A New Standard

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

The first large Magic: the Gathering tournament, after Friday's release of the new Aether Revolt set took place in Columbus, hosted by StarCityGames.  As in previous years, many players look to the early results from Columbus to evaluate how the the early standard constructed format may evolve over the next several weeks.  This particular tournament is also noteworthy as it is also the first major tournament after the much-discussed banning of the very popular (and arguably over-powered) Smuggler's Copter and Reflector Mage.

So, how did hundreds of gamers battling for over $8,000 in prizes adapt to the new environment?  Perhaps not surprising, many were playing the new two-card combo of Saheeli Rai and Felidar Guardian, and had also prepared sideboard (or mainboard) answers to this threat, either by playing against the anticipated field or by anticipating numerous mirror-matches.  In fact, 25 of the top 64 decklists (or ~ 40%) contained these card pairings.

The final form of the combo had two very similar iterations within the top 64 -
• 12 decks of Four-Color Saheeli, and
• 13 decks of Jeskai Saheeli

Watching coverage whenever we had a chance over the weekend, we did note how popular both Torrential Gearhulk and Verdurous Gearhulk had become.  Good luck finding these cards still 'in stock' on line or at your local gaming store.  

The final Top 8 looked like this -
1st - B/G Delirium, Brennan DeCandio
2nd - G/B Aggro, Stephen Dykman
3rd - G/B Aggro, Andrew Skorik
4th - G/W Tokens, Hunter Nance 
5th - Four-Color Saheeli, Robert Graves
6th - Four-Color Saheeli, yler Hill
7th - Jeskai Saheeli, Daniel Fournier
8th - Mardu Vehicles, Derik Malenda

We personally very much like the G/B Aggro use of Winding Constrictor, Walking Ballista and other synergistic cards to grow (or remove) threats, but have planned our first decklist to take to Friday Night Magic to be something else altogether.  

We took an immediate liking to Metallic Mimic and have found inspiration from MTG writter and player Adam Yurchick to put to good use in a tribal Humans list.  Adam did place 43rd during SCG Columbus with a W/R Humans, which is our direction as well but we are torn by the dicision as to stay with White Red or perhaps attempting a White Green list.

Perhaps the way forward with Humans is going Green White or splashing Green for a three colour Naya list with such cards as the very likable Renegard Rallier ?

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Eldritch Moon Standard

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Happy Saturday MTG peeps,

The the newest Magic: the Gathering set, Eldritch Moon, now joining standard format, fans are now looking to see just what sort of an impact this will have with the first big tournament.  

This weekend, Columbus hosts the StarCityGames Open Weekend, where many will attend but only a few will prevail to shape the evolution of standard format over the next months.  Here at MTG Realm, the current decklists of our playgroup will be modified every so slightly with new Eldritch Moon cards but no big changes are anticipated just for the moment.  

With each new standard season, we look to the largest card shop in Japan, Hareruya (@hareruyaEnglish), and the wildly popular suggestions of #KenjiWayfinder as a way to peer through a crystal ball into the potential future of standard constructed.  Undoubtedly, the tournament in Columbus taking place right now as we write the article will have a few of these lists on the game tables.

The proposed decklists also serve as a sounding board of sorts to determine whether similar ideas we've spawned are all that off the mark.  Anywhoos, here is the offerings provided - 

Deck1 "Deploy the Gatewatch"

Deck 2 "Spirit Company" (shown below)

Deck 3 "Splendid Reclamation"

Deck 4 "Emerge Green"

Deck 5 "UB Zombie"

Deck 6 "Eldritch Evolution"

Deck 7 "UR Puzzle"

Deck 8 "Mono Black Vampire" (shown below)
 

Deck 9 "Naya Legends"

Deck 10 "RG Token"

Deck 11 "Jeskai Moon"

Deck 12 "GW Stitcher's Graft"

Deck 13 "Abzan Delirium" 

 Previously printed cards such as Rattlechains, Reflection Mage, and Collected Company support an essentially tribal spirits list - love this list.  We've had restricted ourselves to U/W and think the green splash for CoCo and Tamiyo Field Researcher well worth the third colour.

 

A handful of skeletons and vampires take a supporting role in this build which is all about churning out a massive volume of zombie tokens.  The MVP here is Liliana, the Last Hope, whose ultimate is a game-changer.

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