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Main » Articles » 5 Decks You'll Play This Weekend

5 Decks You'll Play This Weekend

Brandon Isleib
Posted on September 1, 2016
 Reddit

This upcoming weekend is Labor Day in the United States. While many readers of these words will leverage that to relax with Magic, several pros are hard at work for Labor Day to win lots of money at the Magic World Championships in Seattle. With the Championships having Modern and Standard - I'll cover a little bit of both, with a side of Conspiracy in case you're doing that over the holiday weekend (I recommend it!).

Modern

There were three Modern Grand Prix this weekend. Lille was won by Infect, Guangzhou was won by Grixis Delver, and Indianapolis was won by Naya Burn. Generally, the combined top eights from those events and the Magic Online metagame matched up, as Affinity, Jund, Death's Shadow, and Bant Eldrazi were all present in good numbers. Both Death's Shadow and Jund decks are trying delirium strategies, the latter with Grim Flayer and the former with Gnarlwood Dryad, a.k.a. the Wild Nacatl of delirium (Wild NaCardTypesl is clunkier). It's always newsworthy when Jund fundamentally shifts anything it's doing, so let's look at that for a moment:

Flayer Jund - Modern | Keita Kawasaki, Top 8 at Grand Prix Guangzhou, 2016

For a long time, Jund has cared about its graveyard to a medium degree - enough to where building with it in mind was beneficial, but not enough to where Rest in Peace was good against it. Tarmogoyf and Scavenging Ooze have cared about the graveyard for years, as has Tasigur, the Golden Fang, and Kolaghan's Command gave Jund a recursion element and extra maindeck spell against Affinity to join Abrupt Decay and sometimes Maelstrom Pulse.

Grim Flayer does a couple big things to unify Jund synergies. As a cheap creature that can grow out of Lightning Bolt range pretty quickly, it slots well into Jund's potent late game. Its card-selection combat damage trigger is perfect for Jund, filling the graveyard with whatever you don't want out of the top three cards of your library. This pumps itself and Tarmogoyf early, and in topdeck wars it filters out discard spells. But the clincher is how it rearranges the top cards of your library after you choose which cards go to the graveyard, giving Dark Confidant much less downside against quick decks like Death's Shadow and Burn. Going all in on Dark Confidant does mean Tasigur, the Golden Fang and other high-end cards don't make sense here, but having diminished-risk Dark Confidants is something Jund's rarely had, and that means the cost of playing a 2/2 for two mana that has to deal combat damage to matter is worth it.

Although the Magic World Championship being a 24-person tournament means an inbred metagame, and therefore decreases the likelihood in the abstract that someone will choose a fair deck, I wouldn't be surprised to see some players, particularly ones who have enjoyed delirium in Standard, try Flayer Jund as a chance to take their familiarity with Grim Flayer decisions into a new format. The cascade of different angles that Grim Flayer's inclusion creates means Jund is played and played against differently than the other pros might be used to - and for the best of the best, that can create an advantage in playing it.

Speaking of unfair decks the Jund deck might be fighting, Red-Green Valakut was three slots in the three top eights worldwide, increasingly solidifying its place in the metagame:

Red-Green Valakut - Modern | Scott Lipp, Top 8 at Grand Prix Indianapolis, 2016

The heir to the thrones of both the banned Amulet Bloom and not banned Scapeshift decks (Scott threw in one Scapeshift; the other top eight decks didn't), this is a ramp combo deck that aims to kill in a flurry of Primeval Titan and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers, just like in their Standard heyday. Through the Breach and Summoner's Pact give the deck a consistent path to quick Primeval Titans, while the old advantages of playing Scapeshift - great ramp spells and being the best home for both Anger of the Gods and Obstinate Baloth - are present here too.

That still leaves a lot of customization, which is to the advantage of any World Championship competitor who can read metagames well. Scott Lipp went with the aforementioned Scapeshift and a single Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in the maindeck. Underscoring the deck's combo aspect, he went with Simian Spirit Guide (which let him run a first-turn Ancient Grudge in the quarterfinals to nail a Springleaf Drum and a Glimmervoid); Rob Pisano and Mike Boulinguiez ran Oath of Nissa in that slot instead. Sideboard cards were all over the map; Rob had Shatterstorm, Crumble to Dust, Relic of Progenitus, Spellskite, and good ol' Fog. Mike and Scott both had Chalice of the Void and Grafdigger's Cage; certainly a ramp deck is well-positioned to run Chalice of the Void. Scott had a Melira, Sylvok Outcast to tutor for with Summoner's Pact; Mike had a Gaea's Revenge. There are all sorts of options for all sorts of metagames, and that plus the unfair things this deck is trying to do might make it a popular choice this weekend.

Standard

Online, Bant Company and White-Red Humans reigned supreme, although delirium decks - black-green and Jund - were the second-most represented mechanic. (I've had a hard time spelling delirium correctly all through the block because of the band Delerium. Has this been true for anyone else?) As dominating as Bant Company has been, I would expect a little bit more Temur Emerge at the World Championship than has been represented recently, because its high difficulty to play is mitigated by the skill level of who's at the event. Bant Company is hard to play optimally as well, but the basics are likely more known than for Temur Emerge or even for the delirium decks with Vessel of Nascency and Grapple with the Past. There are also a lot of decisions to be made on how big to go with Bant Company:

Bant Company - Standard | Elias, 7-1, Magic Online Pro Tour Qualifier, August 27, 2016

Tamiyo, Field Researcher and Elder Deep-Fiend is certainly the bigger side of the archetype. To help out, there are singletons of Deathcap Cultivator and Leaf Gilder. Enabling a third-turn Collected Company or Tamiyo, Field Researcher while effectively counting as a three-drop for emerge is interesting, and being faster and bigger in the mirror makes sense to me.

Of course, you could go a completely different direction...

Five-Color Planeswalkers - Standard | Elias, 7-1, Magic Online Pro Tour Qualifier, August 27, 2016

This deck is pretty much Oaths, planeswalkers, and Deploy the Gatewatch. Tamiyo, Field Researcher and Nahiri, the Harbinger have the highest number of copies in the deck, and given that they're about card advantage it makes sense. Tamiyo's second ability and Nahiri's second ability can combine to exile just about any permanent as well. Oath of Nissa provides consistency to the deck, while Oath of Chandra and Oath of Liliana provide a clock. This deck got third place out of 134 competitors, and while it looks like a rare binder vomited, it's clearly on to something. It would be a gutsy move to play it at the World Championship, but taking everyone by surprise might be worth it.

Conspiracy: Take The Crown

I was part of two Conspiracy: Take The Crown drafts Saturday, each one playing two rounds with the drafted deck, and I had a blast in both. Mostly, I opened expensive cards and did some damage before dying, but my second deck was a great example of how Conspiracy differs from a usual draft. Behold:

Red-Green Sable-Trest - Conspiracy: Take the Crown Draft | Brandon Isleib

The main things you need to know for how this deck works:

1) There are four Bronze Sables and three Entourage of Trest.

2) One Natural Unity named Bronze Sable. The other Natural Unity named Entourage of Trest.

3) Summoner's Bond named Bronze Sable and Entourage of Trest.

So if I cast as Bronze Sable, I could find an Entourage of Trest that, when cast, would find another Bronze Sable and keep the chain going, and any spare green mana could be used at the beginning of combat to put +1/+1 counters on either of them. This is a ridiculous amount of card advantage for a red/green deck, especially since Entourage of Trest already draws you a card by making you the monarch. When your Entourage of Trest is basically Mulldrifter, you know you're doing something right. I spent most of my games tutoring for creatures and making people wonder just how many Bronze Sables I'd drafted.

While on the subject of Bronze Sable, it performs better than you'd expect in the format because it's colorless. Regicide is one of the most efficient removal spells ever printed - thankfully for Legacy and casual tables everywhere, it doesn't function outside the draft - and having an early drop that dodges it (and in my deck got larger) was nice. Platinum Angel dodges it nicely as well - I stayed in the first round through to -26 life while the other two players were in single (positive) digits, in part because I was facing the guy who had drafted all the Regicides.

Part of my point is that, like Conspiracy before it, Conspiracy: Take the Crown rewards picking up common creatures you think you can get a lot of if there's nothing else for you to take from the pack. The more your hidden agendas become global enchantments, the better your deck is. It might not seem splashy, but it's plenty splashy when seven of your creatures tutor for each other and three of them draw you two cards. There are all kinds of ways to make value-based decks in the format, and this deck was one of my favorites in that regard.

Some random observations from my drafts:

- Custodi Peacekeeper was getting picked up quite late. It tends to rule combat, in part because there's rarely enough spot removal to spend it on a 2/3 tapper. Pass them at your peril.

- Relatedly, Sulfurous Blast and Festergloom are the only two sweepers in the set. There are more things that die to Sulfurous Blast in the set than you might think. I naturally curved into it one game and got a seven-for-one.

- Don't abandon all senses of threat assessment just to become the monarch. Instead, draft enough small flying creatures or crown-taking creatures that you don't have to throw huge resources into dealing with it and can spend the bulk of your turns dealing with someone's growing army.

- Goad impressed me, particularly on Coveted Peacock and Besmirch. Even just getting annoying things to not attack you is good, but forcing them to attack elsewhere is fantastic. I spent a lot of time using Coveted Peacock in the first draft to goad a different goad creature so that it wouldn't goad any of my things. I also goaded a Sphinx of Magosi even though my Coveted Peacock would die; that decision proved wise when the person to my left Besmirched it, making it attack twice in the turn cycle but neither at me (since goad lasts until your next turn).

- Drafting any of the hidden agendas that make you spend mana to get effects puts a tension between them and leaving mana up for instants. Games progress too rapidly to hold up large amounts of mana for long. Desertion is amazing; leaving up five mana for it all the time will disappoint.

Conclusion

There will be loads of great high-level Magic coming your way this weekend. Whether you tune in to the coverage and watch the pros battle, or whether you didn't get enough Conspiracy: Take the Crown drafts last week and want some more, I hope you have lots of fun this weekend - there isn't a wrong answer.

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TAGS articles, draft, standard, constructed, drafting, analysis, modern, decklist, brandon isleib, 5 decks, 5 decks you'll play this weekend, five decks

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