Tom Maxwell won the Hooglandia Open on Saturday with Gruul Adventures, notching the first trophy in a large Zendikar Rising Standard event following rotation.
Creatures (31)
- 3 Scavenging Ooze
- 4 Lovestruck Beast
- 4 Questing Beast
- 4 Robber of the Rich
- 4 Edgewall Innkeeper
- 4 Bonecrusher Giant
- 4 Rimrock Knight
- 4 Kazandu Mammoth
Lands (8)
Spells (21)
The double-elimination tournament with 70 players fired Saturday morning, just two days after Zendikar Rising hit Magic Arena, with 15% of the field on Four-Color Ramp and 12% on Dimir Rogues. Three of the Top 8 finishers played Omnath, Locus of Creation decks, while no copies of Dimir Rogues managed to crack the Top 16. Maxwell won the event as the lone player on Gruul Adventures while a handful of other players opted for varied builds of Gruul Aggro, including a Landfall build by Zachary Borotsik that finished seventh.
The finals came down to Maxwell facing Matheus Akio Yanagiura on Mono-Red Aggro with both players building their decks to be able to get under the powerful ramp decks leveraging Lotus Cobra and Omnath. Maxwell’s deck matched up well against Mono-Red Aggro with larger creatures and the classic card advantage engine that is Edgewall Innkeeper alongside Lovestruck Beast, Rimrock Knight, and Bonecrusher Giant.
Maxwell’s maindeck additions from the latest set were all modal double-faced cards (DFCs) including Kazandu Mammoth, Shatterskull Smashing, Turntimber Symbiosis, and Cragcrown Pathway. The green and red Pathway is just the untapped land Gruul needed with the loss of Stomping Ground while the other modal DFCs gave the deck plenty of action while also guaranteeing the deck curved out.
Yanagiura’s build of Mono-Red Aggro utilized Akoum Hellhound, Kargan Intimidator, Spikefield Hazard, Roil Eruption, and Shatterskull Smashing from Zendikar Rising in the maindeck. Both Yanagiura and Maxwell had Thundering Rebuke in their sideboards and Yanagiura even had four copies of Roiling Vortex to combat the life gain from Omnath and Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath.
Creatures (27)
- 4 Robber of the Rich
- 4 Fervent Champion
- 4 Bonecrusher Giant
- 2 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
- 1 Rimrock Knight
- 4 Anax, Hardened in the Forge
- 4 Akoum Hellhound
- 4 Kargan Intimidator
Lands (2)
Spells (31)
The highest finishing Omnath deck was Greedy Magic’s Four-Color Ramp build with Yorion, Sky Nomad as its companion and jampacked with all kinds of goodies from Zendikar Rising including Felidar Retreat, Nahiri’s Lithoforming, Bala Ged Recovery, four different Pathways, and playsets of Turntimber Symbiosis and Shatterskull Smashing. The deck combines Genesis Ultimatum and Escape to the Wilds to never run out of gas.
Creatures (20)
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 1 Scavenging Ooze
- 3 Gilded Goose
- 2 Ilysian Caryatid
- 4 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
- 2 Terror of the Peaks
- 4 Omnath, Locus of Creation
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (20)
Spells (36)
View the Top 8 decklists. Watch all the feature matches from the tournament.