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Weekly Winners (#59-56)

Plus Monthly Finals

CommunityDreamsAlong

~Top three...new decks...new decks of the week!

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Feels good to be back! With the start of Reality Fracture and the Summer behind us, Planar Standard has gone back to having three Events per week (hence the intro.) Also, there’s a website now???

The new set has completely shaken up the format, more so than any set before. This weekend contains the first weekly tournaments of the season, but the first event was actually the monthly championship! So for this post, I’ll go over each deck that one this week, and at the end I’ll cover two lists from the monthly. So let's begin!

Big Red

Ellitboz went 3-0 on Friday with Big Red, defeating Izzet Lute, Golgari "Rack," and Selesnya Kithkin. After some iteration, the deck went 3-1 on Sunday, losing to Azorius Control.

This deck is a ramp deck through and through. It plays eight ramp cards at the two drop slot, including Way of the Pyromancer, which is a literal two mana Planeswalker. Remember Wrenn and Six? These cards curve nicely into Magmatic Hellkites and Chandra, and later the deck snowballs into late game bombs. However, the real acceleration comes from a playset of the new Pyre Rhymer, who can present six mana on turn four.

A playset of Burst Lightning and No Admittance round out the removal suite. No Admittance is another new card, acting as a Lightning Strike that trades instant speed for card selection. For card advantage, the deck leans on Way of the Pyromancer and Count on Luck.

The sideboard also shows some notable meta calls, though its worth noting that it went through heavy revisions in its second run. Friday's version plays sweepers, land destruction, and a full playset of Giant Cindermaw to hate out the popular FRA Lifegain decks. Sunday's version was filled with single target removal spells for artifacts and recursive creatures, presumably to hate out the next deck on this list. Bolt Bend remains as a spicy one of, and it was even cast to redirect a Lethal Mathemagics. Holy based.

Mardu Discard

Oseorus went 4-0 on Saturday with a Mardu Discard list ported straight from SOS season with no updates. This deck swept Identity Echo, 4 color Emrakul Control, Boros Superfriends, and Azorius Control.

This archetype proved to be a menace when Secrets of Strixhaven came out, but it fell out of popularity near the end of the season. There are questions on whether it was underrated during the dominance of 4 Color Control, but its made its presence known once again. Such a tuned aggro deck is perfect at taking out developing brews and archetypes.

The archetype is primarily built around the combo between a pair of redundant playsets. Iron-shield Elf and Hardened Academic let you freely pitch cards, while Moonshadow and Marauding Mako grow as a payoff. Finally, Practiced Offense and Bloodghast act as the perfect discard fodder to add pressure.

This list is different from some of its brethren in a number of ways. For one, it plays a playset of Mardu Devotee to fix its mana and draws. It also completely forgoes the value of Monument to Endurance in favor to more cards that love to be in the graveyard: a playset of Digsite Inventory and Ancestral Anger.

The sideboard hasn't been updated for the new meta. Oseorus has said that he'd cut down on a duress. He's also explained that while the Hidetsugu's Second Rite is mostly a remnant of Open Decklist psychology, he occasionally sides it in to steal games.

Golgari

Snuggles went 4-0 on Sunday with Golgari Midrange/Control, defeating Mono White Lifegain, Azorius Control, Simic Tempo, and another Golgari Midrange deck.

Whether to call this control or midrange is up in the air. Snuggles calls it control, with a high removal count and a number of wraths. On the other hand, Brayzon played a very similar deck in the finals, and he called his list Midrange. It also plays creatures along the curve including Elegy Acolyte, which sure feels like a "Rock."

By my count there are twenty two removal spells in the main deck, three of which are Blasphemous edict. There's a playset of Witherbloom Charms, which also acts as card draw, and a three way split between Requiting Hex, End the Hunt, and the newcomer, Multiply by Zero. The most innocuous removal piece at a glance is Vraska, the Cutting Glare, which is all too often a three mana 4/4 with Vindicate stapled on. She was severely overlooked during preview season, but now stands as the strongest 4-of in the Golgari shell. The deck also mains three Duresses for hand hate, which I didn't count as removal but fills a similar slot of interaction.

The deck plays four planeswalkers, a split of Professor Dellian Fel and the new Garruk, veiled Butcher. Dellian was previously a known powerhouse without a home, while Garruk is a removal engine that can also Mind Rot your opponent as soon as it comes down.

This list has a playset of Environmental Scientist to hit land drops, and a split of Elegy Acolyte and Emeritus of Abundance to represent long-term card advantage. There's also a notable amount of utility in the land base; Kishla Village and Great Arashin City are untapped colored lands, and Secluded Starforge generates a hord of robots in the late game.

The sideboard contains hand hate and disruption, grave hate, and Withering Curse as a small-ball sweeper. It also plays two Terminal Criticisms, an oddly specific color hoser for blue and red decks.

Monthly Championship Decks

This Monthly was an incredibly exciting event, as a host brewers were trying to solve a format for the first time for stakes. Two decks finished with a total 7-1 record across the two stages. One got first place in the Swiss, and the other beat the that deck in the finals of the top eight. Both of these lists are exciting brews built around interactions from the new set.

Sultai Self Mill

Kirksat got second place in the tournament, after going undefeated in the Swiss. He brought a Sultai graveyard midrange deck, built to enable the legendary Goyf in its glorius return.

As mentioned, the catalyst for this deck is Tarmogoyf, a vanilla stats monster that counts card types among all graveyards. Without Modern's fetchlands, the Goyf needs a dedicated self mill plan to make him big. Dark Matter Manipulator is the most aggressive way to do so, as it quickly becomes a one mana 3/2. Molt tender is a dork that can mill when needed, and both Quagfeast and Awaken the Honored Dead are removal spells with self-mill stapled on. Winternight Stories and Carnivorous Cultivator are also means to get card types into the yard.

Null Summoner is a strong hand disruption creature on par with Thought-Knot Seer, and with threshold turns into a Hostage Taker. Uldaros Theorix is a game-winning bomb that plays not too dissimilar to a souped up Shiko. The deck plays one Dellian Fel and two Garrul, Curse Breaker, the latter of draws cards when you play big creatures. And yes, it works exactly how you want it to with Tarmogoyf. After that the main deck plays interaction in the form of Requiting hex, End the Hunt, and Duress.

Gruul Invigorator

Greywill placed second in the Swiss and won the whole tournament with a new Gruul Combo-Midrange deck built around Hexhaven Invigorator and Roiling Canopy. There was a lot of discussion about this shell during preview season, but it was uncertain whether it was just a meme or something real. This showing seems to prove the latter, and it even showed off a devastating turn four OTK in the finals.

Plan A is pretty simple: Ramp and color fix with Llanowar Elves, Lumbering World Wagon, and Tenured Tethermage, then play your triple pipped Invigorator and either have it fight or point a burn spell. With its trigger you grab Roiling Canopy and start pumping your creatures.

Plan B isn't much worse. You ramp, dropping cards such as beefy creatures and planeswalkers to apply pressure. Eventually you play have nigh infinite mana, and either play Improvisation Capstone for infinite value, or Fireball your opponent with Ajani's Anguish even if your Esper Superfriends opponent has the board completely locked down (yep, that also happened in the top eight.)

What makes this deck so sweet is that all of those previously threats pull double duty. Aerid Konstari ramps to capstone and is a flying threat to pump. Wagon and Tethermage ramp and fix mana while also turning into must-answer threats. Vibrance can both tutor your Roiling Canopy to hand, and damage your Invigorator to jumpstart the combo. Chandra both damages Invigorator and ramps towards capstone. Ajani's anguish damages Invigorator and also utilizes the ramp for a late game finish. You get the point. Even the dinky Llanwar Elves and Environmental Scientist act as targets for Roiling Canopy.

And that's all. This took a lot more time than expected lol. I expected someone to make some sort of write up for the top eight, but so far I've seen nothing, and I'm still meeting people who haven't heard of the results, so there you go. This format has so many ways to go, and I'm excited to see what puts in results next.

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