Magic the Gathering

Constructed

Off the Beaten Path — We’re Off! Zendikar and Philadelphia 5k

By Sam Feeley ⋅ October 13, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

Hello, friends, and wel­come to the first install­ment of ‘Off the Beaten Path.’ I’m Sam Fee­ley, for­merly known on the site as Sammy Time. Long-time Man­a­Na­tion cit­i­zens will rec­og­nize me from my old ‘Trial and Error’ series, where I exam­ined any­thing and every­thing tour­na­ment play­ers will encounter on their voy­ages to the Pro Tour. Well, I’m back, but ‘Trial and Error’ isn’t. Each week at ‘Off the Beaten Path’ I will peruse the var­i­ous Magic sites for tournament-worthy decks that are, as the title sug­gests, off the beaten path. These are what we some­times call call “metagame calls” — decks that are designed to han­dle a spe­cific sam­ple of pop­u­lar decks. I’ll be look­ing mostly at stan­dard, but where appro­pri­ate, I’ll exam­ine extended, block, and legacy as well. If you have a deck you want me to take for a ride and see if it can make it at a tour­na­ment, feel free to email me at samuraientertainment@gmail.com, and maybe you’ll see your name in these lights.

Now that we’ve got the for­mal­i­ties out of the way, let’s get started by look­ing at the results from the Star City Games 5K in Philadel­phia this past week­end. With the absence of Cryp­tic Com­mand and Vivid lands, I (among many) fig­ured this new Stan­dard would be a for­mat dom­i­nated by aggro, specif­i­cally Jund and Vam­pires. After look­ing at the top 16 lists, here are the num­bers we’re faced with:

Basic Arche­type: 13, aggro, 1 midrange, 2 con­trol
Col­ors: 15 with­out blue, 1 with blue

Okay, so far it’s look­ing just as we expected. Blue con­trol had its hey­day for long enough, now let’s let the other col­ors and arche­types shine, eh? Let’s dive in further.

Spe­cific Arche­type (accord­ing to SCG): 6 Jund Aggro, 3 Vam­pires, 2 Naya Lotus Angel, 1 Naya Aggro, 1 Lumi­narch Planeswalker Con­trol, 1 Boros Bush­whacker, 1 Mono-White Con­trol, 1 Red Deck Wins

Ten out of six­teen decks def­i­nitely don’t look out of place — Jund, Vam­pires, and Red Deck. “Boros Bush­whacker”, though silly-sounding, is just a super-fast red-white wee­nie deck (designed and cham­pi­oned by my fel­low Man­a­Na­tion writer Kelly Reid.) It’s a wel­come throw­back to a cou­ple of years ago and the days of Boros Deck Wins. Naya Aggro is just what it sounds like. But what the hell are “Naya Lotus Angel” and “Lumi­narch Planeswalker Con­trol”? And fur­ther­more, shouldn’t Mono-White Con­trol wait its turn until extended sea­son, where it has access to the stu­pid­ity that is Mar­tyr of Sands? Let’s have a look at those three.

Until next time, keep draw­ing the nuts.
– Sam

Sam Fee­ley is a Timmy-Spike and PTQ semi-regular orig­i­nally from Con­cord, Mass­a­chu­setts. He enjoys Magic, sports, cook­ing, and writ­ing. He maintains two blogs, Samurai Entertainment on news, games, and nonsense; and Samurai Sports, about interior decorating. And by interior decorating he means sports.

Useful Author Links Read more by this Writer! Subscribe to this Writer's RSS Feed

Last 4 posts Off the Beaten Path - 20 20 20 Vision Off the Beaten Path – Valakut for Victory Off the Beaten Path - A Better One Card Combo Off the Beaten Path – Foot and Mouth