After featuring both Extended and Standard, I'm gonna stick with the Online Metagame to help out every MTGO player (not only of course) to predict the meta and also make the right deck choice. Here are the 2 graphics , the first one being the % of Attendance in the Top8 of the 7 Standard Daily Events held during this week on MTGO while the second is the number of wins per deck in those 7 events.
As seen last week, the 3 Top Decks remain unaltered...Wait! Do they? Fae usual dominance in attendance was usurped by Vengeant Lark while Cruel Control also made its move coming up in second with a slight advantage vs the Little Blue Creatures. In this particular series of events, Lark,Cruel and Fae combined for a 52% of the field, with Vengeant Lark coming up ahead with 27% and also with 3 WinsvsFae's 2 and WB Tokens / UW Merfolk's 1.
I'm once again using duotianshi203's list because he keeps winningDaily Event after Daily Event with it, you can check it here. He top8ed 2 of this 7 featured events and won 1 of them having also won 3 events of last's week 26. I was able to talk with him and get an interview about his thoughts on the deck,metagame,upcoming legality of Conflux in MTGO and also Sideboard changes versus the diferent Standard Decks.
;} catch(e) {}"> Duotianshi203 real name is Sun Bo. Besides being winning MTGO player, he has some previous paper Magic achievements as well, having won a bunch of PTQ's and also top4ing the 2006 GP Manila and finishing 9th in the famous 2005 GP Beijing.
Andrea:Hi, first of all congrats for all the wins with the deck,and second, why this deck?Why Vengeant Lark? Sun Bo: Because it can beat consistently all the other aggro decks such as Mono Green Elves, White Weene,Gb Elves,Wb Tokens and all other default aggros around. Also Ajani Vengeant and Fulminator Mage help you out against Cruel Control.
A: How will Conlfux impact this deck and the Standard scene? S: Banefire and Path to Exile seem like nice additions to the deck. I will probably take out the 3 main deck Flame Javelin for 3 Path to Exile and add 1 or 2 Banefire maindeck. Fae will probably be less of a All Mighty Deck, since Volcanic Fallout will be an auto include in all the red decks sideboards.
A: Will you keep playing this deck? S: Probably for another 1 or 2 weeks and then I'll try something like UW control since I really love Martial Cup.
You can also check this updated with Conflux Vengeant Lark deck that Tomoharu Saito used to win a 60-person Standard tournament.
After a lot of buzz around this deck and with Jan Ruess being a finalist with it at Pro Tour Hollywood, the deck got a little forgotten until Wake Thrasher bought it back to life in the form of a big finisher. A lot of versions also use Reveillark main deck for cheer power and card advantage but this particular list has been top8ing a couple of events per week. The deck is very sinergetic with Merrow Reejerey pumping up all your creatures and Stonybrook Banneret working as a walking affinity.
Being a Uw deck makes it harder to have disruption but the 4 Cryptic Command + Sage's Dousing + Sygg, River Guide work very well. Aided by Sower of Temptation in order to beat both aggro and control. Path to Exile may have his place here as well to remove larger blockers and just push all the Fishes in the red zone.
With the Extended version still getting a few PTQ top8s and some Daily Event wins, the Standard version lost it's combo kill with Time Spiral gone without Dakmor Salvage. But still it evolved into a Ur Control deck featuring Swans of Bryn Argoll + Seismic Assault for alternative kill.
Extended
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There where just 3 Extended events during this period wich means that its not a conclusive collection of data but either way it seems to represent whats happening around both Zoo Burn and Bitterloam, especially the way that they being tuned up to beat faeries. I want to share a couple of lists with you as well showing you some PTQ decks already with Conflux in order to get a hang at the future Extended Online.
Zoo Burn by Tiago Chan (Winning list from PTQ Porto)
Tiago Chan, after a gap year returned to the competition winning the PTQ in Porto with this Zoo Burn list. Its not diferent from the lists appearing everywhere but there is the addiction of Path to Exile to the sideboard in order to deal with stuff like Master of Etherium,Tarmogoyf,Swans of Bryn Argoll,Kitchen Finks or Burrenton Forge-Tender. Maybe it was the missing piece in order to have the next Fae Crusher!
White Weenie by Andrew Wagner ( 3th Place at PTQ Honolulu 2009 - Pittsburgh / USA )
Who loves White Weene? Seriously, who doesn't? Everyone one I know at one point in their Magic career played with a White Weenie. Who doesn't remember stuff like Land Tax or Empyrial Armor followed up by Armageddon?
Chrome Mox serves as an acceleration to pump out more guys faster and also to ramp up to a fast Kitchen Finks or Umezawa's Jitte.Path to Exile once again appears as the chosed removal allied with 2 Oblivion Ring. Wilt-Leaf Liege is an interesting card and probably a metagame choice antecipating lots of Death Clouds and Bitterloams since it can easily turn a turn 1 Raven's Crime into a lost race for your oponent.Give the deck a spin and you will probably like the result since its kind of fun to play and it can still be a very competitive deck.
Shards of Alara Block Constructed
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I mean , why? This numbers mean that when you enter an event you get almost a 50/50 chance of facing Naya in your round. I mean , don't people get tired of this?
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I don't know if someones had already come up with a name for the Naya decks that are using Broodmate Dragon but for the sake of it I'll call it Dark Naya. Besides the dominance of the WRG Shard, players are trying to come up with some diferent ideas since I've seen a bunch of homebrew decks doing well in tournaments with either some odd card choices or even just redesigning old decks.
Naya Aggro (suggested by Andrea Lassi as a potential Shards Block Deck)
One of the latest developments was adding Broodmate Dragon to the mix for either more power or card advantage in order to have an edge in the so often played mirror match.
Ajani Vengeant and Oblivion Ring work as removal while the sideboard is kind of tricky. Featuring the full set of Naturalize to deal with all the Esper Control around and Blightning working as a nice tool against most of the field. Its a nice variation from the straight Control or Aggro Naya.
I really like this list. It seems well tuned and able to get fair matchups against everything. Again Broodmate Dragon works as a finisher while Rhox War Monk can take care of the ground men or even go all the way. Tidehollow Sculler "castigates" the opponent while you use your spells and card advantage to take the game. Featuring 9 counterspells and 18 removal cards it can really be a pain either for aggro or control decks alike.
Well this was this week recap, I'll leave you a couple of videos to juice it up.
Really liked the interview, great addition to your article. I'd like one day to see you discuss in depth one particular deck, as you seem to have the knowledge and know-how to lead it to top8
Indeed but for a simple reason, The Column will have classic metagaming as well in due course but if go here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/activity/124
You can see that there wasn't any Classic Event during this "week".Wait for the next one that actually features the 4 formats.Sorry for the mistake=)
I like the article alot.
however there were classic events that week they were just not posted until the next daily decklist which covers 5 classic pe's when there are only 3 weekly. Im very interested to see what you think of classic for what ever time period you plan on covering.
Well I'm covering now that particular date of events and just saw the classic ones. I'll try to make it up in the article.I'm planning on covering always the mtgo decks of the week metagame for this 4 formats and also add in any major real life events to help mix the meta but keeping in mind that they are generaly diferent especially for classic since the card database is a lot smaller Online. But keep in mind that yours and other Classic articles will serve as base since its the format I'm least involved in. I'll try to do my best but of course await for constructive criticism.
Awesome article, I'm psyched to see your Classic coverage in the future. One thing though, do you know that Online Tech was the name of Frank Karsten's longtime column on the mothershup?
Yes I'm. Like I stated he is my favorite all time writer and I thought of this as kind of a tribute to him and to try to pick up where he stopped. I hope everyone that actuaslly read the column doesnt think Im pretensious its just a way of saying from where I got the ideia and inspirtation.
Extended
by rfeltrin (not verified)
at Wed, 02/25/2009 - 10:56
4
Great article. I was looking to tune up my extended deck when I saw that a Battle of Wits deck made Top8!!! WOW, Ben Bleiweiss must be proud of it.
Maybe I should pack more enchantment removal.......
:-)
What is up with randomly bolding every other word in the first couple of paragraphs ?
That is real strain on the eye and so easy to fix before publishing.
Well in order to answer to the last comment about the column name and to prevent further ones I wanted you to know that I do aspire one day to become a sucessful writer in this game just like Frank Karsten was or many others but by no means I wnat to take neither their place or take advantage of their work. This is my column inspired by Frank Karsten's one and if the name seems to pretensious then I'll have no problems in changing it. So let me know.
Andrea Fonseca.
I like the Naya comment, about having to face it half the time if you play. I felt that way for a long while playing Pauper when Storm ran rampant.
Good information. If you want to continue your arc of writing, I would keep working on the formatting of the page (it gets a little cluttered, perhaps use the deck beautifier in the forums here for lists) and continue working on the editing. You're obviously good with English, though I guess it isn't your first language, and since the resources aren't really available to have a person dedicating hours to copy editing on this site, it will help you a lot if you read and reread your article 10 times before you submit. Just a few tips from a real-life editor. Good work.
Thanks for the support. You're right , English is not my first language but I really try to spot any errors. I'll give an additional round of checking before submitting the following articles. I actually tried to copy thoses lists from existing articles and failed. Since I'm kind of new here I didn't now about the deck beautifur and I thank you for it.
Great work! I too was wondering where the Classic was! Understandable if you're targeting a recurring article hitting that week's info. But the other formats don't interest me at the moment (if only I could invest more $ - I'd play them all!)
I didn't read through too much of it, as I just broke away from Pauper into Classic recently. But, the inclusions (graphs, card pics, lists, video) are what intrigue me - you're setting the bar for quality articles! Appreciated!
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32 Comments
Another great article! Keep going!
Really liked the interview, great addition to your article. I'd like one day to see you discuss in depth one particular deck, as you seem to have the knowledge and know-how to lead it to top8
Nice work... AGAIN :)
I didnt see a break down of classic like the tittle said.
Indeed but for a simple reason, The Column will have classic metagaming as well in due course but if go here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/activity/124
You can see that there wasn't any Classic Event during this "week".Wait for the next one that actually features the 4 formats.Sorry for the mistake=)
No wonder something felt missing although I was very impressed. Keep up the good work anyway! U make me wanna play in one of those formats. =)
Thank you, Its a shame you don't have this kind of info for Singleton,lets hope that Wizards pays a little more attention to the format.
The interview gave a nice pace to the rest of the article.
It was choke-full with relevant information and actually helpfull.
Well done.
I like the article alot.
however there were classic events that week they were just not posted until the next daily decklist which covers 5 classic pe's when there are only 3 weekly. Im very interested to see what you think of classic for what ever time period you plan on covering.
Well I'm covering now that particular date of events and just saw the classic ones. I'll try to make it up in the article.I'm planning on covering always the mtgo decks of the week metagame for this 4 formats and also add in any major real life events to help mix the meta but keeping in mind that they are generaly diferent especially for classic since the card database is a lot smaller Online. But keep in mind that yours and other Classic articles will serve as base since its the format I'm least involved in. I'll try to do my best but of course await for constructive criticism.
Great! Anyone can take info from this, whatever format they play.
once again, 5-star
Awesome article, I'm psyched to see your Classic coverage in the future. One thing though, do you know that Online Tech was the name of Frank Karsten's longtime column on the mothershup?
Yes I'm. Like I stated he is my favorite all time writer and I thought of this as kind of a tribute to him and to try to pick up where he stopped. I hope everyone that actuaslly read the column doesnt think Im pretensious its just a way of saying from where I got the ideia and inspirtation.
Great article. I was looking to tune up my extended deck when I saw that a Battle of Wits deck made Top8!!! WOW, Ben Bleiweiss must be proud of it.
Maybe I should pack more enchantment removal.......
:-)
What is up with randomly bolding every other word in the first couple of paragraphs ?
That is real strain on the eye and so easy to fix before publishing.
I felt like plain text could be boring to read but maybe I've exagerated a bit. Noted for improvement in next Article. Thank you
Great metagame analysis. Nice job :)
I've gotta admit, you do a pretty good Karsten impersonation.
Well in order to answer to the last comment about the column name and to prevent further ones I wanted you to know that I do aspire one day to become a sucessful writer in this game just like Frank Karsten was or many others but by no means I wnat to take neither their place or take advantage of their work. This is my column inspired by Frank Karsten's one and if the name seems to pretensious then I'll have no problems in changing it. So let me know.
Andrea Fonseca.
That the column name is fine. I like it in a retro throwback kind of way. Nothing wrong with wanting to be like a successful mage either :)
Great Article,Congratulations
Your writing style is improving, but the random bolds were a clear miss.
Hope you can maintain the interviews in your next similar articles.
I like the Naya comment, about having to face it half the time if you play. I felt that way for a long while playing Pauper when Storm ran rampant.
Good information. If you want to continue your arc of writing, I would keep working on the formatting of the page (it gets a little cluttered, perhaps use the deck beautifier in the forums here for lists) and continue working on the editing. You're obviously good with English, though I guess it isn't your first language, and since the resources aren't really available to have a person dedicating hours to copy editing on this site, it will help you a lot if you read and reread your article 10 times before you submit. Just a few tips from a real-life editor. Good work.
Thanks for the support. You're right , English is not my first language but I really try to spot any errors. I'll give an additional round of checking before submitting the following articles. I actually tried to copy thoses lists from existing articles and failed. Since I'm kind of new here I didn't now about the deck beautifur and I thank you for it.
This is a great analysis, indeed. Good constructed knowledge and tips.
Great work! I too was wondering where the Classic was! Understandable if you're targeting a recurring article hitting that week's info. But the other formats don't interest me at the moment (if only I could invest more $ - I'd play them all!)
I didn't read through too much of it, as I just broke away from Pauper into Classic recently. But, the inclusions (graphs, card pics, lists, video) are what intrigue me - you're setting the bar for quality articles! Appreciated!
Great insight and article,keep going
wow great article!
Nice article =)
Keep up the good work =)
Great article! It was very helpful to prepare the upcoming PTQs.
Forgot to vote it, sorry :P
Keep doing this stuff. Those articles are what we need to improve the game.
keep it up, I'm happy to finally see Fae losing it's dominance, even tho I still say I love those lil buggers :)