If you have not already checked out the coverage of Spanish, Japanese and Australian Nationals for fresh from the oven M10 Standard tech, you should do so right now. The Elvish Archdruid-powered Combo deck took the top spot in Australia and dominated the Japanese event with three Top 8 finishes although Shuhei Nakamura hoisted the trophy with Cruel Control. Cruel Control also won Spanish Nationals with nary an Elf Combo deck to be found in the elimination rounds.

Based on a handful of Twitter comments it sounds like a lot of American players are gnashing their teeth right now over the tremendous performance of the Elves Combo deck. It would have been a great deck to have in your back pocket going into US Nationals but now everyone will either be playing it or have a firm plan for playing against it. Osyp, who ended up making the finals of a massive PTQ in Edison, NJ, compared the raw power of the deck to that of Affinity. How people prepare for and with the deck will be one of the dominant storylines next weekend as Bill Stark and I cover Nats in KC.

The 2009 Singapore National team

In the meanwhile I have the Top 8 decklists from Singapore Nationals which featured some interesting non-Elf concoctions including a Sanity Grinding/Time Warp deck by Pro Tour Barcelona Top 8 competitor Albertus Law. He went 6-0 in the Swiss rounds of Standard, including multiple victories over Kithkin, but fell to one of the two Kithkin finalists in the quarterfinals. The other really interesting deck was the 5Color deck featuring Brion Stoutarm that ended up earning a spot on the National team. Thanks to Jun-Wei Hew for the decklists and the photo of the team! (Decklists appear below the fold. Click to keep on reading!)

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