Season Two of the SCG Tour Online wraps up this weekend with Saturday’s Championship Qualifier and Sunday’s Seasonal Championship. These events will be the first to showcase Zendikar Rising Standard on the SCG Tour Online with $35,000 and multiple invites to the Zendikar Rising Championship up for grabs over the weekend.
Format
For the first time in SCG Tour Online history, there will be no copies of Nissa, Who Shakes the World, Hydroid Krasis, Mayhem Devil, Narset, Parter of Veils, or Aether Gust in decklists. Zendikar Rising is finally here and with it comes a new Standard format. While action will most likely be taken on the format next week according to a Tweet from Magic, this weekend’s events will display just how powerful the format is at the moment.
The two decks currently dominating the SCG Tour Online daily Challenges have been Four-Color Ramp and Sultai Midrange. Four-Color Ramp combines Lotus Cobra, Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, and Omnath, Locus of Creation to generate absurd amounts of mana as early as Turn 4. The deck goes into hyperdrive with Genesis Ultimatum and Escape to the Wilds.
Creatures (23)
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 3 Kenrith, the Returned King
- 4 Bonecrusher Giant
- 4 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
- 4 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
- 4 Omnath, Locus of Creation
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (28)
Spells (8)
Sideboard
The other side of the Uro world is Sultai Midrange, gone from the days ramping to a more balanced deck revolving around removal, counterspells, and discard. The deck has the tools to answer an early Lotus Cobra, remove opposing Uros from the game, and counter Omnath before any value can be generated. Once in control, the deck wins via a Shark token from Shark Typhoon or with everyone’s favorite Elder Giant.
Creatures (6)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (22)
Spells (29)
- 1 Negate
- 1 Cultivate
- 3 Agonizing Remorse
- 4 Neutralize
- 4 Shark Typhoon
- 2 Extinction Event
- 3 Heartless Act
- 1 Eliminate
- 4 Bloodchief's Thirst
- 1 Pelakka Predation
- 2 Bala Ged Recovery
- 1 Jwari Disruption
- 2 Hagra Mauling
Sideboard
Gruul Adventures is flying under the radar at the moment despite it taking down the Hooglandia Open and the Bash Bros Battle last weekend. It’s an aggressive Embercleave deck using a handful of the new modal DFCs along with the Edgewall Innkeeper engine to draw cards alongside Bonecrusher Giant, Lovestruck Beast, and Rimrock Knight.
Creatures (31)
- 3 Scavenging Ooze
- 4 Lovestruck Beast
- 4 Questing Beast
- 4 Robber of the Rich
- 4 Edgewall Innkeeper
- 4 Bonecrusher Giant
- 4 Rimrock Knight
- 3 Garruk's Harbinger
- 1 Radha, Heart of Keld
Lands (16)
Spells (13)
Decks like Mono-Green Aggro and Temur Adventures adapted after rotation as well, picking up new pieces like Kazandu Mammoth and Turntimber Symbiosis for Mono-Green and the Pathways for Temur.
Creatures (28)
- 2 Lotus Cobra
- 4 Scavenging Ooze
- 4 Lovestruck Beast
- 4 Stonecoil Serpent
- 2 Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig
- 4 Gemrazer
- 4 Swarm Shambler
- 4 Kazandu Mammoth
Lands (20)
Spells (12)
Creatures (24)
- 4 Lovestruck Beast
- 4 Beanstalk Giant
- 4 Edgewall Innkeeper
- 4 Bonecrusher Giant
- 4 Fae of Wishes
- 4 Brazen Borrower
Lands (26)
Spells (10)
The only other deck to 4-0 a Challenge is Dimir Control from Ryosuke Nishiura. A classic control deck that looks nothing like something from the past year of Standard, even ignoring planeswalkers or companions. Nishiura’s deck plays more like draw-go, relying on 22 counterspells ranging from Voracious Greatshark to Ashiok’s Erasure, six removal spells with Heartless Act and Hagra Mauling, and card draw from Frantic Inventory and Shark Typhoon. The deck wins with a Shark of some kind — either the Greatshark or a flying token from Typhoon — or with one of its two copies of Crawling Barrens.
Creatures (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (32)
- 4 Essence Scatter
- 2 Mystical Dispute
- 4 Ashiok's Erasure
- 2 Thassa's Intervention
- 4 Neutralize
- 4 Shark Typhoon
- 4 Heartless Act
- 4 Frantic Inventory
- 2 Jwari Disruption
- 2 Hagra Mauling
Sideboard
Other decks like Mono-Red Aggro, Dimir Rogues, and Rakdos Midrange have managed to put up 3-1s and/or had decent results in last weekend’s tournaments. We’ll have to see if anything new manages to break through this weekend or if Uro continues to dominate the format.
Players To Watch
Check out some of the notable players participating in Saturday’s Championship Qualifier and the Sunday Seasonal Championship (as well as how they qualified for it).
Saturday — Championship Qualifier 6
- Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa
- Corey Baumeister
- Fabrizio Anteri
- Autumn Burchett
- Michael Bonde
- Shaheen Soorani
- Brandon Burton
- Emma Handy
- Ari Lax
- Adam Hernandez
- Koutarou Ishibashi
- Ross Merriam
- Logan Nettles
- Bernardo Torres
- Kyle Boggemes
- Chantelle Campbell
- Jim Davis
- Eric Froehlich
- Nicholas Price
- Nam Dang
Sunday — Seasonal Championship
- Yuuki Ichikawa (Season One Champion)
- Eli Kassis (CQ1 winner)
- Gabriel Nicholas (CQ2 winner)
- Alexander Gordon-Brown (CQ3 winner)
- Brendon Hansard (CQ4 winner)
- David Inglis (CQ5 winner)
- Koutarou Ishibashi (3 CQ Top 8s this season)
- Ari Lax (2 CQ Top 8s this season)
- Karl Sarap (2 CQ Top 8s this season)
- Paul Woo (CQ1 runner-up)
- Ryuji Murae (CQ2 runner-up)
- Michael Bonde (CQ5 runner-up)
- Corey Baumeister (150 or more SCG Online Points)
- Brandon Burton (150 or more SCG Online Points)
- Marcio Carvalho (150 or more SCG Online Points)
- Ross Merriam (150 or more SCG Online Points)
- Simon Nielsen (150 or more SCG Online Points)
- Kyle Boggemes (150 or more SCG Online Points)
- Eric Froehlich (150 or more SCG Online Points)
- Austin Yost (150 or more SCG Online Points)
Coverage
Coverage of the Championship Qualifier starts at 10 AM ET on Saturday. Cedric Phillips, Patrick Sullivan, Ryan Overturf, and Todd Anderson will call all the action while I do my usual job of picking feature matches, interviewing players, and running things behind the scenes. Phillips, Sullivan, and I will be joined by Emma Handy and Dom Harvey for Sunday’s Seasonal Championship on Sunday, also starting at 10 AM ET. Watch all the action at twitch.tv/starcitygames and check out the tournament pages for both events on MTG Melee.