There is a singular truth about competitive Magic: every format sucks. At least, this is the perception that you would gain from reading the plethora of Magic The Gathering forums on the interwebs: "This format is too diverse, there is no way to metagame!", "This format is too constricting, there is no room for design!", "This format is too big, there is no way to accommodate budget players!". Someone hates every format, and that is pretty much rule number 1.

Me, I love Block Constructed; it is a relatively small format, which gives room for development over design, and provides those players who want an edge the opportunity to create one. Being less than half the size of Standard, there are traditionally approximately half the high-tier decks in a given ebb and flow. In the previous and current Type 2 there are many different viable archetypes: Faeries, GB Elves, BGW Doran, UW Merfolk, UWr Reveillark Combo, RB Tokens, URb Aussie Assault, RG Mana Ramp, UBxxx Toast, RG Aggro, etc. These decks are all at different levels on the competitive hierarchy, but all have done very well at high level events including various Grand Prix, Pro Tours, and National Championships (at the time of writing this, the only National Championship to have been played out is the Australian).

In Block this is not the case. Sure there are outliers, there are decks which spike in popularity over a period of a week or two; but a season is three months of intense homogenization: All will crumble before the singular metagame. Currently Eventide is not legal for play in Block, and we experience a reasonably closed metagame; there are five decks which really seem to have either dominated or have potential to expand in the coming weeks.

These decks are:

• Faeries (averaging 50% of top8s and about the same percentage of Blue Enveloped)
• Kithkin (A distant second place)
• 5 Colour Elementals
• Commandments/Toast Variants
• GB Elves/Rock Variant

Of these only two have had unequivocal success in the format: Kithkin and Faeries, and this has led people to complain that the format is too rigid, unshakeable, there is no room for design and innovation. This is a perfect metagame for me.

I am a deck developer, not so much a deck designer; I take established decks and I flip-turn them upside down. This is the beginning of my Project 2308.

On August 23^rd, my region will hold its one and only Pro Tour Qualifier for Berlin, which makes it very important to be certainly prepared for this singular event, as it's the only shot we have to make it to the big show. This event is doubly vital as our PTO has unofficially announced that he will be stepping down with Shards of Alara as he will no longer have the profit-making abilities afforded by Prereleases in order to outweigh the expenses he suffers to run PTQs. Now, there is a good chance we will have another PTO step into the role quickly, but until that happens, this is my last PTQ without having to drive 8 hours to Montreal. That is why for this PTQ I am putting in more time, more thought and more effort into performing well than I have in a long time.

This voyage starts as any should: knowing where you are. Without being fully aware of your environment there is no telling where you will end up. I will take this time to run down the most successful decks in Lorwyn/Shadowmoor Block constructed and give sample builds based on research. Please note, these are not my personal decklists, these are lists generated from PTQ top8s and winners.

Faeries

Faeries is the singular threat of the metagame, and no wonder! Look at this masterpiece, there is disruption, countermagic, tempo, card advantage all wrapped up in a deceptively aggressive package. This is a deck that can take its sweet time and play the long game, or it can go balls out and race Kithkin with its Bitterblossom tokens and Scion of Oona.

Gavin does something that hadn't been explored fully before this point: He preboards for the mirror. In place of the standard Broken Ambitions and Ponders that had been running around Faerie decks in the month before this event, Gaving runs a full playset of Thoughtseize and a pair of maindeck Peppersmoke. This is incredibly ballsy as many players and pundits have suggested that it is unfeasible to play both Thoughtseize and Bitterblossom together as they add up to too much life loss for any deck, let alone a control deck. Gavin proves them wrong handily with his successful run at the blue envelope in this 79 player PTQ.

Gavin's sideboard is interesting as it has a very unique take on what is important in the metagame: His 3 Faerie Trickery are a concession to the fact that he is somewhat weak against the more traditional control deck with his lack of overwhelming countermagic, while he sideboards in a single Consign to Dream as a misers out against Doran, the Siege Tower. I respect his sideboard as it really shows that Gavin knows what is important, and he has a plan against those things that he feels could beat him.

Kithkin

I wanted to post two lists of Kithkin for a couple of reasons: firstly, I wanted to demonstrate the evolution of the archetype over the past 6 weeks. As the season went on, people started to take notice of the effects that were important in Kithkin, the reasons the deck was winning, and the ways to make those effects more valuable. The GP deck from Tian is very rough compared to the later PTQ deck: It runs only 2 Mirrorweave and runs zero Burrenton Forge-Tender maindeck, it runs two Militia's Pride, a full playset of Oblivion Rings and 3 Surge of Thoughtweft where the later deck runs only a pair of Oblivion Rings from that entire suite.

The other thing that is specifically noteworthy between the two lists is the manabase. Szoke is running 26 lands including 4 each of Windbrisk Heights and Rustic Clachan, while Tian is running just 24 with only a pair of Rustic Clachans and two Mutavaults. I would suggest that Szoke made the correct move by taking out the Militia's Prides for more lands, giving the deck a much better end game, and more stability getting to heavy mana costs early in the game. Other than Szoke's Forge-Tenders their creature bases are not particularly noteworthy, and I would suggest that while Szoke's deck is clearly better in the current metagame, that is a case of development providing the opportunity for continued success over the course of a long and hostile block season.

Six Commandments

Toast was the standout innovation from PTQ Hollywood, both in the Standard and Block portions of the event. With the capacity to cast virtually any combination of cards thanks to its robust 5 color mana base, I would argue that this is as good as domain has been in Magic's history. The effects that you are splashing for are incredibly potent, and you are reasonably consistent at acquiring both GGGG for Cloudthresher and UUU for Cryptic Command while having access to great effects such as Austere Command and Makeshift Mannequin. This is a deck that looks a lot better on paper than it has been performing, and the number one reason for this is that it lacks any reasonable amount of pressure against the Faeries, and their tempo-oriented effects trend more powerful than Toast's.

My issue with Toast is that for all of its mana and all of its broken effects, it doesn't do anything. It is a very distant third in PTQ top8s, and has only two wins out of the many PTQs that have been held in the last six weeks. The deck runs all of the best cards in the format, Cloudthresher, Kitchen Finks, Cryptic Command, Shriekmaw, Firespout; and yet it suffers from failure to launch. Against Faeries, this deck seeks to trade one-for-one with Shriekmaw evokes and Broken Ambitions until it can land an opportune Cloudthresher and clear the Faerie's board. The primary fallacy in this gameplan is the presence of Bitterblossom in the format, really stealing the eventual inevitability that Toast otherwise possesses. The deck is really incapable of dealing with Blossom on turn two, and even if it does manage to stick a Cloudthresher, odds are good that it won't perform the necessary task of keeping a Mistbind Clique off the table thanks to the non-creature status of the Tribal Enchantment – Faerie.

The deck has plain strategic issues against the best deck in the format, and while it has a strong plan against both Elementals and Kithkin decks, there remains a basic benchmark for performance, and being able to at least reasonably defeat Faeries is perhaps the number one requirement for competitive viability. This is not to say that Toast cannot defeat Faeries, it certainly can, it just requires some very strong play, some mistakes, and/or some luck. Betting on one or all of these things happening might be a little risky in this format, where you are going to be facing your worst matchup an average of four times in a seven round PTQ. If you know the deck inside and out, have the skill to truly make all of the right plays and feel you have a solid grasp on the faerie matchup, then certainly this is a great choice for the PTQ season, but otherwise I would hesitate to suggest Toast, as most average players will be unable to really understand the subtle nature of the deck.

Elementals

Ah, the red-headed step-child of Toast, 5 Colour Elemental Control has all of the trappings of a junk deck, paired with the hap-hazard combo elements of a mid-range lark control deck. This is a bit of an underdog in this metagame, running fourth in PTQ top8s with only a solitary win to its record, this deck is picking up steam while Toast appears to be stagnating. Having been the posterboy for metagame diversity early on in the metagame, there seems to have been little hurrah about it even after it won this PTQ nearly three weeks ago. Brian's win was relatively recently (inside of the second month of PTQs), and while it might just portray a changing of the guard, I certainly would not bet my hard-earned cash on it. The top 8 of this event features a paltry 3 Faerie decks and the conceptual Solar Flare deck by Pat Chapin. Certainly a win is a win, and there is no denying that this was the correct choice for the event, I would hesitate to base my decisions on what could easily be an outlier.

This is a deck with a lot of strengths, being capable of some incredibly powerful plays including turn three Horde of Notions, or turn three Mulldrifter. Unfortunately for Elementals, all of these incredibly powerful plays really depend exclusively on the survivability of Smokebraider, a 1/1 for 1R that acts as a pseudo Priest of Titania in the early game, and can easily push the deck into phase three before some decks (*cough*toast*cough*) can even get to phase two. Here's the rub: Smokebraider is the exact same size as Scion of Oona, everyone already knows you have to be able to kill Scion of Oona, and so they are packing effects that can kill a Scion of Oona! If your oppoent has Peppersmoke, do you think they are going to not use it on your Smokebraider? Most players this far into the season understand how important he is to the Elemental plan, and will do their best to kill him on sight. The difficulty with this is that without Smokebraider Elementals is just a really consistent mid-range deck with some fancy footwork thanks to Incandescent Soulstoke.

Being able to Soulstoke out some big guys is a great feeling, and while I definitely respect that man's power, I certainly don't think a 2/2 sneak attack with summoning sickness is a reasonable basis for a deck. I think that Elementals might be better served focusing away from being POWERFUL and move towards being RESILIENT. I'm not sure what needs to take place for this to occur, but I am interested in seeing how Elementals pans out as the season continues.

Elves

If there was a dark horse in this metagame, I would imagine that GB Elves is it. Being capable of running a long-term gameplan alongside a brutally efficient aggressive early game: having early Vanquishers and Kitchen Finks paired with late game Chameleon Colossus and Scarblade Elite action gives the deck the kind of one-two punch that perhaps has been missing from this metagame for the first few weeks of Block play.

It doesn't have the combo finish of a Kithkin deck of the insane opens of an Elemental deck, but it does have a clear plan against everything, and it is relentless in its pursuit of the W. I just want to mention the main piece that is missing from this build: Imperious Perfect. It seems very odd to me that a deck which runs 8 2-mana elves and 8 4-mana elves would eschew the elf that runs very plainly between them. Now, it does this on the basis of Murderous Redcap/Shriekmaw/Kitchen Finks being indispensable, and taking up spots that might be taken up by the 3 mana 2/2.

I really appreciate this dedication to defeating Kithkin, as Murderous Redcap and Kitchen Finks truly provide a lot of edge in that matchup. I would contend that in this particular deck, it might be more beneficial to have Imperious Perfect in the deck for its potency against Bitterblossom (making 2/2s each turn is a bit better than making 1/1s), but this guy made his choice and made top8 in his PTQ. Who knows what he could have changed in order to win, but four Faerie decks in the top 8 and the PTQ being won by Little Kid GW aggro, perhaps he miscalculated a little.

These are the five decks that I am currently very interested in looking at, and while I am aware that Toast is clearly evolving into Solar Flare, and that there is a tier 2 Mono Black Control deck working its way through many different PTQs to date, I feel that until next time, these are the five decks to watch out for, and should form the basis of your Gauntlet.

Other considerations for your (and my) testing gauntlet include:

I hope this brief glance at the Block Metagame six weeks into the season will help you prepare for your PTQs, and next time I will bring you some preliminary results from my testing and some cards and effects that I believe will have an impact (dramatic or otherwise) on the format.

Thanks for your time,

Matthew Henderson

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