Jeroen Kanis brought a blazingly fast copy of Mono-Red Burn to the Pro Tour and got paid off for the gamble. With Kor Lavawalker in the format and White Weenie being a popular deck, choosing to include only Red sources of damage was a risk indeed. The deck had a full set of Unstable Footing in the sideboard, which acts as both an instant speed Lava Axe and turns off Protection for the turn. There were no real surprises in his 75, with the exception of a 2-pack of Hellkite Chargers in the sideboard. These are hardly noteworthy, but curious indeed.
Red Deck Wins, Jeroen Kanis
|
| ||||||||
Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt formatMoving on to the Semi-finalists, we see the master himself, Luis Scott-Vargas, competing with Tom Ross’ “Boss Naya” list. This is clearly the surprise deck of the tournament, as it propelled LSV into Swiss History and Tom Ross into 9th place. Many of the team’s other members performed admirably with the deck , and it served as host to, as Brian David Marshall called it, “Knight of the Reliquary‘s coming-out party”. Indeed, Knight of the Reliquary saw more play in this tournament than ever before in Standard. He is now a true multi-format All-Star. Other notables include the singleton Basilisk Collar, which showed up in more than one deck, Stoneforge Mystic, Ranger of Eos, and Noble Hierarch.
Naya, Luis Scott-Vargas
|
| ||||||||
Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt formatCraig Wescoe represented the lone copy of White Weenie in the Top 8, and his cheeky shenanigans with Oblivion Ring and Kor Skyfisher will have certainly drawn attention. The four copies of Elspeth in the main-deck will be a mitigating factor for those trying to build this deck, but of note are the four copies of Stoneforge Mystic.
White Weenie, Craig Wescoe
|
| ||||||||
Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt formatFinally, we come to the finalists, both playing Jund. Many bemoan Jund’s heavy presence in the Top 8, but that was to be expected. To be fair, had Gabriel Nassif’s drafting sessions gone a touch better, it’s likely we’d have seen him in the Top 8 alongside fellow Master of the Universe Luis Scott-Vargas. As it stands, we’ve got two fairly similar lists at the top of the Magic world. Both lists sport the swarm-generating Siege-Gang Commander, which solidifies the card’s place in Jund once and for all. Also of note are the 12 copies of Raging Ravine between the 3 Jund decks (the 13th in the Top 8 was the singleton in LSV’s Naya list). Other than the Man-Lands and the Goblin, Jund lists didn’t evolve a whole lot. The champion’s list eschewed a heavy dose of removal in favor of a higher threat density and more land, while the finalist’s mana base was a land lighter (26 versus a whopping 27) and packed a couple copies of Explore, as well as more removal.
Jund, Simon Gortzen
|
| ||||||||
Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt formatJund, Kyle Boggemes
|
| ||||||||
Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt format