Pro Tour Amonkhet

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Pro Tough Amonkhet took place in Nashville over the weekend, and what the processional players took to battle gave us a bit of a surprise.  

We were expecting a field mostly dominated by Mardu Vehicles and Temur Aetherworks.  We were not expecting a strong showing of Zombie decklists this last weekend.  Although there were a handful of White / Black Zombies, most were mono-black.

Some rough numbers here which speaks onto the current standard meta-game. Here are the Decklists with 6 or more wins -
43 Aetherworks 
33 Zombie 
29 Mardu Vehicles
9 GB or Temur Energy
4 U/R Control
1 Abzan Tokens

Here are out Top 8 players - congratulations to all.  Also very happy to see a list from Ken Yukuhiro, who did very well with a B/G Energy list against both Zombies and Aetherworks.

1st Mono-Black Zombies Gerry Thompson
2nd Temur Aetherworks Yuuya Watanabe
3rd B/G Energy Ken Yukuhiro
4th Temur Aetherworks Martin Muller
5th B/W Zombies Chris Fennell
6th Temur Aetherworks Marc Tobiasch
7th Mono-Black Zombies Christian Calcano
8th Temur Aetherworks Eric Froehlich

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Amonkhet Post Copy Cat

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Before we get into today's post to the MTG Realm Blog, we do want to give a shout-out to Wizards of the Coast.  Specifically, our appreciation for including a copy of every token, and the Gideon Emblem in the Amonkhet Bundle.  This, including a copy of each of the full-art Amonkhet lands provide additional value to the Bundle, and we hope will, in turn, generate increased sales for WotC.

Righto - back on track now.

We should like to yatter a bit about the new standard constructed format with the addendum or as some players have called it 'emergency' banning of Felidar Guardian.

With the one side of the 'Copy Cat' Saheeli Rai / Felidar Guardian card banned on Wednesday, it may have been simply not enough time for Magic: the Gathering players attending the first big tournament, StarCityGames Atlanta, who were planning on bringing the Saheeli combo to change up and get any serious playtesting.

As a result, it was not much of a stretch of one's imagination that the number two decklist Mardu Vehicles dominated the game tables during the second day of SCG Atlanta.  This was the list to beat, and it certainly is safe for the first few weeks to have an aggressive list.  Of the 116 players making it to Day 2, some 28 of those players were relying on Mardu Vehicles to get them to the finish line.   Here are two of the decklists from the Top 8 crowd - the winner Andrew Jessup's Mardu Vehicle list, and Brennan DeCandio's B/G Delirium list.

We suggest you may want to read the post 'Day 2 Metagame Breakdown' posted by Nick Miller, to get a snapshot of the standard constructed environment early in the season.

One our our first decklists we want to try is something similar to Zach Stern's White / Red W/R Humans, but perhaps a bit more spicier given the local metagame at our LGS, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario.  

We will, of course take all cues provided by our hero Craig Wescoe, whom we are certain share a penchant with us for small dudes going sideways into the red zone.

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Kaladesh WR Vehicles

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

This past weekend marks the first large Magic: the Gathering Standard constructed tournament after the official release of the newest set, Kaladesh.  Heading into the StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Indianapolis it was pretty safe to assume the following :
• After rotation, the new standard would lean towards a more aggresive build, and
• The new Kaladesh theme of 'vehicles' would make a splash.

General assumptions were correct.  Day two of the SCG Indy saw a good number of Aggro builds of various flavours and Smuggler’s Copter could be seen on most game tables.  It would be useful to pop on over to see the Day 2 Metagame Breakdown By Nick Miller linked over here.  Here are the more popular successful lists - 

R/B Aggro – 17 decks
W/R Aggro – 10
B/G Delirium – 10
W/R Vehicles – 8
Bant Aggro – 6
G/W Aggro – 5
B/U Zombies – 5
Mardu Aggro – 5
G/W Tokens – 4
U/W Spirits – 4
U/W Control – 4

Here are the Top 8 players from the weekend - 

1st W/R Vehicles Chris VanMeter
2nd Grixis Emerge Zach Voss
3rd G/B Delirium Abe Schnake
4th R/B Aggro Jacob Hagen
5th W/R Humans Donovan Lachney
6th W/R Aggro Mike Kenney
7th W/R Vehicles Devin Koepke
8th W/R Vehicles Jacob Baugh

Look for the W/R Vehicles Deck Tech with Kent Ketter posted by Nick Miller to get a good look at how this emerging archetype works.  Here is Chris VanMeter's W/R Vehicles list which took first place -

Creatures (21)
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Toolcraft Exemplar
4 Veteran Motorist
3 Depala, Pilot Exemplar
2 Pia Nalaar

Spells (15)
3 Fleetwheel Cruiser
4 Smuggler's Copter
2 Harnessed Lightning
2 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
4 Declaration in Stone

Lands (24)
6 Mountain
10 Plains
4 Inspiring Vantage
4 Needle Spires

Sideboard
3 Weaver of Lightning
4 Galvanic Bombardment
2 Skywhaler's Shot
4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

2 Fragmentize

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New Eldritch Moon Standard

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

The dust has settled on the weekend's StarCityGames Open Tournament in Columbus, Ohio and the results are in as to how the newest set of Magic: the Gathering, Eldritch Moon has impacted standard format.  From the 120 decklists going forward on Sunday, it appears that although there is still a measure of variation required for a healthy format, Bant Company was a clear winner as shown below in the top eight deck archetypes.

Bant Company – 34
U/W Spirits – 18
Bant Humans – 10
W/R Humans – 7
B/W Control – 6
U/R Eldrazi – 4
G/B Delirium – 4
G/W Tokens – 3

The best card in standard appears to the anchor of the Bant Company decklist, Collected Company.  This card got a lot better with the addition of Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Spell Queller which provides a volume of control in this list.  Thalia slows down your opponent a titch while Spell Queller can now exile key components such as Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, members of last season's strong list G/W Tokens.  Here are the top 16 finalists for the SCG tournament in Columbus.

Bant Company 1st Devin Koepke
Sultai Control 2nd Ali Aintrazi
Bant Company 3rd Kyle Boggemes
G/W Tokens 4th Eric Rill
Bant Company 5th Dan Jessup
G/R Goggles 6th Matthew Voltz
B/G Seasons Past 7th Kasey Walton
B/W Angel Control 8th Ronnie Ritner
G/W Tokens 9th Andrew Boswell
Bant Company 10th Tom Maney
G/W Tokens 11th Chris Robinson
W/R Humans 12th Tom Ross
U/W Spirits 13th Jeff Hoogland
Bant Company 14th Jack Fogle
W/R Humans 15th Todd Anderson
Bant Company 16th Chris Andersen

Given the new powerful cards such as Mausoleum Wander (buff and instant / sorcery counter), Selfless Wanderer (saving your bacon from a board-wipe) and Spell Queller (jack of all trades remoal) we were expecting to see a strong presence in the top 8 of U/W Spirits.  These lists did do decent going forward to day two, just not quite across the finish line, which indicates to us that perhaps fine-tuning against Bant Company may be all that is needed.  The format is still very young and what is certain is the evolution of strategies.
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Standard Metagame

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

Next Friday - Friday the 13th, promises to deliver a bunch of fun at our local gaming store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario, Canada-Land.  Here's a quick look at what to expect if you are dropping by -

There is to be an appropriate Triskaidekaphobia Challenge, where the player with the most kills (oponent or self) with triskaidekaphobia at the end of the night will receive 13 Shadows over Innistrad Boosters.  Brilliant!  In addition to this, MTG Realm is also providing some very sharp looking gaming accessories from Ultra PRO - specifically, a Macabre Waltz Play Mat as well as matching Arlinn Kord / Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon deck sleeves and box.

If you are not opting to bring along a decklist to win the Triskaidekaphobia Challenge, then we will draw your attention to a good article today by Brandon Isleib over on Gathering Magic.  Off the top, this is a handy comparison table showing the popular standard decklists before and after the Pro Tour, based the breakdown of Magic Online League decklists.

Those prevalent Mono-White and White-Blue humans are still making the list as before the PT, but we are witnessing a healthy diversification now.  Pop on over to Channel Fireball's Power Rankings to see and anticipate the shifting power of individual cards.  Bant Company and Green-White Tokens have taken top spots for now but can they hold on for the next several weeks?   For now, here are the normalised metagame lists from MTG Goldfish for the top dogs.

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New Standard Metagame

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We've completely missed posting last week and even missed the Shadows Over Innistrad PreRelease Event at OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario as we were under the weather.  Sad Panda.  Do not fret however as we are certainly back in the seat this week.  As is custom here at MTG Realm, we were able to get off an unboxing video of a Shadows Over Innistrad Fat Pack, and WOW, we had some decent pulls.  Look for that short video on YouTube over here.

Anywhoos, we want to yatter about the brand new world that is standard format.  Whereas we feel that the last block, Battle for Zendikar may have had a bigger splash for Modern players (corrected with the recent banning of Eye of Ugin), this new set, Shadows Over Innistrad, has indeed made a big impact on standard format.  Let's have a brief overview of just how Magic: the Gathering players took this new set to task with the first large event after release - StarCityGames.com Standard Open Baltimore.

Day Two metagame from 134 players

W/U Humans – 23
W/B Midrange – 15
Bant Company – 13
G/R Eldrazi – 11
W/B Eldrazi – 10
Esper Dragons – 7
W/G Humans – 7
R/W Eldrazi – 6
G/W Tokens – 5
Mono-Red Eldrazi – 4

The Top 16 decks -
Place / Deck / Player
1st Bant Company Jim Davis
2nd Mono-White Humans Kellen Pastore
3rd W/B Eldrazi Eric Hymel
4th U/R Control Todd Anderson
5th W/B Midrange Blake Conti
6th W/U Humans Collin Stiles
7th W/U Humans Christopher Juliano
8th W/G Humans Dwayne Graham
9th W/U Humans Brennan DeCandio
10th Bant Company Kevin Jones
11th Bant Company Dan Jessup
12th W/G Humans Jacob Hagen
13th W/B Eldrazi Michael Majors
14th W/U Humans Emma Handy
15th Esper Dragons Ali Aintrazi
16th Mono-Red Eldrazi Mat Bimonte

Top Cards / Card / Copies / Decks
1 Declaration in Stone 145 67.19%
2 Knight of the White Orchid 119 46.88%
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 113 56.25%
4 Archangel Avacyn 98 57.81%
5 Thraben Inspector 74 29.69%
6 Thought-Knot Seer 74 29.69%
7 Reflector Mage 72 28.12%
8 Thalia's Lieutenant 70 28.12%
9 Hangarback Walker 68 29.69%

10 Transgress the Mind 63 34.38%

We also suggest that you pop on over to Gathering Magic and get a fuller picture with Nick Vigabool's latest artilce on the 'Standard Snapshot', post Shadows Over Innistrad.

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Post OGW Standard

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Now that the newest Magic: the Gathering set, Oath of the Gatewatch, is joining standard constructed format, what are players gaming with?  During Friday Night Magic at OMG! Games on the weekend, it was pretty much what participants had built before the release.  

Certainly, there were some new cards on the tables like Reckless Bushwacker with lists featuring Monastery Mentor, but on the whole, the local community is still finalising their lists or taking a 'wait and see' approach for the new metagame.

For those waiting to see what develops, the first major event after the release was the StarCity Games Open Atlanta event this last weekend.  If interested, we suggest to pop on over to see Nick Vigabool's post to Gathering Magic over here to get the Standard Snapshot : First look at oath of the Gatewatch.  In it, we can see a rather healthy and developing standard format with 17 different archetypes across 32 decklists.  Pop on over for a summary of the SCG Atlanta Day 2 metagame breakdown on StarCity Games

For now, here are the Top 8 finishers -

1st Korey McDuffie Atarka Red
2nd Chris Brickey Mono-Green Eldrazi
3rd Gerry Thompson Jeskai Black
4th Andy Ferguson Abzan Company
5th Marcel Strautz R/B Dragons
6th Dalton Ozmun U/R Prowess
7th Joe Lossett Five-Color Bring to Light
8th Willie Porges Abzan Blue

Here at MTG Realm, we are most definitely fond of rogue decks going against the grain of the metagame and trying out a number of the more exciting new cards to explore their potential. To this end, we want to express our admiration to Christopher Brickey who ran a Mono Green Eldrazi build which had this absolutely wonderful gameplay with 3 copies of Bane of Bala Ged on the field against Korey McDuffie's Atarka Red list.

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Ctrl Alt Retreat

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

We were most excited to see what would shake out of Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar last weekend in Milwaukee the other weekend, but must sadly admit that we were hoping with more cards from Battle to Zendikar.  Instead, very few of the new cards just did not quite make the cut - instead, as our very favourite MTG personality Evan Irwin commented in the last 'The Magic Show' (linky here), the tournament was essentially Khans Block Abzan versus Jeskai.  To demonstrate, check out this very handy list of decklists posted by The Planeswalker Pantheon :

 

Yep, Atarka Red, Dark Jeskai, Selesyna Megamorph and so on - pretty much everything we had before, just tweaked every so little with many packing Surge of Righteousness in their lists to nerf Siege Rhino or Mantis Rider.  We agree - all ho-hum.  BUT - stop the press - Did you see what list took 4th Place in last weekend's TCG Player Standard States 2015 - Michigan ?

Something called 'Retreat Control' played by Eric Thomasma.  Something fresh, new, and with a high number of new Battle for Zendikar Cards !

Sure, it has a full book set of Siege Rhino, but after that - DANG! - 32 Lands, 12 Retreats and 3 Oblivion Sowers - wow.  Here at MTG Realm we freely admit of not being the brightest or best at this game, so we will direct your attention for the article by Joshua Claytor over on Legit MTG to get the diggity-doo on this list.

We had a weakness for Herald of the Pantheon since it was previewed and quickly acquired a deckset, but unfortunately never found an appropriate home for this spell - perhaps with Eric's, or Joshua's solidly proposed modification, we can Control (alt) Delete our opponent during the next Friday Night Magic event at OMG! Games here in Barrie.

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mtgGoldfish

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Goldfishing: Playing a solitaire game of Magic. Used to work out the tempo of the deck and to look for issues with mana and win conditions. The name stems from the notion that you play against your pet goldfish, who does nothing.

There is an online tool we've been using quite a lot.  This is a website where we check popular cards, popular decks / strategies then hit the drawing board to create our new weapon and make purchases at MTG Mint Card or actively look for a trade.  This online resource is mtgGoldfish.

This site has been online since about 2012 and it provides you with an understanding of the online economy for Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO) using price lists, historical pricing data, pricing trends and metagame analysis. We particularly are very interested in what what decklists are delivering results on MTGO to determine which 'rogue' strategies are performing well or contrariwise, take an opposite approach and see what we need to play successfully against those popular builds which will (without fail) make it to the tables at our card shop during Friday Night Magic.

We suggest you check out mtgGoldfish and perhaps if you like what you see, get the premium membership or drop some change in the tip jar because you likely know the crazy server costs involved in keeping a site floating

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Modern Metagame

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Since the release of Modern Masters, the resultant 'Modern Week' on the mothership, and the Grand Prix Los Vegas over the weekend, most Magic: the Gathering players have their heads in Modern format.  Before we get any further, we ant to congratulate Neal Oliver who had won with a UWr build at GP Vegas. GP Vegas was a Modern Masters sealed tournament and although attendance was capped at 4,500, it was no problem sending this tournament into the record books as the largest trading card tournament ever held.  Kudos to the event organizer, Cascade Games as well as the small army of MTG Judges who made everything run smoothly.  We suggest you check out this post to the mothership by Nate Price and our buddy James Arnold.

Anywhoos, onto today's topic - the Modern Format Metagame.  We don't play modern nearly enough as we would likely to but we can offer up some general observations of what we consider to be the next most fun format right after EDH / Commander.  There's a great variety of very kewl builds out there that we've seen and have played against at our kitchen table as well as our local gaming shop, OMG! Games, but we can probably take a stab at nailing down the top five more popular builds we've seen as shown here:

Melira Pod, WBG : Featuring cards such as Birthing Pod, Kitchen Finks, and Birds of Paradise

Jund, BRG: Featuring cards such as Liliana of the Veil, Dark Confidant and Thoughtseize

UWR Control, WUR : Featuring cards such as Snapcaster Mage, Electrolyze and Lightning Helix

Gruul Zoo, RG : Featuring cards such as Kird Ape, Goblin Guide, and Tarmogoyf

RG Tron, RG : Featuring cards such as Chromatic Star, Chromatic Sphere and Sylvan Scrying

We here at MTG Realm have a few different builds going in our playgroup with RStomp usually playing an Infect build, JD playing BW tokens, RetroTech playing Combo-Elves, and yours truly (CopySix) playing a G/W hexproof or mono-white Soul Sisters.  Drop us a line in the comment thingy - what Modern tech are you playing?
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Post DKA MetaGame

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

First up - we want to let you know that our B/W Token build (featuring Sorin 2.0 and mad token generators) that we showed you in Thursday's post performed not too badly during the Friday Night Magic tournament at OMG! Games here in town. First match we won 2-0 against a black-red build, second match we won again 2-0 against a blue-red Delver variant, and in the third match we lost 2-1 against a Solar Flare build. We loved that the deck was not only fun to play but competitive as well.

Speaking of competitive, we should speak onto the big tournaments this past weekend - namely the StarCity Games Open Series in Cincinnati as well as the ProTour Dark Ascension in Honolulu. We realise that this is a casual Magic the Gathering blog with focus on standard constructed but one is well served to see what the 'Pros' are doing as their strategy and tech will show up in one form or another at the Games Store or at the Kitchen table. Anywhoos - let's have a look at the past weekend -

StarCity Games Open Series in Cincinnati, Ohio - Top 8 Breakdown -
4 U/W Delver, 2 Wolf Run Ramp, 1 U/B Heartless Control, 1 Tempered Steel

Nolen Lauren - SCG Champion - U/W Delver Standard Deck

23 Lands : 9 Island, 1 Plains, 4 Glacial Fortress, 3 Moorland Haunt, 4 Seachrome Coast

13 Creatures : 4 Delver of Secrets, 2 Dungeon Geists, 4 Snapcaster Mage, 3 Geist of Saint Traft

26 Other Spells : 1 Dismember, 2 Gut Shot, 4 Mana Leak, 1 Mutagenic Growth, 3 Thought Scour, 4 Vapor Snag, 4 Gitaxian Probe, 4 Ponder, 1 Runechanter's Pike, 2 Sword of War and Peace

Sideboard : 1 Timely Reinforcements, 2 Celestial Purge, 1 Dungeon Geists, 1 Faith's Shield, 2 Oblivion Ring, 2 Dissipate, 2 Divine Offering, 1 Sword of Feast and Famine, 2 Ratchet Bomb, 1 Revoke Existence

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Pro Tour Dark Ascension Honolulu - Top 8 breakdown -
4 U/W Delver, 3 Wolf Run Ramp, 1 Birthing Pod

Brian Kibler - Pro Tour DKA Champion - Standard Wolf Run Ramp

5 lands : 4 Copperline Gorge, 5 Forest, 4 Inkmoth Nexus, 2 Kessig Wolf Run, 6 Mountain, 4 Rootbound Crag

16 creatures : 1 Acidic Slime, 1 Birds of Paradise, 4 Huntmaster of the Fells, 2 Inferno Titan, 4 Primeval Titan, 3 Solemn Simulacrum, 1 Thrun, the Last Troll

19 other spells : 4 Galvanic Blast, 2 Green Sun's Zenith, 4 Rampant Growth, 4 Slagstorm, 4 Sphere of the Suns, 1 Whipflare

Sideboard : 2 Ancient Grudge, 1 Autumn's Veil, 2 Beast Within, 2 Combust, 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter, 2 Karn Liberated, 2 Naturalize, 2 Thrun, the Last Troll, 1 Whipflare

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Lastly, Valentine's Day is right around the corner . . .

and nothing says 'I wub U' more than getting that special someone some Magic Cards. Here's something interesting from the folks over at MTG Mint Card -

Roses are red, violets are blue, the perfect deck for Valentines day?
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