Paul Jordan is a frequent contributor to Magicthegathering.com, former NJ State Champion, and a teammate of Steve Sadin and Michael J Flores at Pro Tour Charleston, where they finished in 26th place as Team Two-Headed Giant. Steve (who did an excellent job of coverage at UK Nationals) sent Paul the breakdown of decks and Paul has produced the following analysis of the Standard rounds in his first ever piece for Top8Magic.com.

Thanks to my once and future teammate, I was able to do some number crunching on UK Nats. This won’t be a full-blown thing, as it was a pretty small tournament, but there should still be a nugget or two worth exploring. Let’s take a look, shall we?

U.S. and Japanese Nationals saw victories from 5Color decks built around the powerful sorcery, Cruel Ultimatum. In England, they took note and filled their deckboxes with Vivid lands and Reflecting Pools in hopes of adding another title to Grixis’ mantle. What they got, however, was something quite different. Instead of a field full of Faeries, White aggro decks and Elves this was one littered with Blightning and Jund decks — along with the ever-present mirror match.

5Color Control decks remained the most popular, eating up 17% of the field in the UK , though it did lose about 5% over Japan and the US. Faeries, White Aggro and Elves! all lost between 5 and 10% of their share of the field, largely being supplanted by Jund and Blightning. The UK also seemed to fill out the ranks with a much larger variety of onesy-twosy decks that had their own categorization. Steve Sadin already did a breakdown for the mothership here, so I won’t delve much further into it, but you get the idea. It was a vastly different field.

A lot of people no doubt noticed the 58% win rate of Blightning decks over two National tournaments and chose it as their weapon of choice as a result. With so many more people running the deck, it was not likely to sustain the great numbers. As expected, there was a drop, but it still came through, with a very manageable 52%. Nothing dominating going on there, of course, but still worth keeping track of. Surprisingly, the pitfall for this deck seems to be in quote-unquote random decks. Jund and 5CC, the two most popular decks outside of Blightning, were both handily kept in check at 79% and 56% respectively, but Blightning only won 44% of its remaining matches, with each minor piece of the metagame taking a bite. None of those decks faced Blightning more than 8 times, but they all combined to put some serious hurt on the would-be best deck.

So what was the best deck? It is a little difficult to say. With such a small tournament, and such a wide variety of decks, there were a lot that had very few matches played. This led to some difficulty in really understanding how each deck did. So you could say that Doran and its 18 matches at 79% was best, or Kithkin at 25 and 64%, or Elves! at 47 and 60%. I could understand an argument for any of those. I’d lean towards Elves! stirctly due to sample size, as losing 4% over almost double the matches from Kithkin is, well, pretty good.

Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to infer any concrete meaning from this tournament, as the most matches of any one deck against another was 16 (Blightning vs. 5CC), which is an extremely low number with regards to sample size. What we can look at, though, is the overall performances. So while this is going to be the end of the analysis, I’ll send BDM and Matt a spreadsheet that hopefully they can link you to if you want to come to your own conclusions.

UK Nats Spreadsheet

Despite being at the tip-top of the standings throughout the closing rounds of Dutch Nationals, potential Hall of Famer Frank Karsten lost in the quarterfinals of this year’s Dutch Nationals. It was a missed an opportunity for the Netherlands bring the same star power to the Team Championships as the U.S., Brazil, and Japan. Kevin Grove is the Dutch National Champion, playing Cruel Control The team will also include; Niels Noorlander, who wwas playing Faeries; Tom van Lamoen, who was playing an exciting red-white control deck with Swans of Bryn Argoll and Baneslayer Angel; and Johnny Niemeijer, playing JundBlood, as the alternate.

Tom van Lamoen was the reigning champ from last year’s Dutch National team and earned that title on the back of another unusual, non-combo Swans deck. After virtually dissapearing from the Magic scene for a year he made the team again with another unexpected Swans deck. He has reportedly said it will be his last National team berth since his pet card will not be legal next year.

Tip of the hat to Sven Dijt of manamaze.com for the link to the coverage and the decklists, which I have copied here for your convenience, as well as the story about Tom’s Swans (no relation to Tom Swan).

Dutch Champion Kevin Grove

Cruel Control
Kevin Grove - Champion
2009 Dutch National Championship

3 Island
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Vivid Creek
3 Vivid Meadow
2 Vivid Crag
2 Vivid Marsh
2 Mystic Gate
2 Sunken Ruins
2 Flooded Grove
2 Cascade Bluffs
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Plumeveil
2 Shriekmaw
4 Mulldrifter
1 Reveillark
2 Cloudthresher
1 Essence Scatter
1 Agony Warp
3 Firespout
2 Makeshift Mannequin
4 Cryptic Command
2 Hallowed Burial
1 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Martial Coup
1 Pithing Needle
3 Jace Beleren
1 Ajani Vengeant
1 Liliana Vess

Sideboard:
4 Great Sable Stag
4 Anathemancer
4 Volcanic Fallout
2 Runed Halo
1 Identity Crisis Read the rest of this entry »

My brother, Zeilend and myself arrived at Fight House in NYC for the M10 Pre-re. The venue is small and not really equipped for hosting events. Because of the limited space, the organizers could not do continuous flights, so we had to wait a bit for the next scheduled event to start. Of course, all this information was available, should we have had the foresight to look at the organizers website or read the emails stating the event schedule for the day.

Here is the pool I received for Gold flight, which started around 1pm:

Read the rest of this entry »

I have been joking since the introduction of Alara Reborn about building a hand control deck featuring Thoughtsieze, Meddling Mage, Vendillion Clique, Tidehollow Sculler, Runed Halo and Thought Hemorrhage. Courtesy of Glenn Goddard at Sum Mesa Events — the people that flew me out to LA to gunsling at the Conflux Prerelease — comes a more realustic take on that theme with only two colors and a manabase that doesn’t roll over to Anathemancer that earned its pilot a berth at Nationals via a New Mexico Regional Championship.

Dump Truck Update
David Daniel — Top 4
New Mexico Regionals 2009

4 Meddling Mage
4 Sower of Temptation
3 Vendillion Clique
4 Peek
4 Cryptic Command
4 Broken Ambitions
3 Negate
2  Remove Soul
3 Wrath of God
1 Austere Command
4 Path to Exile
4 Mystic Gate
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Mutavault
4 Faerie Conclave
2 Plains
6 Island

Sideboard:
4 Burrenton Forge-Tender
3 Wall of Denial
3 Windborn Muse
2 Austere Command
2 Pithing Needle
1 Negate

Glenn wrote that when he first caught wind of the Nationals qualifying deck, featuring Peek, from his Regionals he “was pretty skeptical”. With such a known metagame the Meddling Mage can often accurately nail a key card based simply on the first land drop of the game. If you saw Windbrisk Heights you would no doubt name Spectral Procession and Spinerock Knoll might entice you to name Swans or Seismic Assault. But the aforementioned Peek means you don’t even need to guess if you don’t want to — you can either cantrip-look at their hand or even disrupt two cards with a Vendillion Clique into Meddling Mage.

Grand Prix Anaheim 2003 Champion Ben Rubin

The deck reminds me of Ben Rubin’s Dump Truck deck from a half decade of Extended seasons ago that won Grand Prix Anaheim with four Meddling Mage and a mere pair of Peeks.

Dump Truck
Ben Rubin — Champion
GP Anaheim 2003

4  Caves of Koilos
4  Flooded strand
3  Island
2  Plains
4  Polluted Delta
2  Skycloud Expanse
2  Swamp
2  Underground River
3  Exalted Angel
4  Meddling Mage
4  Shadowmage Infiltrator
4  Brainstorm
3  Deep Analysis
3  Diabolic Edict
1  Disenchant
4  Duress
2  Peek
3  Seal of Cleansing
1  Smother
1  Tsabo’s Web
4  Vindicate

Sideboard:

4  Chill
3  Chrome Mox
1  Damping Matrix
1  Energy Flux
1  Lobotomy
1  Sphere of Resistance
1  Upheaval
3  Vampiric Tutor

I have not actually played with the deck yet but Glenn reports that it has favorable match-ups against Black-white Tokens, Green-white Tokens, Bant, Turbo Fog, and Sanity Grinding. He suspects — like I do — that it has a good match up against Cascade Swans but that deck was barely on the scene when this debuted two weekends ago. One thing that may work against this deck is a reportedly bad match-up against Faeries, which may be on the rise in the wake of Grand Prix Barcelona.

A response to Will Price of Progress’s tongue-in-cheeck Tweet RE: Sages of the Anima.

Recently seen on Twitter:

Translation:

<Will Price> BDM, what are the odds that michaelj will build a deck with Congregation at Dawn and Sages of the Anima?

I have found Twitter to be both fun and awesome for communicating. Like if I hadn’t happened upon Will’s post I might not even have looked at Sages of the Anima.

For myself I know this is true, but Will, Matt, and Brian would all have to answer for themselves… A lot of the time I don’t have the time to answer every Facebook email, personal email, and so on (even blog comments) that friends, readers, and so on send my way… But on Twitter? I find myself engaging much more with people’s questions just due to the nature of the format. If you want to follow any of the Top8Magic team on Twitter, here are our handles…

• FiveWithFlores / Michael Flores
• Top8Games / Brian David-Marshall
• sloppystack / Will Price
• MattWang97 / the elusive Matt Wang
• Top8Magic / Top8Magic Blog Updates and Other Surprises! [Added by Matt Wang]

Anyway… Back to Sages of the Anima…

So why does he think I am going to make a deck with Sages of the Anima and Congregation at Dawn?

The combo is kind of obvious; when you have Sages of the Anima in play, you can potentially “Ancestral Recall” if there are three creature cards on top of your library. Lo and behold - Congregation at Dawn can put three such creature cards on top of your deck.

Unfortunately I don’t think it very likely that I will play those two cards together in a Constructed deck any time soon. Here are the top five reasons why:

1. What happens when I draw them in the wrong order?
   That is, what happens if I have an open to resolve the reasonably but not exceptionally sized Sages of the Anima, but haven’t drawn the other side of my combo yet? That’s right; I’m never going to draw the Congregation.
2. I like drawing lands.
   With Sages in play, I’m not going to be drawing many, ever again. Heck, with Congregation at Dawn, I’m going to be setting myself up to not draw any! How am I supposed to afford these fives with no lands?
3. It actually goes against everything else I have been moving towards given my personal realizations in the last few months.
   See…
   • The Grinch That Stole Mike’s Rating,
   • Previous Level Green, and…
   • The Physical Reality of Magical Spells
4. What would I really be getting out of it?
   Ultimately… not a whole lot. This is a two-card combo where one of the cards is an expensive but not overpowered rare adn the other half is a pretty good “helper” card that has had some successful builds under its belt… But in Extended, where this combo would probably live, I’d like to hope I have something better figured out.
5. Like I’m really going to bogart some idea that Will published on Twitter.
   You know… like I’m really going to bogart some terrible idea that Will published on Twitter, first.

For a broader look at the same new card, check out my non-Will Price of Progress / Congregation at Dawn exploration of Sages of the Anima at Five with Flores.

LOVE
MIKE

Bituminous Blast showcases a snazzy new mechanic from Alara Reborn; Cascade. When you play a spell with Cascade you get to reveal cards from the top of your library until you hit a card with a lower converted casting cost and then you can play that spell without paying the casting cost. It is the kind of mechanic that gets you excited to play some Magic — Limited or Constructed. In Limited it will usually result in a free creature since you generally play 16 or 17 of them in a 40 card deck but when you hit a spell it should pretty much be a blowout. But what about Bituminous Blast in Constructed?

Build a better bolt!

At instant speed, there seems to be little doubt that this will be a Constructed card that see abundant play. Prophetic Bolt saw play — although, to be fair, it was a little more flexible in that it could hit players — and all that netted you was a free Impulse. There is obviously not a shortage of exciting, blowouts you can Cascade into with this ranging from a zero casting cost Ancestral Visions to the cost-capped Cryptic Command.

The cold cascaded Cryptic Command is obviously going to be the Holy Grail for this card. Your opponent plays some back-breaking spell and you kill a guy and randomly hit the Command to counter it and draw a card. A free Sarkhan Vol or Garruck is also pretty spicy — who knows what will come off the top of your deck when you blast a creature.

Maybe someone will know… It seems like the ability to arrange the top of your deck will become much more valuable once Cascade cards hit the format. Excluding any new cards that might enter into the equation in Alara Reborn I did a Gatherer search for Standard looking for the character string, “back in any order” and came back with a disappointingly small number of options — and none of them are in Block:

Discombobulate — Is Standard ready for this countermagic to take its place on the Constructed stage? Counter your spell and arrange the next four cards so I draw a land and have a Cryptic Command looming on top with the Blast in hand? It seems far fetched even to me and I made a case for playing Nemesis of Reason in rooms other than kitchens!

Gilt-Leaf Seer — I cannot imagine any scenario where this happens outside of a wacky packs draft.

Inkfathom Divers — I would rather play with Nemesis of Reason.

Ponder – This is obviously the standout here. It is already played in Constructed formats and is even restricted in Vintage.

Sage Owl — Words fail me…

We are basically left with just Ponder as an tool for the Blast from that pool of cards. Other possibilities for managing your Blasts include:

The Harbinger cycle — Flamekin Harbinger is probably the best of the bunch here. On color and something that has seen play in Constructed before and could be part of an Elemental or Shaman strategy.

The Clash mechanic – Lash Out sees play and is also on-color. You don’t get the ablity to manage much but it is still better than nothing.

Cream of the Crop – I love this card and would be thrilled to have it see Constructed play but I don’t see this working out the way I want it to since you have to spend your mana on a creature, set up your deck, and still have enough mana to Blast something.

Footbottom Feast – Not brimming with excitement over this one.

Hag-Hedge Mage — This is kind of interesting and makes me pine for Reclaim. The colors work even if the mana might not. You need to have two forests in play to reclaim anything.

Tutoring can be a Blast!

Lilliana Vess — The Villainess is the best option so far as she lets you go get exactly the card you want to have on top and costs no mana to use beyond what you need to spend to get her into play. I could see this actually happening in a 5-Color Planeswalker deck. Vess tutors Ajani Vengeant to the top and then you Blast it into play. You do also have Cryptic Command in that deck. This could be a spicy one!

Moonring Island – Doesn’t let you manipulate anything but it does let you know whats coming.

Telling Time — This is another fine card to mix with Cascade and could see play. It might just be better than Ponder but that may be my bias for instants coming through.

It is clear that Vess is the best of the bunch, not only letting you set up your Bituminous Blast but finding it for you in the first place if that is way you need. I will be eager to see if the AJ Sacher Planeswalker Control deck makes room for Cascade spells.

Luis requested I update the list on how the top 8 went today in Jersey:

I had the good fortune to play 9 games in the top 8 after a clean
6-0-2 in the swiss.  Sadly, I lost the 9th game.  To, basically, a
type 2 deck.  R/W boat brew, approximately.  Game 3 was inches from
going either way after each of us flooded out one game.  I forget the
fellows name who beat me, but he drew that sixth land for figure
activation right when he needed it– one more turn and my jitte would
have taken that figure down.  Or I could have drawn 1 of 13 outs over
2 draw phases..

Rob Seder with fae in the semis, and someone else who’s name I don’t
recall playing TEPS in the quarters.

I played a barely tweaked version of Adam Levitt Level Blue.  I now
have about 4.5 boxes of draft sets.  Anyone need product?

See ya’ll in Brooklyn,
gcb

Just got back from a week in Japan. I had never been before, although many people I know have gone multiple times for PTs and GPs. I went out to visit my friend Zeilend, who has been studying there this year. Luckily she has become quite good at Japanese and was able to function as my translator all week. Three things you should know about Japan:

1. Food: The food, at least in Nagoya where I stayed, is neither healthy or various. Every restaurant pretty much had identical menus. Also, most of the food is fried, and there are rarely any vegetable offerings. That being said, the food is very tasty, and some places have all-you-can-drink deals (alcoholic or non) for reasonable prices. I recommend Shochu, which is like a very smooth vodka. I do not recommend mixing it with whiskey.

2: Public Transportation: The buses and subways are very nice. There is very little waiting time and I never experienced any delays. The big difference is that the price per ride scales depending on how far you travel. This makes public transportation a much less affordable experience than it is in New York. Fortunately my hotel was located in the middle of the city, so I never had to spend more than $3 a trip. I do not recommend taking the bus, as even the Japanese do not seem to know how it works.

3. Trash: There are no trash cans on the street, anywhere. This is strange because there are vending machines and convenience stores everywhere, so there are ample opportunities to purchase snacks and generate trash. You will end up having to carry your trash with you until you find an opportunity to get rid of it. For me this usually meant keeping it in my backpack until I got back to my hotel.

Japan was awesome, and I’m glad I had someone to show me around who was familiar with the language and the culture. Zeilend, being a Magic player, was nice enough to take me to an FNM draft while I was there, so I will be posting a little tournament report in a day or two (spoiler alert: I won). I have also been modifying that BW extended deck I posted a few weeks ago, and I will follow up with a new list and some testing results at the end of the week (spoiler alert: I added Tarmogoyf). If anyone has any good travel stories, post them in the comments!

~WillPoP

Fans,

As a frequent Magic Online and Finkel draft participant, I was thinking that there may be some good material there to write about.

What would you all like to see in a post about Magic Online drafting and Finkel Drafting? 

Let me know.

Best,

Matt

After a dissappointing latter-half of 2008 Steve Sadin was excited to get 2009 started with a win. Last season started off great for him with a Top 16 in Kuala Lumpur but Steve described his win today as his first Constructed deck win since 2007.