As I’m writing this, we’ve seen one day of play at Worlds, perhaps the most interesting day for those who like to follow Standard for Friday Night Magic and other local tournaments. We certainly expect the third day of play, focusing on Extended, to have a metagame-shaping impact… either it’ll prove that Elves are at an acceptable power level in the current Extended metagame, or Wizards will break some Elf kneecaps until they do, and either way it will herald us in to the eventual Extended PTQ season with new information. But watching the first day of play, and typing frantically away at my keyboard to get this in by some kind of deadline, taking a good look at Standard at Worlds from the first day of play is sure to be interesting just as a snapshot of Standard’s overall health.
… Well, scratch some of that at least; Craig’s just told me I’m past any reasonable deadline for a Friday article and I can slow my typing down to a less frantic pace since this will now be going up Tuesday. Regardless, a one-day look at Standard as it changes from States to the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open to Worlds is bound to be interesting.
One thing I find particularly striking is the constant evolution of the “Boat Brew” deck, from disparate roots (Pierre Canali in France, Brian Kowal in America) to a generally more-unified deck in the hands of Osyp Lebedowicz at the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open. While we seem to have some truly independent sources reaching similar conclusions at different times and different places, one also has to wonder whether Brian Kowal happened to watch the Deck Tech video from the PT: Berlin Last Chance Qualifiers, or se it himself if he was in Berlin at the time. (If he was, it wasn’t in the main event.) Sure, it’s not too hard to look and realize that Ranger of Eos is pretty awesome, or that getting two Figures of Destiny with the Ranger and getting them back with Reveillark is a solid play, but some of the other card choices along the way follow an interesting evolution of this aggressive Red-White non-Kithkin Reveillark deck, and wonder at the fact that the only person who seemingly noted its success at the SCG $5k was would-be Rookie of the Year Aaron Nicastri.
My assumption, coming out of the SCG $5k weekend, was that any deck that made Top 8 at the $5k would be represented at Worlds. Faeries most certainly was — three in the Top 8, and 89 players at Worlds shuffling up the Fae for Day 1. Cruel Control most certainly was… only one in the SCG $5k Top Eight, and none in 9th-16th like Faeries was, but still 39 players at Worlds with only one dissenter on the Cruel Ultimatum count to play Tidings instead. Star City’s own GerryT dissented on the archetype entirely, not just the use of Cruel Ultimatum, playing Black/White Tokens instead, an archetype not represented in the SCG $5k at all, only somewhat regarded after States, and yet 48 players at Worlds chose to play the deck.
Red Deck Wins managed a Top 8 at the $5k as well, and nine players played it at Worlds, while another seventeen decided to play the Black-Red version of the aggro deck, usually referred to as “Blightning Beatdown” regardless of the other 56 cards used in the deck. Red/White Kithkin won the $5k, and Kithkin with Red appears to have 28 players. This covers 6 of the 8 decks from the SCG $5k… leaving us the two Reveillark builds, one played by Dave Irvine and the other by Osyp Lebedowicz, to be unveiled further at Worlds.
Esper Reveillark is listed as having four players at Worlds, one of whom surely must be Dave Irvine himself who went 3-1-1 in Standard. Four players is not a lot, but it isn’t even the Reveillark deck that seemed to have everyone else excited coming out of the SCG $5k, especially since there have been an easy half-dozen or so articles about Kowal’s Boat Brew and Osyp’s $5k deck. Could it be so simple that it just wasn’t the highest-finishing Red-White deck with Figures and Ajani Vengeant? Perhaps so.
If so, however, I imagine up-and-comer Aaron Nicastri is laughing his way to the top of the standings, because as of Day 1 he was 6-0 with the archetype… and according to the Day 1 Deck Breakdown in the official coverage, either one or two copies of the deck was played, depending on how cynical you are in your beliefs that the Red-White (non-Kithkin) Aggro deck is actually different from the Red-White Reveillark deck.
Six rounds later, and we see the following:
4 Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]
2 Mountain
5 Plains
3 Reflecting Pool
4 Rugged Prairie
4 Windbrisk Heights
1 Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Murderous Redcap
4 Ranger of Eos
3 Reveillark
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Stillmoon Cavalier
4 Ajani Vengeant
4 Mind Stone
4 Spectral Procession
Sideboard:
1 Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender
3 Guttural Response
1 Stillmoon Cavalier
3 Vithian Stinger
3 Voice of All
4 Wrath of God
We also see it as one of the five 6-0 decks, with the others being three Faerie decks and one mono-White Kithkin deck sporting four Knights of the White Orchard… Knights that were edited out of Nicastri’s deck sometime between when it left Osyp’s hands and Aaron’s, despite them previously appearing in the coverage as Knights of Meadowgrain. Those Knights had turned into Spectral Procession, which is clearly an awesome spell, but one has to wonder if that was the appropriate cut in a deck that likes mana acceleration enough to play Mind Stone and clearly is a fan of card advantage plus five mana spells. With Aaron’s Deck Tech on the deck discussing the fact that he really wished he had some Wispmares in his sideboard, the evolution of the deck is far from over, and I imagine over some more time we’ll see further evolution, especially on the topic of Knight of the White Orchard in Standard.
But what about that Tokens deck… and the curious fact that Jon Finkel and several others played Five-Color Control with Rhox War Monks in the main-deck and Bitterblossom in the sideboard to combat Faeries’ Bitterblossoms?
Black-White Tokens has slowly but surely been poking up on peoples’ radars, and can easily be called the “Magic Online Deck of the Tournament” due to the fact that its large presence began on MTGO about a month ago. It’s also the natural offspring of the previous Standard Tokens deck, B/R Tokens, due to the fact that most of the synergistic Red cards like Mogg War Marshal and Greater Gargadon have left the format, but new White cards like Tidehollow Sculler and Elspeth, Knight-Errant can give a good reason to lean White even if it means abandoning Furystoke Giant. Between the two colors, you’ll see Marsh Flitter, Spectral Procession, Bitterblossom, Elspeth, and Cloudgoat Ranger, all of which make multiple threats for a single card, and all of which work very nicely with what is proving to actually be the best White card in the format, Windbrisk Heights.
The following was played by Martin Juza of the Czech Republic, and can be seen here in a Deck Tech video based on the archetype. Martin finished 4-2 in Standard, with the following list:
2 Arcane Sanctum
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Fetid Heath
3 Mutavault
3 Plains
2 Reflecting Pool
4 Swamp
4 Windbrisk Heights
4 Cloudgoat Ranger
2 Marsh Flitter
3 Stillmoon Cavalier
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Ajani Goldmane
4 Bitterblossom
4 Spectral Procession
3 Terror
4 Thoughtseize
3 Unmake
Sideboard:
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Soul Warden
3 Wispmare
3 Wrath of God
Looking through the Event Coverage, you’ll note SCG’s own Gerry Thompson in the coverage for round five, playing against Aaron Nicastri with the following list:
4 Arcane Sanctum
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Fetid Heath
2 Mutavault
2 Plains
4 Reflecting Pool
1 Swamp
4 Windbrisk Heights
3 Cloudgoat Ranger
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
4 Stillmoon Cavalier
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Bitterblossom
4 Spectral Procession
4 Thoughtseize
4 Terror
4 Glorious Anthem
Sideboard:
1 Cloudgoat Ranger
2 Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Wrath of God
2 Mind Shatter
3 Grave Pact
3 Wispmare
Gerry finished 5-1, and so while we don’t happen to see any Tokens decks among the five undefeated decks, clearly it was at least doing well… even if we can’t figure out how well-represented it might have been just below the top of the standings.
And then there were Faeries. There are always Faeries, so seems to be the lesson of the past year or so, since Zvi Mowshowitz sleeved up his Cloud Sprites and Nightshade Stingers at Worlds much to the bemusement of all. Well, look who’s laughing now: Masashi Oiso, Justin Cheung, and Akira Asahara, all 6-0 with the Fae. Combining the three decklists, we can arguably have GerryT’s Ideal Faeries Decklist, because nothing is more ideal than going 18-0 at Worlds, right?
4 Mutavault
4 Secluded Glen
4 Sunken Ruins
3 Underground River
3 Island
2 Swamp
2 Faerie Conclave
4 Cryptic Command
4 Bitterblossom
3 Broken Ambitions
2 Jace Beleren
2 Agony Warp
4 Mistbind Clique
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Scion of Oona
2 Sower of Temptation
Seasoning to taste. (10 cards’ worth of seasoning.)
While there is a lot in common between the three undefeated decklists, such as at least two Faerie Conclaves that are sure to burn GerryT’s bottom, there is not actually a consensus even on things plenty of people take for granted, like how many copies of Underground River this U/B deck wants or whether Scion of Oona really is a four-of. Justin Cheung, of the Australian National Team, dissented and played three. Looking at the last ten cards, we see the following:
Masashi Oiso:
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Agony Warp
1 Jace Beleren
3 Thoughtseize
Justin Cheung:
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Underground River
2 Agony Warp
1 Loxodon Warhammer
4 Thoughtseize
Akira Asahara:
2 Faerie Conclave
1 Underground River
4 Peppersmoke
2 Terror
We could combine these three all together and get fractions like “one-third of a Loxodon Warhammer” as part of an ideal decklist, but generally such an information extraction is not considered to be useful information. However, by all accounts this is exactly the technique used by Frank Karsten to settle at his somewhat oddly-numbered Faeries deck as discussed in the Day 1 coverage, and by the time I actually had to submit this to our illustrious editor the Top 8 had been locked, if not necessarily their decklists, and it seems that Karsten’s Amalgamated Faeries was good enough alongside his drafting skills and Extended deck to let him play for the title of World Champion yet again. (As does Jamie Parke with the Rhox War Monk-plus-Bitterblossom Five-Color Control deck. Go Jamie!)
Amalgamated Faeries
Frank Karsten:
4 Underground River
4 Sunken Ruins
4 Secluded Glen
4 Mutavault
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Swamp
5 Island
4 Mistbind Clique
4 Scion of Oona
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Agony Warp
4 Bitterblossom
4 Cryptic Command
2 Thoughtseize
2 Remove Soul
1 Broken Ambitions
1 Jace Beleren
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Ponder
This is a deck that is perhaps too ugly to love, but being Good Enough got Frank 12 points in Standard and with his records in the other two formats we get a deck full of two’s and one’s that I’m sure Adrian Sullivan is loving for putting its thumb in the eye of conventional deckbuilding mores… after all, “it is known” that decks full of inconsistent onesies and twosies ‘do not make Top 8,’ and yet here it is. Alongside what I am told is four other Faeries decks, making the idea of reaching a hard-and-fast ‘best’ decklist even harder to do when there is plenty of dissension in the ranks.
For those who have been hoping for something besides Faeries to do well, it seems as if some of the world’s best players with Faeries in their hands managed to do quite well for themselves, and while other decks were present and even did well, their presence in small numbers perhaps stopped them from changing the metagame enough to unseat the Faerie menace. Many people, such as Adrian Sullivan and Osyp Lebedowicz, are placing R/W Reveillark among the very best decks in the format, right behind Faeries, but 49 players played mono-White or Red-White Kithkin as their beatdown deck of choice, and only Australian National Champion and possible Rookie of the Year contender Aaron Nicastri played Red-White Reveillark as his Figure of Destiny-based beatdown deck of choice. Aaron went 6-0 in the format, and finished Top 16; one Kithkin player finished 6-0 as well, out of those 49 entrants, and one totally different Kithkin player made the Top 8 after a 5-1 start in Standard.
Sadly, Worlds does not bode well for the next few months of Standard play if you dislike the heavy-Faeries metagame. There remains hope, however, especially if one of the three dissenters in the Top 8 manages to win the event… as that deck will almost certainly be copied and become a consistent part of the metagame for months to come, simply based on the fact that it stood toe-to-toe with Faeries on the world stage. While my expectation waking up and seeing five Faeries decks in the Top 8 is that one of them will probably win the tournament, there is a reason we actually let them still play the matches… anything can happen, and frequently does. [And of course, we now know that Faeries did indeed take the crown — Craig.]
Check back later this week as we digest the Top 8 as it plays out… and have a vital look at the Extended portion of Worlds, to get a sense of where things might be going for the upcoming Extended PTQ season, and whether Elves triumphed anyway enough to see a banning in the format between now and then.
Sean McKeown
s_mckeown @ hotmail.com