Weekend Review 09-10 January 2016
Howdy folks, it’s that time of the week again where we take stock and look back at the action from the weekend just gone. This weekend was the last opportunity to play a major Standard event before the introduction of Oath of the Gatewatch and GP Oakland was the destination for anyone looking to show off a last-minute brew (looking at you Kibler), meanwhile StarCityGames took their SCGTour to Charlotte to, once again, demonstrate the popularity of the modern format. There was also the start of an exciting new series in the South-West of England with the start of the 5istheNew7 Race to Platinum!
Let’s start by looking at Oakland where a number of Pro Players were looking at enjoying the last standard event before they have to figure out which cards, or archetypes, would be best introduced with Oath!
With the introduction of 18 match points making Day 2 of the GP there was a wide variety of archetypes and various deviations, so what were the top over-arching archetypes amongst the Top 100 players?
Archetype Number of Players
Abzan 24
Esper 17
Dark Jeskai 13
Rally 11
Atarka Red 8
B/R Dragons 7
Mardu 7
Both Mardu and B/R Dragons have seen an upswing in popularity recently and it showed on Day 2, with a combined 14 copies in the Top 100. Abzan continued to show the popularity of Siege Rhino and friends, whilst Esper did its’ best to be the controlling parent of the format. But it was Rally the Ancestors that took down the final:
1st Place – GP Oakland
Rally the Ancestors – Reid Duke
Creature (28) Sideboard (15)
4 Sidisi’s Faithful 4 Murderous Cut
4 Zulaport Cutthroat 4 Arashin Cleric
4 Elvish Visionary 3 Anafenza, the Foremost
4 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy 2 Duress
Instant (8)
Land (24)
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
The Duke is back! Fans of Reid Duke know what a fantastic player he is and it was fantastic to see him rising back to the top of the standings and taking home the title of GP Oakland 2016 Champion!
Reid chose 4 colour Rally, looking to utilise the power of Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy, Collected Company and the left overs of a couple of drafts to combo his opponents and kill them with a big Nantuko Husk, or more commonly, with Zulaport Cutthroat triggers. The deck has been onmi-present since the release of Battle for Zendikar and can catch unprepared opponents out and steal the match before they know it. It will be interesting to see what happens with the deck with the release of OGW.
Heading in the tournament there was a buzz on Social Media following a couple of tweets from Brian Kibler:
Scaleguard Sentinels is a card that I have tried to play in tournaments a couple of times, but could never quite bring myself to play a brew. Kibler, on the other-hand, had no doubts as he sleeved up four of the over-looked Dragons 2-drop.
20th Place – GP Oakland
4-Colour Dragons – Brian Kibler
Creatures: Sideboard:
4 Rattleclaw Mystic 3 Fiery Impulse
4 Scaleguard Sentinels 2 Radiant Flames
3 Den Protector 1 Negate
3 Nissa, Vastwood Seer 2 Disdainful Stroke
4 Thunderbreak Regent 1 Den Protector
2 Dragonlord Ojutai 2 Rending Volley
2 Dragonlord Atarka 1 Sarkhan Unbroken
Spells: 2 Kiora, Master of the Depths
4 Roast
Lands:
4 Forest
1 Mountain
“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ― Neil Gaiman, Coraline
Kibler was certainly dreaming of a fairy tale ending, whilst hoping that his dragon’s could not be beaten (despite a near-miss against an opponent playing main-deck Dragon Hunter!). The deck followed the principles of ramp and remove your opponents creatures until you curved into your dragons and the fly over and win, sounds easy right?
Rattleclaw Mystic enables a huge burst in mana if morphed and turned face-up, whilst also taking some of the pressures away from a mana-base that needed double-green, double-red, blue and white! With the deck boiling down to a good-ol’ G/R midrange deck it certainly makes sense to play the 2 mana ‘elf’.
Scaleguard Sentinels is a powerful two-drop with a 2/3 body, but kindly show your one of the (hopefully) many dragons from your hand and that dude gets a +1/+1 boost in the form of a counter.
Thunderbreak Regent has seen an uptick in popularity with the B/R decks and he got another outing in the hands of the ‘fastest-shuffler in the West’. A flying 4/4 for 4 is already huge on the mana- curve, but add in a clause that says your opponent loses 3 life when they target it and your definitely on to a winner.
The deck made the most out of the available red removal spells with Draconic Roar, almost always dealing your opponent 3 extra damage for the sin of having their creature in play and Roast taking care of the big guys.
Sarkhan was transformed in to his unbroken form of mind in the deck, helping to add an additional dragon to the board with his -2 ability and his +1 ability adding the mana to cast the dragon that he’s hopefully drawing you!
The normal mix of Battle lands and fetch-lands was present to enable a four colour deck, with Haven of the Spirit Dragon fixing any colour issues and ‘drawing’ you a dragon in the mid-to-late game.
The sideboard was packed with multiple answers that the format, and your opponent, may chuck at you with a mix of burn spells and counter-spells. I would have liked to have seen a Stubborn Denial in the sideboard, with all of the dragons in the deck it would have been pretty easy to enable Ferocious and it was one of the top 5 cards in the tournament.. Kiora, Master of Depths is a card that has yet to see much play in Standard but she offered the deck another way to gain card-advantage with her -2 ability, her +1 helping you to cast your spells and protect your Planeswalker and her -8 providing a ‘Game-Over’ emblem.
The Dragon Master was certainly back in his comfort zone with this deck!
Back on the East coast of the USA, SCG had taken their SCG Tour to Charlotte to allow one-last opportunity for the Modern format to be played ahead of the Banned and Restricted announcement on January 18th.
Modern continues to be a hugely popular format with a diverse range of decks that you can play, if aggro, midrange, control or combo are your cup of tea then Modern has a deck for you. Let’s look at what the Day 2 metagame looked like in Charlotte:
U/R Twin 8
Abzan 7
G/R Tron 6
Burn 6
U/G Infect 5
Affinity 5
Naya Company 4
Abzan Company 3
Merfolk 3
Jund 2
Scapeshift 2
Goryo’s Vengeance 2
Heartless Eldrazi 2
Kiki-Chord 2
Amulet Bloom 2
B/W Tokens 1
U/R Delver 1
Mono-Blue Tron 1
G/R Aggro 1
U/B Faeries 1
Reliquary Retreat 1
Ad Nauseam 1
G/W Hate Bears 1
Twinning End 1
As you can see their was diverse metagame to try and navigate in order to reach the summit of SCG Charlotte. Let’s see what almost made the cut:
2nd Place – StarCityGames Open, Charlotte
Goryo’s Vengeance – Bob Huang
Creatures: Sideboard:
4 Simian Spirit Guide 3 Pact of Negation
4 Worldspine Wurm 1 Rending Volley
2 Borborygmos Enraged 2 Sudden Shock
4 Griselbrand 2 Inquisition of Kozilek
Spells: 2 Painful Truths
2 Desperate Ritual 2 Pyroclasm
4 Goryo’s Vengeance 2 Shatterstorm
2 Izzet Charm 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Lands:
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
Goryo’s Vengeance is a key card in the deck, hence the name of the deck, and involves ‘cheating’ a creature on to the battlefield before exiling it at the end of the turn. Through the Breach is an alternative way to do this and gives the creature haste, before exiling it. Doesn’t sound too bad, right?
The deck looks to try and get Griselbrand in to play to try and draw enough cards to enable you to put Borborygmos Enraged on to the battlefield and fling a lot of lands at the opponent until their dead. The combination of Nourishing Shoal and exiling Worldspine Wurm is a way for you to gain 11 life and draw 7 more cards from Griselbrand. Hopefully you can repeat this until you have enough land in hand.
The tournament was not without some controversy with Huang’s opponent in the semi-final naming Borborygmos with a Pithing Needle only to find himself dead to Borborygmos Enraged a few turns later.
But despite the controversy it was a deck. very close to my heart, that showed that playing ‘fair’ is still a way to win a tournament:
1st Place – Star City Games Open, Charlotte
Jund – Brian Huffman
Creatures: Sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant 4 Fulminator Mage
1 Kitchen Finks 1 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Scavenging Ooze 2 Kitchen Finks
4 Tarmogoyf 1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Olivia Voldaren 1 Ancient Grudge
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar 1 Unravel the Aether
Spells: 1 Night of Souls’ Betrayal
3 Abrupt Decay 1 Painful Truths
2 Kolaghan’s Command 1 Pyroclasm
4 Lightning Bolt 1 Shatterstorm
Lands:
2 Forest
2 Swamp
I wrote an article on my Jund list a few weeks ago in ‘An Ode to Thundermaw‘. The main 60 card deck is only a few cards off from my list, however Jund remains to be a highly tuneable deck that can play a customisable sideboard for any metagame. As I noted in my previous article, a good Jund player is one who can predict a metagame and make the right card selection for that.
Closer to home was the start of a new series, which is 5istheNew7 and the first event of the series was modern. Whilst I do not have access to decklists I do know that Scapeshift did win the 100 player tournament – a turnout that was higher than was originally imagined by the organisers. Hopefully this is the start of a series that can continue to grow from the foundations laid-down this weekend. I would highly recommend you all check out the series and hopefully I’ll see some of you at the February event!
Next weekend is the OGW Pre-Release so there won’t be a Weekend Review but I will be bringing you some thoughts on my pre-release experiences and my reactions to the Banned and Restricted announcement.
As always I’d love to hear from you in comments below!
