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Tech Spotlight: Emeria Angel in UW Control
June 17, 2010
Shaheen Soorani talks about the 2 Emeria Angels in the sideboard of his first place UW Control list from a recent PTQ:
I thought this guy was amazing against Next Level Bant … it protects planeswalkers, it’s a win condition, it can’t be countered by Negate, it defends against Vengevine more than anything else … literally the best sideboard card against Next Level Bant, but it turns out it’s the best card in the sideboard against almost anything. The mirror boards out a good amount of removal; I board in that creature; if it is not Path’d immediately, no Planeswalker can survive, Luminarch Ascension is permanently protected, and so much more. I have boarded him in every matchup; it begs the question as to why it’s not main deck. Emeria Angel is nuts.
Mouse over the card picture below to see a larger image.
Deck Price Tag: Super Friends (UWR Planeswalkers)
June 17, 2010
In William Spaniel’s latest Standard Power Rankings, Blue/White/Red Planeswalkers aka Super Friends is the clear frontrunner with an outstanding 71.6% win percentage. It outranks the second best deck, Mythic, by more than 10 percentage points. Because of Super Friends’ success, I looked for a list to play.
I found Tomoharu Saito’s 10th place list from Grand Prix Manila. I picked his deck because he’s one of the best MTG players in the world. Also, from what I’ve read, he takes playtesting seriously so his decks are probably tuned very well.
His decklist has served me well. I’ve gone 12-4 in matches with it. The 4 Cunning Sparkmage in the sideboard may be surprising but they helped me beat Mythic and Luminarch Ascension from GWB Junk.
Let’s see how much this deck costs.
Deck Price Tag: LSV Turbo Land
June 17, 2010
I’ve already written a quick strategy guide for LSV’s TurboLand deck, so let’s look at the price tag of the deck based on eBay prices.
As of today (June 17, 2010), Oracle of Mul Daya is only $1.03, Avenger of Zendikar is $2.95, and Lotus Cobra is $10.06. I think these cards are great investments to pick up in preparation for the Standard format in October when Shards of Alara block and M10 rotates out. These cards were played in many of the top Block deck lists in the Pro Tour San Juan. The top Block lists are good to examine to see what kind of decks will be played in Standard after a rotation.
There’s a really good chance the prices of these cards will rise so get yours now to save money. Lotus Cobra has an especially big upside. It was a 4-of in many of the Pro Tour San Juan decks. I could see it easily reaching $20-$30.
Here are the other card prices along with the total deck price.
Tech Spotlight: Necrogenesis
June 14, 2010
Vengevine got you down? Xue Tong Du used 2 Necrogenesis from the sideboard of his Jund deck to deal with the green mythic rare permanently. He got 18th place out of over 1000 people at Grand Prix Manila yesterday.
Not only does Necrogenesis stop Vengevine but it combos well with Garruk Wildspeaker and Sarkhan the Mad. Jund has a lot of removal and Blightning. You can turn your opponent’s dead or discarded creatures into 1/1s and then use Garruk’s third ability to wreck your opponent. Or you can turn the 1/1s into 5/5 dragons with Sarkhan’s second ability.
Mouse over the card pictures below to see larger images.
LSV’s Turboland Deck List
June 13, 2010
Luis Scott-Vargas (LSV) did well in yet another premier MTG Standard tournament. Yesterday, he got 2nd place in the StarCityGames.com Open in Seattle, a tournament with over 250 players. He played a rogue deck called Turbo Land that will probably increase in popularity because of his finish.
TurboLand is a combo deck. Basically, you use mana ramp spells and Oracle of Mul Daya to play a lot of lands. Jace TMS’s -0 ability works with Oracle to make sure you have lands on top of your library. Time Warp allows you to play even more lands. The blue sorcery is especially broken with Oracle. Mind Spring helps you find more combo pieces. And Avenger Of Zendikar wins you the game once you have a bunch of lands on the battlefield.
Here’s the decklist.
Deck Price Tag: Next Level Bant by Brian Kibler
June 9, 2010
Brian Kibler added to his Magic The Gathering resume with a 1st place finish at Grand Prix Sendai last weekend. The standard tournament had over 900 players and he took home the trophy with an innovative take of the Next Level Bant deck.
The archetype is still pretty new but I think it will gain popularity not only because of Kibler’s win but also because other top players did well with it. 2005 World Champion Katsuhiro Mori and last year’s Player of the Year, Yuuya Watanabe, played similar lists in the tournament. Watanabe got sixth place and Mori got 40th place. All three players were undefeated in day one (first nine rounds).
Let’s look at how much the deck costs.
Deck Price Tag: Vengevine Naya (Standard)
May 18, 2010
Vengevine Naya is my favorite new deck because it’s still under the radar and not as expensive as popular top decks like UW Control, Super Friends (UWR Planeswalkers), and Mythic Conscription.
Also, it did well last weekend at Nationals Qualifiers. Over 10 players qualified with it. One player who has been winning a lot with the deck on Magic Online says it doesn’t have any bad matchups expect Time Sieve.
Vengevine is great against Jund because you can discard it to Blightning. Before Rise of the Eldrazi, Jund had a good matchup against Naya but Vengevine makes the matchup closer. Also, Vengevine is good against Wall of Omens, planeswalkers, and mass removal like Day of Judgment. These cards have become popular.
I’ve chose the deck Gavin Verhey played, which was built by GerryT. I like his version because it only plays two non creature spells main deck to maximize Vengevine. Most of the time Bloodbraid Elf will trigger the green mythic rare.
Deck Price Tag: Grixis Control (Standard)
May 16, 2010
As a new feature, I’ll be figuring out the price tags of winning decks. I’m curious to see which decks are good bargains and which ones are super expensive. Hopefully, this feature will help you as you choose a deck to play and buy and trade MTG cards.
The first deck is Grixis Control. I used today’s eBay prices from Black Lotus Project. Updated on 6/9/10: We have a new program that calculates the deck price tags using the latest eBay price guides from MagicTraders.com. This means the deck price tags change everyday to reflect the latest card prices. Learn more about our program.
Grixis Control Deck (1st Place and 7th Place Finish)
May 16, 2010
If you’re looking for a strong Standard deck that’s under the radar, you might want to consider Grixis Control. This deck has a 1st place PTQ finish.
The decklist I’ll be examining has done well in two premier tournaments on MTGO (Magic Online). The player with the user name Money got 1st place on May 11 and 7th place on May 13. He used the same deck in each tournament.
Here is his list.
Mythic Conscription With 4 Dauntless Escort
May 13, 2010
I think one of the best decks in Standard is Mythic Bant with Sovereigns of Lost Alara, Eldrazi Conscription, and Dauntless Escort. Sovereigns and Conscription gives you a game winning combo at six mana that can’t be chump blocked like Finest Hour and Rafiq of the Many. For six mana, you get a 4/5 creature and give another creature +10/+10 and trample. That’s a really good deal. Plus, Sovereigns can’t be killed by Lightning Bolt like Rafiq.
Some people are still playing Rhox War Monk but Dauntless Escort is much better unless you have a lot of Red aggro decks in your metagame. Dauntless Escort stops Day of Judgment, which is good against the deck and is widely played in the white control decks like UW and UWR. Plus, Escort protects the most important creature on the battlefield. This creature could be the one enchanted with Conscription, Sovereigns, Baneslayer Angel, or Knight Of The Reliquary. Oftentimes protecting a key creature is enough to win the game. For example, it’s hard to lose versus Jund if you keep Baneslayer alive. If you haven’t tried out Escort in the main deck, you should. He single-handedly makes Mythic Bant much better.
This deck is doing well with two PTQ wins already. Here is a list that got 1st place last weekend. That deck is very similar to Matt Sperling’s 1st place deck from two weekends ago. Matt saw a successful list from German Regionals with the Sovereigns + Conscription combo. He added the Escort tech.
Below is Matt’s winning deck.
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