The Online Outlook #5 — Dashed Hopes on the IPA Altar

No time for love, Doctor Jones… Let’s get to the action!

IPA Qualification Tournament #1

This was a Time Spiral Sealed tournament, with 76 players. It’s number 936576 if you wanna go view the Top 8.

My cardpool:

IPA QT Sealed Cardpool

Craig Stevenson

Test deck on 04-01-2007

Time Spiral Limited

Creatures (49)

Spells (26)

My deck:

IPA QT Sealed Deck

Craig Stevenson

Test deck on 04-01-2007

Time Spiral Limited

Creatures (17)

Lands (18)

Spells (5)

Was I greedy? Definitely. I mean, look at the bombs! Torchling, Kaervek, Call of the Herd, Sengir Nosferatu… and Desolation Giant in the sideboard.

This cardpool foxed the socks off me. Any helpful hints should be made in the forums, thanks.

Round 1: Clint B, playing G/R/B/W. Ranking — 1724

Game 1 – I keep a two-land hand on the play, but thankfully this doesn’t kick me up the ass this time. I peel two lands like a pro, and make two 3/3 elephants thanks to Call of the Herd. These beat for a while, until Clint B makes a Goblin Skycutter and slaps a Verdant Embrace on it. After a triple-block, the 5/4 man-machine hit the showers, but we’re now both sitting on empty. Thankfully, my hand is gas. I drop Torchling, naked, and he’s offed with Sudden Death. Clint makes some guys, and Radha… thankfully I respond with a Penumbra Spider and Sengir Nosferatu. A huge attack with Saprolings and Radha sees Radha boosted by a Strength in Numbers, and my life swings low, but thankfully I topdeck a Fury Sliver to stabilize the ground while Sengir mops up.

Game 2 — I mulligan to five, while Clint drops to six. My five of two Forest, Mire Boa and Stingscourger doesn’t look too good, but I make Boa followed by Call of the Herd. Clint stops on two land, and one of them is the much-needed Swamp. I draw nothing but mana, and Clint soon draw lands of his own. He kills all my guys, but he’s now on five life. Kaervek the Merciless off the top seals the deal.

1-0

Round 2: affinity in, playing R/W/G/B. Ranking — 1786 (another four-color deck?)

Game 1 — I mulligan to six, and keep a hand with early guys but no Swamps. My turn 2 Mire Boa was trumped by his turn 3 Flowstone Channeler, and the only castable guy I have is Timbermare. He comes down far too late to make a difference, and I die with eight land in play, no Swamps, and three Black cards in hand. Yeah, I deserve such a shoddy mana-draw… my greed overcame me in this round.

Game 2 — For some reason, I keep a six-land and Chromatic Star opening hand. Why? To this day, I have no sodding idea. My first four draws are land, Thallid Germinator, Thallid Shell-Dweller, Kaervek the Merciless. The beats were coming in, though slowed by the 0/5 wall, and the turn 7 Kaervek threatened to make a game of it. After a few turns of back and forth, Kaervek meets his Fiery Justice, and my weak guys fell to his strong ones. Man, is Timbermare a bad topdeck when you’re behind!

1-1

Round 3: solebush, playing R/G/W. Rating — 1833

Game 1 — I mulligan to five. I beat down early with miscellaneous spods, and then drop Kaervek. Sadly, my opponent has traded and blocked well, and has enough life to drop Jedit without too much bother. Yeah, he beats Kaervek.

Game 2 — I mulligan to 6, and face down a turn 3 Jaya Ballard, against my deck that has limited removal. I didn’t draw any, and I died.

1-2 Drop.

The Online Standard Metagame, Part 1

There have been a number of Standard Premier Events this week. Broadly speaking, they’ve split themselves into two camps: the IPA Qualifiers, and the non-IPA Qualifiers. For now, I’ll share the results of the non-IPA tournaments. Why am I stringing them out? Because I’m in control!

Standard 2x – #932863 – Wednesday 21st March

1 — R/B Aggro
2 — R/U/B Control
3 — U/W/B Control
4 — Simictron
5 — Magnivore
6 — U/G Mid-Range Beats (Mystic Snake + Moldervine Cloaks + Spell Snares + Unstable Mutation)
7 — U/W/R Detritivore Control
8 — U/B Control

It was nice seeing a Red/Black Aggro deck take the top spot here… Let’s face fact, control decks are largely running rampant at the moment. In fact, of all the Premier Event Top 8s this week, I’d have to say that this was my favorite. There were such a variety of decks on offer… I particularly liked the U/G Mid-Range Beats deck, which packed a few counterspells and a host of odd cards like Unstable Mutation. Detritivore also made an appearance, which seems to be a fine metagame choice on the multicolored streets of Ravnica-powered Standard.

Standard 2x – #932867 – Friday March 23rd

1 — Mono-Red Gargadon Goblins
2 — U/R/B Tron
3 — Dragonstorm
4 — U/B Control
5 — Izzetron
6 — Dragonstorm
7 — U/R/B Tron
8 — U/R/B Tron

Hmm… while this Top 8 was dominated by control decks, a Mono-Red Goblin combo deck took home the bacon. I mean, I love Goblins as much as the next Paskins… but Combo Goblins reeks of smugness. Also rearing its ugly head was the ever-present threat of Dragonstorm, perhaps the most unfair deck in Standard in a purely abstract sense. And as we’ll see later, the rumors of its demise have been very much overestimated…

Standard 2x – #932869 – Saturday March 24th

1 — Mono-Green Aggro
2 — B/R Storm (with Ignite Memories)
3 — U/B Control
4 — U/R/W Control
5 — U/R/W Control
6 — U/R/W Control
7 — Izzetron
8 — Izzetron

Yay, another Aggro deck takes the proverbial biscuit! While I’m no particular fan of making a Silhana Ledgewalker and strapping a Moldervine Cloak on its back, I do see the draw of the Littlest Fatties. Coming in second was a cool-looking Ignite Memories storm deck, which I can see kicking seven bells out of Dragonstorm if the luck is with it. Making up the rest of the Top 8, we have six filthy control decks… U/R/W Control seems en vogue at the moment, and it can come in a number of flavors. Me, I like a more Blink Riders approach to the colors, or something more mid-range like Tiago Chan Angelfire deck… horses for courses, I suppose.

Standard 2x – #932870 – Saturday March 24th

1 — G/B Dredge
2 — U/R/W Tron
3 — Izzetron
4 — U/W Tron
5 — Mono-Green Aggro
6 — U/R/W Control
7 — G/W Glare
8 — G/B Dredge

What’s that I see? A G/W Glare deck! Huzzah and hoorah! Man, I wish this deck were truly competitive, rather than a statistical anomaly that is evident here (but hey, all power to the guy who ran it almost to the top. Open a Pernicious Deed for me, fella!). Of course, the G/B Dredge decks that top-and-tail the final eight are all the rage at the moment… just ask Bennie Smith. Me, I like the strategy, and it can be broken to buggery if given little resistance. I personally hope it doesn’t become too popular, because if it does it’ll surely be hated to oblivion. At the level it is now — a competitive yet under-appreciated gem — it gets to Rock the Casbah without receiving a Rocket from the (Tormod’s) Crypt. A couple of Tron decks, a couple of Control decks, Mono-Green Aggro, blah blah blah. Go Dredge!

IPA Qualification Tournament #2

Next up, a Time Spiral Block tournament. My weapon of choice?

I had options. A Mono-Black Control deck built by a Pro-Tour Winner, which sadly proved flaky in my limited testing. Or a Red/White Slivers deck that kept on giving, but seemed underpowered against mass removal if caught with its trousers down.

So what did I play?

Morph and Force

Sean McKeown

Test deck on 03-25-2007

Time Spiral Block

Creatures (24)

Lands (25)

Spells (11)

Sideboard

Morph and Force, by Sean McKeown.

Sean talks the talk, of that there’s no doubt… But did his deck walk the walk?

In a word… no.

Round 1: javasci, playing a super-cool U/B Body Double deck. Ranking – 1623

Game 1 — My opponent mulligans to five on the play, and makes a turn 3 Spiketail Drakeling. My smile widens, and I tick the win box. The Spiketail refuses to admit a Willbender, which I felt was a successful test spell. He makes Mindlash Sliver (yay win box!), while I make Spectral Force and morphed Vesuvan Shapeshifter. The Mindlash forces mutual discard in javasci’s first main phase, and his discard Bogardan Hellkite is Body Doubled to kill my morph and three my noggin. Thankfully, my second Spellshaper fives his Dragon, and once I counter the Dread Return I win in short order.

Game 2 — I bring in the four Magus of the Library, as he seemed removal light (other than the Hellkite, of course). I took out the three Serrated Arrows and one Wipe Away. Of course, javasci’s turn 2 Looter Il-Kor made a monkey out of me… how could I not see that he was running the pesky deck-enabling 1/1? He Body Doubles an early binned Hellkite to off my morph and a 0/3 Wall of Roots, then Doubles again to Lava Axe me. I have a Spectral Force, but when it swings with no resistance it’s time to scoop them up.

Game 3 — This was a doozy. I bring the Arrows back in short order, but don’t see them… and turns 2 and 3 Looter threaten to make this a quick loss. I drop a turn 2 Magus of the Library, but make it hard to draw cards with my turn 3 Wall of Roots times two. My opponent has gas, but I have Mystic Snakes in multiples. No to Body Double. No to Dread Return. I beat in, then finally get a Serrated Arrows to both ping his Looters and keep him off “three guys for flashbacked Dread Return” shenanigans. Eventually a Damnation clears the fences, so I drop a Spectral Force and threaten the win. A Second Damnation rabbit-punches my testes. I drop him to 4 with a few little-guy beats, while he amasses three guys to Dread Return a Body Double and speculatively Wrath my team. I flip my Shapeshifter and make him a Dragon in response, meaning he survives the three damage assigned, and another Shapeshifter off the top manages to Lava Axe him to the face. Great game, fantastic deck. I wish him luck with further testing and tweaking.

1-0

Round 2: jediknight920, playing B/U/R Control. Ranking — 1713

Does that mean the MTGO servers are populated by a further 919 Jedi Knights? I hope so, because that’d be sweet. It’s also explain the mind tricks played by the Shuffler.

Game 1 — This was rather annoying. I was stuck on one Blue source for far too long, and while I managed two hits with an unprotected Spectral Force, Damnation took me out of the game. My pressure met a Draining Whelk, which hit me for fifteen with counter backup. A Bogardan Hellkite sealed the deal.

Game 2 — I brought in the Riftwing Cloudskates, taking out the Serrated Arrows and 1 Wipe Away. After talking to Sean, I realized that this boarding plan is very wrong against control, but I lied to him and told him I’d sideboarded differently. I started off pretty well, but jediknight920 offed one guy with a Sudden Death, greatly reducing my clock. Still, I made stuff… and Damnation cleared the board. No matter, I had a second wave of guys… but my opponent had a second Damnation. Even then I wasn’t buried, as I kept a Cheeky Spectral Force behind for such an occasion. On reflection, it was his immediate third Damnation that broke my spirit. We spent a while doing very little, but I managed to force a cheeky “burn for 3” by bouncing a gravid storage land. This also allowed me to make a Shapeshifter and kill a Teferi. Haunting Hymn took me to no cards in hand, and my opponent followed it up with a Hellkite, tapping himself down. As he was on four life, one of my two remaining Spellshapers off the top would win it for me. An Island, however, would not. My next two draws were Shapeshifters, but my opponent had two counterspells (I knew he had Draining Whelk, having been forced to bounce it… but the confessed topdecked Cancel did smart a little). Still, a close one, all told.

1-1

Round 3: psplaystation, playing U/B Control. Ranking — 1684

These were the games that killed me.

Game 1 — The first was rather annoying. I was killed by double Draining Whelk. The sad thing was that I probably could’ve outraced the one 5/5 tapped guy with my little beats, but I made a superfluous Mystic Snake at the end of my opponent’s turn in order to maximise damage. Instead, my opponent netted a untapped 5/5 flyer for the deal. Earlier in the game, I’d shapeshifted his Shadowmage Infiltrator with two of my morphs, then bounced his back to his hand… that was gas.

Game 2 – Sean McKeown, in the space between rounds 2 and 3, advised me to board in the eight card advantage guys, and draw for my remaining games. So in came the Magi and the Ana Battlemages. Out went a couple of Walls, three Serrated arrows, and three Wipe Aways. I duly opted to draw… and my opponent made a turn 2 Dandan. His Turn 3 saw a morph arrive, and my turn 3 morph was killed with a Sudden Death. Suddenly, in the face of my turn 4 Harmonize, I was facing double Dandan beats (via the morphed Shapeshifter). I dropped a Magus and a vanilla Battlemage to stem the bleeding, but when I took a Psionic Blast to the face at end of turn, I knew I was toast. One blocker was Deathed in a Sudden fashion, and one Dandan swam across unaffected in order to send me to the draft room.

1-2 Drop

The Online Standard Metagame, Part 2

Above, I shared the four Top 8 breakdowns from the non-IPA Qualifying tournaments. With their larger intakes and superlative prizes, the IPA events are probably a more accurate barometer of the Standard metagame to date. So, let’s have a look at the Top 8s!

Standard 2x IPA QT – #932980 – Wednesday March 21st

1 — U/B Control
2 — U/W/B Control
3 — Magnivore
4 — Dragonstorm
5 — Dragonstorm
6 — Izzetron
7 — Dragonstorm
8 — Dragonstorm

Well, will ya look at that! Four control decks, and four Dragonstorm decks. It seems the death of Aggro decks was not an exaggeration after all. The U/W/B Control deck was the most impressive of the lot, with some decent discard coupled with the usual threats and card drawing. Still, the story of this Top 8 has to be the fine showing of Dragonstorm. Was it simply “one of those days,” where the Four Hellkites of the Apocalypse screamed bloody murder on turns 3 and 4 over and over again, or is it the starling sign of a trend?

Standard 2x IPA QT – #935624 – Thursday March 22nd

1 — Dragonstorm
2 — G/B Dredge
3 — R/B Aggro
4 — U/R/B Control
5 — Magnivore
6 — Gruul Beats
7 — R/B Storm
8 — Boros Deck Wins

While this Top 8 seems healthier in scope, you can’t ignore that the Dragonstorm deck actually took top honors. Yes , there were three dedicated Aggro decks making the final table, aside an old school Magnivore deck and the funky Red/Black Storm Combo build… but the 5/5 burninators conquered all. Something to consider. Oh, and yay Dredge!

Standard 2x IPA QT – #932981 – Thursday March 22nd

1 — G/B Dredge
2 — U/R/B Tron
3 — Izzetron with Torchling
4 — U/B Pickles
5 — G/B Dredge
6 — U/R/W Control
7 — U/R/B Tron
8 — Dragonstorm

Dredge dug deep and pulled victory from the depths of despair, with the usual cast of characters making a splash in the Top 8. Of course, we slink back down to a heathen zero Aggro builds, but at least we get to see Torchling rocking the semi-finals. The unseen Pickles deck also pops up… is this another anomaly of G/W Glare proportions, or is it a strategy that can find merit in the current meta? Also note the sly eight-place Dragonstorm deck, hiding behind the credenza and hoping we won’t notice.

Standard 2x IPA QT – #932982 – Saturday March 24th

1 — Dragonstorm
2 — Izzetron
3 — Simictron
4 — Dragonstorm
5 — U/W/B Tron
6 — Solar Flare
7 — Dragonstorm
8 — Dragonstorm

Yes, it’s official. Dragonstorm is the deck to beat. Another four in a Top 8 of a Premier Event? That’s dominance of an almost Teferi standard. A couple of Trons make up the numbers, as does a traditional Solar Flare build. Nice! I like Solar Flare, and it was a shame to see it fade from the meta. As with Glare and Pickles before it, and to an extent the Aggro builds, it seems that a number of strategies can mise a top showing… however, doing so in multiples still requires one of three or four distinct archetypes. I myself will be trading for Shivan Reefs come payday.

Standard 2x IPA QT – #932983 – Sunday March 25th

1 — Gruul Beats
2 — U/B Control
3 — Simictron
4 — Zoo
5 — Izzetron
6 — No-Show
7 — Mono-Black Rack
8 — U/B Pickles

At last, more Aggro! Gruul beats takes the crown today, with Zoo posting a creditable fourth. Also of note here is the much-hyped Mono-Black Rack deck finally poking its nose into other people’s business, and a tricky no-show in sixth who seemed to scoop the match after a mulligan to 4 in Game 1. Pickles again pops ups, as does the usual smattering of Technicolor Tron decks. And not a Dragonstorm in sight!

Standard 2x IPA QT – #932984 – Monday March 26th

1 — U/B Control
2 — Mono-Black Rack
3 — G/B/W Blink Tempo
4 — R/B Aggro
5 — U/B/R Tron
6 — U/B Control
7 — R/B Storm
8 — Mono-Green Aggro

Mono-Black Rack, not content with making up the Top 8 numbers last time out, posts a very healthy second place today… it’s only offed by a U/B Control deck that runs all the usual cards. The Red/Black decks appear in both of their cool iterations, both Aggro and Storm, but the G/B/W Blink Tempo deck gets my vote for funkiest find of the day. Again, this Top 8 seems to add proof to the claim that you can win with fringe strategies… maybe the Tier 2 cards outlook championed by Wizards is a laudable one after all… and Dragonstorm? Nada!

Standard 2x IPA QT – #936578 – Monday March 26th

1 — U/B Control
2 — Dragonstorm
3 — Dragonstorm
4 — Dragonstorm
5 — U/R/B Detritivore Control
6 — Mono-Red Goblin Storm
7 — Simictron
8 — Mono-Green Aggro

My oh my… So many dragons, I don’t know which way to turn. Is it just me, or is the resurgence of Dragonstorm a complete surprise? Unless it’s the same four or five guys, playing with Power Ranger strength and winning everything, I suspect that Dragonstorm is simply asserting itself as the rightful king of the format. Or is it that, after the hype at Worlds, everyone and his dog rushed out to buy the online cards, leading to an over-populated metagame full of Seething Songs and Lotus Blooms. Discuss!

Standard 2x IPA QT – #932985 – Tuesday March 27th

1 — U/R/B Tron
2 — Dragonstorm
3 — U/W/B Control
4 — U/B Control
5 — U/B Control
6 — G/B Dredge
7 — U/B Control
8 — Magnivore

To round out the Top 8 breakdown, we have yet more control and yet more Dragonstorm. G/B Dredge proves itself to be a serious contender once more, and we should note that the U/R/W Control decks have suffered of late at the hands of the U/B and U/B/x control decks. Maybe those Lightning Angels aren’t all that after all…

Metagame Conclusions

Prepare for Dragonstorm. It will own you.
G/B Dredge is probably better than you think.
Control Control Control Control Control… With Tron if you want, but don’t sweat it.
Aggro? Fuggedaboutit. If you must, Mono-Green or Red/Black are the only real contenders.
Overall, don’t be afraid. There are a number of viable decks out there, each with a chance of winning. Just don’t moan when your Blink Riders decks has to fight off seven Dragonstorm decks in the Top 8, simply because no one else is as brave (or stubborn) as you.

Until next week, remember — you can’t stop the signal.

Craig Stevenson
Scouseboy on MTGO
Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2