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Main » Articles » April MTGO PTQs

April MTGO PTQs

Jarvis Yu
Posted on April 23, 2012
 Reddit

Last weekend, there were two Magic Online Standard PTQs. While Delver made a tremendous showing, there were still surprises to be found.

April 14’s PTQ had two hundred forty-nine players. Its Top 8 comprised of four U/w Delver–Stalker, one U/w/b Delver–Stalker, one W/b tokens, one G/r aggro, one U/w/b control (and no countermagic anywhere).

The winner was Griffim3 with U/w/b Delver–Stalker.

"Griffim3 with U/w/b Delver–Stalker"

There’s a lot going on in this list. He hybridized the Lingering Souls variant and the Invisible Stalker/Runechanter's Pike variant. Disperse is a more versatile (but more expensive) Vapor Snag against Equipment and planeswalkers. To make room for both Geist of Saint Traft and Lingering Souls, his cantrips are four Ponder, one Gitaxian Probe, and three Thought Scour. I'm not sure I necessarily agree with this, but he did play twenty-two lands to compensate for the lower cantrip count, and Thought Scour has great synergy with Lingering Souls, Moorland Haunt, and Runechanter's Pike. One Dismember over one Gut Shot makes a lot of sense when you have black mana in your Delver lists.

Sideboarded, he still has the Jace, Memory Adept, which I don't really agree with unless you expect a lot of U/B control—it does not line up very well against Esper control with Lingering Souls. I also feel that Divine Offering is mostly worse than Steel Sabotage since the life-gain from Divine Offering is offset by the mana efficiency of Steel Sabotage. All things considered, this is a pretty good deck to choose to play for any tournaments before Avacyn Restored is released.

"Craigtsn with B/W tokens"

This is the kind of deck that U/w Delver variants need to prepare for. All of their cards are armies in a can, which can prove extremely difficult for Delver to beat without Ratchet Bomb (and to a lesser degree, Corrosive Gale). I would like to see two Evolving Wilds over two Plains to assist in the black splash for Vault of the Archangel and Go for the Throat to go to a total of ten black sources. His sideboard choices seem somewhat odd. Three Celestial Purge in particular seems like a lot. Nihil Spellbomb is presumably for the French Unburial Rites deck, since they come out very quickly against you with an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or Inferno Titan. Shrine of Loyal Legions and Timely Reinforcements are quite powerful since this deck has the best Timely Reinforcements in the format.

Bing Luke has made the Top 8 of all three Magic Online PTQs so far with a list I've been advocating:

"Bing Luke with U/w Delver"

He changed one Thought Scour to one Faith's Shield for the two most recent PTQs, and it has been stellar for him. Obviously, this deck is extremely solid, although Avacyn Restored will probably hurt the deck quite a bit against Ramp. Runechanter's Pike is among the weaker cards in the deck, so I can see playing a third Sword of War and Peace over it.

For the April 15 Magic Online PTQ, there were three hundred two players, and the Top 8 consisted of three U/w Delver, two U/w/b control (one with Mana Leak and one without), one G/r aggro, 1 U/B Heartless Architect, and 1 R/G Ramp.

MajicRare was the winner with G/r aggro:

"MajicRare with G/r Aggro"

Mana creatures are so important to this strategy that there is a ninth mana creature that essentially taps for colorless (Avacyn's Pilgrim). The split of Swords is to hedge against the field and to account for the fact that the same Sword has diminishing returns if you draw multiples. He eschews Brimstone Volley for the much more mana-efficient Galvanic Blast, which I approve (since you do want a low curve against Delver decks).

I am a bit surprised there is no Acidic Slime in his maindeck instead over Viridian Corrupter, but again, it is a metagame call. The most exciting cards in his sideboard are Increasing Savagery, Phyrexian Metamorph, and Garruk, Primal Hunter as one-ofs—they also have diminishing returns.

Increasing Savagery is for the Ramp matchup since it lets you sneak in a lot of damage very quickly. Phyrexian Metamorph has all sorts of uses, including copying Batterskull (you can still return it to your hand as well!) and any irritating legendary creatures (Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, I'm looking at you). Garruk, Primal Hunter is a solid threat to resolve against control decks since it lets you grind the opponent out through Day of Judgments.

Cedric Phillips, who wrote a very solid article this past week on StarCityGames about this list, Top 4’d with R/G Ramp:

"Cedric Phillips with R/G Ramp"

It's a pretty much generic ramp deck, right? Not quite! As far as I know, John Cuvelier (aka Gosu.) on Magic Online designed this list, and it has a lot going for it. The two-four-six paradigm is emphasized with the full boat of Sphere of the Suns and Rampant Growths as well as the full boat of Solemn Simulacrum. Four Slagstorm and two Whipflare means he is very prepared to just trade one for one against Delver variants (since all you really need is time).

Glimmerpost means you can safely tap out for Primeval Titan if you are at a low life total (since you fetch two Glimmerposts to gain at least 4 life). Huntmaster of the Fells is honestly not that great in this deck most of the time, but you still want access to two of them. Devil's Play has all sorts of uses in this deck—it functions as a removal spell when you need it to, and it also lets you just Blaze your opponent out when you are in the late game with a ton of lands out.

Viridian Corrupter is a cheap answer to artifacts here, and it also supports your poison theme with Inkmoth Nexus. Beast Within is a versatile answer to irritating creatures (see Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite again) and planeswalkers. Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger is one of the best trumps in the mirror match as well. Karn Liberated is a great one-of (since you really don't want to draw two).

Brendan Hurst (who rarely plays Magic Online) decided to pick up this list (with the only change being −2 Dismember, +2 Combust) to a Top 4 finish in the April 21 Magic Online PTQ as well. The deck is very impressive, and if you do not want to play Delver, this seems to be one of the best ramp lists out there to play, and it only increases in strength with the release of Avacyn Restored.

Another interesting deck is Lucindo's U/w/b control with no countermagic in its main:

"Lucindo’s U/w/b Control"

This deck probably doesn't weather the release of Avacyn Restored very well since there will be an uptick in Ramp strategies, and this sort of deck is traditionally weak to Ramp. That being said, there are some interesting design choices here as a Sun Titan control deck. Dead Weight has great synergy with Sun Titan since a Sun Titan trigger allows you to put Dead Weight on the battlefield attached to a Geist of Saint Traft or Dungrove Elder.

Ratchet Bomb, Oblivion Ring, and Phantasmal Image are both very good with Sun Titan as well. Evolving Wilds helps the mana base a bit (before Dark Ascension, these strategies had somewhat awkward mana bases). The cutting of countermagic also makes a lot of sense in a field of U/w Delver since Mana Leak is not really what you want to be doing as a control deck against them.

With Avacyn Restored right on the horizon as another large set (244 cards), there will certainly be shakeups in Standard with a reasonable number of high-impact cards. However, there's no reason to reinvent the wheel completely, so the above decklists seem to be good starting points for any decks you would like to build for the PTQ season. I'm not totally sure that Delver is dead due to Cavern of Souls—it might just morph into a more aggressive deck with fewer counterspells and more ways to just temporarily take out creatures. Ramp is definitely a big winner, though, so be prepared to innovate ways to defeat the deck full of Titans.

It'll be an exciting PTQ season, and best of luck to all of you in any tournaments you choose to play in.

As usual, I welcome any constructive criticism here or on Twitter @jkyu06.

 

P.S. I found a decklist for Zombie Pod (played by Morgan Douglass, former GP Top 8 competitor).

"Morgan Douglass with Zombie Pod"

This deck looks extremely fun to play, and it has a reasonably good matchup against Delver.

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, magic online, ptq, review, analysis, modo, jarvis yu, magic online ptq, modo ptq

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