Grixis Control Deck with Chandra, the Firebrand and Sorin’s Vengeance
December 8, 2011 | Posted by Dee
Patrick Chapin predicted that there would be a Grixis deck in the post-Worlds metagame. He compared the deck to Five Color Control. You have to adapt it each week to keep up with the metagame.
Timothy Jansen built a Grixis Control deck that’s similar to Chapin’s list from Worlds. However, it has some key differences that make it better in the current metagame.
Last weekend, he played the deck to an eight place finish at the Starcitygames Standard Open in Saint Louis. Check out his list below.
Green/White (GW) Tokens Tech: Mutagenic Growth
December 6, 2011 | Posted by Dee
Green/White Tokens was the most popular deck at Worlds with close to 17% of the field. However, its win rate was only 48.60%.
The players at Worlds were ready for the deck. They understood that Birds of Paradise and Avacyn’s Pilgrim were very important to the deck so there was a lot of cheap removal spells to stop the mana creatures on turn one.
For example, the second and third most popular decks were Illusions and Mono Red Aggro. Both these decks match up favorably against turn one mana creatures. They both play Gut Shot and Mono Red also has Geistflame and Galvanic Blast.
Fabian Thiele found a trump though. He predicted that those cards were going to be prevalent so he cut the Overruns and replaced them with Mutagenic Growth. This phyrexian mana spell was really good for him. In his tournament report (premium article), he said it helped him win five out of the 11 games he won.
Check out his decklist below. He went 5-1 in the Standard rounds of Swiss.
UWR Control From Worlds: Played by Two Respected Pros
December 1, 2011 | Posted by Dee
The best performing Standard deck at the 2011 World Championships was a Blue/White/Red Control deck. It had a 66.67% win rate, but you may not have heard of it because it was only played by two players.
In total, they only played 12 matches, which is a very small sample size. They may have just gotten lucky. However, I believe the deck is pretty good because the two people who played it were Gerry Thompson and Michael Jacob, two respected pros.
Also, the deck made top eight in a Premier Event on Magic Online last Friday.
Check out Gerry Thompson’s list below.
Video: Value Bant Pod Vs. Delver Illusions
November 26, 2011 | Posted by Dee
Here’s another video with Value Bant Pod. I played against Mono Blue Delver Illusions in a Standard Daily Event.
This was the fourth match. We were both 2-1 so the winner of the match got six booster packs and the loser got nothing.
I think Delver Illusions is a favorable matchup. So far, I’m 5-2 against it with Value Bant Pod.
Check out the video below to see how my match went. I also included my decklist for reference.
Video: Value Bant Pod Vs. Red Deck Wins
November 25, 2011 | Posted by Dee
Here’s a video of a match I played from a Daily Event last week. I played Value Bant Pod against Red Deck Wins, or Mono Red Burn Aggro.
At first, I thought Red Deck Wins would be a really tough matchup because they have a ton of cheap removal for Birds of Paradise and Avacyn’s Pilgrim. Also, paying life for Birthing Pod is not good against burn.
But after playing a couple matches, the matchup doesn’t seem so bad. Viridian Emissary and Blade Splicer are excellent blockers to stop fast starts. Also, there are great anti-red sideboard cards. So far, I’m 5-3 against Red Deck Wins.
Check out the video below to see how my match went. I’ve also included the Value Bant Pod decklist for reference.
Mono Blue Delver Illusions Deck
November 23, 2011 | Posted by Dee
Mono Blue Delver Illusions was a deck that got some hype right before last week’s 2011 World Championships.
Based on these power rankings, it did well on Magic Online and it had a big increase in popularity. I jumped from 3.5% of the metagame to the most popular deck at 15% in just one week.
Also, on Starcitygames.com, Todd Anderson wrote an article about the deck. He said it was one of the best Standard decks he’d played in a while.
By the time Worlds rolled around, many pros had jumped on the Illusions bandwagon. Illusions was the second most popular Standard deck with close to 16% of the field.
Here is a list played by Thoralf Severin. He went 5-1 with it in the Standard swiss rounds.
Wolf Run Ramp With a Ton of Burn Takes Down Worlds 2011
November 21, 2011 | Posted by Dee
Junya Iyanaga dominated the 2011 World Championships last weekend by reading the metagame perfectly and building a Wolf Run Ramp deck that preyed on all the aggro creature decks in the metagame.
He took out the planeswalkers and replaced them with burn spells. Also, he played a full set of Inferno Titans instead of Wurmcoil Engine. The red Titan is so much better against Oblivion Ring, Fiend Hunter, Vapor Snag, and Delver of Secrets. These four cards have risen in popularity.
Check out the winning decklist below.
Grixis Control With Olivia Voldaren (Chapin’s Standard Deck From Worlds)
November 19, 2011 | Posted by Dee
Update December 8, 2011: Here’s an interesting Grixis decklist that got top eight at a big Starcitygames tournament. It plays Chandra, the Firebrand and Sorin’s Vengeance.
MTG pro and deck building expert, Patrick Chapin, brewed up another winner in this year’s World Championships. He went 5-1 in the Standard swiss rounds with a Grixis Control deck featuring Olivia Voldaren.
He also plays underrated cards like Precursor Golem, Desperate Ravings, and Shimmering Grotto.
Check out his deck list and deck tech video below.
UW Humans Deck (Haunted Humans)
November 15, 2011 | Posted by Dee
The 2011 Magic World Championships starts in two days and I bet many of the pros are scouring the internet looking for a good Standard deck. One of the decks they’re probably considering is Haunted Humans, or the UW Humans deck with Moorland Haunt.
This deck has posted decent results. Currently on TCGplayer’s Standard page, Haunted Humans is one of the top five decks based on the number of top finishes.
Here’s a decklist from this archetype that looks pretty good. Two days ago, it got 6th place in a seven round Standard tournament on Magic Online.
Value Bant Pod 1.1 (Includes Sideboard Plans)
November 13, 2011 | Posted by Dee
I started testing Value Bant Pod on Magic Online. My previous testing was all on Magic Workstation (MWS).
MWS is good because you can play online and you don’t have to pay for the cards. However, there’s nothing on the line when you play. As a result, many people play mediocre decks just to test them out. Also, players often leave after game one so you don’t get to play post-sideboard games.
On Magic Online, there is money on the line. It attracts better decks and players so you can see how good your deck really is.
I was happy to find out that Value Bant Pod could hack it in a more serious tournament environment. So far, I’m 18-10 (64.3%) with the deck in 2-Player Events. I also went 3-1 and won six Innistrad booster packs in my only Daily Event.
I’ve changed three cards in the deck and I worked on sideboard plans. Check out the latest version and sideboard plans below.
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