Howdy folks! Welcome back to the Weekend Review, it’s been a while since I’ve written one of these partly due to the monotony of Standard before Eldritch Moon and guess what!? Nothing’s changed!

Okay, so that’s not strictly true; EMN did introduce some new toys for various decks. Spell Queller, Selfless Sprit, Ishkanah Grafwidow and Liliana, the Last Hope have all had a big impact on Standard at the last two SCG opens. Additionally, this last weekend saw the first limited Grand Prixs featuring EMN, giving the pros a chance to get in some high level draft practice prior to the upcoming Pro Tour.

Whilst Montreal and Stockholm both hosted their own Grand Prixs, the attention of the magic world was focused on the action in Sydney, where 68 Gold and Platinum Pros had decided to battle! There was also the small matter of the race to be Grand Prix Master to decide, with Brian Braun-Duin an inch ahead of the chasing pack, including big names such as Tomaharo Saitou, Seth Manfield and Reid Duke.

As the action drew to a close in the 15th round, BBD had his destiny in his own hands; A win and he would lock himself for Top 8, the title of Grand Prix Master and with it a slot at Worlds! In true BBD style, well, he finished 9th and left sweating out the results of the Top 8 as current World Champion, Seth Manfield, had slid in to the Top 8 and could steal Grand Prix Master by winning the GP.

In Manfield’s path stood fellow East West Bowl team member Scott Lipp. Despite many observers noting the ‘train-wreck’ that was Lipps’ Top-8 draft, Lipp proved the commentators wrong by turning his small dudes sideways often enough to take down the title of GP Sydney, and with it granting BBD his well-deserved slot at Worlds! Congratulations to BBD and his amazing drive to grind an astonishing 22 Grand Prix’s over the last year.

Back in the good ol’ US of A and SCG were trucking their way into the latest stop on the SCG Tour and that stop was Baltimore! Standard was the name of the game and players were going to have to figure out how to stop the Bant Company menace if they wanted to take home the  trophy. 

With 125 players making Day 2 of competition there was at least some variety in deck archetypes, but  predictably, one stood head and shoulders above the rest:

With 53 copies and 42% of the metagame, Bant Company was definitely the deck to beat however, whilst many players opted to join the Bant train, other players preferred to try strategies aiming beat it. Among these was the Twitch fan favourite, Cory DissInger and his innovative Simic Tentacles deck.

Simic Tentacles – 5th Place #SCGBalt

Cory Dissinger

This deck proved to be pretty popular with viewers over the course of the weekend, and pretty effective at beating the decks put in front of it, going an impressive 13-1-1 in the swiss portion of the tournament and brushing aside Bant Company, B/W Angel Control and nearly every other deck!

The deck looks to stall the early to mid game by deploying ground creatures, and even casting a Crush of Tentacles or two, before getting to 10 mana and continuously looping Den Protector and Crush until it finds Emrakul, the Promised End to… well, end the game! The deck was impressively resilient and fairly consistent, an unfortunate stumble in the Top 8 cost Cory the chance to take home the title, but I’m sure it won’t be the last we see of him and his tentacles.

The other popular deck of the weekend, at least in Twitch chat, was B/W Angel Control with the possibility of seeing Brisela, Voice of Nightmares!

B/W Angel Control – 8th Place #SCGBaltimore

Evan Buchholz

Here is another deck that is geared and ready to fight Bant Company. Sporting main deck copies of Hallowed Moonlight, the full compliment of Languish and Liliana, the Last Hope, Evan was ready to fight the good fight and even cast an angel or two.

The creature package is designed to win the mid-late game, with Kalitas controlling the ground, Bruna and Gisela teaming up to control the skies and Thalia’s Lancers acting as a tutor on a substantial body.

Spot removal and sweepers take care of the early game, whilst a turn 3 Liliana can be pretty dominating. Sorin, Grim Nemesis and Ob Nixilis  provide much needed card advantage and potentially remove a threat or two. The sideboard contains a mix of additional sweepers, hand disruption and supplementary spot removal to allow for mid-round tweaking to find best configuration.

Whilst a small set like Eldritch Moon,  does not often create a new archetype when introduced to a format, it is rare that a deck wins a major tournament with no new cards from the latest set in the main 60 at all! Yet that is exactly what Osyp Lebedowicz did with his G/W Tokens deck, in fact there were no  cards from EMN in his 75 at all. Many archetypes pick up a new toy or two from a new set and I’m sure the Pro Tour will allow the deck to undergo a review at the hands of one of the numerous pro teams.

Speaking of the Pro Tour, I’m sure the decks above will show up in some numbers, and the format is likely to receive another shake-up. So have some fun and try out one of the decks at your local FNM, personally I’ll be trying out:

BONUS DECK!

Abzan Control – 6th Place #SCGBaltimore

Zack Kanner

I’ll be back next week with an in-depth review of the Pro Tour and further analysis on some of the best performing decks and cards! So be sure to check back next week.