We’re baaaaack! After a weekend of pre-releases it was time to dive head first into the delectable morsels of constructed goodness that Oath of the Gatewatch would deliver to our ever-consuming Magic-playing needs. Starcitygames.com would give us our first look at a post-Twin and Summer Bloom modern format, with their Modern Classic Open… or whatever it is they’re calling it these days. SCG would also be giving us our first look at Standard constructed, with some additional information being garnered from the Super Series finals at the WOTC headquarters in Seattle. So let’s get straight to the action.

I want to start by looking at the Modern results from the StarCityGames Classic event. Would our new Tron and Eldrazi overlords be battling for dominance? Is there still a place for my beloved mid-range decks? And will anyone dare to play a neutered Amulet Bloom deck. Well the results were a little suprising:

1st Place – StarCityGames Classic

Temur Delver – Todd Anderson

Creatures:

4 Delver of Secrets

2 Hooting Mandrills

4 Snapcaster Mage

4 Tarmogoyf

1 Young Pyromancer

Spells:

1 Dismember

1 Izzet Charm

4 Lightning Bolt

1 Mutagenic Growth

4 Remand

3 Spell Pierce

1 Thought Scour

3 Vapor Snag

3 Gitaxian Probe

4 Serum Visions

Lands:

1 Forest

2 Island

1 Mountain

2 Breeding Pool

4 Misty Rainforest

4 Scalding Tarn

2 Steam Vents

1 Stomping Ground

3 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:

2 Grim Lavamancer

3 Spreading Seas

2 Threads of Disloyalty

3 Ancient Grudge

1 Dispel

2 Gut Shot

2 Surgical Extraction

The Top 16 contained a wide variety of decks but, surprisingly, no Tron made it in to the Top 16. There was a lone B/W Eldrazi deck but the rest of the Top 16 consisted of the usual suspects in Jund, Merfolk, Affinity, Burn and Zoo. Sitting atop of all these decks was Todd and his Temur Delver deck, undeterred by the banning of Splinter Twin, Todd found an alternate blue-tempo deck that can take him through the myriad of decks that you might find in modern.

The plan is simple, play an early Delver and flip it from one of your 25 spells and get your beats in the air whilst Tarmogoyf, Hooting Mandrils and Young Pyromancer hold the ground. Backing this plan up is a suite of counter spells, cheap removal, burn and cantrips to find the former.

The sideboard of Todd’s deck contained the usual assortment of ‘silver bullets’ to fight various decks, with Spreading Seas to fight Tron and B/W Eldrazi, Ancient Grudge to hold off the robots of Affinity and Surgical Extraction Shutting down any pesky graveyard combo decks.

Mahindra Bheodari was the sole B/W Eldrazi deck in the Top 16 and the decked certainly picked up a few goodies in OGW, let’s take a look at the best performing Eldrazi deck.

13th Place – StarCityGames Classic

B/W Eldrazi – Mahindra Bheodari

Creatures:

4 Blight Herder

2 Oblivion Sower

2 Reality Smasher

4 Thought-Knot Seer

4 Wasteland Strangler

1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Spells:

4 Relic of Progenitus

1 Dismember

1 Go for the Throat

4 Path to Exile

3 Inquisition of Kozilek

3 Lingering Souls

2 Thoughtseize

Lands:

1 Plains

2 Swamp

2 Caves of Koilos

4 Eldrazi Temple

3 Ghost Quarter

3 Godless Shrine

3 Marsh Flats

1 Shambling Vent

1 Vault of the Archangel

3 Eye of Ugin

2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Sideboard:

2 Spellskite

1 Eldrazi Displacer

2 Stony Silence

2 Disenchant

2 Surgical Extraction

2 Flaying Tendrils

2 Timely Reinforcements

1 All Is Dust

1 Celestial Purge

Only Thought-Knot Seer made the main 60 cards and it’s not hard to see why. A 4/4 for 4 mana is a reasonable rate in most formats, but add in the ability to exile your opponents best card and you’re cooking with gas. Vendilion Clique has long been one of the best blue creatures in the format and the so-called Vendillion Freak does a remarkable impression of the card. Sure both cards have their upsides, the Clique flies and the Freak has 4 toughness and doesn’t die to red -based removal, both cards can give your opponent a card but Clique has flying. Both cards will certainly have spots where they are good and bad.

In the sideboard Flaying Tendrils is added to give the deck a cheap sweeper and exiling those cards to allow for future processing needs!

Heading back to Standard and both SCG and WOTC were holding Standard events and giving us a first look at OGW Standard.

The Super Series finals in Seattle gives us a brief look at the Standard format, but with the Top 8 being a draft, the best performing decks would be determined in the Swiss portion only. Sam Black triumphed at the end of the weekend so let’s start there:

1st Place – WOTC Super Series

Rally the Ancestors – Samuel Black

Creatures:

3 Sidisi’s Faithful

3 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim

2 Elvish Visionary

4 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy

2 Catacomb Sifter

3 Grim Haruspex

3 Reflector Mage

4 Nantuko Husk

4 Zulaport Cutthroat

Spells:

4 Collected Company

4 Rally the Ancestors

Lands:

1 Forest

1 Plains

1 Island

1 Swamp

2 Sunken Hollow

2 Prairie Stream

1 Canopy Vista

4 Windswept Heath

4 Flooded Strand

4 Polluted Delta

3 Evolving Wilds

Sideboard:

3 Duress

3 Arashin Cleric

2 Anafenza, the Foremost

1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

3 Murderous Cut

1 Valorous Stance

2 Merciless Executioner

Heading in to this weekend Rally the Ancestors, arguably, was the deck to beat with strong performances towards the end of the last Standard season. OGW certainly looked to be adding some powerful cards in to the mix and Black thought so too. Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim made her way in to the main deck, an additional way to sacrifice creatures whilst cutting the reliance on Nantuko Husk.

Reflector Mage is another powerful creature that has been added to the deck and what a card this is turning out to be! I watched this card get cast, or put in to play, so many times this weekend and not once did it look bad. This card can be game-winning and back-breaking for an opponent. Opponent stumbling on mana? Timewalk them. Want to combo off with Rally the Ancestor but your opponent control Anafenza, the foremost or Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet? Bounce that back to their hand and give yourself a turn to setup and a turn to win. Obviously there will be scenarios where returning a creature to your opponent is going to be bad, bouncing a Siege Rhino, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, or Thought-Knot Seer will be bad (although you do draw a card from the Thought-Knot Seer) but this card is going to have a positive impact more often than not and I for one, am excited to see what other decks can make the most out of this card.

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is another card from OGW that makes it in to the 75, this card is more than an additional form of Anafenza. Kalitas is a 3/4 life-linker than can be pretty handy against the red deck, it can make additional creatures for the small cost of killing your opponents creatures. I think the best is still to come from this card, who is betting against seeing Vampires in Shadows Over Innistrad, and this card could be the centre-piece of a future tribal archetype.

The rest of the Super Series was your expected mix of Jeskai, Abzan, Eldrazi Ramp, Atarka Red and Esper Dragons, with perhaps the most unique deck coming from Yukihiro Shimokobe.

Esper Eldrazi – Yukihiro Shimokobe

Creatures:

4 Bloodsoaked Champion

4 Mardu Woe-Reaper

3 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim

3 Bearer of Silence

2 Wasteland Strangler

4 Matter Reshaper

3 Thought-Knot Seer

2 Eldrazi Displacer

2 Reflector Mage

Spells:

4 Silkwrap

3 Stasis Snare

2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Lands:

4 Flooded Strand

3 Polluted Delta

1 Prairie Stream

1 Sunken Hollow

4 Caves of Koilos

2 Shambling Vent

1 Swamp

2 Plains

2 Sea Gate Wreckage

1 Ruins of Oran-Rief

3 Crumbling Vestige

Sideboard:

1 Wasteland Strangler

1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

1 Stasis Snare

2 Dispel

3 Disdainful Stroke

3 Transgress the Mind

1 Surge of Righteousness

1 Hallowed Moonlight

2 Self-Inflicted Wound

I certainly was not expecting to see a 3 colour Eldrazi deck in the first week of Standard, but leave it to the trusted Japanese brewers to come up with something unique and interesting. The deck looks to make the most out of being a low to the ground creature deck, backed-up with a few removal spells and some help from Gideon (flavour fail for Gideon aiding the Eldrazi!). But that’s not all that the deck has going for it, with synergies between creatures with an Enter-the-Battlefield effect and Eldrazi Displacer.

It will certainly be interesting to see where this deck lies in the coming weeks.

Back on the East coast and StarCityGames let us take our first detailed look at Standard in a, moderately big field. With 122 players making it to Day 2 of playing here’s a breakdown of the archetypes with the biggest share of the metagame:

Archetype No. of Players Metagame %

Four-Colour Rally            23         18.9%

Abzan Aggro                     20         16.4%

Jeskai Black                      10         8.2%

Atarka Red                         9         7.4%

G/R Eldrazi                         7         5.7%

Mardu Green                      7         5.7%

U/R Prowress                      6         4.9%

Esper Dragons                    5         4.1%

It’s clear to see that the two biggest winners of the weekend were Four-Colour Rally and Abzan Aggro, so the question is ‘has much really changed with the introduction of OGW?’. The simple answer is yes! As outlined above, Four-Colour Rally picked up some powerful new tools and looks to be a much stronger deck because of it. It was plain to see that players were expecting this with the number of Hallowed Moonlights and Infinite Obliteration’s in player’s sideboards.

However, it was the fun-police of new formats, the red-deck, that took home the trophy in the hands of Korey McDuffie.

1st Place – StarCityGames Open

Atarka Red – Korey McDuffie

Creatures:

4 Abbot of Keral Keep

4 Monastery Swiftspear

3 Reckless Bushwhacker

3 Zurgo Bellstriker

Spells:

4 Atarka’s Command

2 Become Immense

3 Fiery Impulse

4 Titan’s Strength

4 Wild Slash

4 Dragon Fodder

3 Hordeling Outburst

Lands:

1 Forest

11 Mountain

4 Bloodstained Mire

2 Cinder Glade

4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:

2 Den Protector

2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

3 Arc Lightning

2 Painful Truths

4 Self-Inflicted Wound

2 Smoldering Marsh

This was an interesting version of the Atarka Red deck with McDuffie going back to the roots of the deck and removing the Temur Battlerage combo in favour of a more burn-heavy approach. With the introduction of Reckless Bushwhacker I would not be surprised to see more decks taking the ‘go-wide’ approach that McDuffie implemented. The sideboard allowed McDuffie to side in to some black cards, at very little cost to his manabase, and allowed him to fight the longer game thanks to cards like Den Protector, Painful Truths and Pia and Kiran Nalaar.

Gerry Thompson is never a player who shy of playing a brew in the first few weeks of a format and trialing some of the more-powerful cards from a new set. Gerry T didn’t disappoint, piloting his Jeskai Black deck to a Top 4 finish.

3rd Place – StarCityGames Open

Jeskai Black – Gerry Thompson

Creatures:

2 Monastery Mentor

3 Soulfire Grand Master

4 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy

1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

Spells:

4 Crackling Doom

2 Disdainful Stroke

4 Fiery Impulse

1 Murderous Cut

2 Duress

2 Magmatic Insight

3 Painful Truths

2 Roast

3 Treasure Cruise

1 Chandra, Flamecaller

Lands:

1 Island

1 Mountain

1 Plains

1 Swamp

4 Bloodstained Mire

1 Canopy Vista

2 Flooded Strand

2 Mystic Monastery

4 Polluted Delta

1 Prairie Stream

1 Shambling Vent

2 Smoldering Marsh

1 Sunken Hollow

2 Wandering Fumarole

3 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:

2 Dispel

3 Negate

1 Utter End

1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

1 Linvala, the Preserver

1 Chandra, Flamecaller

1 Infinite Obliteration

3 Radiant Flames

2 Roast

There was certainly plenty to think about from OGW in the list from Gerry T, with maindeck copies of Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Chandra, Flamecaller, with an additional of both cards in the sideboard as well as a copy Linvala, the Preserver.

I feel I’ve covered Kalitas pretty well in the decks above, but I should note that he does give non-Abzan decks a shot at beating the Rally combo in Game 1.

Chandra, Flamecaller looked impressive all-weekend long! A 6 mana planeswalker is no small feat to live up to, certainly whilst Elspeth, Sun’s Champion still pretty fresh in the memory. But the comparisons between the two are certainly there. Both cards have a plus ability that can make life for your opponent pretty miserable and take their life total to 0 pretty quickly, both have minus abilities that can clear the board. Chandra offers the opportunity to re-fill your hand, although I did not see this happen too often this weekend, more often than not the player who cast Chandra was ahead on board and Chandra came down and finished the game over a couple of turns.

The one thing I’m not a fan of in this list is the mana-base. Numerous times I watched Gerry T struggle to cast all of the cards in his hand and is definitely something I would want to re-work before sleeving it up for the weekend.

So what are my five biggest cards from OGW? Well funny you should ask:

5 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim

Ayli gives the Rally decks another way to attack the game, which is only fair given the printing of Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. I think there may be another home for Ayli in Abzan, but for now she has got her feet firmly settled with her ancestors.

4 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

This card will see play for as long as Rally the Ancestors does. Once Shadows over Innistrad comes into play he’ll need to be re-evaluated but as it stands I don’t see him going anywhere and he’ll remain a solid playable.

3 Thought-Knot Seer

This is card was all over the place this weekend. I’ve noted the comparisons between this card and Vendillion Clique above, and I think we’ll continue to see these comparisons in the coming weeks.

2 Chandra, Flamecaller

Chandra is always going to be better when you’re ahead on the board, but she can come down and reset the board or offer you additional card advantage. Definitely one to think about sitting at the top of your curve.

1 Reflector Mage

This card is simply going to be a big part of Standard for the duration of its’ legality.

That’s all from me this week folks, as always I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. I’ll be back next week with some more action from the weekend!