UW Delver, Still a Very Good Deck for Standard
March 12, 2012 | Posted by Dee
UW Delver hasn’t received a lot of press since Dark Ascension was released. Dark Ascension spawned a good number of new decks and players love new decks, so much of the attention was turned away from older decks.
But make no mistake, UW Delver is still a top deck even though it barely got anything from Dark Ascension.
Matt Costa took the deck to a top eight finish at Pro Tour Dark Ascension. Then, he won Grand Prix Baltimore. This tournament was three weekends ago, but just yesterday someone went 4-0 in a Daily Event on Magic Online with Costa’s exact list.
Check out his decklist below.
Havengul Lich Infinite Mana Combo Deck
March 8, 2012 | Posted by Dee
Over the last couple of days, rinazina from Magic Online has done well in two Daily Events with a funky looking Grixis Havengul Lich Combo deck.
His deck uses Havengul Lich, Heartless Summoning, and Priest of Urabrask to generate infinite mana. With Havengul Lich and Heartless Summoning on the battlefield, Priest of Urabrask costs 1R to cast from the graveyard with Havengul Lich’s ability.
It enters the battlefield and adds RRR to your mana pool, so you get a profit of one red mana. Then, it dies because of Heartless Summoning’s -1/-1 ability so you can recast it again from the graveyard.
You can do this process a bunch of times to generate a lot of mana and then kill your opponent with a big Devil’s Play. The more common kill condition is actually Perilous Myr because it’s more flexible. With this artifact creature in the graveyard and Havengul Lich and Heartless Summoning on the board, everytime you spend one mana, you can deal two damage to a creature or player.
Check out his decklist below.
UB Zombies Goes Undefeated in a Grand Prix with Over 1,500 Players
March 5, 2012 | Posted by Dee
Richard Parker made a case for UB Zombies not only being a tier one deck, but the best deck, by dominating the 1,505 player field in Grand Prix Lille this past weekend.
With only one bye, he won 12 matches in a row before intentionally drawing twice to reach the top eight. Then, he swept the elimination rounds to win the tournament.
Check out his decklist below.
Naya Pod Update with Sideboard Plans
February 27, 2012 | Posted by Dee
Last month, I started testing Naya Pod with Dark Ascension cards on Magic Workstation. It was testing well so I was excited to try out the deck on Magic Online.
So far, I’ve been happy with its performance. I’ve won 15 booster packs in 20 matches and my win rate is 70%.
The core of the deck is the same, but I did make some changes to make the deck better for the metagame.
Here’s my latest decklist.
5-Color Reanimator (70% Win Rate at Pro Tour Dark Ascension)
February 25, 2012 | Posted by Dee
So far, Dark Ascension looks like a great success. It changed up the Standard environment without introducing cards that are too powerful.
Because of the set, new archetypes have gotten a big upgrade. Zombies is now a contender. Birthing Pod is having a resurgence because of the undying mechanic. BW Tokens arrived as a new deck. Delver players found a new way to build the deck by adding Lingering Souls and Drogskol Captain.
Also, don’t forget about reanimator decks. With Faithless Looting and Tracker’s Instincts from Dark Ascension, you get two great cards that dig into your library to find Unburial Rites and put powerful fatties in your graveyard.
Hall of Famer Raphael Levy and other players put these two cards to work along with Mulch from Innistrad and created a reanimator deck that did very well at Pro Tour Dark Ascension. The four people who played the deck went a combined 24-9-1 for a 70% win rate.
The deck is named Frites, which is short for French Rites. Check out the decklist below.
BW Tokens Deck by a Hall of Fame Player
February 21, 2012 | Posted by Dee
Black/White (BW) Tokens was less than 5% of the metagame at Pro Tour Dark Ascension so I figured many people would put away their Ratchet Bombs. BW Tokens looked like it had a favorable matchup against Delver decks and those decks showed up a lot on Magic Online.
Honor of the Pure or Intangible Virtue plus Midnight Haunting or Lingering Souls can take down two flipped Delvers. The 2/2 Spirit tokens are also great at trading with Drogskol Captain and Geist of Saint Traft. I found a decklist from the Pro Tour played by Hall of Famer, Rob Dougherty. He did well in the Standard rounds with a 7-2-1 record so I tried out his deck.
Check out Rob’s deck tech video and decklist below.
Mono Black Zombies Almost Gets Top 8 in a 636 Player Field
February 18, 2012 | Posted by Dee
Steve Walsh barely missed out the top eight of last weekend’s Starcitygames Standard Open in Cincinnati. Out of 636 players, he had to settle for ninth place because his tiebreakers were short by a miniscule .0358%.
He played an interesting Zombie deck with Altar’s Reap for card draw and Phyrexian Obliterator as the main four-drop. I’ve been testing the deck and it has performed well.
Check out his decklist below.
Jon Finkel’s 3rd Place Spirits Deck With Delver
February 16, 2012 | Posted by Dee
Team Channel Fireball’s Huntmaster Wolf Run Ramp deck was the deck of Pro Tour Dark Ascension since it took the top two spots. Close behind is definitely Jon Finkel’s 3rd place Esper Spirit Delver deck.
Not only did the deck get a top four finish, it put another Hall of Famer, Jelger Wiegersma, in the top eight. Also, it earned at least 18 points (60% win rate) for five other people in the Swiss rounds.
I like the deck because you get the speed of a Delver deck while having staying power to win the mid game against other creature decks because of the Spirit midrange cards (Lingering Souls, Drogskol Captain, and Dungeon Geist).
Check out Jon’s deck tech video and decklist below.
Huntmaster Wolf Run Ramp Wins the Pro Tour (Includes Sideboard Plans)
February 13, 2012 | Posted by Dee
Team Channel Fireball dominated yet another Pro Tour by putting three players in the top eight of Pro Tour Dark Ascension. This time they also got the top two spots. Brian Kibler and Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa (PV) battled in the finals to determine the champion.
They played the same deck, Red/Green (RG) Wolf Run Ramp with 4 Huntmaster of the Fells. The only difference between their lists was one card in the sideboard. PV had 1 Combust and 2 Garruk, Primal Hunter while Kibler had 2 Combust and 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter. In the end, Kibler won the 74 card mirror match to win his second Pro Tour.
Check out his winning decklist below.
A Mono Black Deck with 4 Skirsdag High Priest Did Well at the Pro Tour
February 12, 2012 | Posted by Dee
One of the most surprising decks that did well at Pro Tour Dark Ascension is Jasper Johnson-Epstein’s Mono Black Aggro deck with 4 Skirsdag High Priest. He called the black creature the centerpiece of the deck.
He went 7-2-1 in the Swiss rounds of Standard. That’s definitely a very good record for a rogue deck and for someone playing his very first Pro Tour.
The deck also relies on a couple Dark Ascension cards so if you want to see brand new powerful black cards in action, try out the deck.
Here’s the deck tech video and decklist.
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