Testing for a big event like a Pro Tour or the World Championship is always a wild ride. There's a lot of pressure and time crunch, with a desire to explore everything possible in a format clashing with the ever-present deck submission deadline looming.
Then there's always someone on the team that goes off the rails.
For Worlds this time it was Brent Vos and Eli Kassis, who were both unhappy with the flow of the normal Domain Ramp deck but very impressed with Up the Beanstalk as a card. They spent a lot of the last few days before deck submission working on this deck they dubbed "The Bean," with Eli even playing it at the World Championship!
Time Stamps:
00:04:02 - Match 1
00:54:33 - Match 2
01:10:06 - Match 3
The Bean | WOE Standard | Eli Kassis, 11th Place 2023 World Championship
- Creatures (7)
- 3 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
- 4 Chrome Host Seedshark
- Planeswalkers (2)
- 2 The Wandering Emperor
- Instants (6)
- 1 Cut Down
- 1 Elspeth's Smite
- 1 March of Otherworldly Light
- 1 Sheoldred's Edict
- 2 Go for the Throat
- Sorceries (7)
- 3 Sunfall
- 4 Herd Migration
- Enchantments (10)
- 2 Virtue of Persistence
- 4 Leyline Binding
- 4 Up the Beanstalk
- Artifacts (1)
- 1 The Celestus
While Eli only went 3-4-1 with the deck, which had him fall just short of top 8 thanks to his stellar 6-0 finish in Limited, there were a lot of interesting things going on here. While "going off the rails" isn't always going to yield good results in testing, it's also the only way to find that truly breakout deck, and there's no doubt that Up the Beanstalk is one of the most important cards in Wilds of Eldraine.
This deck takes Up the Beanstalk to the max, pairing it with Chrome Host Seedshark for a one-two punch of cards that are excellent with perhaps the best removal spell in the format, Leyline Binding. Essentially this is just a super-midrange deck based around both cards, with tons of excellent removal spells as well as powerful middle-of-the-curve threats that don't require you to play dedicated ramp cards.
With a robust mana base and multitude of potential options, there's a lot going on here and a ton of flexibility, meaning this deck can be very well tailored to different metagames. Taking the best card in the set and running with it is always a great path!