The breakout deck of the Dallas/Fort Worth Legacy Open is definitely Imperial Painter. Only two players brought this deck to the table, 4th place Drew Feder and 9th place Erik Mynatt and they plowed through the field to the tune of 11-3-2. This record becomes even more impressive when you note that they played each other in the 5th round when they were both 4-0 and the only other losses came against Aaron Wayne (top 8) and winner Tom Ross. The stability added to the Painter’s Servant / Grindstone deck by Imperial Recruiter pushes it clearly into Tier 1. In a field of dual lands, being mono-red allows the deck to effectively use Magus of the Moon without hurting itself at all. Also, since the combo is so simple, it is able to devote a lot of main deck slots to making the kill faster as well as protecting itself from countermagic. The major problem is that a set of Imperial Recruiters will run you $520…so, hey Wizards, how about an Imperial Recruiter Judge Foil?
For the 17th and over section of the article this week, we focus in on the 19th place Dream Halls deck. For a card that recently came off the Banned list, Dream Halls hasn’t made much of an impact, but the groundwork may have been laid here in Dallas. Three players brought versions of the deck and all three finished in the top 3rd of the field — Ed Novak, (19th) Dustin Buckingham, (28th) and Andrew Shugar. (36th) The decks went 13-8 on the day including 3-0 vs ANT. Although Ed didn’t find any Merfolk on the day, the deck lost both of its match-ups with the Fish.
Creatures (5)
Lands (17)
Spells (38)
|
1 |
Won |
2 |
0 |
 |
Lance, James |
ANT |
|
2 |
Lost |
0 |
2 |
 |
Truong, Andy |
Enchantress |
|
3 |
Lost |
1 |
2 |
 |
Krizan, Zach |
Survival |
|
4 |
Won |
2 |
0 |
 |
Whitehurst, Dean           |
Aggro Loam |
|
5 |
Won |
2 |
1 |
 |
Naseef, Joseph             |
Dredge |
|
6 |
Won |
2 |
0 |
 |
Ames, Mike                 |
Boros Aggro |
|
7 |
Won |
2 |
0 |
 |
Liao, Fred                 |
Belcher Combo |
Although some 5-2’s made money, a couple of early losses put Ed’s tiebreakers in tough shape leading to his near miss. It will be interesting to see how the deck continues to evolve and whether someone can put together a list that reminds us of why Dream Halls had to spend some time away from the tournament scene.
Silly technical upgrade of the day: In the Swiss Standings sheet, there is now an auto calculation of number of decks and percentage of the field based on the decks you are viewing.
See you in Richmond!
-Jared