This Week in Review: Ep. 1

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tooTimid

28 August 2015

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Hello all! Welcome to a maiden voyage of a new article series I will be starting here on Tappedout, "A Week in Review." "A Week in Review" will be a, as the name might suggest, weekly series coming out every Friday. It will be a retrospective on the events that have occurred in the magical world since the previous Friday. It will include a Modern section, a Standard section, a Legacy section, a decks of the week section, and sometimes an article of the week section. The end goal of this series is to be a valuable resource to magic players of all types who want to stay up to date with the happenings in the magic multiverse without spending hours a week trawling through vast expanses of the internet hunting down deck lists, results, and articles.

Allow me to formally introduce you to, "A Week in Review: Aug 21 - Aug 28!"

Legacy

This week was a big week in the Legacy world. Eternal Weekend results are in and Bob Huang and Grixis Delver managed to slog to the top through a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle sized mountain of Force of Wills to become the champion. 16 Delver of Secrets  ^Flip were joined by a copy of Merfok and three of the formats top combo decks in the top eight - Omni-Tell, Lands, and - ... Jeskai Splinter Twin? Checks format, you heard that correctly, Splinter Twin in Legacy! Max Ansbro piloted his innovative take on the Modern staple to a top eight finish even after a round one loss. While his top eight match did not go as planned there is definitely something to this deck. While Dig Through Time was legal in modern, Splinter Twin felt insane. It was able to force a typical bad matchup (B/G/x) completely out of the format due to the strength of the blue delve cards. Add to that better cantrips (Good bye Serum Visions) and better counterspells and it's no surprise a competitive deck exists. I'm always looking for ways play Legacy decks in Modern, but maybe the solution was to play Modern decks in Legacy! Jeskai Splinter Twin is the Legacy deck of the week.

Now the question is, what's next for this deck? Can a combo deck that relies on a 4 mana sorcery hold its own in a format of 0 mana spells? I have no idea! My biggest question is how can this deck be improved, and the first thing that comes to my mind is the splash color. Do we believe white is the best splash color? The only white cards in the deck Ethersworn Canonist and half Wear / Tear. Neither of those are particular unique effects and black and green both come with big benefits. Tarmagoyf and Tasigur, the Golden Fang are both solid threats that lend themselves the backup plan of Vendilion Cliqueing our opponents to death. I would not be surprised to see this deck catch on with a totally different splash color.

Another interesting thing to note is that the first copy of Stoneforge Mystic appears at 25th place. The format really seems to be moving in an interesting direction and it appears to be moving away from the best Squire ever printed.

The other major Legacy tournament last weekend was the 5000 dollar Legacy premier IQ at the open in Charlotte. Chris Van Meter took it down playing what I believe can be safely called the best combo deck in the format, Omni-Tell. List here. Chris was joined in a diverse top 8 featuring eight different decks. In addition to Omni-Tell, Storm, Burn, Esper Stoneblade, Jeskai Stoneblade, Temur Delver, Elves, and Grixis Pyromancer all made an appearance.

One of the highlights of the top eight for me was Gerry Thompson's Grixis Pyromancer list (Here). Grixis control/pyromancer is not a new deck in Legacy, but Gerry T included two cards from the 2 most recent sets that have been making waves in a variety of formats, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip and Kolaghan's Command. If you had told me that Jace was going to played in a competitive Legacy deck I would have laughed back to Vryn. This card is a Merfolk Looter that sometimes has the disadvantage of becoming a planeswalker! You'd think I would have learned my lesson after the last blue two drop that gave spells flashback. Jace has impressed me over and over again, and now he has begun his assault on eternal formats. If you have been living anywhere in the general vicinity of the modern format for the last 1-3 months you've become accustomed to the powerful interaction between Snapcaster Mage and Kolaghan's Command grinding out games. Gerry T has taken that a step further adding Kolaghan's Command + Jace/Young Pyromancer to his legacy deck! He has enough interaction for the combo decks, and a powerful grindy game against the fair decks. I will be eagerly watching to see the role Jace ends up playing in this format.

Modern

The big modern event last weekend was the SCG Open in Charlotte. Joseph Hererra took down the two day tournament piloting Jund. While Jund is a deck as old as the format itself Joseph's list was unique in its intentional disdain for the powerful 4 drops like Olivia Voldaren and Huntmaster of the Fells  ^Flip which are often sacred cows of the archetype. Instead Joseph lowered his curve playing 3 copies of Scavenging Ooze, 4 Tarmogoyf, 4 Dark Confidant, 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang, and one of another powerful two drop from Origins, Abbot of Keral Keep. Abbot plays an important role in this deck. It can be both an aggressive two drop and a powerful 5 drop that immediately draws a card, similar to a, albeit less consistent, Bloodbraid Elf.

Maelstorm Pulse is one of the most powerful removal spells ever, but its sorcery speed and spot on the curve often force it to be relegated to 1-2 copies. Because Herrera was playing a lower curve of creatures it allowed him to play three Maelstorm Pulse. It's a surprisingly versatile removal spell that can get anything from a Karn to a Cranial Plating, not to mention its ability to generate X-1's.

Joining Joseph in the top 8 were 7 other unique decks. In addition to Hererra's Jund deck, Merfolk, Infect, Naya Company, Grixis Control, Abzan Company, G/r Tron, and Abzan all made appearances. Two of these decks stood out to me.

Merfolk has been a deck in modern for almost as long as Jund, if not longer. A quick clock + mana disruption + small amounts of well-timed interaction has been a recipe for success across multiple formats, so it comes as a bit of a surprise that it's taken so long for merfolk to catch on as a tier one deck, but I think to call it anything but that now is a mistake. The card that I believe finally pushed this deck up to tier one status was Harbinger of the Tides, another powerful two drop from Origins. In addition to being a 2 drop tempo play it is also instant speed interaction against something like infect, affinity, or twin that allows you to continue to develop you board. Watching Hunter Nance pilot his merfolk list through this tournament was a gift. Merfolk often gets a bad reputation due to its repetitive games and linear nature, but it's consistent and easy to underestimate. Don't make that mistake.

The other deck that caught my eye, and I'm sure I'm not alone, was Michael Majors Grixis Control list. Grixis Control is something we've become more and more accustomed to hearing about recently, but Michael Majors took a note out of the Jund playbook. Majors shied away from the Cryptic Command style counterspell control decks and into a more proactive deck that looks to curve a discard spell into a Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip into Lilliana of the Veil and shred your opponent's hand while backing it up with removal spells. Here's your modern deck of the week:

Michael Majors wrote an article about his thoughts on the deck moving forward so I'll spare you the bloody details and just link you to the article as anything I could say he could just say better. Linky. If you're the kind of person who just wants the updated decklist here's his updated list Other Linky. That's it for modern for this week. Let me quickly say that worlds is going on this Thursday and Friday and while I could include them in this week's article it's really a weekend event and I want to leave something for next week. Let's see how it goes! I'd be interested to hear who you guys are rooting for. Personally I'm cheering for Paul Rietzl, Sam Black, Yuuya Watanabe, and Brad Nelson. Now on to Standard!

Standard

This was a remarkably quiet weekend for standard. The only large tournament was the SCG Premier IQ. Nicholas Charland took it down playing Abzan Rally (Link). This is a bigger deal than it may seem. Abzan Hangarback is the best deck in the format and is one of the reasons that Rally is not a dominant force in the meta. The fact that Nicholas was able to take down the tournament in a field of Hangarback Walkers is really impressive. Perhaps it shows that Rally has more game than we all thought, or perhaps he just managed to dodge the Abzan decks. While there were 0 copies of Abzan Hangarback in the top eight there were four copies in the top sixteen which perhaps tells the bigger story.

The other decks in the top eight seem pretty standard apart from an interesting G/W list (List), the presence of two copies of U/W heroic, and having two combo decks in the finals. TWO COMBO DECKS IN THE FINALS? Welcome to standard! We briefly looked at the Abzan Rally deck but Jeskai Ascendancy Combo also made a resurgence from beyond the grave and it's our standard deck of the week!

This strategy has existed since KTK became standard legal and has shifted forms several times during that period for better or worse but it has gained several important tools over the last two sets in Anticipate and Day's Undoing. Anticipate is just a good way to find missing combo pieces and find ascendancy. Day's Undoing is a really powerful way to reload after your opponent has done their best to tear your gameplan to shreds. Often the deck puts a Caryatid into play, says "Can you answer my hexproof creature?", and if the answer is no, you're dead a good portion of time.

All of that said, after a tumultuous first month or so Origins standard seems to have finally found a consensus best deck. After a dominant performance at GP London two weekends ago Abzan Hangarback not only broke onto the scene, but also BECAME the scene. If you're new to the standard format and not sure what Hangarback Abzan is here's a link to a primer on the deck. Suffice to say that it's a middle speed Abzan deck similar to the Abzan Aggro decks we saw in FRF and DTK standard but exchanging Rakshasa's Deathdealer for Hangarback Walker, hence the name.

This deck is clearly the deck to beat going into this weekend and finding the best strategies to beat it is going to be very important. Here's a couple of tooTimid's do's and don'ts when playing against Hangarback:

Do's:

• Play individually powerful spells like Languish, Stormbreath Dragon, Wingmate Roc, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Silumgar, the Drifting Death that require specific answers. One of the weakness of the deck is that it's difficult for them to build a removal package that kills everything. You can expect a lot of Dromoka's Commands and Abzan Charms, but the number of Bile Blights, Ultimate Prices, Hero's Downfalls and Valorous Stances change list to list. If you can present enough individually powerful and hard to answer threats, their removal can line up very awkwardly.

• Pick your weekend with mono red. Mono red can be really well positioned against not only Hangarback Walker Abzan but also most of the format, since people are skimping on hate. If you choose your weekend well and are well practiced with the deck it's easy to make a deep run. I expect to see some Zurgo Bellstrikers late game.

Decks that do this well: Mardu Dragons, Abzan Whip, U/B Control, G/R Dragons and obviously Mono Red

Don'ts:

• Don't construct you deck so you are dead to Dromoka's Command. If your plan is to play mana guy into Courser of Kruphix you're in for a rude awakening. Same goes for cards like Outpost Siege and Chained to the Rocks which are typically good against Abzan.

• Don't play a bunch of individually weak cards that come together to do something semi-powerful together. Abzan will eat you alive. They will present a quick clock backed up by answers and they will do it much more consistently.

There are two big standard events this weekend. SCG is hosting the invitational where we will get to watch a lot of sweet standard action, but there's also the Standard section of worlds including the top 4 of worlds which will be standard. I'm super excited to see what sweet decks the pros have come up with. I've heard some rumors that the Canadian team is on Elf Rally? We'll see how that pans out if that's accurate. Personally I'm going to be playing U/W Heroic at a PPTQ this Sunday. I think the deck has a good matchup against Abzan and G/R and I'm pretty confident playing the deck. I wish I could go to the Invitational but it's a bit of a lengthy journey for me. Good luck to anyone playing in any sized tournament this weekend, even if it's just FNM.

And there we have it for the first week of "A Week in Review." I hope you guys enjoyed it, I sure had fun writing it. Please join me next Friday to break down Worlds and the SCG Invitational.

Before I leave I have a task for you guys; Give me feedback! I'm 15 and haven't done a lot of writing in my life so I'm still trying to develop my writing style. Let me know what worked, what didn't work and what you want to see next time. No comment is too small. I really appreciate it.

Until next time, stay classy Tappedout!