Pro Tour Dark Ascension Metagame Breakdown

The first glaring fact that jumps out at us is the poor performance from Humans. Our team actually slightly underestimated how many people would play Humans, as our testing revealed that it was not actually that well suited to the new format. We knew it would be popular, guessing maybe 17% would play it, but it did seem pretty clear that it was not particularly well suited against most of the decks we expected to do well.

Delver did absolutely fantastic, and what was surprising to us was that people were surprised by this. Our testing revealed that Delver was so good, we wouldn’t have been surprised if over 30% of the field had played it. Still, there’s more to the story, as we will get to in a moment.

Wolf Run performing moderately well is no shocker, although it’s interesting to note, if you remove Brian Kibler, Brad Nelson, and the CFB guys from the equation, other Wolf Run decks actually performed slightly below average. Non-CFB Wolf Run made up 14.3% of day 1, while only making up 14.1% of the decks with six wins or better. Of course, with Spirits on the rise, Wolf Run (a solid favorite over Spirits) is poised to climb a bit, helping flesh out a paper-rock-scissors of sorts.

Control did not perform particularly well, with no clear build emerging yet. Esper was the most popular, but none really stood out. Reid Duke and I played Grixis, as discussed here . It was a calculated risk that might have been one step behind (by trying to be one too many steps ahead), since the rest of the world did not yet have the memo that Spirits, Black Aggro, Pod, and Reanimator were good, and Humans, Tokens, and Mono-Green were overrated. Spirits was the perfect call for Honolulu, so it was definitely a mistake not to run them. That said, now that the word is out and Baltimore is coming up…

Tempered Steel and Mono-Green were definitely victims of the StarCityGames.com Open in Richmond being held the week before the PT. Strong showings by both archetypes had the rest of the world gunning for them, and it showed.

Black (and B/R) Aggro and Pod performed very, very well and will get a closer examination in a moment. They’re two of the indicators that reveal that the format is largely misunderstood, at the moment. Before we get to that, however, we should look at the biggest breakout deck of the event, Spirits.

Spirits is a dedicated Spirit-tribal deck that was already starting to emerge at the StarCityGames.com Open in Richmond, but it was taken to the next level by Sam Black, who reimagined the deck from scratch, opting for maindeck Dungeon Geists over Swords, a heavy Phantasmal Image theme, and increased maindeck artifact removal, and by Gerry Thompson (who did what he does best and tuned the list to perfection with subtle tweaks such as two Evolving Wilds and helping avoid some serious blunders regarding the maindeck configuration). Here is the list piloted by Sam Black, Gerry Thompson, Jon Finkel, Jelger Wiegersma, Rich Hoaen, Paul Rietzl, Matt Sperling, Tom Martell, Michael Jacob, and Ben Seck:

Esper Spirits

Jon Finkel

3rd Place at Pro Tour on 02-12-2012

Standard

Creatures (17)

• 3 Phantasmal Image
• 4 Snapcaster Mage
• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 4 Drogskol Captain
• 2 Dungeon Geists

Lands (22)

• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 5 Island
• 3 Glacial Fortress
• 2 Evolving Wilds
• 4 Seachrome Coast
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 2 Moorland Haunt

Spells (21)

• 2 Mana Leak
• 1 Divine Offering
• 4 Ponder
• 1 Revoke Existence
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Vapor Snag
• 1 Gut Shot
• 4 Lingering Souls

Sideboard

• 1 Dissipate
• 1 Mana Leak
• 1 Divine Offering
• 1 Demystify
• 1 Negate
• 1 Celestial Purge
• 1 Revoke Existence
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Dismember
• 2 Gut Shot
• 1 Phantasmal Image
• 2 Dungeon Geists

For more on the Spirits deck, check out Gerry’s article here  or Finkel’s deck tech here . Hopefully, we will be hearing from Sam Black soon on the process behind the deck. Sometimes the deck of the weekend is a gimmick deck with little replay value (*cough* Dragonstorm *cough*), but Spirits is not that sort of deck. Just as Illusions eventually gave birth to Delver-Blade, so too will we see the next step in the evolution of Delver with Spirits. We are going to continue to see Delver-Blade decks, just as we continue to see Delver-Illusion decks (and Delver-Humans decks, and U/R Delver, and…), but without question there is a new player on the block.

Spirits was listed with the other Delver decks, however it is worth looking at it separately as it was the best performing archetype by a large margin (and ten pilots is not exactly the smallest sample size in the world).  

No question, Delver was still an excellent deck without the Spirit guys, but with a record of 56-27 (excluding intentional draws), Spirits was the clear winner on the weekend among new archetypes. A 67.5% match win percentage is extremely impressive, historically. Mixed Pro Tours do contribute to some great Top 8’s, but they don’t always tell the full story of format dominance. Spirits didn’t just perform well on day 1, it performed better and better the later the tournament went on (until it ran into Wolf Run in the top 8, itself). Starting at just 2.2% of the field, a very strong day 1 led to day 2 being 4.9% Spirits. When we move up to decks that finished the event with six constructed wins or better, Spirits has climbed to 7.1% of the field. Continuing to move up, when we look at top 50, Spirits is up to 12% of the field. Moving into the fabled top 25 (which is now a much bigger deal, due to the huge jump between 25 and 26), we see that Spirits is all the way up to 20% of the field. This continues into the Top 8 where Spirits made up 25% of the field.

Are Hall of Famers Jon Finkel, Jelger Wiegersma, and all of the other Spirit pilots better than your average player? Sure, but that only goes so far. The closest comparison is Kibler, Brad, and the CFB guys that played Wolf Run. Walking home with the trophy after both copies met in the finals is obviously a story in and of itself, but as a group, they were 2.7% of day 1, 3.7% of day 2, 5.1% of decks with six constructed wins or better, and Kibler and Paulo were actually the only two in the top 50. 

Amusingly, it seems they took their Worlds results to heart. At the World Championship, they played an archetype that performed well in Swiss, but was poorly positioned to win a Top 8. This time around, they went with a riskier choice that produced less top finishers, but those that did make it ran the Top 8 and met in the finals. They are many of the top players in the game, took the top prize, and had a success rate of an incredible 41.7%, so these numbers make for a good baseline of just how much pilot bias could possibly matter. This gives us a useful context for evaluating just how strong Spirits really was.

Comparing these numbers, it is clear that even when you account for the pilots, Sam Black, Gerry Thompson, and the rest of the guys that came up with the Spirit deck broke it (or solved it, I suppose, is the correct terminology). As we will see in the StarCityGames.com Open: Charlotte results below, it has not taken long for the real world to take notice. As a note, Lukas Blohon and Shuuhei Nakamura, who finished Top 8 and top 50, respectively, tested with CFB but did not play the Wolf Run deck, and Reid Duke (top 50) tested with us but did not play Spirits.

For reference, here is a breakdown of all of the decks that achieved six wins or better in the Constructed portion of PT Dark Ascension:

Delver 28
Delver 14
Spirits 7
Delver/Illusions 3
Delver/Humans 2
Delver/Architect 1
U/R Delver 1

Wolf Run+R/G 19
Wolf Run Ramp 10
R/G Aggro 6
Wolf Run Jund 2
Wolf Run Naya 1

Humans 15

Control 8
Esper Control 3
U/B Control 2
Grixis Control 1
RUG Control 1
U/B Tezzeret 1

Birthing Pod 8
NayaPod 4
BantPod 3
B/G Pod 1

Black or B/R Aggro 6

Misc Aggro
Mono-G 3
Misc G/W/x Aggro 3
Tempered Steel 2
W/B Tokens 2

Other
Reanimator 3
U/B Heartless 1
W/R Control 1

Before moving on to the StarCityGames.com Open, let’s go back to the other two top performing archetypes of Pro Tour Dark Ascension. Remember, since 22.2% of players succeeded in hitting six or more wins, that is the bar for what which archetypes were successful as a whole. Here is a breakdown, by success rate (six wins or better in constructed):

Pro Tour Dark Ascension Success Rates

Wow! To start with, 52% of players played a “losing” archetype. Even more interesting, we see that the top five archetypes were all rogue decks, with Delver and Wolf Run rounding out the list as the “slightly above average decks.” After that, there is a huge drop and every other archetype performed quite poorly.

Birthing Pod decks generally were either Naya:

Naya Pod

Lukas Blohon

6th Place at Pro Tour on 02-12-2012

Standard

Creatures (28)

• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Inferno Titan
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine
• 1 Viridian Emissary
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 4 Blade Splicer
• 1 Fiend Hunter
• 3 Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1 Geist-Honored Monk
• 4 Strangleroot Geist
• 4 Huntmaster of the Fells

Lands (24)

• 6 Forest
• 1 Plains
• 1 Mountain
• 2 Rootbound Crag
• 3 Sunpetal Grove
• 4 Copperline Gorge
• 4 Razorverge Thicket
• 3 Gavony Township

Spells (8)

• 2 Oblivion Ring
• 2 Mortarpod
• 4 Birthing Pod

Sideboard

• 1 Ray of Revelation
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Autumn's Veil
• 2 Hero of Bladehold
• 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
• 2 Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 3 Mental Misstep
• 1 Tormentor Exarch

Or Bant:

Bant Pod

Gaudenis Vidugiris

131st Place at Pro Tour on 02-12-2012

Standard

Creatures (33)

• 2 Llanowar Elves
• 2 Solemn Simulacrum
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Archon of Justice
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 2 Sun Titan
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine
• 1 Sunblast Angel
• 1 Viridian Corrupter
• 2 Viridian Emissary
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 3 Blade Splicer
• 1 Stonehorn Dignitary
• 3 Phantasmal Image
• 1 Fiend Hunter
• 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1 Geist-Honored Monk
• 1 Strangleroot Geist

Lands (23)

• 9 Forest
• 2 Plains
• 1 Island
• 1 Sunpetal Grove
• 4 Seachrome Coast
• 4 Razorverge Thicket
• 2 Hinterland Harbor

Spells (4)

• 4 Birthing Pod

Sideboard

• 1 Ray of Revelation
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Sun Titan
• 4 Ratchet Bomb
• 1 Viridian Corrupter
• 1 Leonin Relic-Warder
• 1 Karn Liberated
• 1 Batterskull
• 2 Timely Reinforcements
• 1 Hollowhenge Scavenger
• 1 Daybreak Ranger

From the sound of the players at the StarCityGames.com Open, it seems many are not expecting Birthing Pod to continue to do well. Of course, it’s important to remember that most players did not think Birthing Pod would do well in Honolulu, but 8/14 Pod players hit the six wins or better mark, and Pod was the only major archetype besides Spirits to win 60% of its matches, suggesting it is a stronger strategy than most are giving it credit for. I have a feeling many players were turned off of the archetype after reading Paul Jordan format breakdown that presented Pod as having basically no good matchups and absolutely terrible numbers across the board due to the site accidentally swapping Birthing Pod’s numbers with Tempered Steel.

The reality is that Tempered Steel was the archetype that had almost no good matchups and that Pod actually crushed the event! Of course, Birthing Pod is rarely a popular strategy, but we might see another upswing at Grand Prix Baltimore, especially given how under the radar it’s flying.

The next big breakout strategy of the event was Black Aggro, which has definitely lived up to the hype. Riding the power of Gravecrawler and Geralf’s Messenger, Black Aggro decks were typically mono-black or splashed red for burn and Falkenrath Aristocrat. Here is a mono-black build designed by Sam Black, Michael Jacob, and I, along with our friend, Madison local Jasper Johnson-Epstein:

Mono-Black Zombies

Jasper Johnson-Epstein

50th Place at Pro Tour on 02-12-2012

Standard

Creatures (24)

• 1 Skinrender
• 3 Fume Spitter
• 3 Porcelain Legionnaire
• 4 Diregraf Ghoul
• 4 Skirsdag High Priest
• 1 Bloodline Keeper
• 4 Gravecrawler
• 4 Geralf's Messenger

Lands (24)

• 24 Swamp

Spells (12)

• 3 Mortarpod
• 1 Lashwrithe
• 4 Geth's Verdict
• 4 Tragic Slip

Sideboard

• 3 Distress
• 3 Ratchet Bomb
• 1 Nihil Spellbomb
• 2 Black Sun's Zenith
• 3 Phyrexian Obliterator
• 2 Mental Misstep
• 1 Sword of War and Peace

The big breakthrough here is the use of Skirsdag Priest, which is secretly black’s best two-drop in the format. A turn one Zombie, turn two Skirsdag Priest, turn three Fume Spitter or Mortar Pod plus Anything allows the deck to get off to some blisteringly fast starts. The massive selection of removal gives you excellent tools for winning tempo battles, such as against Delver decks. Gravecrawler and Geralf’s Messenger give us enough power to actually break into the top tier. No doubt about it, Black Aggro is just getting started.

Here is a version that splashes red, by Toshiyuki Kadooka:

B/R Zombies

Toshiyuki Kadooka

36th Place at Pro Tour on 02-12-2012

Standard

Creatures (15)

• 4 Diregraf Ghoul
• 4 Gravecrawler
• 3 Falkenrath Aristocrat
• 4 Geralf's Messenger

Planeswalkers (3)

• 3 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (24)

• 16 Swamp
• 4 Dragonskull Summit
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs

Spells (18)

• 4 Distress
• 4 Smallpox
• 1 Ratchet Bomb
• 2 Arc Trail
• 2 Mortarpod
• 2 Sword of War and Peace
• 3 Tragic Slip

Sideboard

• 1 Mountain
• 3 Manic Vandal
• 2 Ratchet Bomb
• 1 Arc Trail
• 2 Sword of Feast and Famine
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 2 Act of Aggression
• 1 Sever the Bloodline
• 1 Tragic Slip

The use of burn is obviously great for providing additional reach (and hitting annoying Mirran Crusader), but Falkenrath Aristocrat is what really excites me about this list. Phyrexian Obliterator is surprisingly slow for the maindeck of a black aggro deck, these days, and Lashwrithe is not fully utilized due to a lack of fliers, lifelinkers, or infect creatures. The Aristocrat is the perfect four-drop, however. He is four-power worth of evasion and haste, plus he combos brutally well with Gravecrawler or Geralf’s Messenger, letting you sacrifice them at instant speed. Remember, you don’t need Humans to get the important part of that ability (the indestructible aspect), though it is amusing to remember that Skirsdag Priest is a human should we decide to hybridize the lists.

Black Aggro has continued to succeed and evolve, with B/U Zombies making its debut in Charlotte:

B/U Zombies

Phillip Fortner

2nd Place at Star City Games Standard Open on 02-19-2012

Standard

Creatures (27)

• 3 Fume Spitter
• 4 Phantasmal Image
• 4 Diregraf Ghoul
• 4 Skirsdag High Priest
• 4 Gravecrawler
• 4 Geralf's Messenger
• 4 Diregraf Captain

Planeswalkers (2)

• 2 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (20)

• 12 Swamp
• 4 Drowned Catacomb
• 4 Darkslick Shores

Spells (11)

• 3 Mortarpod
• 4 Geth's Verdict
• 4 Tragic Slip

Sideboard

• 4 Surgical Extraction
• 3 Porcelain Legionnaire
• 4 Vapor Snag
• 4 Corrosive Gale

The Captain is an excellent Zombie Lord, playing much better with the tempo-based nature of the deck than Cemetery Reaper. All that life loss really adds up! The Phantasmal Images play very nicely with undying, since you can copy a Geralf’s Messenger on the way in, then we he comes back, you can change him into a Diregraf Captain with a +1/+1 counter!

Corrosive Gale is a direct response to the rise in Spirits, a sideboard technique that helped carry Fortner to the finals. It’s also one that’s sure to be adopted by a number of different decks looking for a cheap Plague Wind that is nearly as brutal against Spirits as Perish is against so many Mono-Green decks, in days gone by. It’s literally Wrath-You.

Also finishing in the top 16, Jarrad Blackwell ran a mono-black build that verged on Mono-Black Control:

Mono-Black Zombies

Jarrad Blackwell

15th Place at Star City Games Standard Open on 02-19-2012

Standard

Creatures (18)

• 4 Phyrexian Obliterator
• 2 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 4 Diregraf Ghoul
• 4 Gravecrawler
• 4 Geralf's Messenger

Planeswalkers (2)

• 2 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (24)

• 24 Swamp

Spells (16)

• 4 Distress
• 2 Ratchet Bomb
• 2 Mortarpod
• 2 Lashwrithe
• 3 Geth's Verdict
• 3 Tragic Slip

Sideboard

• 1 Ratchet Bomb
• 2 Mimic Vat
• 2 Nihil Spellbomb
• 3 Surgical Extraction
• 2 Mental Misstep
• 1 Sword of War and Peace
• 1 Geth's Verdict
• 3 Sorin's Thirst

Remember, Phyrexian Metamorph does the same trick with Geralf’s Messenger as Phantasmal Image!

The other intriguing new archetype was Raphael Levy and the other Frenchie’s Reanimator deck. They had good numbers, especially when you discount the sub-optimal versions some other teams played, though we’re still talking about a pretty small sample size. Their list is very vulnerable to graveyard hate, but how much graveyard hate can people even afford to play these days?

The list has continued to succeed, including a strong showing in Charlotte by Justin Cavenaugh piloting nearly Raph’s exact list:

Frites

Justin Cavenaugh

16th Place at Star City Games Standard Open on 02-19-2012

Standard

Creatures (17)

• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 2 Inferno Titan
• 2 Wurmcoil Engine
• 4 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim

Lands (23)

• 6 Forest
• 2 Plains
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 4 Copperline Gorge
• 4 Razorverge Thicket
• 2 Darkslick Shores

Spells (20)

• 4 Mulch
• 4 Unburial Rites
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Lingering Souls
• 4 Tracker's Instincts

Sideboard

• 2 Ray of Revelation
• 3 Ancient Grudge
• 2 Wurmcoil Engine
• 2 Thrun, the Last Troll
• 1 Massacre Wurm
• 2 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
• 2 Memory's Journey
• 1 Purify the Grave

This strategy is a fun one, but it’s also a very powerful one. A quick Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Inferno Titan, or Wurmcoil Engine is no joke, and Faithless Looting is an absolutely absurd enabler for the strategy. While Faithless Looting is not surprising anyone, Tracker’s Instincts is probably catching a few people unaware. It and Mulch are absolutely incredible in decks like this, since often putting cards into your graveyard is basically the same as having them in your hand (flashback, reanimation, etc.).

Ali Aintrazi went a little different of a direction (as he is known to do), trading in the mana creatures for Heartless Summoning and the green library manipulation for more sweepers:

Heartless Rites

Ali Aintrazi

11th Place at Star City Games Standard Open on 02-19-2012

Standard

Creatures (13)

• 3 Solemn Simulacrum
• 2 Massacre Wurm
• 3 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 2 Phantasmal Image
• 2 Rune-Scarred Demon

Lands (26)

• 2 Plains
• 3 Swamp
• 2 Mountain
• 1 Island
• 2 Shimmering Grotto
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 2 Drowned Catacomb
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 4 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 1 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Isolated Chapel
• 1 Clifftop Retreat

Spells (21)

• 3 Day of Judgment
• 2 Whipflare
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Forbidden Alchemy
• 4 Heartless Summoning
• 4 Unburial Rites
• 2 Desperate Ravings
• 4 Faithless Looting

Sideboard

• 1 Forest
• 1 Ray of Revelation
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Day of Judgment
• 2 Sun Titan
• 3 Ratchet Bomb
• 2 Mimic Vat
• 3 Nihil Spellbomb

Looking at the top 16 of StarCityGames.com Open: Charlotte, we can see that despite Hawaii being filled with Primeval Titans and Delver of Secrets, Dark Ascension has successfully breathed new life into the format at the exact right time:

Top 16 StarCityGames.com Open: Charlotte

Spirits 3
Wolf Run Ramp 3
W/U Humans 2
Black Aggro 2
Reanimator 2
Red Deck Wins 1
Delver 1
Mono-Green 1
W/B Tokens 1

Delver-Blade and Spirits have firmly diverged, with Spirits appearing to be the deck to beat. Here is Todd Anderson update:

Esper Spirits

Todd Anderson

4th Place at Star City Games Standard Open on 02-19-2012

Standard

Creatures (17)

• 3 Phantasmal Image
• 4 Snapcaster Mage
• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 4 Drogskol Captain
• 2 Dungeon Geists

Lands (22)

• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 6 Island
• 3 Glacial Fortress
• 2 Evolving Wilds
• 4 Seachrome Coast
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 1 Moorland Haunt

Spells (21)

• 3 Mana Leak
• 4 Ponder
• 1 Mutagenic Growth
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 3 Vapor Snag
• 2 Dismember
• 4 Lingering Souls

Sideboard

• 2 Dissipate
• 1 Divine Offering
• 2 Flashfreeze
• 1 Negate
• 2 Revoke Existence
• 1 Mutagenic Growth
• 1 Act of Aggression
• 2 Corrosive Gale
• 1 Phantasmal Image
• 2 Dungeon Geists

Even Todd is playing Corrosive Gale in his sideboard! This is a sure sign that Corrosive Gale is the premiere sideboard card at the moment.

Wolf Run continues to do well, preying on the Spirit decks that are not as well equipped to fight Wolf Run as old school Delver was. Bret Purvis was the highest finishing Wolf Run player, finishing 3rd with Brian Kibler exact list:

Wolf Run Ramp

Bert Purvis

3rd Place at Star City Games Standard Open on 02-19-2012

Standard

Creatures (16)

• 3 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 2 Inferno Titan
• 4 Primeval Titan
• 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
• 4 Huntmaster of the Fells

Lands (25)

• 5 Forest
• 6 Mountain
• 4 Rootbound Crag
• 4 Copperline Gorge
• 4 Inkmoth Nexus
• 2 Kessig Wolf Run

Spells (19)

• 4 Rampant Growth
• 4 Galvanic Blast
• 2 Green Sun's Zenith
• 4 Sphere of the Suns
• 4 Slagstorm
• 1 Whipflare

Sideboard

• 2 Naturalize
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 2 Combust
• 1 Autumn's Veil
• 2 Thrun, the Last Troll
• 2 Karn Liberated
• 2 Beast Within
• 1 Whipflare
• 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Black Aggro and Reanimator have both really stepped up and proven that they have what it takes to make it in the new format, as listed above. Conspicuously absent are the Birthing Pod decks. Did most players write them off after the bad reputation they mistakenly got in Honolulu, or did the Pro Tour Pod decks just prey on last week’s metagame?

Perhaps, most surprising, Red Deck Wins (this time splashing for Kessig Wolf Run) came out of nowhere to win yet another StarCityGames.com Open! After almost no presence at all in Hawaii, Mitchell Anderson snuck up on the format and punished them for forgetting about how dangerous Mono-Red is when people leave their Timely Reinforcements and Sword of War and Peace at home.

Mono Red

Mitchell Anderson

1st Place at Star City Games Standard Open on 02-19-2012

Standard

Creatures (17)

• 2 Grim Lavamancer
• 2 Spikeshot Elder
• 2 Hero of Oxid Ridge
• 4 Chandra's Phoenix
• 3 Stormblood Berserker
• 4 Stromkirk Noble

Planeswalkers (2)

• 2 Koth of the Hammer

Lands (23)

• 17 Mountain
• 4 Rootbound Crag
• 2 Kessig Wolf Run

Spells (19)

• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 3 Galvanic Blast
• 3 Arc Trail
• 1 Gut Shot
• 4 Volt Charge
• 4 Shrine of Burning Rage
• 3 Brimstone Volley

Sideboard

• 2 Manabarbs
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 2 Koth of the Hammer
• 1 Slagstorm
• 1 Sword of War and Peace
• 1 Gut Shot
• 2 Geistflame
• 4 Traitorous Blood

Do I think that Mono-Red will win again next week? Of course not, but who (besides Patrick Sullivan) would have guessed it would win three out of the last four StarCityGames.com Opens?

An awful lot of focus is going to be on #GPHoth, held this past weekend in Lincoln, Nebraska. With everyone’s eyes on Modern, this weekend will make be excellent chance to catch people by surprise in Standard, either at Grand Prix Baltimore or the StarCityGames.com Open in Memphis. What will I be playing? Well, I don’t know for sure yet, but I know what I definitely wouldn’t bet against…

Thanks to everyone that has been reading for these past 300 articles. I couldn’t ask for a better audience and am looking forward to 300 more! See you next week!

Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”