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 ;)

Magic The Gathering Worlds 2008

The 2008 Magic: The Gathering World Championships is the culmination of the Magic year. Players from more than 50 countries will come together in Memphis, Tennessee for the pinnacle of international Magic competition. National Champions, Pro Tour winners, the highest-ranked DCI players, and more will square off to earn the coveted title of "World Champion."

Worlds also features the best public events of the season, topped by a series of gold-themed tournaments culminating in a top prize of $10,000 in 14k gold. There's also a slew of attractions inside the hall such as A Planeswalker's Journey through Worlds, artist signings, fan activities, game shows, trading, and much more for every type of Magic player.

The 2008 World Championships will be held December 11-14 at the Memphis Cook Convention Center.

Tournament Information

The 2008 World Championships is a four-day event featuring Standard, Shards of Alara Booster Draft, Extended, and National Team Three-Person Team Constructed.

The Player Party and Registration will take place at Graceland on Wednesday, December 10 (6 p.m. - 10 p.m.). For more information, click here.

Format and Schedule

Prize Payout

Invitation List

Graceland Player Party and Registration Information

Tournament Location

Memphis Cook Convention Center
255 North Main
Memphis, TN 38103

Hall Hours

Thursday, December 11: 8:30 a.m. - 3:00 a.m
Friday, December 12: 8:30 a.m. - 3:00 a.m
Saturday, December 13: 8:30 a.m. - 3:00 a.m
Sunday, December 14: 8:30 a.m. - 3:00 a.m

Hotel Information

Memphis Marriott Downtown Hotel (connected to the Convention Center): 901-527-7300

Wyndham Garden Hotel (two blocks away): 300 N. Second Street, 901-525-1800 230

SpringHill Suites (three blocks away): 21 N. Main Street, 901-522-2100 102 Sleep Inn

Court Square (three blocks away): 40 N. Front Street, 901-522-9700 124

Comfort Inn Downtown (three blocks away): 100 N. Front Street, 901-526-0583

More hotel information is available on the Memphis Cook Convention Center website.

Transportation

Wizards of the Coast has made arrangements with a shuttle service to facilitate transportation between Memphis International Airport and the downtown area. Calling to book pick-up 24 hours in advance is advised for departure. All anyone has to do is let the driver know you are with the "Wizards of the Coast" group.

Round trip = $20

link: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=events/magic/worlds

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

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

Quarterfinal: Peleg vs Mori

Great match!

Top Legacy Decks at Worlds 2007

These decks finished with records of 4-1 or better during the Legacy format of the 2007 World Championships.

Top Legacy Decks

Worlds Champion!

Quarterfinals:
Christoph Huber   -   Koutarou Otsuka, 1-3
Katsuhiro Mori   -   Uri Peleg, 0-3 
Gabriel Nassif   -   Roel van Heeswijk, 3-1
Yoshitaka Nakano   -   Patrick Chapin, 2-3

Semifinals:
Koutarou Otsuka   -   Uri Peleg, 1-3
Gabriel Nassif   -   Patrick Chapin, 2-3

FINAL:
Uri Peleg   -   Patrick Chapin, 3-1

URI PELEG - 2007 WORLD CHAMPION!

Legacy Format Analysis and Breakdown at Worlds

Much has been said about the addition of Legacy to the Worlds competition formats this year. Were the pros going to take things seriously? Would they create some new decks unseen before on the competitive circuit? Would they take the lazy road and simply spruce up an Extended deck, or scramble for whatever they could find on site? The answer, as it turned out, was a little bit of all of the above. Let's take a look at how the archetypes broke down on the day:

Threshold: 76
Goblins: 34
Cephalid Breakfast: 26
Landstill: 24
Dredge: 24
PT Junk: 16
Charbelcher: 15
Survival: 14
Stax: 14
Dragon Stompy: 11
Affinity: 11
38-43 Lands: 9
White-Blue-Black: 8
Aggro Loam: 7
Enchantress: 7
Solidarity: 6
Black-White: 6
3Deuce: 6
Counter Goyf: 5
Black-Blue-Green: 5
Slivers / Meathooks: 3
Black Splash Green: 3
Aluren: 3
Monoblack Aggro: 2
Mono-Blue Control: 2
The Perfect Storm: 2
Iggy Pop: 2
Rifter: 2
White Weenie: 1
Life: 1
StifleNaught: 1
Sea Stompy: 1
Stompy: 1
Other: 10

Threshold overwhelmingly fielded the most players for the five rounds of Friday play though there were hardly two identical versions of the deck to be found. Some players ran traditional blue-green builds, eschewing splashes to solidify their manabase and protect it from Wasteland. Others opted to splash white for things like Mystic Enforcer, Swords to Plowshares, and Meddling Mage and still others opted to use red for Lightning Bolt and Fire // Ice.

Not surprisingly, Goblins played second fiddle to the eponymous Tarmogoyf decks, fielding 34 players. The boggart precursors have been a mainstay on the Legacy circuit for some time and saw some professional success earlier this season when Owen Turtenwald used them to place second at the Legacy Grand Prix in Columbus in May. Of course there has been an important change in the format since then: Tarmogoyf has entered the arena, and with it the dominance of Goblins has tapered off somewhat. Even Turtenwald was concerned about the deck's Threshold matchup, opting to run Affinity for the weekend.

While Grand Prix–Columbus is the only other professional-level Legacy tournament we have to look at for results this year, it seems the Legacy Championships at GenCon–Indianapolis actually had the most impact on the current format, almost certainly due to the fact Columbus was played before the Mirage rare Flash was banned. The innovation from the GenCon Top 8 seen most often throughout the weekend was the combination of Sensei's Divining Top and Counterbalance. Because of the aggressive nature of the format, decks must interact on the first, second, and third turns or face being irrelevant. Because of that fact many decks feature a high concentration of cards with the same converted mana cost, and a Top keeping rotating one-, two-, and three-drops on a player's deck with Counterbalance in play can completely lock out an opponent.

Of course, that's not the only impact from the GenCon championships. You may recall the Cephalid Breakfast list young Jesse Hatfield marched to the Top 8 of that event; while the archetype was a known entity going into that tournament Jesse was the player who managed to have the most success with it, and apparently the professional community took note. A surprising 26 copies of the deck showed up to play for World Championships fame and glory, making it the third most popular archetype on the weekend.

That's not to say the pros weren't up for innovating a bit themselves. A contingent of French players showed up with a mono-red deck intent on making big plays via Moxes and two-mana lands like Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors, usually in the form of disruptive spells like Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, or either Blood Moon effect (Magus of and the original enchantment) before powering into larger threats like Arc-Slogger. They even utilized rituals like Seething Song to make sure their overpowered cards hit the table quickly.

Olivier Ruel’s Dragon Stompy
Main Deck
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
11 Mountain
4 Arc-Slogger
4 Gathan Raiders
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Rakdos Pit Dragon
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Blood Moon
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Chrome Mox
3 Seething Song
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Trinisphere
3 Umezawa's Jitte
21 other spells
Sideboard
4 Powder Keg
3 Pyroblast
1 Pyrokinesis
2 Rorix Bladewing
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Trinisphere

On the other side of the Atlantic the American grouping of Gabe Walls and Mike Hron were busy at work on a deck of their own design, though they weren't using Mountains in it. Instead they set out to abuse the recently unbanned Replenish with the plethora of enchantments available in the format. City of Solitude could shut off their opponent's counterspells, Ground Seal could severely disrupt strategies based on abusing the graveyard, and Elephant Grass, Moat, and Solitary Confinement disrupted creature strategies.

Gabe Walls Enchantress
Main Deck
1 Bayou
7 Forest
3 Plains
3 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Serra's Sanctum
1 Taiga
4 Windswept Heath
4 Argothian Enchantress
1 Aura of Silence
3 City of Solitude
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Exploration
2 Ground Seal
2 Moat
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Replenish
1 Sacred Ground
1 Sacred Mesa
2 Solitary Confinement
3 Sterling Grove
4 Utopia Sprawl
1 Words of War
Sideboard
3 Choke
1 City of Solitude
2 Karmic Justice
2 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Thoughtseize

While initially met with grumbles from the pros used to playing only Extended and Block Constructed formats at Worlds, Legacy turned out to be a great format for the event. Players buckled down to find edges just as they do for other formats and their innovations are sure to be felt in the Legacy community at large. Will we see a return to the format at next year's World Championships? You'll have to check back in to magicthegathering.com in twelve months to find out...

by Bill Start wizards.com

Worlds Top 8 decks and profiles

Top 8

Kotaro Otsuka

Hometown: Kanagawa
Number of Times Playing on the Pro Tour: 12
How many Worlds have you played in?4
How did you qualify for 2007 Worlds? Pro points
Number of GP/PT Top 8s:GP 4 / PT 0
Other Previous Magic accomplishments:
2003 Japanese National Champion

Standard Record: 4-1
What Standard deck did you play and why did you play it?
U/B Mannequin because it always won on Magic Online

Main Deck
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
4 Epochrasite
4 Mulldrifter
3 Phyrexian Ironfoot
4 Riftwing Cloudskate
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
4 Shriekmaw
3 Cryptic Command
2 Damnation
1 Loxodon Warhammer
4 Makeshift Mannequin
3 Mind Stone
Sideboard
2 Damnation
2 Liliana Vess
3 Nameless Inversion
2 Persuasion
2 Pithing Needle
4 Thoughtseize

Booster Draft Record: 5-1
What was your draft strategy?
Kithkin. I was taught my strategy by Shota Yasooka

Legacy Record: 3-2
What Legacy deck did you play and why did you play it?
2 Land Belcher, because it's easy to play!

How did you prepare for the event? Who did you prepare with?
Practiced on Magic Online and with many friends who live in Kobuchi


Patrick Chapin

Hometown: Detroit, Michigan USA
Number of Times Playing on the Pro Tour: Oodles
How many Worlds have you played in?Several
How did you qualify for 2007 Worlds? Rating
Number of GP/PT Top 8s:3 PT Top 8s, 1 GP Finals
Other Previous Magic accomplishments:
Former Vintage champion, two-time state champion, regional champion

Standard Record: 4-1
What Standard deck did you play and why did you play it?
Dragonstorm. It is very strong and I didn't think most people would be prepared for combo.

Main Deck 
4 Fungal Reaches
4 Molten Slagheap
12 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Spinerock Knoll
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
Sideboard
2 Ancient Grudge
4 Dodecapod
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Ignite Memories
3 Sulfurous Blast
2 Wheel of Fate

Booster Draft Record: 5-1
What was your draft strategy?
I didn't try to force anything this time and my drafts worked out much better. I ended up R/G giants and B/G elves, so I am glad that I was willing to be flexible. Thank you Herberholz, Rich Hoaen and Gabe Walls for advice.

Legacy Record: 3-1-1
What Legacy deck did you play and why did you play it?
Four-color threshold with Counterbalance, Sensei's Divining Top, Dark Confidant and Thoughtseize. It is just so consistent and my build is well equipped for the mirror.

How did you prepare for the event? Who did you prepare with?
I mostly worked with Mark Herberholz and Gabriel Nassif, as well as Paul Nizolo, Josh Wludyka and DJ Katsner.


Uri Peleg

Hometown: Mevasseret, Israel
Number of Times Playing on the Pro Tour: 8
How many Worlds have you played in?5
How did you qualify for 2007 Worlds? National Team
Number of GP/PT Top 8s:0
Other Previous Magic accomplishments:
31st PT Philadelphia, 37th Worlds 2000

Standard Record: 4-1
What Standard deck did you play and why did you play it?
BGw agro splashing white for Doran the fat Siege Tower. ("He who shelters the wild")


Main Deck
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
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Doran, the Siege Tower
1 Hypnotic Specter
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Ohran Viper
3 Shriekmaw
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Eyeblight's Ending
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Liliana Vess
2 Nameless Inversion
2 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
Sideboard
2 Cloudthresher
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Riftsweeper
2 Serrated Arrows
1 Shriekmaw
2 Stupor

Booster Draft Record: 5-1
What was your draft strategy?
One draft I got lucky, and the other I opened Profane Command and Dread.

Legacy Record: 3-1-1
What Legacy deck did you play and why did you play it?
Landstill designed by Gabriel Nassif, because Antonino De Rosa were nice enough to give me a list (thank you!!!)

How did you prepare for the event? Who did you prepare with?
Playtested some standard with Eviatar Olpiner, Elisha Amiv and Orr Bilduer (from my nats top 8). Also tested Legacy with them but when I got Nassif's list I switched.


Katsuhiro Mori

Hometown: Osaka, Japan
Number of Times Playing on the Pro Tour: (not listed)
How many Worlds have you played in?5
How did you qualify for 2007 Worlds? Level 4 Pro
Number of GP/PT Top 8s:GP: 12, PT: 3
Other Previous Magic accomplishments:
A lot

Standard Record: 5-0
What Standard deck did you play and why did you play it?
I like black Command.

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 Vanquisher
2 Eyeblight's Ending
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Nameless Inversion
4 Profane Command
4 Thoughtseize
Sideboard
2 Cloudthresher
1 Krosan Grip
3 Liliana Vess
1 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Phyrexian Totem
2 Razormane Masticore
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Viridian Shaman

Booster Draft Record: 3-1-2
What was your draft strategy?
Pick all removal.

Legacy Record: 4-1
What Legacy deck did you play and why did you play it?
3cBlack designed by Saito Tomoharu

How did you prepare for the event? Who did you prepare with?
Magic: Online and with Osawa Takuya, Masahiko Morita, and Kenji Tsumura


Yoshitaka Nakano

Hometown: Osaka, Japan
Number of Times Playing on the Pro Tour: 4
How many Worlds have you played in?2
How did you qualify for 2007 Worlds? Rating
Number of GP/PT Top 8s:1
Other Previous Magic accomplishments:
(none listed)

Standard Record: 5-0
What Standard deck did you play and why did you play it?
BG Elves

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 Vanquisher 
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

Booster Draft Record: 5-1
What was your draft strategy?
UB Faerie (3-0)
BGW (2-1)

Legacy Record: 2-1-2
What Legacy deck did you play and why did you play it?
Charbelcher

How did you prepare for the event? Who did you prepare with?
Masahiko Morita, Tsuyoshi Fujita, Kenji Tsumura, Takuya Osawa, and more.


Gabriel Nassif

Hometown: Paris, France
Number of Times Playing on the Pro Tour: (not listed)
How many Worlds have you played in?6-7
How did you qualify for 2007 Worlds? Level 4
Number of GP/PT Top 8s:Grand Prix: 3, Pro Tour: 8
Other Previous Magic accomplishments:
2004 Player of the Year

Standard Record: 4-1
What Standard deck did you play and why did you play it?
Dragonstorm because I thought it was the best deck by far.

Main Deck 
4 Fungal Reaches
4 Molten Slagheap
12 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Spinerock Knoll
4 Bogardan Hellkite
4 Dragonstorm
4 Grapeshot
4 Incinerate
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Pyromancer's Swath
4 Rift Bolt
4 Rite of Flame
4 Shock
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

Booster Draft Record: 5-1
What was your draft strategy?
Pick the best card in the first pack and go from there. Try to avoid Kithkin.

Legacy Record: 3-0-2
What Legacy deck did you play and why did you play it?
Landstill because I thought it had a good/ok matchup against Gro, Goblins, and Breakfast and an overall solid deck that had made its proofs.

How did you prepare for the event? Who did you prepare with?
Going to East Lansing, Michigan to hang out with Herberheezy, go out drinking, learning Kingpin punch lines and mising decklists from random GP side events.


Roel van Heeswijk

Hometown: Utrecht, Netherlands
Number of Times Playing on the Pro Tour: 14
How many Worlds have you played in?3
How did you qualify for 2007 Worlds? Level 3
Number of GP/PT Top 8s:0/2
Other Previous Magic accomplishments:
Dutch Masters 2006

Standard Record: 4-1
What Standard deck did you play and why did you play it?
GB without the Elves, by Rogier Maaten and me.

Main Deck 
7 Forest
3 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
3 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
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
3 Eyeblight's Ending
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Nameless Inversion
4 Thoughtseize
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

Booster Draft Record: 4-2
What was your draft strategy?
Draft Merfolk, 4cTreefolk, Elves, or Elementals.

Legacy Record: 4-0-1
What Legacy deck did you play and why did you play it?
PT Junk

How did you prepare for the event? Who did you prepare with?
Draft a lot for manamaze.com and played Grand Prix-Krakow for Standard. Got a good deck from Wessel Oomens for Legacy.


Christoph Huber

Hometown: Aaran, Switzerland
Number of Times Playing on the Pro Tour: 8
How many Worlds have you played in?2
How did you qualify for 2007 Worlds? National team
Number of GP/PT Top 8s:0/1
Standard Record: 5-0
What Standard deck did you play and why did you play it?
GB Midrange. Nico Bohny tested Standard and told me it's good, he gave me the list.

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

Booster Draft Record: 5-0-1
What was your draft strategy?
Merfolk, merfolk, merfolk!

Legacy Record: 2-2-1
What Legacy deck did you play and why did you play it?
Mono-white Stax. Manuel Bucher, also on the Swiss team, did a little bit of Legacy testing and gave me the list.

How did you prepare for the event? Who did you prepare with?
I've made a couple of online drafts and tried to prepare as good as possible in Constructed during the days before the event started in NY.

Standings after Round 16 at Worlds

After 16 rounds we have the following results. As usual, the japanese players are inimitable good.
Here will be the best Legacy decks from worlds soon!
Round 16 Standings 2007 World Championships

Rank Player Points OMW%
1 Huber, Christoph [CHE] 38 68.2292%
2 Nassif, Gabriel [FRA] 38 67.1875%
3 Nakano, Yoshitaka [JPN] 38 63.6719%
4 Mori, Katsuhiro [JPN] 37 65.3646%
5 Peleg, Uri [ISR] 37 62.5000%
6 Chapin, Patrick A [USA] 37 60.0024%
7 van Heeswijk, Roel [NLD] 37 57.4219%
8 Ootsuka, Koutarou [JPN] 36 61.0677%
9 Kaneko, Masami [JPN] 36 60.0260%
10 Wright, Stuart D [USA] 36 56.3401%
11 Komuro, Shuu [JPN] 36 55.7292%
12 Wiegersma, Jelger [NLD] 35 54.0104%
13 Herold, Jim [DEU] 34 58.0128%
14 Amir, Elisha [ISR] 34 57.4219%
15 Levy, Raphael [FRA] 34 57.0813%
16 Hofmeyr, David P [ZAF] 34 54.1890%
17 cardenal fernández, ma [ESP] 34 49.8698%
18 Mihara, Makihito [JPN] 33 63.4315%
19 Bogachkin, Leonid [RUS] 33 63.1510%
20 Walls, Gabe R [USA] 33 62.2396%
21 Zhou, Yujian [SGP] 33 59.5536%
22 Wafo-tapa, Guillaume [FRA] 33 59.2708%
23 Pils, Florian - [DEU] 33 58.3333%
24 Takahashi, Yuuta [JPN] 33 57.4726%
25 Scott-Vargas, Luis D [USA] 33 56.7708%
26 Malin, Antti E [FIN] 33 56.7708%
27 Mowshowitz, Zvi S [USA] 33 55.4948%
28 De Rosa, Antonino [USA] 33 55.2083%
29 Künzler, Matthias [CHE] 33 54.3713%
30 Karsten, Frank [NLD] 33 54.2211%
31 Lybaert, Marijn [BEL] 33 53.9063%
32 Warmenhoven, Ruud [NLD] 33 52.8245%
33 Camargo, Andres a [CHL] 33 49.9199%
34 Juza, Martin [CZE] 32 58.2031%
35 Campana, Rubens [BRA] 31 61.3021%
36 Fei Yeung, Hong [HKG] 31 60.6771%
37 Saitou, Tomoharu [JPN] 31 59.9479%
38 Godinez Estrada, Gerar [MEX] 31 59.1146%
39 Tsumura, Kenji [JPN] 31 59.0636%
40 Bucher, Manuel [CHE] 31 58.7240%
41 Echeverría Paredes, Jo [CHL] 31 58.3654%
42 Summersberger, Helmut [AUT] 31 58.2325%
43 Hill, Zac D [USA] 31 57.4940%
44 Kettil, Mattias [SWE] 31 55.8854%
45 Rispal, Jonathan [FRA] 31 55.3385%
46 Thompson, Mike R [USA] 31 54.6074%
47 Fujita, Osamu [JPN] 31 54.1667%
48 Klooster, Aare [EST] 31 54.0184%
49 Birner, Armin [AUT] 30 61.0914%
50 Lachmann, Chris D [USA] 30 59.6955%
51 Zacharias, Panaiotis [GRC] 30 59.1927%
52 Hron, Mike P [USA] 30 58.7440%
53 Aguado, Saul [ESP] 30 58.5938%
54 Hirosawa, Yuuta [JPN] 30 58.5938%
55 Sadin, Steven [USA] 30 58.3757%
56 Joens, Klaus [DEU] 30 58.2775%
57 Krempels, Craig C [USA] 30 57.8125%
58 Kastle, Darwin [USA] 30 57.0813%
59 Scheinin, Martin [ESP] 30 56.5104%
60 Kim, Cynic [KOR] 30 56.2500%
61 Watanabe, Yuuya [JPN] 30 56.0697%
62 Kapalas, Georgios [GRC] 30 55.8794%
63 Buckley, Damian A [ARG] 30 55.2163%
64 Ruess, Jan H [DEU] 30 53.7961%
65 Kohan, Nicolas [ARG] 30 53.7760%
66 cammilluzzi, marco [ITA] 30 52.9427%
67 da Rosa, Paulo Vitor D [BRA] 30 52.7284%
68 Scheel, Brandon M [USA] 30 52.6563%
69 Zorc, Sasha [HRV] 30 51.6369%
70 Nakada, Naoki [JPN] 30 50.9598%
71 Chambers, Adam J [USA] 30 50.2604%
72 Coimbra, André [PRT] 30 50.0801%
73 Kaji, Tomohiro [JPN] 30 50.0744%
74 Carvalho, Marcio A [PRT] 30 49.1250%
75 OMahoneySchwartz, Dani [USA] 30 47.9451%
76 Lee, Charles [NZL] 30 47.7344%
77 Meulders, Fried [BEL] 30 47.2857%
78 Petric Maretic, Grgur [HRV] 30 47.1354%
79 Yasooka, Shouta [JPN] 30 46.9342%
80 lefebvre, gaetan [FRA] 29 52.6879%
81 Thaler, Sebastian [DEU] 28 61.7708%
82 Mitamura, Kazuya [JPN] 28 60.4167%
83 Potovin, Nicolay N [RUS] 28 59.5052%
84 Nurmi, Mikko [FIN] 28 57.9427%
85 Jisang, Kang [KOR] 28 54.5573%
86 Wong, Weng Sheng [MYS] 28 54.4271%
87 Imperiale, Jason [USA] 28 53.6458%
88 Ochoa, David A [USA] 28 53.5156%
89 Senyuz, Aras [TUR] 28 52.3769%
90 Herzog, Nicolai [NOR] 28 52.0833%
91 Taru, Genki [JPN] 28 50.9105%
92 Sonne, Jonathan E [USA] 28 49.5393%
93 Stein, Sam A [USA] 27 65.0260%
94 Jones, Craig A [USA] 27 59.5052%
95 Tenenbaum, Amiel [FRA] 27 59.1890%
96 Doise, Jan [BEL] 27 59.1146%
97 Makuch, Michal [SVK] 27 58.4635%
98 Majlaton, Alex S [USA] 27 58.3333%
99 Raphaël, Gennari [CHE] 27 58.3333%
100 Yurchick, Adam M [USA] 27 57.8125%
101 Koster, Olaf M [NLD] 27 57.4219%
102 Kitayama, Masaya [JPN] 27 57.0313%
103 Reitbauer, David E [AUT] 27 56.3092%
104 Matignon, Guillaume [FRA] 27 55.9896%
105 Camangon, Gerald C [PHL] 27 55.7031%
106 Engelberg, Lars J [NOR] 27 55.2804%
107 Herberholz, Mark D [USA] 27 54.6554%
108 Gatica, Miguel [CRI] 27 54.3690%
109 Maher, Robert P [USA] 27 54.3392%
110 Volostrigov, Bogdan [RUS] 27 54.1867%
111 Al-Bacha, Wesimo [DEU] 27 54.0625%
112 Lebedowicz, Osyp I [USA] 27 53.5593%
113 McCord, Scott J [USA] 27 53.5156%
114 van der Velden, Stan [BEL] 27 53.4598%
115 Pattaro, Eloi U [BRA] 27 51.9803%
116 Snepvangers, Bram [NLD] 27 51.8309%
117 Cheon, Paul A [USA] 27 51.3522%
118 Filippini, Gianluca [ITA] 27 50.8534%
119 Steinaa, Peter [DNK] 27 50.7303%
120 Eckermann, Andrew [AUS] 27 50.5208%
121 Coqueiro, Rafael S [BRA] 27 50.4901%
122 Irvine, David W [USA] 27 50.2126%
123 Monsen, Haakon R [NOR] 27 50.1666%
124 Nordahl, Andreas [NOR] 27 50.0625%
125 Aplin, Steven S [AUS] 27 49.8461%
126 Orav, Joonas [EST] 27 49.7582%
127 Akiyama, Takashi [JPN] 27 49.4314%
128 Soh, Terry [MYS] 27 49.3141%
129 Siron, Geoffrey [BEL] 27 49.0882%
130 Idzikovsky, Eugene [RUS] 27 48.5877%
131 Sittner, John A [USA] 27 48.4375%
132 rohner, omar [ESP] 27 47.9911%
133 Preyer, Thomas [AUT] 27 47.5260%
134 Nuijten, Julien P [NLD] 27 46.0379%
135 Borczyk, Paul [DEU] 27 45.3869%
136 Lunau, Anton [DNK] 27 44.8438%
137 Oks, Oliver J [AUS] 26 52.5341%
138 Cavaleiro, Pedro L [PRT] 26 51.6126%
139 Finkel, Jon S [USA] 25 59.1927%
140 Englund, Simon E [SWE] 25 59.1146%
141 Rodriguez Doy, Jose [PER] 25 58.8542%
142 Lipták, Károly [HUN] 25 53.8504%
143 Petreski, Samoil [MKD] 25 53.1250%
144 Chan, Tiago [PRT] 25 52.9948%
145 Tokoli, Zsolt [HUN] 25 51.0840%
146 Ruel, Olivier [FRA] 25 50.7254%
147 Häggkvist, Sami [FIN] 25 50.5208%
148 Miller, Adam J [USA] 25 50.4107%
149 Pascoli, Mario [ITA] 25 50.2604%
150 Hoon, Kelvin Yew Teck [SGP] 25 49.7196%
151 Sadeghpour, Johan [USA] 25 48.8482%
152 Hung, Chi Hang [HKG] 25 46.4807%
153 Wu, Jia [CHN] 25 46.1644%
154 Woods, Conley L [USA] 25 45.3646%
155 Canali, Pierre [FRA] 25 44.1406%
156 Williams, David A [USA] 24 58.9323%
157 Tormos, Ervin [USA] 24 56.9010%
158 Alvarado, Saul C [PAN] 24 56.5848%
159 Ting-A-Kee, Andrew M [CAN] 24 55.8594%
160 Nagy, Tamas [HUN] 24 55.1974%
161 Maaten, Rogier [NLD] 24 54.9479%
162 Fenu, Davide [ITA] 24 54.2969%
163 Reiter, Micha [AUT] 24 53.9583%
164 Gieling, Vincent D [BEL] 24 53.4920%
165 Herrin, Mark C [PHL] 24 53.1510%
166 Edel, Willy [BRA] 24 53.0370%
167 Polasek, Filip [SVK] 24 53.0171%
168 Kramer, Daniel [CAN] 24 52.9948%
169 Lundquist, Benjamin R [USA] 24 52.8065%
170 Jautakis, Andrius [LTU] 24 52.7908%
171 Synakh, Kostyantyn [UKR] 24 52.2222%
172 cheung, justin [HKG] 24 51.8830%
173 Sung, Morris Ming Che [TWN] 24 51.7932%
174 Manning, Christopher B [USA] 24 51.5053%
175 Olpiner, eviatar [ISR] 24 51.3765%
176 Johannsen, Dennis [DEU] 24 51.0877%
177 Urban, Adam [POL] 24 50.2367%
178 Haroun, Seraj [ZAF] 24 49.8958%
179 Stradner, Stefan [AUT] 24 49.5076%
180 Ishii, Kuniyoshi S [PRT] 24 49.4992%
181 Vavra, Vit [CZE] 24 49.2708%
182 Hoaen, Richard G [CAN] 24 48.9025%
183 Saredo, Adrian A [ARG] 24 48.6455%
184 pi hsiang, yu [TWN] 24 48.5119%
185 Wilson, Doug [NZL] 24 48.4575%
186 Arenas, Christian [PER] 24 48.4054%
187 Zhang, Yu [CHN] 24 48.3484%
188 Chao, Peter [TWN] 24 47.9367%
189 Parazzoli, Dario [ITA] 24 47.9247%
190 damian, nicholas [BRA] 24 47.7865%
191 Ferrari Spampinato, Go [ARG] 24 47.6042%
192 Asahara, Akira [JPN] 24 47.5260%
193 Bohny, Nico [CHE] 24 47.4903%
194 Casatti, Vagner W [BRA] 24 47.3958%
195 Ranque, Wilfried G [FRA] 24 47.2619%
196 Besso, David [ITA] 24 47.1154%
197 Mokhtaruddin, Mohd Haf [MYS] 24 46.5365%
198 Dach, Michèl [DEU] 24 46.4934%
199 Quinton, Shayne A [CAN] 24 45.4530%
200 Velev, Alexander B [BGR] 24 44.0067%
201 Starek, Jakub [CZE] 24 43.1197%
202 Krasnitski, Mike [UKR] 24 41.5030%
203 Fortier, Remi [FRA] 24 39.1369%
204 Drake, Thomas C [USA] 23 55.8193%
205 D Aversa, Daniele [VEN] 23 48.0469%
206 Fior, Elton M [BRA] 22 52.3117%
207 Kociecki, Cyryl M [POL] 22 51.7829%
208 Erinin, Dimityr A [BGR] 22 51.3622%
209 Loh, Ryan [SGP] 22 50.1302%
210 Mejia, Andres [COL] 22 49.9679%
211 Gräfensteiner, Tobias [DEU] 22 49.0909%
212 Karström, Kristoffer K [SWE] 22 48.5833%
213 Orsini-Jones, Marco [USA] 22 48.5440%
214 Ascalon, Jason P [PHL] 22 47.9167%
215 Soto, Eduardo [CHL] 22 47.9167%
216 Moreno, Daniel [COL] 22 47.0275%
217 Vojnovic, Cedomir [SCG] 22 44.6615%
218 Shlyakhov, Yaroslav A [UKR] 22 43.7500%
219 Skrbec, Ziga [SVN] 22 43.3594%
220 Renevier, Jerome [FRA] 21 58.0729%
221 Hall, Zack [USA] 21 56.1979%
222 Moskovich, Valentin V [USA] 21 54.8428%
223 Brumby, Gene [NZL] 21 53.7760%
224 Moreno, William M [USA] 21 53.2313%
225 Da Costa Cabral, Berna [BEL] 21 53.0028%
226 Agerberg, Mattias [SWE] 21 52.8125%
227 Zampere Junior, Celso [BRA] 21 52.4473%
228 Romão, Carlos E [BRA] 21 52.2290%
229 Lightfoot, Anatoli J [AUS] 21 51.8229%
230 Hendrickson, Mark S [USA] 21 51.7161%
231 Betschart, Alejandro M [URY] 21 51.3845%
232 Obradovic, Vladimir A [SCG] 21 51.1161%
233 Barra, Giulio [ITA] 21 50.3401%
234 Oiso, Masashi [JPN] 21 50.3105%
235 Satou, Rei [JPN] 21 50.1302%
236 Morita, Masahiko [JPN] 21 50.0654%
237 Ramirez, Emerson f [CHL] 21 50.0601%
238 Lovett, Nicholas A [USA] 21 49.4271%
239 Pelcak, John T [USA] 21 49.1913%
240 Szleifer, Gadiel [USA] 21 48.9365%
241 Redford, Michael D [ZAF] 21 48.6421%
242 Hamalainen, Olli W [FIN] 21 48.4722%
243 Jensen, David R [DNK] 21 48.4375%
244 Bobic, Lazar [SCG] 21 48.0208%
245 Iher, Kaupo [EST] 21 47.7865%
246 de Kler, Tijs [NLD] 21 47.6004%
247 Schiermeyer, Robert P [USA] 21 47.4533%
248 Focardi, Alessandro [CRI] 21 47.3400%
249 Garcia, Marlon C [VEN] 21 47.2538%
250 Cornelissen, Kamiel K [NLD] 21 46.9494%
251 Amaya Troncoso, Carlos [COL] 21 46.5909%
252 Luna, Javier A [ARG] 21 46.5788%
253 Espino, Eric [PAN] 21 46.0516%
254 chang ching, ko [TWN] 21 45.7813%
255 Sam, Jimmy [PER] 21 45.5763%
256 Wang, Ming Chee [TWN] 21 45.2684%
257 Langer, Tomas [CZE] 21 45.1823%
258 Shomer, Asaf [ISR] 21 44.5313%
259 Kvalo, Tarjei [NOR] 21 44.5313%
260 sangpar, prakit [THA] 21 43.6790%
261 O Connell, Bernard [IRL] 21 42.9167%
262 Bennett, Michael A [USA] 21 41.7969%
263 Donato, Marino [CRI] 21 41.3504%
264 Telarov, Aleksa [SCG] 21 39.2298%
265 Kiskis, Saulius [LTU] 20 46.6346%
266 Ganesan, Rajesh [MYS] 20 45.1113%
267 Dougherty, Robert R [USA] 19 55.1479%
268 van Medevoort, Robert [NLD] 19 54.1867%
269 Marques, Bruno [PRT] 19 51.4807%
270 Szarata, Robert [POL] 19 50.5208%
271 Gomez, Julian D [COL] 19 48.1061%
272 Dikovski, Bojan [MKD] 19 47.3958%
273 massicard, yann [FRA] 19 46.9494%
274 Gallegos, Moises A [MEX] 19 43.6198%
275 Akbulut, Berk [TUR] 19 43.3056%
276 Nava, Antón [BOL] 19 42.7827%
277 Didierjean, Thomas [FRA] 19 42.0123%
278 Chick, Hoi K [HKG] 19 41.6667%
279 Oomens, Wessel [NLD] 18 55.0296%
280 Nakamura, Shuuhei [JPN] 18 54.8323%
281 Arita, Ryuuichi [JPN] 18 54.8279%
282 Zhang, Yin [LUX] 18 53.2031%
283 McDaniel, Chris T [USA] 18 52.0833%
284 Lapnimitchai, Chakorn [THA] 18 52.0833%
285 Kim, Alex A [USA] 18 50.8813%
286 Alcalde, Juan Pablo [ARG] 18 50.5208%
287 Turtenwald, Owen [USA] 18 49.7400%
288 Arenson, Mike B [CAN] 18 49.7396%
289 Papatsarouchas, Evange [GRC] 18 49.5868%
290 Ledezma, Jose [BOL] 18 49.4848%
291 Ruel, Antoine [FRA] 18 49.3056%
292 Fonseca, Guilherme A [BRA] 18 48.9796%
293 Melamed, Jonathan L [BRA] 18 48.6979%
294 Ivanov, Eugene [RUS] 18 48.1404%
295 Popov, Miro [MKD] 18 48.0655%
296 Precenieks, Nikolajs [LVA] 18 48.0540%
297 Tejero Hernandez, Joaq [ESP] 18 47.4212%
298 Oosawa, Takuya [JPN] 18 47.4065%
299 Harvey, Eugene B [USA] 18 47.2635%
300 Kunic, Tomislav [HRV] 18 45.3622%
301 Cloete, Werner [ZAF] 18 45.3311%
302 Selvaggi, Alessandro [ITA] 18 45.2415%
303 Coskunoglu, Basar [TUR] 18 44.7819%
304 Jamir, Joselito Albert [PHL] 18 44.6815%
305 Dominguez Roldan, Alfr [MEX] 18 43.8021%
306 Karafotis, Konstantino [GRC] 18 43.5374%
307 Vicente Ferrer, Ricard [ESP] 18 43.4495%
308 Nicosia, Alvaro A [PAN] 18 43.3036%
309 Fridriksson, Marteinn [ISL] 18 43.2738%
310 Berthoud, Lucas E [BRA] 18 43.1973%
311 Valis, Filip [SVK] 18 43.0990%
312 Boistard, Nicolas [FRA] 18 42.0759%
313 Fine, Marshall D [USA] 18 41.7321%
314 Belev, Nikola T [BGR] 18 41.6071%
315 Lopez, Salatiel [MEX] 18 41.4063%
316 Teeradechsakul, Teerac [THA] 18 40.6842%
317 Varbanov, Svetlin [BGR] 18 40.5182%
318 Wong, Javier [PER] 18 38.7912%
319 Song, Ji Young [KOR] 18 38.4967%
320 Valenzuela, Pablo [BOL] 18 37.7367%
321 Godfrey, Daniel J [USA] 17 43.7500%
322 Veltchev, Kalin [BEL] 17 40.8854%
323 Kaczmarczyk, Radek [POL] 17 40.3717%
324 De La Rosa, Eddy A [DOM] 16 48.8166%
325 Arrieta, Alonso [CRI] 16 47.8697%
326 Rodrigues, Fabio M [PRT] 16 41.2794%
327 Jacob, Michael A [USA] 16 40.9054%
328 Mendonca, Rafael F [BRA] 15 61.9835%
329 Dushkevich, Artem [RUS] 15 53.2544%
330 Chaud, Matheus [BRA] 15 52.1044%
331 Cuneo, Andrew [USA] 15 50.8547%
332 Lopez, Michael L [DOM] 15 50.5424%
333 Suarez, Felipe [COL] 15 46.9907%
334 Paulauskas, Algis [LTU] 15 46.6146%
335 Portugal, Donaldo A [PAN] 15 45.6473%
336 Habiboglu, Gokhan [TUR] 15 44.7917%
337 Plinston, Andrew [NZL] 15 44.4754%
338 Thompson, Gerry W [USA] 15 44.0771%
339 Pitianusorn, Bovorn [THA] 15 44.0290%
340 Siira, Erkki [FIN] 15 43.8988%
341 Miranda, Francisco G [ECU] 15 43.0833%
342 Szabo, Andras [HUN] 15 42.6373%
343 Meaney, Alan J [IRL] 15 42.3177%
344 Rasmussen, Tim P [DNK] 15 42.2222%
345 Cec, Filip [HRV] 15 41.8205%
346 Joemets, Marko [EST] 15 41.6667%
347 Nouzovsky, Zdenko [SVK] 15 41.5278%
348 Holmes, Conor J [IRL] 15 41.0900%
349 Kuan, Adrian Shen Jong [MYS] 15 41.0156%
350 Jung, Jae-Hoon [KOR] 15 40.9722%
351 Kozachuk, Artem [UKR] 15 37.6184%
352 Melovski, Dime [MKD] 14 46.4844%
353 Rodriguez, Ronald R [DOM] 13 54.6154%
354 Chapman, Craig [AUS] 13 42.3921%
355 Rösner, Bodo [DEU] 13 38.9678%
356 Ogura, Ryou [JPN] 12 53.3333%
357 Pappaterra, Pedro J [DOM] 12 49.2308%
358 Blackman, Brett [USA] 12 49.0000%
359 Mueller, Andre [DEU] 12 47.9339%
360 Fujita, Tsuyoshi [JPN] 12 46.2810%
361 Budde, Kai [DEU] 12 45.1791%
362 Sundlöf, Tom [SWE] 12 43.4470%
363 López, Daniel A [ECU] 12 42.7827%
364 Dickerman, Ariel [CRI] 12 40.9127%
365 TZIOTIS, PETROS [GRC] 12 37.7410%
366 Gobzem, Gleb [BLR] 11 37.5260%
367 Fabiano, Gerard [USA] 10 46.6667%
368 Luks, Luis E [VEN] 10 44.4341%
369 Bruzgis, Vytautas [LTU] 10 42.8125%
370 Kurihara, Shingou [JPN] 9 52.6667%
371 Van Lunen, Jacob [USA] 9 51.5625%
372 Nakajima, Chikara [JPN] 9 49.7942%
373 Sibast, Rasmus D [DNK] 9 45.8333%
374 Wijaya, Vidianto [USA] 9 43.2099%
375 Crowley, Neil C [IRL] 9 38.8889%
376 Motta, Pedro R [BRA] 7 55.1020%
377 Martin, Quentin [USA] 6 43.7500%
378 giraldo, juan fernando [COL] 6 43.6214%
379 Coro Sanchez, Carlos [BOL] 6 35.3739%
380 Aten, Timothy J [USA] 5 58.6667%
381 Ikeda, Tsuyoshi [JPN] 3 47.6667%
382 Fiorillo, John M [USA] 3 37.4150%
383 Wolansky, Steven J [USA] 3 33.3333%
384 Subari, Anthony T [IDN] 0 100.0000%
385 Carvalho, Paulo [PRT] 0 44.4444%
386 Morel, Victor m [DOM] 0 36.0000%

6-0 Draft with Adam Chambers

Adam Chambers is a Pro Tour regular who can usually be found working with the likes of semi-retired Tim Aten to prepare for Pro Tours. At this year's World Championships he dug himself into a bit of a hole during the Standard portion, starting the event 0-4, but he's been hot since then, winning every single match he's played. That streak includes a 6-0 run during the Limited portion of the event and when the aforementioned Aten informed the coverage staff that Chambers's view on triple Lorwyn draft was truly innovative and that his performance was not simply a fluke, we couldn't help but take the chance to sit down and talk with him.

On the question of whether or not one should play eighteen lands in their draft decks or risk trimming one or two to squeeze in extra playables, Chambers came down firmly on the side of caution. "I find that I'd much rather play eighteen lands than some card that isn't meant to be in my deck or isn't going to be very good." He admitted that occasionally he'll trim a single land if he feels his curve is low, he's playing lots of cantrips, or he has lots of additional mana fixers, but his lists will usually feature the full eighteen mana sources.

And on drawing or playing first?

"I always draw first, no matter what. I like to have more information as you need to know what to kill to win the matchup and you simply have more cards than your opponent."

Was he worried about being out-tempoed in a format generally credited as being fast for Limited?

"It's not like I disregard mana curve; it's just that I think cards are a lot more important than tempo."

Chambers clarified what he meant by knowing what creature you have to kill in a matchup by saying, "In this format I find that every time I draft, all I do is pick removal. Every deck is going to have whatever creature it's based around and you're going to have to either kill them or lose. Dreamspoiler Witches in Faeries or Lys Alana Huntmaster in Elves or Silvergill Douser in Merfolk... pretty much all Merfolk, actually. I always pick removal in the early picks."

Anything he doesn't like drafting?

"I don't know how to win with white, and I won't draft it no matter what." He also violates one of the most sacred conventional wisdoms of Lorwyn draft: he doesn't search out a tribe to pick up. "I don't really look to draft the tribes. If they come I'll draft them or if I open some card, like Thundercloud Shaman maybe, I'll draft them, but I find that removal is more important than tribes. If you take away the key creature, the rest of the tribal cards aren't too good. If you can kill the creature a deck is based around the rest isn't so good."

Chambers typically tries to start a draft by picking up Moonglove Extracts and Weed Strangles but did have one uncommon he always keeps an eye out for: Marsh Flitter. "If I see it I almost always pick it. It's very good and works great with a number of the black cards. If you want to play a defensive game with the card it's really hard [for your opponent] to do anything about it without getting at least a couple of your opponent's cards. It's one of the best plays for turn four."

Sometimes it pays to think outside the box and for Adam Chambers it meant a decent shot at the Top 8. Here are the draft decks that put him in that position, with the second being, in Adam's words, "Theoretically the deck I want to draft every time."

Adam Chambers’s Draft Deck #1
Worlds 2007
Main Deck:
11 Island
6 Swamp
1 Aethersnipe
1 Amoeboid Changeling
1 Benthicore
1 Dreamspoiler Witches
1 Glen Elendra Pranksters
1 Guile
1 Merrow Reejerey
2 Mulldrifter
1 Paperfin Rascal
2 Silvergill Adept
2 Streambed Aquitects
2 Warren Pilferers
1 Broken Ambitions
1 Ego Erasure
1 Footbottom Feast
1 Jace Beleren
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Whirlpool Whelm
1 Wings of Velis Vel


Adam Chambers’s Draft Deck #2
Worlds 2007
Main Deck: 
9 Forest
9 Swamp
1 Dreamspoiler Witches
1 Ghostly Changeling
2 Kithkin Daggerdare
2 Marsh Flitter
2 Moonglove Winnower
1 Mournwhelk
1 Spiderwig Boggart
1 Thieving Sprite
1 Vigor
1 Warren Pilferers
1 Woodland Changeling 
1 Footbottom Feast
1 Incremental Growth
1 Makeshift Mannequin
2 Moonglove Extract
3 Weed Strangle

by Bill Stark