Sorry I have not posted for awhile. I have dissapeared a little bit into the frenzy that is Twitter and if you want to follow me there I can be followed at http://twitter.com/Top8Games. What I have been tweeting about mostly are some decks that have popped up recently at the Star City 5K Open, PTQ Top 8s, and even here in our ersatz forums/comments sections. The first was a new version of the green-white token deck that originally appeared at the 5K immediately preceding PT Kyoto. There was another 5K this past weekend in Indianapolis and a new version of the deck made it as far as the Final Four.

Green-White Overrun
Joshua Scott Honigmann — 4th Place
StarCityGames.com $5,000 Standard Open

4 Birds Of Paradise
4 Cloudgoat Ranger
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Stillmoon Cavalier
4 Path To Exile
2 Ajani Goldmane
2 Elspeth, Knight-errant
3 Martial Coup
2 Overrun
4 Spectral Procession
5 Forest
1 Plains
4 Brushland
1 Reflecting Pool
4 Treetop Village
4 Windbrisk Heights
4 Wooded Bastion

Sideboard:
4 Burrenton Forge-tender
3 Cloudthresher
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Ranger Of Eos
1 Wilt-leaf Liege
3 Naturalize

Via Twitter — and by proxy on Facebook — I declared my love for this deck and for the card Overrun but also called into question their relationship together. I once played two Overrun on the same turn and have never passed one in draft in my life — not even for an x-spell. I just wondered if Garuck Wildspeaker was not a more appropriate card in this deck due to the flexibility if affords you. Sometimes the card is just a Hill Giant when you need creatures and sometimes it ramps your mana while Overrun can simply be a dead draw the turn after a board sweeper.

Players who had been on the wrong side of this deck — including Boat Brewmaster Brian Kowal — pointed out the synergy of tucking an Overrun under Windbrisk Heights. It does not seem like you can reliably do this with only two Overruns in the deck but apparently it happened often enough to turn Kowal’s legendary mane white.

“You don’t know fear until there is a possibility that Overrun is under a Windbrisk Heights,” said Kowal via Facebook. “I thought the deck was pretty impressive. Kinda surprised he only played 2 Overrun.”

I was pretty obsessed with the orginal version of the deck which featured the green Planeswalker because I liked the idea of ramping up into Martial Coup on one turn and then blowing the ultimate on the next one. I can certainly see where there is value in not leaving your Overrun on the table for a few turns for the whole world to see. Either way the deck seems like an exciting tokens variant to muck around with for Standard until some new cards show up for us to play with.

For those of us with PTQs still on the horizon Conley Woods’ decklist from the 81-person Alberquerque PTQ two weekends ago is an eye-opener. The deck is remisicent of Terravore decks from pre-rotated Extended with Knight of the Rellequery understudying for the Odyssey block monster. What really makes this decklist glow for me is TEN Armageddon effects:

Extend-a-Geddon
Conley Woods — 1st Place
PTQ New Mexico - Albuquerque - 3/14

4  Flagstones of Trokair
1  Forest
2  Forgotten Cave
1  Ghost Quarter
1  Horizon Canopy
1  Mountain
1  Plains
3  Sacred Foundry
1  Secluded Steppe
1  Stomping Ground
2  Temple Garden
2  Tranquil Thicket
1  Treetop Village
2  Windswept Heath
2  Wooded Foothills
4  Kitchen Finks
4  Knight of the Reliquary
4  Tarmogoyf
4  Ajani Vengeant
4  Boom // Bust
3  Flame Jab
4  Life from the Loam
4  Lightning Helix
2  Thoughts of Ruin
2  Umezawa’s Jitte

Sideboard:
2  Ancient Grudge
2  Duergar Hedge-Mage
1  Flame Jab
4  Path to Exile
1  Quagnoth
3  Wheel of Sun and Moon
2  Wrath of God

I have wanted to play a deck with Boom/Bust, Flagstones of Trokair, and fetch lands for some time now. I have a bachelor party this Friday night but I may bring a sleeved version of this deck along with me in case I make the stumble directly from Staten Island to the PTQ in NJ in a Brook North-like fashion.

Finally the last deck comes from the comments on Will Price’s most recent Magic entry on the site where Jeff “ffeJ” Cunningham chimed in with an updated Bant list descended from the build he piloted to a second place finish to Jonathan Loucks’ Kiki Mite Get There. Jeff suggests playing this deck saying:

“Play this deck: rolls Faeries, rolls Zoo, good matchups vs the field. Elves is tough. Lost in the finals by taking out too much gas for Cranials, and by drawing poorly. 3 Relics would definitely be too many.”

Bant Update
Jeff Cunningham

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Troll Ascetic
3 Rhox War Monk
3 Glen-Elendra Archmage
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Sword of Fire & Ice
4 Path to Exile
2 Stifle
2 Bant Charm
3 Treetop Village
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Flooded Strand
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
1 Temple Garden
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Breeding Pool
3 Forest
3 Island
1 Plains

SB:
4 Worship
2 Stifle
2 Trinket Mage
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Telemin Performance

I will try and follow-up with another post before the end of the week — Twitter is just a phase, really.