If you’ve read my articles over the last few weeks, you’ll know that I’ve been in a sort of funk. The first part of this year has been filled with defeats and near misses. Perhaps that’s just part of the game, but I honestly think that my head hasn’t been in it. I needed something to refresh my urge to win. I needed some sort of inspiration. After doing commentary this past weekend, I really feel like it was the "break" I needed.

While I got to watch my friends make the Top 4 and finals on the second day of play, I didn’t feel bad at all about not playing. Instead, I got to root for them while trying to stay (mostly) impartial when it came to the matches. I got to share my insight with the rest of the world, or at least the community of viewers who tuned in.

And for me, that was enough.

Conceptually, commentary is a bit of an art form, as there isn’t a perfect way to do it. It takes a certain kind of person with a certain kind of attitude towards the subject on display to provide an experience for the viewer that is both informative and entertaining. I have absolutely gained a newfound respect for the people who do this on a regular basis since it is certainly more difficult than I originally imagined it to be. I’d done a bit of commentary here and there at some Opens, but nothing like this. The long days, as well as the constant pressure to continually talk about relevant topics when there isn’t much going on during a match, is quite taxing both physically and mentally. I know that I drank much more water during the event than I have in some time, as my mouth would run dry from flapping my tongue wildly for an hour at a time.

Something interesting that you don’t get to see a lot when you’re actually grinding out tournaments is how certain people build their decks and how those particular deckbuilding decisions come to fruition. Sure, you look at decklists and see the cards, but you don’t exactly understand the reasoning behind a lot of them until you actually see them in action. And again, when it is your job to constantly evaluate board states and cards in hand as well as potential outs for one player or another, you get a sense of the bigger picture. You get to see why that player sideboarded a certain way. You get to see how a particularly odd choice pans out, even if it isn’t the one you would have made. You get to see certain cards in action that you wouldn’t necessarily get to see and how powerful or weak those particular inclusions are.

I know that I was a bit out of my element during the second day of play due to it being Sealed instead of Legacy or another Standard event. I was not entirely prepared because it is a new set and I’ve only played a handful of events with the new cards. I wasn’t aware how difficult it would be to memorize every card and every ability and how those cards would affect each game. Since the commentary gig was a bit last minute due to travel mishaps for Osyp Lebedowicz, I didn’t have much time to prepare, but that shouldn’t be an issue in the future. Luckily, I play a lot of Standard, so there wasn’t much trouble on that end.

When you play a format enough, seeing the plays and interactions comes naturally, and that is why I really felt at home during the Standard portion. I know that I didn’t have my A game on during the Sealed, and I can do nothing but try harder for next time. When it comes to performance on any stage, I am a perfectionist. I see the errors I am making in real time and immediately do my best to correct them. This holds true for commentary as well, and the missteps I had during Sealed took a toll on my confidence, though I am aware that this probably wouldn’t have been an issue if the format had been Constructed.

I only hope that my banter with Zack Hall helped to alleviate some of those mistakes, as I did my best to be as entertaining as possible while still delivering quality commentary on the matches. I did lay down a few puns (okay, maybe more than a few) here and there, which probably received far less criticism than it deserved. I’m sure Pat Cox would have given it somewhere around a C.

In the last four days, I have had an eye-opening experience, and I just can’t thank Evan Erwin enough for giving me that opportunity. I just hope that my commentary on the matches in question was up to par, and I also hope that I get to do it again in the future. It was a lot of fun, and I owe a lot of credit to Zack Hall for showing me the ropes.

There is little difference between doing commentary and writing an article. In some ways, they are exactly the same. You get to talk about specific plays and certain sets of sequences that could ultimately lead to victory or defeat. You have a lot of room to maneuver since you see so many matchups play out over the course of the day. Sometimes, the lines you suggest aren’t the ones taken, and the player in the match ends up winning because of that line where you would have ultimately lost. To see some of the lines from those players lead to a victory instead of the defeat you predicted is sobering and really helps to challenge your concepts when it comes to certain matchups and certain plays. And you learn. A lot. 

With that said, I love writing articles. I like teaching others and trying to help them get better. I know that most of you are "here for the decklist," but I do this for those of you who enjoy the written word. I’m not the most eloquent of speakers and tend to spew Magic jargon at any given moment when it isn’t necessarily appropriate, but I tend to write what I know about and hope that it is enough for you to take something away from the article. What you take away from the article is entirely up to you and mostly depends on what you want to get out of a piece of content.

And different pieces tend to have different target audiences.

In one of my recent articles, I went on a stream-of-consciousness journey through some of the darker parts of my past in an effort to portray just how much Magic means to me. It was a bit of a selfish article meant to be therapeutic, but it’s something that I hope really touched some of you. There were no decklists. There were no sideboarding guides. Only words. I decided to tell the story of how Magic changed my life almost entirely for the better, and I know that a lot of you went through similar things growing up or are going through them now. 

In case you missed it and would like to take the time to read it, you can check it out here.

Commentary can be similarly therapeutic and has different target audiences. I know that the Legacy community is incredibly vocal, and the lack of Legacy on Sunday came with some resistance. I will agree that to me Legacy is a lot more fun to watch than any form of Limited, but StarCityGames.com is in a bit of an experimental phase when it comes to the Open Series. They are testing out new formats, and that is something you should revere more than attempt to change. If the numbers don’t support the new format, then I’m sure the powers that be will definitely take that into consideration. Your feedback is always appreciated, but this experiment into Sealed was definitely a fun one for a lot of players and viewers.

Thank you for your kind words this weekend, as I received a lot of positive messages and tweets from various people that tuned in to the broadcast. As I said, it was my first time and I was pretty nervous for the first few hours, but I think I really got into my element and am incredibly thankful for the opportunity.

Watching Standard

Now that we have all that business out of the way, we can focus on what really matters: Standard! I got to watch a ton of decks play out over the weekend and saw some interesting things that people just looking at the top decklists might not see. For one, we had an abundance of W/G/B Tokens on camera, and not a single one broke into the Top 8. This is important to note because you aren’t necessarily always going to play against a top deck when you come to a tournament.

W/G/B Tokens is a deck I played in one of our Versus videos a few weeks ago right after the spoiling of Dragon’s Maze. The deck was solid and had some sweet interactions. With so many anthem effects, populate possibilities, and a few solid planeswalkers to continually produce creatures, what’s not to love?

Voice of Resurgence gives new life to the archetype, acting as both a way to protect your bigger drops from their counterspells and a solid two-drop, which the archetype lacked. Call of the Conclave is fine and all, but we needed a card that was great against both aggro and control—and we definitely got one.

Oh, and also Advent of the Wurm. That card seems ok too.

For reference, here is a starting point for the archetype:

W/G/B Tokens

Todd Anderson

Test deck on 05-12-2013

Standard

Creatures (11)

• 3 Arbor Elf
• 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 4 Voice of Resurgence

Planeswalkers (4)

• 4 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

Lands (24)

• 3 Forest
• 4 Overgrown Tomb
• 4 Temple Garden
• 4 Godless Shrine
• 3 Sunpetal Grove
• 1 Isolated Chapel
• 2 Woodland Cemetery
• 3 Gavony Township

Spells (21)

• 4 Intangible Virtue
• 4 Lingering Souls
• 2 Rootborn Defenses
• 4 Call of the Conclave
• 3 Selesnya Charm
• 4 Advent of the Wurm

While I don’t have a great sideboard mocked up or a definite sideboard plan, I think this list is a solid place to start. I much prefer Rootborn Defenses to the popular Ready // Willing because it allows you to populate your Advent of the Wurm or Call of the Conclave token in matchups where you don’t necessarily need to protect yourself from Supreme Verdict.

This archetype is a little weak to some of the more controlling decks in the format, but it seems absolutely busted against Bant Flash and most of the midrange decks. While you don’t have a great answer to Olivia Voldaren, Selesnya Charm could help you out a lot if she gets to be too big. I would recommend having Thragtusk and maybe Centaur Healer in the sideboard to sway the matchups against hyperaggro decks in your favor, but you should be able to easily overwhelm any of their mid-level draws.

While this archetype isn’t necessarily the best deck in Standard, it is definitely something to watch out for when preparing for a tournament. There wasn’t a lot of it at the top tables, but people love making tokens. I would expect to play against this kind of deck at least once per tournament.

Moving closer to the hip, a R/G Aggro deck took down the tournament. Zack Hall and I discussed the Top 8 decks at length during the elimination rounds, and there was one thing we both agreed on: Steve Kaufman’s deck was the most well constructed deck. As you can see, he didn’t screw around with a bunch of singletons, and he knew exactly what he wanted to be casting during each turn of the game. He also played very well, and I can definitely see why he won the tournament.

R/G Aggro

Steve Kaufmann

1st Place at Star City Games Standard Open on 05-12-2013

Standard

Creatures (33)

• 4 Stromkirk Noble
• 4 Hellrider
• 4 Flinthoof Boar
• 4 Rakdos Cackler
• 4 Burning-Tree Emissary
• 4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
• 4 Firefist Striker
• 4 Boros Reckoner
• 1 Pyrewild Shaman

Lands (20)

• 11 Mountain
• 1 Temple Garden
• 4 Stomping Ground
• 4 Rootbound Crag

Spells (7)

• 3 Pillar of Flame
• 4 Searing Spear

Sideboard

• 3 Mark of Mutiny
• 3 Volcanic Strength
• 2 Electrickery
• 3 Domri Rade
• 4 Skullcrack

One of the biggest innovations over the last few weeks for red-based aggro decks has been Firefist Striker.

Not too flashy. Not that powerful. But it does get the job done against Boros Reckoner. Luckily for Kaufman, there wasn’t a ton of Boros Reckoner decks at the event. That’s probably one of the reasons he ended up doing so well, as red decks tend to have severe problems with the infamous Minotaur Wizard. With Ghor-Clan Rampager to tag along with Firefist Striker, Kaufman does have a variety of ways to punch through, but that doesn’t make it any less devastating for the times when he doesn’t have the answer.

One of the most important cards for Kaufman was likely the three Pillar of Flames in his maindeck. This gave him a reasonable number of answers to straight up exile any Voice of Resurgence from the opponent, allowing his team to swing through unimpeded. Unlike most red decks in recent memory, Firefist Striker gives you the ability to attack past annoyances like Voice and Reckoner with ease.

Burning-Tree Emissary is a great card for aggressive decks to have, but you need to make sure that most, if not all, of your two-drop creatures can be cast for 1R or GR. This allows you to apply more pressure in the early turns of the game against decks that aren’t really prepared to handle that kind of explosiveness. Firefist Striker replacing Ash Zealot from older lists is a prime example of how to build your deck to function on all cylinders.

One important note is the difference between Naya Blitz and R/G Aggro. While Naya Blitz has the potential for faster draws, the red deck is much more resilient to removal. With access to creatures that can close the game on their own (Hellrider), you aren’t completely dead in the water if your opponent continually casts removal spells on turns 2-4. They need a way to permanently stall your board like Restoration Angel, Voice of Resurgence, or Boros Reckoner. Without one of these cards to hold off your team, it is unlikely that they’ll have a removal spell for every single one of your creatures, and the red deck has threats that can actually close in the later game by themselves.

Another reason to play R/G Aggro instead of Naya Blitz is a mana base that is more consistent. Something that I see very often out of Naya Blitz is mana issues since the deck really needs all three colors in order to function properly. With a draw featuring only two of those colors, they are harder pressed to apply pressure to the opponent before they get their wheels off the ground. The common misconception with aggressive decks is that you need to be as explosive as possible and disregard consistency. While explosiveness is definitely good and something you want, it seems difficult to play decks that mulligan so poorly. Many games come down to just one or two points of life from the opponent, and a single mulligan can greatly hinder your ability to close in those scenarios.

I think the biggest surprise of the weekend was the lack of G/B/W Reanimator in the Top 8, though it did have a reasonable showing in the Top 16. Unfortunately, Ali Aintrazi intentionally drew into 9th place in the last round, as the eventual 7th place competitor jumped multiple percentage points in the last round to overtake Ali as well as 8th place finisher Ben Ragan.

I was not surprised to see Bant Hexproof make another appearance in the Top 4 because the archetype is incredibly powerful and much more consistent than it used to be. With Voice of Resurgence added to its arsenal, Liliana of the Veil is no longer the dagger it once was. While Voice of Resurgence still isn’t exactly the creature you want to suit up with a bunch of enchantments, it isn’t really that bad to do so, especially so on your own turn. Thanks to Voice of Resurgence, any removal shenanigans from the opponent will result in an Elemental token being created, giving you the ability to win games the old-fashioned way.

Jund was popular in Charlotte. It was played by multiple players to the Top 8 and was a constant presence in the feature match area. Owen Turtenwald has been championing the deck as of late, as well as our very own Reid Duke, and both have had reasonable success with the archetype. While you will rarely see a Jund deck be the exact same 75 as another thanks to a diverse suite of removal, the fact that all of them have access to a powerful set of creatures and spells gives them an edge in a lot of matchups. What the deck lacks in synergy it makes up for with standalone threats and powerful answers.

…

While Standard is quite diverse at the moment, there are a lot of trends fleshing out from the pre-Dragon’s Maze metagame. We’re seeing a few role-players from the new set influencing the established decks but not a whole lot of new archetypes spawning from it. This is most likely due to the fact that Dragon’s Maze is a small set, whereas Gatecrash and Return to Ravnica were both larger sets that added many more cards to the pool. We also had access to all the dual lands before the release of Dragon’s Maze, which stifled a lot of the potential development of the format and could have been avoided if they’d released the lands in subsequent sets as they did previously.

Voice of Resurgence and Advent of the Wurm may seem like the biggest additions to Standard, but there are a lot of great cards added to the pool for Block Constructed, which will be the Constructed format at Pro Tour Dragon’s Maze this weekend. I will probably be at home watching the event because the coverage has gotten much better since the beginning of the year.

I’m really happy with where Magic is going, and I’m excited to see what’s to come. Be sure to tune into SCGLive for the StarCityGames.com Open Series in Nashville this weekend, where there will definitely be some Legacy coverage on Sunday! I’m looking forward to flipping between channels on the regular.

Thanks for reading.

Todd Anderson

strong sad on Magic Online

@strong_sad on Twitter