command, giving the deck a little more play up against true control or combo.

Besides those, Otsuka's deck remains a single-minded card advantage engine... All two-for-ones with Makeshift Mannequin to two-for-one again.

Notable by their absence: Grim Harvest and Profane Command

A Couple of 5-0s...

Not every great deck made Top 8. Here are a couple of undefeated Day One decks for your enjoyment and analysis:

Chris Lachmann
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0

Main Deck
60 cards
4 Highland Weald
2 Karplusan Forest
3 Mouth of Ronom
1 Scrying Sheets
5 Snow-Covered Forest
5 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Treetop Village
24 lands
2 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Cloudthresher
3 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wall of Roots
15 creatures
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Harmonize
4 Incinerate
4 Into the North
2 Molten Disaster
4 Skred
21 other spells
Sideboard
4 Akroma, Angel of Fury
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
3 Spectral Force
4 Sulfurous Blast
15 sideboard cards

One half of the Sliver Kids backed up their PT victory with a strong 5-0 Standard start Day One. Chris went with a mid-range green-red deck. This version echoes the "big mana" of previous versions but adds a Snow sub-theme for Skred and Scrying Sheets. Even at the end of the weekend, many top Pros were advocating Green-Red Big Snow; just keep in mind that most consider it a dog to the potentially overwhelmingly powerful Dragonstorm.

Hong Fei Yeung
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0

Main Deck
60 cards
3 Faerie Conclave
2 Pendelhaven
6 Snow-Covered Forest
6 Snow-Covered Island
2 Treetop Village
4 Yavimaya Coast
23 lands
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Mistbind Clique
4 Mystic Snake
3 Pestermite
4 Scion of Oona
4 Scryb Ranger
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Wall of Roots
28 creatures
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Psionic Blast
1 Remove Soul
4 Rune Snag
9 other spells
Sideboard
4 Flashfreeze
2 Naturalize
2 Pithing Needle
3 Sower of Temptation
3 Spectral Force
1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
15 sideboard cards

Blue-Green Faeries returns!

Doubtless these decks have already affected your local Standard tournaments and have probably been played against you on Magic Online.

As a fan of the game, I am overjoyed to see some of the new decks that came out of this year's Worlds. The updates to the black-green decks, the surprise rise of Dragonstorm, and the steady performance of Mannequin, even in a slightly altered form, show that the format is still wide open: You can successfully play an established deck or approach a tournament with the knowledge that there is still room for innovation.
by Mike Flores

Undefeated Standard Decks at Worlds 2007

Metagame Breakdown

With this being the biggest World Championships ever, we had a wealth of Standard decks to enjoy, and it's interesting to see how the best in the game chose to attack the format, given the limited information they had from States / Champs, Grand Prix–Krakow, and a handful of tournaments since.

As looked likely from the info from the traders first thing in the morning, Red-Green Big Mana was the most popular deck, looking to play some colossal threats earlier than really seems fair. A few players, including the newly enshrined Hall of Fame member Kai Budde, chose to add an extra color on occasion, but essentially this was the deck looking to make big monsters and swing.

The most popular tribe of the day was Faeries, in both blue-green and blue-black incarnations. The latter was the deck of choice for Zvi Mowshowitz, who finished the standard happy on 4-1. The other popular choice was Elves, who were particularly well liked by the Japanese contingent, including Kenji Tsumura.

From a control angle, Makeshift Mannequin decks led the way, but there were green-black Rock decks and variations on classic blue control, be it Pickles lock or Guile-powered counterspell heavy control.

Check out the full list:
Archetype Count
Red-Green Big Mana 64
Makeshift Mannequin 43
Rock 39
Green-Black Elves 29
Blue-Green Faeries 28
Mono-Blue Control 20
Blue-Black Faeries 16
Blue-Black Teachings 15
Skred Red 15
Mono Blue Pickles 10
Dragonstorm 10
Tarmo Rack 10
Merfolk 8
Blue-Red Beats / Burn 7
Aggro Red with Tarmogoyf 7
Momentary Blink 7
Blue-White Control 6
Red-Green Beats 6
Doran Control 6
Blue-Green Control 5
Rakdos 4
Red-Green-Black Beats 4

After this, there were a whole mess of decks that showed up in smaller numbers. These included the Rites of Flourishing deck, Wild Pair, mono-black beatdown, and a mono-green Stompy deck featuring all the hasty monsters a boy could ever want. One of the more exciting new decks included in here was the deck designed by Masashiro Kuroda and run by three Japanese players including Tsuyoshi Fujita, sporting Thousand-Year Elixir, Mangara of Corondor and Immaculate Magistrates. Billy Moreno chose to play a Gro deck, striking his own path with the combined threats of Tarmogoyf and Quirion Dryad. Akira Asahara, meanwhile, was playing Reanimator to get his discounted massive monsters by way of the graveyard. There were 27 of these assorted decks, enough to keep the field on its toes for Day 1.

Undefeated Standart Decks
Jan Doise
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0
Main Deck: 
4 Faerie Conclave
3 Mouth of Ronom
4 River of Tears
4 Snow-Covered Island
6 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Underground River
1 Urza's Factory
4 Epochrasite
4 Mulldrifter
4 Phyrexian Ironfoot
4 Riftwing Cloudskate
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
4 Shriekmaw
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Damnation
4 Makeshift Mannequin
2 Profane Command
Sideboard:
2 Bottle Gnomes
1 Jace Beleren
2 Mournwhelk
3 Nameless Inversion
3 Pithing Needle
4 Thoughtseize

Simon Englund
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0
Main Deck:
3 Faerie Conclave
1 Gemstone Mine
4 Karplusan Forest
1 Pendelhaven
4 Shivan Reef
2 Snow-Covered Island
5 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Vivid Crag
2 Yavimaya Coast
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Fatal Frenzy
4 Incinerate
4 Psionic Blast
4 Rift Bolt
4 Threaten
17 other spells
Sideboard:
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Fatal Frenzy
2 Jace Beleren
3 Manabarbs
2 Sower of Temptation
4 Sulfur Elemental

Hong Fei Yeung
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0
Main Deck:
3 Faerie Conclave
2 Pendelhaven
6 Snow-Covered Forest
6 Snow-Covered Island
2 Treetop Village
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Mistbind Clique
4 Mystic Snake
3 Pestermite
4 Scion of Oona
4 Scryb Ranger
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Wall of Roots
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Psionic Blast
1 Remove Soul
4 Rune Snag
9 other spells
Sideboard:
4 Flashfreeze
2 Naturalize
2 Pithing Needle
3 Sower of Temptation
3 Spectral Force
1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter

Gerardo Godinez Estrada
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0
Main Deck: 
2 Highland Weald
3 Karplusan Forest
2 Mouth of Ronom
2 Scrying Sheets
6 Snow-Covered Island
5 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Treetop Village
1 Akroma, Angel of Fury
2 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Cloudthresher
3 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Coldsteel Heart
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Harmonize
4 Incinerate
4 Into the North
2 Molten Disaster
4 Skred
Sideboard:
3 Akroma, Angel of Fury
2 Avalanche Riders
1 Loxodon Warhammer
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
2 Quagnoth
3 Sulfurous Blast

Christoph Huber
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0
Main Deck:
5 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
3 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Masked Admirers
4 Ohran Viper
3 Shriekmaw
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Eyeblight's Ending
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Liliana Vess
1 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Nameless Inversion
3 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
Sideboard:
1 Damnation
1 Extirpate
4 Eyes of the Wisent
2 Graveborn Muse
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Pithing Needle
1 Riftsweeper
1 Shriekmaw
3 Viridian Shaman

Chris Lachmann
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0
Main Deck:
4 Highland Weald
2 Karplusan Forest
3 Mouth of Ronom
1 Scrying Sheets
5 Snow-Covered Forest
5 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Treetop Village
2 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Cloudthresher
3 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wall of Roots
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Harmonize
4 Incinerate
4 Into the North
2 Molten Disaster
4 Skred
Sideboard:
4 Akroma, Angel of Fury
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
3 Spectral Force
4 Sulfurous Blast

Katsuhiro Mori
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0
Main Deck: 
5 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
4 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Boreal Druid
1 Civic Wayfinder
4 Imperious Perfect
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Masked Admirers
1 Mirri the Cursed
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Troll Ascetic
4 Wren's Run Packmaster
2 Eyeblight's Ending
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Nameless Inversion
4 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
14 other spells
Sideboard:
2 Cloudthresher
1 Krosan Grip
3 Liliana Vess
1 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Phyrexian Totem
2 Razormane Masticore
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Viridian Shaman

Yoshitaka Nakano
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0
Main Deck: 
5 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
4 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Boreal Druid
2 Civic Wayfinder
3 Imperious Perfect
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Masked Admirers
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Troll Ascetic
4 Wren's Run Packmaster
3 Eyeblight's Ending
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Nameless Inversion
4 Profane Command
3 Thoughtseize
Sideboard:
2 Cloudthresher
1 Krosan Grip
3 Liliana Vess
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Nekrataal
2 Slaughter Pact
1 Thoughtseize
2 Viridian Shaman

Mikko Nurmi
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0
Main Deck: 
4 Forest
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Karplusan Forest
5 Mountain
4 Treetop Village
2 Urza's Factory
3 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Cloudthresher
3 Quagnoth
4 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Wall of Roots
3 Fertile Ground
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Harmonize
4 Incinerate
2 Molten Disaster
4 Search for Tomorrow
Sideboard:
2 Akroma, Angel of Fury
1 Molten Disaster
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
1 Quagnoth
3 Serrated Arrows
1 Spectral Force
3 Sulfurous Blast

Sam Stein
2007 Worlds, Standard 5-0
Main Deck: 
3 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
5 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Hypnotic Specter
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Oona's Prowler
2 Shriekmaw
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Troll Ascetic
2 Eyeblight's Ending
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Nameless Inversion
2 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize

Sideboard:
1 Eyeblight's Ending
2 Liliana Vess
1 Masked Admirers
3 Riftsweeper
2 Shriekmaw
4 Stupor
2 Sudden Death

www.wizards.com

Magic Tournament Standard Top

UB Control
1st - KerZia
Main Deck:
2 Damnation
4 Think Twice
4 Rune Snag
4 Remove Soul
3 Pact of Negation
3 Faerie Trickery
4 Cryptic Command
4 Ancestral Vision
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
2 Guile
1 Urza's Factory
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Tolaria West
4 River of Tears
12 Island
2 Dreadship Reef
3 Desert
Sideboard:
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Guile
2 Damnation
3 Bottle Gnomes
3 Jace Beleren
2 Sower of Temptation
3 Razormane Masticore

RB Husk
2nd - Equinox-
Main Deck:
1 Loxodon Warhammer
4 Grave Pact
4 Epochrasite
3 Nantuko Husk
4 Shriekmaw
3 Liliana Vess
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Mogg War Marshal
3 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Pendelhaven
4 Auntie's Hovel
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Graven Cairns
3 Sulfurous Springs
2 Kher Keep
1 Urza's Factory
4 Swamp
5 Mountain
Sideboard:
1 Void
1 Pithing Needle
1 Boom/Bust
1 Damnation
1 Loxodon Warhammer
4 Augur of Skulls
3 Stupor
3 Word of Seizing


RG Mana Ramp
3rd - Pit42[BRA]
Main Deck:
1 Urza's Factory
5 Forest
5 Mountain
4 Karplusan Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Treetop Village
1 Pendelhaven
4 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Bogardan Hellkite
4 Wall of Roots
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Cloudthresher
3 Incinerate
3 Molten Disaster
4 Harmonize
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Fertile Ground
1 Loxodon Warhammer
Sideboard:
1 Tarmogoyf
2 Krosan Grip
4 Eyes of the Wisent
4 Pyroclasm
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss

Examining Blue: UW Pickles

I talked about Wafo Tapa Monoblue in the previous article, and now it's time to proceed to the GP Krakow winning list, the UW Pickles piloted by Paul Cheon. First of all, congrats to Paul for making level 6 and obviously this deck contributed a portion of the success. The deck looks pretty solid on paper, and further testing will justify whether the deck performs as solidly as it looks. Here is the original list of Paul's, where I've started testing.

UW Pickles Paul Cheon
2007 Grand Prix Krakow, Poland Format: Type II - LRW
Finished: 1st Place Number of Players: 847
Main Deck:
3 Brine Elemental
4 Phyrexian Ironfoot
2 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
4 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Cryptic Command
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Rune Snag
3 Wrath of God
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Calciform Pools
3 Nimbus Maze
10 Snow-Covered Island
4 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Urza's Factory
Sideboard:
2 Aeon Chronicler
3 Aven Riftwatcher
3 Faerie Trickery
2 Jace Beleren
2 Magus of the Tabernacle
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Wrath of God

A general rule of thumb when copying a net deck; always test the original list before you make any modification. I know, it's a normal thing for everyone to have the urge to improve the deck once you see it, but before you actually applied any of the “improvements”, you should always test the original version to get the real feel of the deck. I mean, it won a GP on its strength, so who are we to question it? However, if you had tested it for a dozen of matches, you pretty much know how the deck works and you know what cards are appropriate for the specific metagame. For example, the UW Pickles was designed to take on a heavy creature field, therefore featuring many main deck hate like Phyrexian Iroofoot and Wrath of God maindeck and even more in the sideboard.

After testing dozens of matches with the original list, I found myself on the losing end instead of the winning road. The deck is actually a very complicated deck to play and faces many difficult decisions in every single turn. As the deck features both Wrath of God and a decent amount of creatures, you actually have to make the right decision on holding back or committing to the board as early as turn 3, with many more complicated decisions later to made, especially against aggro strategies. Surprisingly, it is a simpler match to play against control because there is less decisions to make. You simply charge up your lands, wait for your opponent to do something, and you catch them up with an end of turn Teferi, cast a few counters exhausting your opponent and go for the throat in your main phrase.

That being said, it was the original version. Here is my updated version of UW Pickles:
UW Pickles Terry Soh

Main Deck:
2 Aeon Chronicler
3 Brine Elemental
4 Phyrexian Ironfoot
2 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
4 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Cryptic Command
4 Faerie Trickery
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Wrath of God
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Calciform Pools
3 Nimbus Maze
11 Snow-Covered Island
4 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Urza's Factory
Sideboard:
3 Aven Riftwatcher
2 Jace Beleren
2 Magus of the Tabernacle
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Remove Soul
3 Sower of Temptation
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Wrath of God

I had taken out Rune Snag in place of maindeck Faerie Trickery. I know, Rune Snag suits the curve better and there is already plenty of three drops in the deck besides Faerie Trickery, but the fact that most people are aware that the deck runs 4 Rune Snag is a disadvantage. The deck has plenty of maindeck anti-creature elements such as Wrath of God, Oblivion Ring and Phyrexian Ironfoot and running 4 Rune Snag, which is much better against creature matchup anyways, does not help much in other midrange matchups. Most people either wait or cast cheaper spells rather than risking Rune Snag once you reached mid-game, since most people who read the internet knows the deck runs 4 Rune Snag.

I also had taken out Venser in place of maindeck Aeon Chronicler. I always felt that the deck has enough answers to permanents on board, and it lacked of some card drawing. I think Aeon fits the perfect role here as he serves as a win condition, defense and card advantage as well. Even if you disagree with the Aeon over Venser, I would definitely play a 4th Oblivion Ring in the maindeck and something else rather than Venser. Don't get me wrong, Venser is a great tempo card, but when you have better options and solutions in the other color, in this case white, why do you still want it anyway?

The land base is almost perfect, the only difference is I had taken out the 2nd Urza's Factory and added an Island because the deck actually has some hard times casting Cryptic Command, not to mention it is really bad to draw into 2 Urza's Factory. Pickles combo will get the job done most of the time.

The difference between my version and the original is...

+2 Aeon
+4 Faerie Trickery
+1 Snow Covered Island

-2 Venser,Shaper Savant
-4 Rune Snag
-1 Urza's Factory

Matchup Analysis

Straight-up Aggressive decks
+2 Magus of the Tabernacle
+3 Aven Riftwatcher
+2 Remove Soul
+1 Wrath of God

-4 Faerie Trickery
-2 Aeon Chonicler
-1 Brine Elemental
-1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

Most of the decks in this category do not have access to counterspells, and they are packed with quality creatures and removal such as Oblivion Ring, Eyeblight's Ending and Incinerate. You don't really need to counter much; you would rather have more direct hate such as Wrath of God, Magus of the Tabernacle etc. Remove Soul is still a fine option here since you don't have much too do on turn 2, and it is still a cheap removal compared to the expensive Faerie Trickery. Basically, the ideal plan is to stall the board with Ironfoot and Riftwatchers, forcing your opponent to overextend to the board. Once you felt it's time to reset, cast the Wrath of God.

Aggro-Control decks

(Against Faeries)
+3 Sower of Temptation
+3 Aven Riftwacher
+2 Remove Soul
+1 Oblivion Ring
+2 Magus of the Tabernacle

- 3 Wrath of God
- 4 Faerie Trickery
4 Phyrexian Ironfoot


(Against Mannequin)
+2 Remove Soul
+1 Teferi,mage of Zhalfir
-3 Wrath of God

I would define decks with counters and a couple of cheap creatures as aggro-control, and Mannequin is one of them despite not packing any countermagic. This is one of the most complicated matchup for you, as you have to take into consideration your opponent being able to counter your wrath effect and playing around it, since some of their creatures either is Wrath-proof such as Epochrasite or has flash such as faeries.

Therefore, I concluded that siding out all Wrath is the right way to go. Good players will never overextend like those straight aggressive decks and even if they do, they are pretty sure they can stop your Wrath with Thoughtseize, countermagic etc. The sideboard card to take out is easy; you take all Faerie Trickery out against faerie, obviously, along with Ironfoot since it doesn't block anything. Against Mannequin, it's a whole different dimension. It is actually better to keep all the Counterspells in the deck since most of their creatures are 187 creatures, therefore it is pointless to use an Oblivion Ring on a Mulldrifter or Shriekmaw, since they had got their job done if they are on the table. Ironfoot is one awesome creature against them as it singlehandily holds an army of Shadowmage, opposing Ironfoot and Shriekmaw all by himself. Teferi is good against them because they have four Epochrasite and four Riftwing Cloudskate as well as stopping them from doing dirty tricks with end of turn Mannequin. Again, they seldom commit much to the board, so Wrath is rather pointless. Once you stabilize, Pickles will get you there.

Control decks

+2 Jace Beleren
+1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
+1 Oblivion Ring
+3 Sower of Temptation

-3 Wrath of God
-4 Phyrexian Ironfoot

Wrath of God and Phyrexian Ironfoot are redundant in this matchup and naturally none of them stays after sideboard. Jace and Teferi are a no-brainer inclusion after boarding, but the rest require some explanation. You are the aggressive player in this matchup, as other deck such as Guile tends to have more countermagic than you. So you play in a different direction. You tend to have a lot of problematic permanents (after board) against them; almost all your cards are good threats by themselves and provide card advantage. In this case, the extra Oblivion Ring gives you protection from a resolved Teferi. Your own Sower is meant to fight opposing Sowers as well. You could also bring in Remove Soul instead of Sower, depending on your preference. It's just that the Sower plan is more rewarding if it managed to resolve.

I took it to an 8-man for the first time after testing it a bunch of times, and I meet Faeries. I kept a hand with 2 Faerie Trickery and that costs me a game. The 2nd game was all defending but I was never in a good position to lock him, and incoming fliers is something you can hardly deal with when they have counterpells as well.

The second 8-man I played against a deck whom goes turn 2 Oona's Prowler, turn 3 Mulldrifter, turn 4 Bonded Fetch, turn 5 Cairn Wanderer. Turns out he's a Reanimator. We both split the first two games and headed to the third. We headed to the third game where he actually discards on turn 2 after not playing a land and proceeded to win the match later. The deck was rather disappointing in the 8-man rather than the profit-making Guile deck. Perhaps I am not as skillful as Cheon is, or the deck really lacks of something. For all you out there wanting to test this deck, let me remind you. This is a very complicated deck to play, be very cautious on each decision you made each turn because it heavily affects your upcoming plan. There is hardly any auto pilot hand for this deck. Never the less, locking the hell out of your opponent is still a lot of fun. If you are the type of person whom enjoys solving complicated board puzzles, this is the deck for you.

by Terry Soh, magic.tcgplayer.com