You’re in your FIRST Pro Tour Qualifier for Austin and you’re sitting across from a person your first round that doesn’t look at you nor do they acknowledge you. They, in fact, don’t even say hello. You roll your die and you win the die roll, you opt to go first and the opponent just grumbles. You’re playing your favorite deck, you lay your land and pass your turn. Opponent plays an ISLAND! At this point, no matter what you’re playing, you should have an idea of the possibilities. Faeries, Reveillark?

Let’s change that a bit, what if your opponent plays a Forest. Do you have any idea what deck they may be playing?

Unlike chess or checkers, Magic is NOT played on a linear field. ALL of the possible outcomes are NOT within the battlefield, just a precursor to M10 rules, If you don’t have any idea what could be next, you’re probably going to lose. With this general statement, I’m saying that victory is based on your collection of facts and the execution of play afterwards. Let’s say the opponent laid an island and your 2nd turn has you faced with laying an island or a vivid land. Your hand has Broken Ambition and random 3 drop. Now, on this play, I’m foreshadowing the right play and that is to set up for a Broken Ambition for 1. Now if you’re opponent laid a forest, you might not concern yourself with what might be a turn 2 creature or spell and lay the vivid land for the efficient turn 3 play.

Remember, Magic is the sum of plays to which parity is completely on your side for the inevitable victory. Very few decks have a knockout play, and normally those are combo decks and very few of them exist in the current Standard environment. So you must lay like you’re working towards something, not just tapping and casting. Anticipating your opponent is a skill that is necessary for successful combat, not just magic but in virtually all aspects of life.

New scenario, your opponent is playing Jund/Cascade and you’re playing with Tokens. He has one card in hand, you have four (Plains, Cave of Koilos, Path to Exile and Kitchen Finks) and 4 lands in play. With nothing on either side but lands, the obvious play is the Finks. My question to you is, do you play the land? While the typical token deck does play the HUGE 5cc Cloudgoat Ranger, the Jund deck can play (and does) Blightning. Now this is an example of a NO-Wrong scenario. Play 1 – lay the land, leaving you with 2 cards in hand and possible loss of active card if said Blightning is cast or Play 2 – don’t lay the land and have 2 lands you can discard while keeping an action card in hand if needed. My Co-Host Patrick has a quote from the great Jon Finkel: “If you have a good play and a better play, then the good play is actually bad.” This motto is very much a FACT indeed true no matter what point of the game you’re in.

Let’s go a bit further, say your opponent has already played a Blightning earlier and you have 5 lands in play and 1 land in hand. I would bet that 90% of players would lay the land and say,”If my opponent is going to make me discard it anyway, why not play it.” The reason why you would NOT is to pull another Blightning out of their hand! Especially early, in the game, you’ve got your necessary land base. At this point, you’re living off of the top of your deck and you do NOT want to lose valuable cards. Even if you lose the useless land, it means the opponent has one less Blightning to ruin your day with. Then when you ARE holding something of importance you’re all the better.

This is how my mind works:
In Alara Block Constructed, I had an opening hand of Savage Land, Savage Land, Mountain, Rupture Spire, Blightning, Ajani Vengeant, Broodmate Dragon. Even before my opponent makes a play, I’m thinking T1 Savage Land, T2 Rupture Spire, T3 Mountain + Blightning, T4 Savageland, T5 Ajani, chocolate pudding. Now this is an example of how it works for ME. I anticipate, play and think of french fries. If the opponent does something to lead me to believe I should play differently, I do that. If I feel they’re cut on lands, I might work for a quicker Ajani (T4) to keep a land tapped, THEN I think of fried chicken. My opponent played a t2 Tidehollow Sculler, taking my Blightning. I changed my plan to T3 Savage Land, T4 Mountain + Ajani = Kill Sculler. If you have a plan, it helps you move your game along. This also informed me, that he was playing Robots. So I tried to hold my removal for Master of Etherium and Ethersworn Canonist. Remember, it’s the plan and not the absolute MUST.

If you don’t get my message at this point, you’ll need to message me directly through the forums. I’ll send you a response that will included a punch in your grill!

Anywhoo, I’m a bit hungry. So I’m going to end this now and grab some Taco Bell. If this helps or if you want to hear more, let me know.

Thanks!

One of the biggest hurdles of getting into competitive magic is figuring out what in the world constitutes a good deck these days. It seems there is a new top tier deck popping up every other week, or at the very least a new take on an existing deck. So that gets back to the question: “What in the world do I play?”

The short answer is that there is no totally dominant deck this season. There is no one deck to rule them all (Lord of the Rings reference–CHECK). The Extended format is refreshingly open we don’t have a beast on the level of last year’s ‘dredge’ deck to contend with this year. Although it’s quite nice to have so many options available to use these same options, with their multitude of slight variations, can leave you right back where you have started.

Let’s take a survey of the field:

Faeries/Wizards

Well the deck on the tips of everyone’s tongue is the mighty beast that is Faeries/Wizards. Faeries/Wizards is extended’s version of the monster control deck that most magic formats have at least one of. These winged devils have been ruling the format for some time now, and hate to say it folks but these Spellstutter Sprite shenanigans are here to stay. This deck has it all. It has everyone’s favorite annoyance with a healthy dosing of counter-magic. Usually in the form of Stifles, Mana Leaks, Spellstutter Sprites, Glen Elendra persistence, and occasionally the counter that does it all, Cryptic Command. It uses the most abused popular equipment since Affinity’s Skull Clamp in Umezawa’s Jitte. It has the mass Removal in the extremely useful Engineered Explosives, and it has the ability to make sure all the creature based threats keep coming back in Riptide Laboratory. Finally, it has the creature base that ties all of it together. It usually consists of some combination of Spellstutter Sprite, Vendillion Clique, Glen Elendra Archmage, and the Boomerang on a bear with Venser, Shaper Savant. All of these elements combine to create an extremely versatile and powerful control deck.

Bant

Call it ‘Bant Aggro,’ ‘Bant Control,’ ‘Bant Aggro/Control,’ ‘Dark Bant’ or whatever. In truth its just slight variations on the same deck. This is another powerhouse of a deck. It uses a nice dose of counter magic usually just Mana Leaks and Stifles as well as the extremely powerful Bant Charm. Some efficient acceleration in Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise. Some extremely powerful equipment, usually some combination of Umezawa’s Jitte and Sword of Fire and Ice. Some spot removal in Path to Exile, and mass removal in Wrath of God. And then finish it all up with some extremely efficient creatures in Kitchen Finks, the giant beatstick that is Tarmogoyf, or the RIDICULOUSLY difficult to kill Troll Ascetic. I can’t stress this enough if you have any means possible to keep the Trolls from hitting the board; that is easily the best course of action for you.

Zoo

There is a multitude of ways to build this deck. But there are two distinct variations that stand out. There is the Self Hating domain zoo, and there is the slightly less painful Naya Zoo (which I might add Tomoharu Saitou played to absolute perfection in the most recent GP) The main idea behind this deck is to play very cheap very efficient creatures and some amounts of burn to try and clear the way or kill the opponent before they even have a chance to stabilize. This is mostly accomplished through efficient burn spells like Seal of Fire, Lightning Helix, and Tribal Flames. Tribal Flames is usually specific to the domain zoo build) and a creature base usually consisting of Wild Nacatl (almost always a 3/3 for 1.) Kird Ape is a 2/3 for 1 on turn 1. And the ever popular Tarmogoyf.

Rock

Rock has two different builds now. These builds have only one real major difference that difference being one version has DC and one version does not. This deck seeks to control the board through removal like Putrefy and Smother, hand disruption in Raven’s Crime and Thoughtseize and mass removal in Damnation and Death Cloud. This deck will almost always run the incredibly powerful Life from the Loam engine to feed its late game finisher of Worm Harvest. It also has the ability to win with putting a Jitte on whatever happens to be on the board at the time.

TEPS

TEPS is an acronym for ‘The Extended Perfect Storm.’ THE combo deck of extended. It plays a deck full of cantrips and rituals to try and build a high storm count and before then playing a kill card in either Grapeshot + Pyromancer’s Swath (usually known as Swath Storm) or Tendrils of Agony. It plays limited removal in spells like Electrolyze, Shock, and Remand.

ElfBall!

This is another one of the combo decks in Extended. It plays a large amount of 1cc creatures and seeks to dump most of their deck on the field by turn 3-4. It usually plays a finisher in Mirror Entity or occasionally Grapeshot. Now these are all what many consider to be the tier one decks this isn’t to say other decks won’t win just that these decks statistically have done better than the others. Now for the rest of the field.

Lightning Bolt.dec

This is the burn deck always in the format sometimes quite good sometimes not as much. All this deck does is seek to burn out its opponent before they die themselves they usually play with whatever their opening hand is with next to 0 searching ability. Now played correctly I fully believe this deck has the potential to be a Tier 1 deck. Although this deck is not absolutely amazing it is a viable force in this meta-game. So if you go into a PTQ expect at least one game against burn.

Astral Slide

The final deck that I believe needs to be here is Astral Slide. Astral Slide seeks to use a deck full of cycling cards to try and abuse Astral Slide and Lightning Rift. In essence Slide boils down to a slightly aggressive control deck. I believe this deck has the potential to be Tier 1 as well. It has an extremely strong game against decks like Fairies and Zoo and considering the prevalence of those in the field expect to see at least a few variations of slide running around your local PTQ. Especially if you live anywhere near Osyf because, well he is the undefeatable master of all things related to Onslaught enchantments.

Now back to the question of what in the world do I play? The answer to that ends up being, since there are so many strong and extremely different decks in this current format play whatever you feel most comfortable with. Because even if you play the ‘OMG UBER BEAST.dec’ if you aren’t familiar with it you won’t do well.

The best advice I can possibly offer to anyone else on this PTQ grind is practice practice practice with your deck. As I know from personal experience make sure to test for every possible matchup because if theres one deck you don’t expect to see or that you don’t think will be a problem. That will be the deck you will lose to.

As far as top 8’s go on average they usually end up being 1-2 combo decks, 3-4 fairies, and either some Zoo or some Bant. You will occasionally get a new player in the Top 8 be its something like the absolute mastery that is Jonathan Louck and his Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker combo deck, or Astral Slide or occasionally even whatever variation of rock happens to be the flavor.

As a side note if you have any plans to go to the Sacramento PTQ in a few weeks expect to see me there slinging some variation of astral slide.

– Dan

Discuss this Episode

Discuss this episode

Me, I love Block Constructed; it is a relatively small format, which gives room for development over design, and provides those players who want an edge the opportunity to create one. Being less than half the size of Standard, there are traditionally approximately half the high-tier decks in a given ebb and flow. In the previous and current Type 2 there are many different viable archetypes: Faeries, GB Elves, BGW Doran, UW Merfolk, UWr Reveillark Combo, RB Tokens, URb Aussie Assault, RG Mana Ramp, UBxxx Toast, RG Aggro, etc. These decks are all at different levels on the competitive hierarchy, but all have done very well at high level events including various Grand Prix, Pro Tours, and National Championships (at the time of writing this, the only National Championship to have been played out is the Australian).

In Block this is not the case. Sure there are outliers, there are decks which spike in popularity over a period of a week or two; but a season is three months of intense homogenization: All will crumble before the singular metagame. Currently Eventide is not legal for play in Block, and we experience a reasonably closed metagame; there are five decks which really seem to have either dominated or have potential to expand in the coming weeks.

These decks are:

• Faeries (averaging 50% of top8s and about the same percentage of Blue Enveloped)
• Kithkin (A distant second place)
• 5 Colour Elementals
• Commandments/Toast Variants
• GB Elves/Rock Variant

Of these only two have had unequivocal success in the format: Kithkin and Faeries, and this has led people to complain that the format is too rigid, unshakeable, there is no room for design and innovation. This is a perfect metagame for me.

I am a deck developer, not so much a deck designer; I take established decks and I flip-turn them upside down. This is the beginning of my Project 2308.

On August 23^rd, my region will hold its one and only Pro Tour Qualifier for Berlin, which makes it very important to be certainly prepared for this singular event, as it’s the only shot we have to make it to the big show. This event is doubly vital as our PTO has unofficially announced that he will be stepping down with Shards of Alara as he will no longer have the profit-making abilities afforded by Prereleases in order to outweigh the expenses he suffers to run PTQs. Now, there is a good chance we will have another PTO step into the role quickly, but until that happens, this is my last PTQ without having to drive 8 hours to Montreal. That is why for this PTQ I am putting in more time, more thought and more effort into performing well than I have in a long time.

This voyage starts as any should: knowing where you are. Without being fully aware of your environment there is no telling where you will end up. I will take this time to run down the most successful decks in Lorwyn/Shadowmoor Block constructed and give sample builds based on research. Please note, these are not my personal decklists, these are lists generated from PTQ top8s and winners.

Faeries

Faeries is the singular threat of the metagame, and no wonder! Look at this masterpiece, there is disruption, countermagic, tempo, card advantage all wrapped up in a deceptively aggressive package. This is a deck that can take its sweet time and play the long game, or it can go balls out and race Kithkin with its Bitterblossom tokens and Scion of Oona.

Gavin does something that hadn’t been explored fully before this point: He preboards for the mirror. In place of the standard Broken Ambitions and Ponders that had been running around Faerie decks in the month before this event, Gaving runs a full playset of Thoughtseize and a pair of maindeck Peppersmoke. This is incredibly ballsy as many players and pundits have suggested that it is unfeasible to play both Thoughtseize and Bitterblossom together as they add up to too much life loss for any deck, let alone a control deck. Gavin proves them wrong handily with his successful run at the blue envelope in this 79 player PTQ.

Gavin’s sideboard is interesting as it has a very unique take on what is important in the metagame: His 3 Faerie Trickery are a concession to the fact that he is somewhat weak against the more traditional control deck with his lack of overwhelming countermagic, while he sideboards in a single Consign to Dream as a misers out against Doran, the Siege Tower. I respect his sideboard as it really shows that Gavin knows what is important, and he has a plan against those things that he feels could beat him.

Kithkin

I wanted to post two lists of Kithkin for a couple of reasons: firstly, I wanted to demonstrate the evolution of the archetype over the past 6 weeks. As the season went on, people started to take notice of the effects that were important in Kithkin, the reasons the deck was winning, and the ways to make those effects more valuable. The GP deck from Tian is very rough compared to the later PTQ deck: It runs only 2 Mirrorweave and runs zero Burrenton Forge-Tender maindeck, it runs two Militia’s Pride, a full playset of Oblivion Rings and 3 Surge of Thoughtweft where the later deck runs only a pair of Oblivion Rings from that entire suite.

The other thing that is specifically noteworthy between the two lists is the manabase. Szoke is running 26 lands including 4 each of Windbrisk Heights and Rustic Clachan, while Tian is running just 24 with only a pair of Rustic Clachans and two Mutavaults. I would suggest that Szoke made the correct move by taking out the Militia’s Prides for more lands, giving the deck a much better end game, and more stability getting to heavy mana costs early in the game. Other than Szoke’s Forge-Tenders their creature bases are not particularly noteworthy, and I would suggest that while Szoke’s deck is clearly better in the current metagame, that is a case of development providing the opportunity for continued success over the course of a long and hostile block season.

Six Commandments

Toast was the standout innovation from PTQ Hollywood, both in the Standard and Block portions of the event. With the capacity to cast virtually any combination of cards thanks to its robust 5 color mana base, I would argue that this is as good as domain has been in Magic’s history. The effects that you are splashing for are incredibly potent, and you are reasonably consistent at acquiring both GGGG for Cloudthresher and UUU for Cryptic Command while having access to great effects such as Austere Command and Makeshift Mannequin. This is a deck that looks a lot better on paper than it has been performing, and the number one reason for this is that it lacks any reasonable amount of pressure against the Faeries, and their tempo-oriented effects trend more powerful than Toast’s.

My issue with Toast is that for all of its mana and all of its broken effects, it doesn’t do anything. It is a very distant third in PTQ top8s, and has only two wins out of the many PTQs that have been held in the last six weeks. The deck runs all of the best cards in the format, Cloudthresher, Kitchen Finks, Cryptic Command, Shriekmaw, Firespout; and yet it suffers from failure to launch. Against Faeries, this deck seeks to trade one-for-one with Shriekmaw evokes and Broken Ambitions until it can land an opportune Cloudthresher and clear the Faerie’s board. The primary fallacy in this gameplan is the presence of Bitterblossom in the format, really stealing the eventual inevitability that Toast otherwise possesses. The deck is really incapable of dealing with Blossom on turn two, and even if it does manage to stick a Cloudthresher, odds are good that it won’t perform the necessary task of keeping a Mistbind Clique off the table thanks to the non-creature status of the Tribal Enchantment – Faerie.

The deck has plain strategic issues against the best deck in the format, and while it has a strong plan against both Elementals and Kithkin decks, there remains a basic benchmark for performance, and being able to at least reasonably defeat Faeries is perhaps the number one requirement for competitive viability. This is not to say that Toast cannot defeat Faeries, it certainly can, it just requires some very strong play, some mistakes, and/or some luck. Betting on one or all of these things happening might be a little risky in this format, where you are going to be facing your worst matchup an average of four times in a seven round PTQ. If you know the deck inside and out, have the skill to truly make all of the right plays and feel you have a solid grasp on the faerie matchup, then certainly this is a great choice for the PTQ season, but otherwise I would hesitate to suggest Toast, as most average players will be unable to really understand the subtle nature of the deck.

Elementals

Ah, the red-headed step-child of Toast, 5 Colour Elemental Control has all of the trappings of a junk deck, paired with the hap-hazard combo elements of a mid-range lark control deck. This is a bit of an underdog in this metagame, running fourth in PTQ top8s with only a solitary win to its record, this deck is picking up steam while Toast appears to be stagnating. Having been the posterboy for metagame diversity early on in the metagame, there seems to have been little hurrah about it even after it won this PTQ nearly three weeks ago. Brian’s win was relatively recently (inside of the second month of PTQs), and while it might just portray a changing of the guard, I certainly would not bet my hard-earned cash on it. The top 8 of this event features a paltry 3 Faerie decks and the conceptual Solar Flare deck by Pat Chapin. Certainly a win is a win, and there is no denying that this was the correct choice for the event, I would hesitate to base my decisions on what could easily be an outlier.

This is a deck with a lot of strengths, being capable of some incredibly powerful plays including turn three Horde of Notions, or turn three Mulldrifter. Unfortunately for Elementals, all of these incredibly powerful plays really depend exclusively on the survivability of Smokebraider, a 1/1 for 1R that acts as a pseudo Priest of Titania in the early game, and can easily push the deck into phase three before some decks (*cough*toast*cough*) can even get to phase two. Here’s the rub: Smokebraider is the exact same size as Scion of Oona, everyone already knows you have to be able to kill Scion of Oona, and so they are packing effects that can kill a Scion of Oona! If your oppoent has Peppersmoke, do you think they are going to not use it on your Smokebraider? Most players this far into the season understand how important he is to the Elemental plan, and will do their best to kill him on sight. The difficulty with this is that without Smokebraider Elementals is just a really consistent mid-range deck with some fancy footwork thanks to Incandescent Soulstoke.

Being able to Soulstoke out some big guys is a great feeling, and while I definitely respect that man’s power, I certainly don’t think a 2/2 sneak attack with summoning sickness is a reasonable basis for a deck. I think that Elementals might be better served focusing away from being POWERFUL and move towards being RESILIENT. I’m not sure what needs to take place for this to occur, but I am interested in seeing how Elementals pans out as the season continues.

Elves

If there was a dark horse in this metagame, I would imagine that GB Elves is it. Being capable of running a long-term gameplan alongside a brutally efficient aggressive early game: having early Vanquishers and Kitchen Finks paired with late game Chameleon Colossus and Scarblade Elite action gives the deck the kind of one-two punch that perhaps has been missing from this metagame for the first few weeks of Block play.

It doesn’t have the combo finish of a Kithkin deck of the insane opens of an Elemental deck, but it does have a clear plan against everything, and it is relentless in its pursuit of the W. I just want to mention the main piece that is missing from this build: Imperious Perfect. It seems very odd to me that a deck which runs 8 2-mana elves and 8 4-mana elves would eschew the elf that runs very plainly between them. Now, it does this on the basis of Murderous Redcap/Shriekmaw/Kitchen Finks being indispensable, and taking up spots that might be taken up by the 3 mana 2/2.

I really appreciate this dedication to defeating Kithkin, as Murderous Redcap and Kitchen Finks truly provide a lot of edge in that matchup. I would contend that in this particular deck, it might be more beneficial to have Imperious Perfect in the deck for its potency against Bitterblossom (making 2/2s each turn is a bit better than making 1/1s), but this guy made his choice and made top8 in his PTQ. Who knows what he could have changed in order to win, but four Faerie decks in the top 8 and the PTQ being won by Little Kid GW aggro, perhaps he miscalculated a little.

These are the five decks that I am currently very interested in looking at, and while I am aware that Toast is clearly evolving into Solar Flare, and that there is a tier 2 Mono Black Control deck working its way through many different PTQs to date, I feel that until next time, these are the five decks to watch out for, and should form the basis of your Gauntlet.

Other considerations for your (and my) testing gauntlet include:

I hope this brief glance at the Block Metagame six weeks into the season will help you prepare for your PTQs, and next time I will bring you some preliminary results from my testing and some cards and effects that I believe will have an impact (dramatic or otherwise) on the format.

Thanks for your time,
Matthew Henderson
esternaefil

In this episode you watch as Trick attempts to dethrone Lee, they play a Kithkin vs Faeries matchup and see just how the decks do when wielded by the hosts. Mistakes are made and discussions are had. Sit on down and see what you think!

The four archetypes are: 10 Commandments aka Quicken Toast, Horde of Elementals, Faeries and Kithkin

Lee mentions a decklist for the combo, we did not have it at the time of editing, we will get it in the discussion thread as soon as possible.

Richie Proffitt Memorial Tournament

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