The Oddball Roundup #1

Index
Intro
Standard with Vanguard
Singleton
Tribal Wars Standard
Classic
Outro

Intro

Hi this is iceage4life and welcome to the first Oddball Roundup.  Each week I will report on the top 8 of Premiere Events in Magic Online only formats.  This means I will cover the weekly PEs for Singleton, Standard Tribal Wars, Standard Vanguard and Classic.  If Wizards holds a Prismatic event or anything else you can be sure I'll also cover that.  With the demise of online tech keeping up with MTGO formats has become harder.  Plenty of sites cover Standard and Extended but I think that having a place you can goto to read about MTGO only formats will help them grow.

I will do my best to get deck lists from players in the top 8 of events to post here.  I will also be linking decks to a stock list in the MTGO Traders database so if you want to know what a particular deck is like simply click on its name.  If you happen to top 8 one of these events please send me a message in game at iceage4life so I can get your list posted.

First some catchup, the weekend of October 20th and 21st saw Singleton, Standard Tribal Wars, and Classic events fire.  The Singleton event however disappeared from the database before I could write down the winners.  I do know there were two UGw decks in the top four along with a reanimator deck.  I won't post the Tribal and Classic results here but add them to the appropriate sections.  We are also about to start Lorwyn release events which means we will go a couple weeks without constructed events.  I hope to cover some Lorwyn sealed Premiere Events during that time.  When constructed events are back on schedule you can expect to see Roundup #2.  Before I start there is some good and some bad news.  The good news is this is much longer then most of my columns will be.  The bad news is this is much longer than most of my columns will be.  With the release of Lorwyn both Standard with Vanguard and Tribal Wars Standard are getting a shake up.  In an effort to give you as much information as I could on these changes this article ended up being epic in length. Due to this being the first article it has taken longer to put together then I hoped and I will try and make sure future articles are finished earlier in the week. So, put on the coffee, make sure your chair is comfy, and enjoy.

As has happened several times recently the Standard with Vanguard 2x on the 27th did not reach the 24 players needed to start.  Vanguard has been a format surrounded in controversy recently.  Over the summer it was dominated by two decks one using the Mirri the Curesd Avatar and the other, Oni of Wild Places.  Other decks were played but these two were the most popular and hated.  On August 30th Wizards announced changes to the Vanguard format which may be found here.  The Mirri avatar is still regarded as overpowered by many despite Wizards attempting to nerf it.  However the format is always changing partly with the addition of new avatars.  When Master's Edition was released online it only had one avatar but it is a good one.  Dakkon Bladeblade fundamentally changes the way you build your deck.  He makes it possible to play narrow sideboard cards in your maindeck as they can just be played face down as land when not needed.  I hope Lorwyn shakes things up enough that Vanguard again becomes popular and the events can fire.

Lorwyn is not only going to shake up the cardpool for this format but will also introduce two new avatars.  Everyone that joins a league or release PE will get a copy of Ashling the Pilgrim.  A 5-0 record in a league or a top 8 in a PE will snag you Mirror Entity.  Nether of these jumps out at me as an overpowered avatar but they both present some intresting deckbuild choices. 

Ashling the Pilgrim lives a dual life, her ablity to burn all creatures is a strong board control function but the fact that it also hits playersruns counter to this.  Her incresed life total does balance this out to some extent.  I can see three uses for her.  First, a burn deck where she can keep your opponent's creatures off the board and if you ever run out of gas she can help you burn your opponent out.  She could be used in a normal aggro deck as an anti-control measure.  Get your opponent low on life then use her uncounterable ablity to finish them off.  Last she could be used in a midrange deck with creatures fat enough to survive her ablity.  I think the first two options are underpowered.  Both would probably do well against a control deck but get beaten by aggro decks.  Part of the problem is her ablity is very expensive, to kill a Call of the Herd token takes six mana.  I will attempt to build a deck based around the third option, fat creatures and Ashling.  Now the creature I think would be perfect for this deck is Loxodon Hierarch sadly, he is no longer with us.

Ashling the Pilgrim Midrange

Lands - 24 3 Forest 3 Plains 2 Swamp 2 Caves of Koilos 4 Llanowar Wastes 4 Treetop Village 3 Horizon Canopy 3 Flagstones of Trokair	Creatures - 20 4 Tarmogoyf 2 Teneb, the Harvester 2 Tombstalker 4 Treefolk Harbinger 1 Deadwood Treefolk 4 Doran, the Siege Tower 4 Ohran Viper
Other Spells - 16 4 Crib Swap 4 Edge of Autumn 3 Garruk Wildspeaker 2 Profane Command 1 Summoner's Pact 2 Search for Tomorrow	Sideboard - 15 4 Damnation 3 Eyes of the Wisent 4 Thoughtseize 4 Seal of Primordium

This deck really misses Ravnica powered manabases.  The Edge of Autumn/Flagstones of Trokair combo becomes much weaker without Temple Garden and Godless Shrine to fetch.  Most Doran decks run Birds of Paradise though that would clearly not work well in this deck.  Crib Swap on the other hand is amazing, RFG any of their creatures then pay two mana to kill it.  I don't think this deck will ever be very good for Standard Vanguard PEs.  It is extremely "fair" which is something the best decks in the format are not.

The Mirror Entity avatar interests me more.  My first thought on seeing him was of the GR token decks that have gained some popularity in standard.  They use cards like Gaea's Anthem and Overrun to pump tokens made by Scatter the Seeds, Siege-Gang Commander, and others.  Using Mirror Entity in the deck lets you cut Overrun and Gaea's Anthem saving the deck seven slots.  However I had to see if the deck was viable without Ravnica.  Pulling up a stock list I see that it has only lands, Scatter the Seeds, and Fists of Ironwood from Ravnica block.  Replacing the two token generators shouldn't be too hard, the lands will be missed but a two color mana base should not be a problem.

Mirror Entity Tokens

Lands - 23 7 Forest 4 Karplusan Forest 6 Mountain 4 Grove of the Burnwillows 1 Pendelhaven 1 Kher Keep	Creatures - 26 4 Birds of Paradise 2 Boreal Druid 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Mogg War Marshal 4 Thelonite Hermit 4 Siege-Gang Commander 4 Greater Gargadon
Other Spells - 11 4 Boom/Bust 3 Garruk Wildspeaker 4 Gilt-Leaf Ambush	Sideboard - 15 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Threaten 3 Ancient Grudge 4 Eyes of the Wisent

Thelonite Hermit and Gilt-Leaf Ambush have to pick up some of the token generating slack.  Garruk Wildspeaker makes an appearance as it seems he does in every deck with green, all three of his ablities are useful for the deck.  Cutting Overrun and Anthem means Greater Gargadon and Boom/Bust can be run as 4x in the main deck.  The deck has a large weakness against Mirri the Cursed decks.  Outside of that matchup the deck should be pretty good.  This shows the problem with the Mirri Avatar, it completely shuts down any creature based stragegy.

 

 

 

 

Singleton

We had a 2x Singleton event on the 28th.  I took time during the first round to check out every deck being played to give you a more complete look at the metagame in addition to the top eight.  Below is the list of all decks played followed by the top eight decks.

UGW was the big winner from this event putting four of six decks in the top eight.  In the quarterfinals the four UGW decks were paired up so it is possible that if the pairings were different it could have done even better.  UB was the second most successful deck putting two of five decks into the top eight.  Zoo and RG aggro rounded out the top 8.  I'm light on lists for the Singleton decks but I will be adding more in the weeks to come.  Below are the decklists from the two finalists and the most successful UB control deck of the event (4th).  Thanks to the three players who shared their lists with me. 

Singleton at the moment is a pretty wide open format.  I think UGW is the best deck right now but clearly you have many other options for a compdetive deck.  The more aggressive builds of it will probably adopt Gaddock Teeg which can cause issues for the format's control decks.  Those control decks however do get Shierkmaw so that will probably balance out.  The plainswalkers are still a pretty unknown quantity at this point.  One thing that is clear is Garrak Wildspeaker is going to be insane.  Pretty much every green deck that did well in US states was running him.  Expect to see plenty of him in the months to come. 

Tribal Wars Standard

Tribal Wars Standard 2x 10-21-07

Place	Tribe	Colors	Type
1.5*	Angel	UWR	Control
1.5*	Human	UW	Control
t8	Angel	UWR	Control
t8	Wizard	UB	Control
t8	Human	R	Aggro
t8	Human	R	Aggro
t8	Human	R	Aggro
t8	Human	UW	Control

*Split finals

 

Tribal Wars Standard 2x 10-28-07

Place	Tribe	Colors	Type
1.5*	Goblins	RG	Aggro
1.5*	Humans	RW	Aggro Control
4	Elves	GWR	Mid Range
4	Humans	UW	Control
8	Humans	B	Aggro Control
8	Slivers	WRB	Aggro
8	Humans	UW	Aggro Control
8	Slivers	WRB	Aggro

 *Split finals 

We have two events and one deck that shows up in both.  Three color angels and mono red humans the big winners on 10-21 were absent from the top eight a week later.  As the event on the 28th was the last time this format will be played I did not make decklists for these decks.  After release events end and we see what is still being played and what new decks are out there I will get decklists up.

Lorwyn will shake up the tribal meta game to a great degree.  It is a tribal themed set which means any of the tribes in it will now become competitors in Tribal.  Possibly more important then that is the fact it has zero humans.  Well that is not true it has 19.  Wizards has not yet announced any special rulings on Tribal related to Changeling.  If all the Changeling cards are allowed and count towards your tribal requirement the format will look radically different.  Part of this is tribal, non-creature spells.  Black white control decks will look much more appealing with 4x Crib Swap and four Nameless Inversion cutting their creature count down to tweleve.  In addition to tribal shakeups there is also the loss of Ravnica dual lands and signets.  Honestly I think it is too early to say what the format will look like a month from now.  For now I'll just leave you with one decklist.

                                                             Mono Black Zombie Control

Lands - 24 19 Snow-Covered Swamp 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 4 Scrying Sheets

Creatures - 16 4 Graveborn Muse 4 Twisted Abomination 4 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge 4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade

Other Spells - 20 4 Profane Command 4 Damnation 4 Nameless Inversion 4 Smallpox 4 Thoughtseize

 

Nameless Inversion less you cheat on your number of creatures.  As long as you're running Inversion might as well run the Hakkon combo with it.  I was disappointed to learn that Haakon was a "Zombie Knight" not a "Human Knight".  After deciding to abandon white and Crib Swap this mono black deck pretty much built itself.  The lack of sideboards in Tribal Wars protects your Hakkon combo, making them rely on what graveyard hate and RFG cards they have maindeck.  The life loss from Thoughtseize could be a problem in a creature heavy format.  However this deck should do pretty well against creatures with Damnation, Smallpox, and the Haakon machine gun.  Graveborn Muse also hurts you so there might need to be room made for some life gain.

Personally I'm a fan of Changeling spells in Tribal Wars and hope Wizards leaves them as is.  They make control decks less creature focused which is nice as you can pack in  more relevant spells.  The UWR angel decks would have been happy to trim four or eight angels off their list in favor of more spells.

 

 

Classic

I played in the Classic event on the 21st.  I decided at the last minute to bring a GW midrange deck and finished a disappointing 3-2.  Not playing Islands in a deck clearly doesn't agree with me as this was the first 2x I played in and did not top eight.  But enough about my failures onto the top 8.

Classic 2x IPA Qualifier 10-21-07

Place	Deck	Type
1.5*	Dredge	Combo
1.5*	Mono Red Vial Goblins	Aggro
4	UGbw Tarmogoyf	Aggro-control
4	RGB Aggro	Aggro
8	1x Flash	Combo
8	Affinity with Berserk	Aggro
8	UGbw Tarmogoyf	Aggro-control
8	unknown

*Split finals

Well we have here what looks like a pretty healthy metagame.  A pair of combo and aggro-control decks and three aggro decks.  We also have six archetypes in seven decks which is impressive.  There is however a complete lack of control decks.

 

Classic 2x 10-28-07

Place	Deck	Type
1	Mono Red Burn	Aggro?
2	4 Color Landstill	Control
4	UGR Thresh	Aggro Control
4	RGB Aggro	Aggro
8	Mono Red Vial Goblins	Aggro
8	Desire	Combo
8	Enduring Ideal	Combo
8	RGB Aggro	Aggro

The big news is mono red burn finally getting there.  Mono red is a deck that is extremely popular in the tournament practice room but usually only gets four or five players in premier events.  It has made top eight once or twice before but this was the first time it had won an event.  We also see four color Landstill making its first finals appearance (congrats to my clan mate Moranl, on his first top eight!).  I didn't get a chance to ask the winner for his decklist to post but it was pretty close to the one I listed.

The other thing evident in these two top eights is a lessening of Threshold's dominance.  In weeks prior to these two events three to five Threshold decks were making the top 8.  I wouldn't count the deck out however as it is very adaptable and runs some of the format's best cards.

Classic is the format were Lorwyn cards will have the hardest time making an impact.  Access to every card online and not being forced to search for playable cards like Singleton is means it will be hard to make an impact.  Garruk Wildspeaker, Gaddock Teeg, Thorn of Amethyst, Eyes of the Wisent, Thoughtseize, and Tarfire seem to have the best shot.  If someone comes up with a solid RB goblins list for Extended using cards from Lorwyn that probably will be ported over to Classic and show up in events.

 

Outro

That about wraps things up for what I hope to be the first of many Oddball Roundups.  Release events for the next two weekends so we will be without constructed events to look at.  While we wait I might write about a Lorwyn sealed event and if not I'll see you after constructed events are back on.  Last, please let me know what you thought of this.  What do you want to see in future weeks.  More decklists, walkthroughs of matchups between popular decks?  Feel free to comment here or contact me in game at iceage4life.