Greetings, railbirds! There was a surfeit of Magic events over this past weekend, and on Sunday morning, I had the choice of tuning into any of three live feeds from Magic events around the world—the SCG Open in Denver, the Pro Tour Top 8 in Nagoya, and the brand-new Canadian Magic Tour live coverage from Ottawa. Today, I’m going to talk briefly about the coverage—one of my pet topics—and then about how the Block Constructed metagame is shaping up now that the pros have sorted the wheat from the chaff.

Coverage Updates

For the new kids on the block, I found the CMT stream to be of a surprisingly high quality—hit up @manadeprived on Twitter if you want more information about future events they’ll be covering. Though they don’t have the star power or the big cash prizes of the others, they’re still playing the same game, and it’s nice to hear some new voices on the commentary and see some new faces looming over the Stoneforge Mystics on the board.

Over on SCGLive, we had the full commentary debut of Patrick Chapin, who is an excellent addition to the commentary staff—perhaps too excellent. Patrick’s insight into the game is such that he can see how things are going to play out before the players themselves do, and well before poor Joey alongside him in the booth does. I love listening to both Patrick and Joey, but I’m not sure they’re well-paired. Nonetheless, the Open coverage is always top-notch, and the Pro Tour guys are going to have to ratchet up their video coverage next year to keep up.

One area in which the official coverage has really improved lately is their Twitter coverage. GP: Singapore was a big step up, with Ray and Pip on @magicprotour Tweeting relatively frequently over the course of the event, and the main coverage team from America followed through in Nagoya with plenty of links, feature-match updates, and interesting tidbits. The deck-tech videos were particularly entertaining as well—I highly recommend checking out Fabian Thiele’s deck tech, as the guy is funny and infectiously cheerful—I hope to see him on the train from now on! There is still plenty of room for improvement, of course, but they are getting better. The obvious next step is live video all weekend à la SCG Live, but I’m still holding out hope for live Tweeting of game actions. @ahalavais on Twitter demonstrated what I’m talking about from his local PTQ this weekend:

When I’m away from the computer but want to keep up with what’s going on, I’d love to be able to read this kind of stuff from the Pro Tour or the Open tournaments—perhaps a secondary account so that those who aren’t interested in this level of detail don’t get spammed. What do you think? Let me know in the comments if it’s something you’d be interested in, or if you think it’d be a waste of time.

Another thing that jazzed up the coverage for me this week was Pro Tour Drafting, or #ptdraft on Twitter. Kind of like fantasy sports, a group of spectators take turns picking pros for their teams, and whoever’s team scores the most PT points over the weekend wins the draft. If you want to read more about PT drafting, head over to my blog and check it out. Meanwhile, let’s move on to Block Constructed.

Block Constructed

Going into the weekend, I expected Tempered Steel to be the default choice, with mono-Red and some Consecrated Sphinx deck showing up as well. I wasn’t disappointed, though it was far more complicated than that. As it has shaken out, there are three major pillars of the format, basically as expected—Hero of Bladehold, Koth of the Hammer, and Consecrated Sphinx. We’ll sort the decks into these categories and quickly address each in turn so you know what to prepare for in Block events for the coming weeks.

Hero of Bladehold

The bogeyman of the format didn’t disappoint, with the best Block Constructed record going to Luis Scott Vargas at 9–0–1 with Tempered Steel. His list:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

3 Blade Splicer

4 Hero of Bladehold

4 Leonin Relic-Warder

1 Vault Skirge

4 Memnite

4 Signal Pest

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Dispatch

4 Tempered Steel

4 Glint Hawk Idol

4 Origin Spellbomb

2 Mox Opal

[/Spells]

[Lands]

18 Plains

4 Inkmoth Nexus

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

2 Indomitable Archangel

2 Elspeth Tirel

1 Dismember

2 Marrow Shards

4 Mutagenic Growth

2 Revoke Existence

2 Contested War Zone

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

The list is pretty straightforward and has plenty in common with the lists that have been consistently dominating the online Block events. According to Luis, his team tried any number of decks to try to beat this one, but none could put up a better record than Tempered Steel. The deck has two major plans of attack—Plan A is to lay a bunch of Memnites, Signal Pests, and Blade Splicers, and then power them up with a Tempered Steel. This can be devastatingly quick—the format’s other strategies are generally pretty slow, and playing out Memnite, Signal Pest, Vault Skirge, and then Tempered Steel means you can attack on turn three for 11 and do the same on turn four to end the match before the control opponent has even gotten started. There is enough hate in the format that after sideboarding, Plan A often stumbles, whether through a Marrow Shards sweeping your side of the board or Revoke Existence disposing of your Tempered Steel. When that happens, this deck has the perfect follow-up in Hero of Bladehold, a one-woman army that isn’t vulnerable to the artifact- and enchantment-hate cards that people will be bringing in against you. If they don’t have an immediate answer for Hero, she quickly swarms the board with 2/1 attackers, and with your earlier attacks, she’ll wind up the game in short order. If all else fails, this deck has a third resilient fall-back plan in the form of Inkmoth Nexus. When animated, this land gets pumped by Tempered Steel, and a 3/3 poisonous flyer is difficult to handle, especially in multiples.

The other Hero of Bladehold deck was Puresteel Paladin, a deck designed by Mark Herboholz and/or Antonino de Rosa, depending on who you talk to. A White aggro deck that works on a completely different line to the above artifact creature strategy, Puresteel is full of aggressive creatures but has a powerful card-advantage engine as well. Pat Cox piloted this version to the Top 8 with an 8–1–1 record in Constructed.

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Leonin Relic-Warder

4 Glint Hawk

4 Hero of Bladehold

4 Puresteel Paladin

4 Memnite

4 Vault Skirge

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

2 Dispatch

4 Flayer Husk

4 Mortarpod

4 Sword of War and Peace

1 Mox Opal

[/Spells]

[Lands]

19 Plains

4 Inkmoth Nexus

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

3 Mirran Crusader

3 Kemba, Kha Regent

2 Dismember

2 White Sun's Zenith

2 Revoke Existence

1 Plains

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

There are plenty of shared cards between this deck and the above—the Heroes, Relic-Warders, Memnites and so on—but the big difference is the swapping of some of the pseudocreatures of the Steel deck for some pseudocreatures more suited to play nicely with Puresteel Paladin. Turning all your Living Weapons into cantrips lets you keep drawing gas—card advantage in this format is basically down to sticking a Consecrated Sphinx, so Paladin can give you a humungous advantage not replicated elsewhere. The Metalcraft ability should not be sniffed at, either, as a Mortarpod with Equip: lets you turn all of your creatures into a point of reach, and moving Sword of War and Peace around for free lets you use it to play offense and defense while still having mana to play more spells. The deck looks pretty dependent on its namesake card, but no more than Tempered Steel is on its own namesake.

Marijn Lybaert’s mono-White control also features a set of Heroes that let him masquerade as aggro in one game and have his opponent sideboard poorly—check out his deck tech for more information.

Koth of the Hammer

The second-most-popular genre of deck is the Red deck, which invariably play some number of Koth of the Hammer. Fabian Thiele made the semifinals in only his second Pro Tour after a 7–3 record in the Block Constructed format with Big Red.

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

3 Oxidda Scrapmelter

4 Kuldotha Phoenix

[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]

4 Koth of the Hammer

[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]

4 Galvanic Blast

4 Volt Charge

4 Red Sun's Zenith

4 Slagstorm

4 Shrine of Burning Rage

4 Sphere of the Suns

[/Spells]

[Lands]

21 Mountain

4 Inkmoth Nexus

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

3 Vulshok Refugee

3 Into the Core

4 Dismember

2 Tezzeret's Gambit

3 Ratchet Bomb

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

This deck eschews the speed of the White aggro decks but makes up for that loss with pure card power. Koth of the Hammer is a massive threat that can come out early with Sphere of the Suns, and if your opponent can’t contain his loyalty counters, Koth’s ultimate emblem (or “ahnblem,” in Thiele’s sing-song accent) is usually game over. The deck can also slow-roll its burn spells, piling up Shrine counters and stockpiling Galvanic Blasts and Zeniths while the opponent tries to find a way to end the game before the Red deck can deliver 20 points of burn all at once. Metalcraft is a distant dream with this deck, but Kuldotha Phoenix still does some excellent work, killing opposing planeswalkers and quickly chomping away the opponent’s life total.

Toshiyuki Kadooka took a different tack with Koth, returning to the old Kuldotha Red strategies with some support from New Phyrexia. Here’s his 8–1–1 list.

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Kuldotha Phoenix

4 Goblin Wardriver

4 Hero of Oxid Ridge

4 Perilous Myr

[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]

3 Koth of the Hammer

[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]

4 Artillerize

4 Galvanic Blast

4 Kuldotha Rebirth

1 Mycosynth Wellspring

4 Ichor Wellspring

4 Panic Spellbomb

[/Spells]

[Lands]

19 Mountain

4 Inkmoth Nexus

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

2 Kuldotha Phoenix

1 Koth of the Hammer

2 Shatter

3 Dismember

3 Into the Core

3 Slagstorm

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

Interestingly, Kadooka is not playing the 0-cost artifacts you might expect, like Memnite, Mox Opal, or Chimeric Mass. Instead, Perilous Myr, Panic Spellbomb, and various Wellsprings let him avoid card disadvantage while generating his three Goblins, just not on turn one. His Battle Cry creatures power up the tokens impressively, while Artillerize and Galvanic Blast give the deck plenty of reach. Koth does what he does best, while the aggressive creatures keep the opponent on the back foot.

Christian Valenti has a deck tech with another considerably different Koth deck; though we don’t have the exact list yet, it’s a Red/Green deck with plenty of artifact removal and ramp, with a curve finishing with Karn Liberated.

Consecrated Sphinx

Every control deck that isn’t playing one of the two above looks to be playing Consecrated Sphinx. These high-end decks come in a variety of flavors, and the best record belonged to Robert Jurkovic’s U/B at 9–1.

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Treasure Mage

4 Consecrated Sphinx

1 Wurmcoil Engine

[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]

1 Karn Liberated

4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]

2 Steel Sabotage

4 Dismember

3 Black Sun's Zenith

1 Spine of Ish Sah

3 Ratchet Bomb

3 Tumble Magnet

4 Ichor Wellspring

4 Mycosynth Wellspring

[/Spells]

[Lands]

6 Swamp

7 Island

3 Phyrexia's Core

4 Darkslick Shores

4 Inkmoth Nexus

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

4 Phyrexian Crusader

1 Black Sun's Zenith

2 Praetor's Grasp

3 Despise

2 Volition Reins

1 Contagion Engine

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

Tezzeret shows up in plenty of the Sphinx decks, providing some card advantage and a powerful finisher all in one, much like the Sphinx itself. Tsuyoshi Fujita made Top 8 with a less impressive Block record playing a four-color version, featuring both Tezzeret and Sphinx and all the mana-fixing he could scrounge up. The removal spells that kill Sphinx don’t kill many of the other major threats in the format—Go for the Throat can’t hit any artifact creatures, and Pistus Strike obviously can’t kill nonflyers. The other decks are relying on Dismembers and Shatter, with the only real exception being Dispatch.

Leaving her planeswalker friend behind, Consecrated Sphinx has found some new chums in other colors, like in Jeffrey Chan’s 7–3 U/W effort.

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Consecrated Sphinx

[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]

2 Karn Liberated

4 Elspeth Tirel

[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]

1 Disperse

1 Steel Sabotage

2 Dismember

3 Divine Offering

3 Psychic Barrier

4 Stoic Rebuttal

2 Sunblast Angel

2 Volition Reins

3 Ichor Wellspring

3 Mycosynth Wellspring

[/Spells]

[Lands]

10 Island

10 Plains

2 Phyrexia's Core

4 Seachrome Coast

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

4 Hero of Bladehold

1 Venser, the Sojourner

1 Dismember

1 Dispense Justice

1 Divine Offering

4 Marrow Shards

1 Revoke Existence

1 Sunblast Angel

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

A straightforward Blue/White tap-out deck, the plan is to not die until such time as you can lay an overwhelming trump like Sunblast Angel, Sphinx, or Karn Liberated. This deck has been putting up strong numbers on MTGO lately, but I’m certain Team Fireball found something similar to this and couldn’t make it beat Steel, so I’m a bit wary of playing it myself. Sphinx has also showed up in R/U decks and Bant decks, and is essentially the finisher of choice for Blue control in this card-advantage-light format.

Block Going Forward

All the top performing deck lists can be found here, sorted by record. If you’re a Block player, this will be your testing gauntlet bible for the foreseeable future. These figures are also informative, though remember that three rounds of draft contribute to whether a player made Day 2 or not, so they aren’t a great representation of what was successful. Of the decks that put up a decent percentage of the metagame, U/W control and White Weenie (which I assume is the Paladin deck) had the best success rates—remember that less than 50% of Day 1 players make Day 2, so a 50% success rate is actually a pretty good result. Gaudenis Vidugiris made his way to the Top 8 with a stellar 8–1–1 with his mono-black Infect deck; however, Infect put up a woeful Day 2 percentage—either they were all terrible drafters, they had bad versions of the deck, or Gaudenis’s performance was an extreme outlier. I think Gau may have just had the best version of the deck—not to take away from his play skill—and anyone playing U/B, G/B, or Green Infect was lumped into that category and didn’t do so well. R/G control also has a terrible success rate, so a big question mark is hanging over that deck.

Despite the whole format’s being ready for them, Tempered Steel and mono-Red put up strong but not spectacular percentages. They are definitely still the decks to beat, though I expect Puresteel Paladin will be see a big uptick in play sooner rather than later. None of the decks is oppressive on the scale that we’re currently seeing in Standard fortunately, and the power level of the decks is quite low, so there’s plenty of room for rogue strategies to make some gains. It seems like a Glissa Rock deck should be able to grind out some wins in the absence of oppressive control or fast combo, but it hasn’t yet come together.

Some things to be aware of if you’re brewing for block: Nearly every deck is playing Inkmoth Nexus, whether as part of their offensive strategy like Infect or Tempered Steel, or merely to block other Inkmoth Nexuses. Other flyers are relatively uncommon, so anything that flies must be considered a reasonable threat, even Whispering Specter. Consecrated Sphinx is still a powerhouse card, but if Luis Scott Vargas can’t make Sphinx work, it might not be the best choice. Everyone is gunning for artifacts and enchantments—besides the Black decks, which really can’t—so if you’re going for an artifact-based strategy and you aren’t as fast as Tempered Steel, make sure that you have a compelling case for not just playing Steel.

That’s all for today. As I said, be sure to check the coverage this week for when the block lists are uploaded. Check out the deck-tech videos if you have the time; they are good entertainment value, if a little light on strategy. Please add your own thoughts on the coverage or Block Constructed in the comments, or track me down on Twitter at @rtassicker.