Weekend Review
Hey folks! Slightly later than planned, it’s time to look back and reflect on the MTG action that took place this past weekend. There were 3 big events with a Standard Grand Prix in Kobe, Japan, a Standard SCG Open in Kansas City (although sadly there was no video coverage of this one) and a Modern Grand Prix in Pittsburgh, USA.
Let’s start with a quick look at the Top 8 of the SCG Open in Kansas City;
Abzan Red – Matt Carlson
1st Place, Star City Games Open – Kansas City
Creatures: Sideboard:
2 Den Protector 2 Den Protector
4 Heir of the Wilds 2 Dragonmaster Outcast
4 Siege Rhino 2 Silkwrap
4 Warden of the First Tree 1 Virulent Plague
2 Wingmate Roc 1 Dromoka’s Command
4 Anafenza, the Foremost 2 Hallowed Moonlight
1 Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury 1 Duress
Lands: 2 Infinite Obliteration
2 Forest 2 Radiant Flames
1 Plains
2 Swamp
Spells:
The Abzan Red deck is powerful and flexible strategy and this list looks like Matt Carlson may have borrowed my notebook at some point!
With the flexibility of Fetchlands and Battle lands tri-colour decks have an easy time splashing a fourth colour for ‘free’. Carlson has chosen to splash red with Bloodstained Mire, Wooded Foothills, Smoldering Marsh and Cinder Glade. The red allows for some powerful spells in Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury, Kolaghan’s Command and Crackling Doom.
Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury has seen slightly less play than she deserves and remains a powerful threat whenever she is cast, or dashed, and can give your whole team a much needed boost. I particularly like this card considering the main deck token generators in the form of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Sorin, Solemn Visitor and Secure the Wastes. The red also gives some additional flexibility is sideboard options, outside of the traditional Abzan colours, with Dragonmaster Outcast and Radiant Flames.
I’m planning to be back with a follow-up article to discuss the various Abzan decks in standard and my experiences with them, so be sure to keep an eye out for that!
Continuing with Standard let’s jump to the land of the rising Sun and look at Grand Prix Kobe.
293 players made it to Day Two at GP Kobe with Abzan Aggro proving to be the most popular deck with 103 copies and claiming a 35.15% of the metagame. All told Abzan, in its’ various forms accounted for 151 decks on Day 2 and a massive 51.53% of the metagame, the closest archetype was Esper with 47 copies across 3 archetypes and a 16.04% share of the metagame.
With the abundance of Abzan decks the field was primed for Takuma Morofuji to slice and dice his way through the field with his Atarka Red deck, or ‘Split-Twin’ for those PVDR fans, a deck that has proven too quick for the Abzan decks of recent.
Atarka Red – Takum Morofuji
Creatures: Sideboard:
2 Lightning Berserker 1 Hordeling Outburst
3 Zurgo Bellstriker 1 Fiery Impulse
4 Monastery Swiftspear 2 Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh
Lands: 4 Rending Volley
2 Cinder Glade 1 Outpost Siege
4 Wooded Foothills 2 Act of Treason
8 Mountain
1 Forest
Spells:
There was nothing shocking about the Atarka Red deck, this has come to be a pretty stock list since it debuted at Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar. The sideboard is where the most customisation is within the deck, Morofuji appeared to favour removal and spells that allowed him to go slightly ‘bigger’ in certain matches with Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh and Outpost Siege. Act of Treason is an interesting conclusion and can make combat math easier against an unknowing opponent.
I’ve seen some lists with green creatures in the main deck, or sideboard, such as Den Protector, Snapping Gnarlid and even Hooting Mandrils, all of which helps to protect against a well-timed Surge of Righteousness from an opponent breaking-up your combo.
Back in the USA and Modern was the name of the game in Pittsburgh. Modern has always been an interesting format to me, with a wide range of decks and a constant stream of new cards from the latest sets, there always a deck for everybody. Whilst the entry barrier to modern can seem pretty steep, recent Standard players have had the opportunity to have a few new modern staples printed in recent blocks , which can make it easier to enter the format.
There were no real surprises in this modern GP, there were no breakout decks like Lantern Control did recently. Rather it was a case of more of the same. There seemed to be an abundance of combo decks on the coverage this weekend, with commentators referring to the format as ‘the Wild-West’ and joking about how quickly matches ended. The stats for Day 2, however, appear to tell a different tale;
Day 2 Metagame Breakdown – Top 10 archetypes
Deck Archetype No. of Day 2 Decks % of the metagame
Affinity [32] 10.40%
Jund [27] 8.80%
UR Twin [23] 7.50%
Naya Zoo [20] 6.50%
Abzan [18] 5.90%
Amulet Bloom [17] 5.50%
RG Tron [17] 5.50%
Infect [11] 3.60%
Merfolk [10] 3.30%
Grixis Control [9] 2.90%
There is a notable difference with how many copies of the most popular deck is, when compared to the dominance of Abzan in Standard, but as you can see there were far less combo decks than were represented on coverage. I understand that coverage try to cover the Pro players in the feature match area, but as a midrange player at heart there is only so many combo matches I watch in a weekend.
Fittingly the final of GP Pittsburgh was between Affinity and Twin which were two of the most popular decks on Day 2, albeit it was a Jeskai variant that went home with the GP title.
Jeskai Twin – Alex Bianchi
1st Place – GP Pittsburgh
Creatures: Sideboard:
1 Wall of Omens 2 Dispel
4 Snapcaster Mage 1 Wear // Tear
4 Deceiver Exarch 1 Stony Silence
1 Pestermite 1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Vendilion Clique 1 Engineered Explosives
2 Restoration Angel 1 Celestial Purge
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 1 Keranos, God of Storms
Spells: 1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
2 Spell Snare 1 Negate
1 Dispel 2 Timely Reinforcements
3 Remand
Lands:
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
The keen-eyed readers amongst you will remember that my fellow writer Charles Russett wrote about his Jeskai Twin deck in one of his debut articles, be sure to go and check that out! Whilst Bianchi was not running around with hasty and vigilant Dragon Lord Ojutai’s he was making the most out his splash in to white.
Bianchi was able to compliment the normal Twin combo of Splinter Twin + Deceiver Exarch or Pestermite with the slightly more maligned Restoration Angel and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker combo.
The kiki combo works much the same way as the Splinter Twin enchantment, only instead of making infinite copies of Exarch/Pestermite and un-tapping the enchanted copy, with this combo you are using Kiki-Jiki to copy your Restoration Angel in to play and ‘flickering’ your Kiki-Jiki to allow you to make another hasty 3/4 flying angel. This particular combo cannot be broken apart by Spellskite and allows to you combo win through that particular hate card.
In the sideboard we see Stony Silence, Celestial Purge and Timely Reinforcements, all powerful and traditional white sideboard cards. We also see a single copy of Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, following her demise at the hands of Heliod, and her rotation from Standard, I had long thought we had seen the last of this particular iteration of Elspeth. Elspeth gives the Jeskai deck a powerful late-game win condition when there combo plan may not suffice.
There are no board wipes in Bianchi’s sideboard and Elspeth is more than capable of filling this role against fair creature decks whilst providing her normal impression of an ‘army in a can’. Given the vulnerability of Planeswalkers, and if Bianchi was using her for the sole purpose of an alternative win condition then another option might be to look at Assemble the Legion. Assemble plays a similar role and if left uncheck can provide an insurmountable advantage turn-after-turn.
Well that’s all from me for this week’s weekend review. As always please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment sections, is there a sweet deck that I missed? Want me to talk about a card that I overlooked? Then the comment section is for you!
Bonus Deck!
Temur Black – Josh McClain
7th Place Star City Games Open – Kansas City
Creatures: Sideboard:
4 Rattleclaw Mystic 1 Virulent Plague
4 Savage Knuckleblade 2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Thunderbreak Regent 2 Fiery Impulse
4 Woodland Wanderer 1 Stubborn Denial
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang 2 Duress
Spells: 1 Exert Influence
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker 2 Radiant Flames
3 Draconic Roar 2 Roast
1 Fiery Impulse 1 Self-Inflicted Wound
Lands:
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
