Ravnica Allegiance Standard

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

This very weekend, Magic: the Gathering players will be vying for glory at their local gaming stores around the globe in Ravnica Allegiance pre-release events.  The set appears to have all the correct successful ingredients and something for every fan, no matter what their favourite format - Commander, Standard, Modern, or limited.  

Suggested reading ahead of this weekend's event is the Ravnica Allegiance pre-release primer, from Gavin Verhey as well as the Ravnica Allegiance Release Notes, posted to Wizards of the Coast Daily MTG page today.  As an side-note, we had seriously misunderstood a particular card and now clarified, it may now be one of our favourites in the set.

Anywhoos, let's get on to today's topic - post Ravnica Allegiance Standard format. As the official previews were under way, it had become evident that (1) Riot was a particularly good mechanic, and that (2) Gruul Spellbreaker & Rhythm of the Wild is a solid card.  As a result, we expect a lot of the early decklists will lean towards Aggro and specifically these cards.  Just be cautious of cards, now being splashed with the improved mana-bases that threaten to put a damper on your Simic 'Adapt' or Gruul 'Riot' tech, such as Suncleanser.

Also of note - the much anticipated HareruyaWayfinder 晴れる屋 deck suggestions have been posted to Hareruya should you want to either confirm your similar build or looking for a direction.  Here are the creative offerings :

• Deck 1 Rakdos - Good Stuff - By Grzegorz Kowalski
• Deck 2 Rakdos - Aggro - By Christian Hauck
• Deck 3 Rakdos - Theatre Burn - By John Rolf
• Deck 4 Gruul - Almost Mono Green - By Javier Dominguez
• Deck 5 Gruul - Midrange - By Lee Shi Tian
• Deck 6 Gruul - Riot - By Immanuel Gerschenson
• Deck 7 Azorius - Control - By Luis Salvatto
• Deck 8 Esper - Control - By Marcio Carvalho
• Deck 9 Temur - Prime Speaker Vannifar - By Lucas Esper Berthoud
• Deck 10 Bant - Midrange - By Piotr Glogowski
• Deck 11 Izzet Living End (Modern) - By Pascal Vieren
• Deck 12 Light Up the Burn (Modern) - By Jason Chung

• Deck 13 Pteramander Delver (Legacy)  - By Jason Chung

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Dominaria Standard

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

It is Friday (finally), and beginning at midnight tonight and running ALL weekend long at our local gaming store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, is the much-anticipated Dominaria PreRelease weekend. RawR! / w00t!  Magic: the Gathering players will be cracking packs of the newest set, and getting down to serious fun.  

Although we are looking very much forward, our format of choice is not really sealed but standard.  Going forward for at least a few more weeks of Friday Night Magic (yeah! FNM promos are returning on April 27th), we will still be armed with our existing Standard decklists while we collect the cards we new for the new season.  

One build which was early on our radar was a Red / White (Boros) 'Voltron' list.  The name 'voltron' essentially means using a select number of creatures which may provide some benefit when you equip them with artifacts, or enchant them with auras.  The creature card which captured our imagination in the new Dominaria set, to put us on this path generated a 3/1 elemental token with trample and haste every time you equipped or enchanted it.  Here is the back-bone of this list :

Champion of the Flame - pumped about it
Sram, Senior Edificer - keep the peddle down
Danitha Capashen, Paragon - discounts
Valduk, Keeper of the Flame - those lovely tokens

We will need to think more about what auras and equipment we like best with this mix, but for now, we were very happy to see the HareruyaWayfinder "Dominaria" posts which went up today.  Here, the Hareruya Magic: the Gathering Pros provide suggestions to you, the deck-builder, as to how one may go forward.  Here is the article link, and here are the lists :

STANDARD
• Deck 1 : Mono Green Ghalta, Grzegorz Kowalski

• Deck 2 : Yawgmoth's Vile Offering, Yoshihiko Ikawa
• Deck 3 : Djinn of the Vehicles, Luis Salvatto
• Deck 4 : Powerstone Shard, Javier Dominguez
• Deck 5 : Song of Freyalise, Marc Tobiasch
• Deck 6 : The Antiquities War, Kenta Harane
• Deck 7 : Blue Sky, Thiago Saporito
• Deck 8 : RB Midrange, Petr Sochurek

• Deck 9 : Historic Vehicles, Christian Calcano
• Deck 10 : UW Control, Oliver Polak-Rottmann

• Deck 11 : GW Legends, Pierre Dagen
• Deck 12 : Goblin's Gift, Kenji Tsumura

MODERN
• Deck 13 :  Fecundity Goblins, Yuuta Takahashi

LEGACY

• Deck 14 : Precognition Tide, Yuuta Takahashi

Good Luck and have fun this weekend !
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Double Explore

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

Some interesting things to discuss.  Since Rivals of Ixalan was released, the MTG Realm play group has pulled a deckset of Jadelight Rangers.  As you may know, this Merfolk has a CMC of 3 (1GG) for a 2/1 body but 'Explores' twice.  

Nope - that was not a stutter - it explores twice, which reminds us of Yosemite's HungerBear (Double Rainbow guy) appreciating the prismatic doubleness.

Did you just stutter ?

Jadelight Ranger, illustrated by Jason Rainville

One of our favourite Magic: the Gathering lists in standard before it rotated out was Hardened Scales.  We would LOVE to get this band back together again with Jadelight for some casual kitchen table fun.  For standard FNM play however, we had not anticipated building with the card for a number of reasons - it had become a rather popular card and in tandem, the price had matched the demand. 

Price is not a consideration now that we have our copies (we also want some for a a Commander build with Prime Speaker Zegana).  Where to start however ?  The best synergies is likely paired with Winding Constrictor for double (double) the fun for a explore / +1/+1 counter theme.  We do love our themes, perhaps an unhealthy volume as we normally defer to theme over the competitive-ness of a list.

Anywhoos, we have rough-draft distilled a core to include the following - 

• Shadowed Caravel
• Jadelight Ranger
• Merfolk Branchwalker
• Seekers' Squire
• Wildgrowth Walker
• Winding Constrictor

We'll be spending the weekend with a coffee / tea and touching a whole lotta cardboard while the winter storm blows outside.  Sounds great to us.

Should you have suggestions with Jadelight, drop a comment  or a link to your list below.
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FNM B/W Vampires - 1st Place

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We have some news we are happy about from the Friday Night Magic event at OMG! Games Barrie.  Before we get to that, a quick look at the week two metagame evolution with results from this weekend's SCG Classic in Philadelphia.  Here are the Top 16 Standard Classic Decklists :

1st Mono-Red Aggro Aiden Brier
2nd Mardu Vehicles Robert Stanley
3rd UW Eternalize Austin Herrick
4th Grixis Energy Tomas Hoffman
5th Grixis Improvise John Hughes
6th G/R Monsters Kevin Michael
7th Grixis Control Nicholas Ailes
8th U/B Midrange Benjamin Ragan
9th Jund Midrange Craig Rocco
10th Grixis Control Andrew Lopez
11th Grixis Energy Kevin Jones
12th B/R Aggro Aaron Schwarcz
13th R/B Aggro Ryan Carey
14th U/B Control Jacob LeJeune
15th Mono-Black Aggro AJ Kerrigan
16th Mardu Vehicles Joshua Schaffer

Still nicely diverse with no monoculture and we love where the game is at right now.  At my local gaming store, it appears that Grixis Energy as well as G/B Constrictor were representing fairly well, with the rest of the field quite diverse as expected with innovative and exciting decklists such as Abzan Tokens, Grixis Control and tribal strategies with Dinosaurs and Vampires.

With 4 Wins and 1 Loss, we think although we did well, we realise that there were a number of critical 'top decks' which helped push Black White Vampires through the field.  Instead of going through the decklist we used (it has already had a few minor amendments for next weekend), we should cover the core basics of the list as well as notes of some cards which had performed very well during the games.

The Buff
Legion Lieutant, Metallic Mimic and Radiant Desitiny all had a full four copies to buff the vampire team.  The Radiant Destiny anthem effect worked well and did produce the extra bonus of delivering vigilance (Ascend / City's Blessing).

The Ping
Both Vicious Conquistador and Sanctum Seeker's ability to deal non-combat damage to a player should not be underestimated.  We had anticipated Seeker's double-black casting cost to be awkward in a list which is around 60% white spells, but Unclaimed Territory (naming vampires) went a long way to smooth this out.

Honourable Mentions
What we had thought worked quite favourably.  Dusk Legion Zealot was great for card advantage which is critical when most of your creatures are low to the ground.  Legion's Landing is necessary later game to create a vampire token which typically hit the game table buffed.  Duskborne Skymarcher provided a solid creature, often buffed to get in some evasive damage.  Gifted Aetherborn also did some leg-work which forced opponents to think twice about attacking.  Dusk // Dawn reset the board, often with our own pumped creatures hitting the graveyard, but the Aftermath ability rapidly replaced board presence.

Should you be thinking about a post Rivals of Ixalan vampire tribal list, we will suggest you may be well served in reading ChannelFireball's article, Vampires with Rivals of Ixalan By Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, which supplied us with motivation in starting with this tribe.

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Rivals of Ixalan Release

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

The latest Magic: the Gathering set, Rivals of Ixalan releases today, so get thee out to your local gaming store and dive into the new set this evening.  

Although we had a few iterations of an Energy decklist, we really will not be complaining loudly about the recent banning.  We had been waiting for Rivals of Ixalan to release and complete the full tribal theme of Ixalan block.  With Energy in the picture, exploring some great new deck ideas personally curtailed us as we knew what the best list in standard constructed was.  

Where to go ?  Everywhere we think - the MTG Realm play group want to have at least one of each tribe.  

Dinosaurs already had a fairly solid shell in Ixalan and Rivals is bringing new power to the table.  Whether it is naya or gruul, expect big monsters.  We think Boros may be the more popular option.

Pirates have a large number of strategies whether it is midrange / aggro, tempo, or focusing on an ability such as flying (Favorable Winds).  This is one tribe which may not produce a popular tribal decklist due to the options.

Merfolk seem, from gamers we've been talking to, as the more popular tribe to build with.  Whether it is with the +1/+1 counter theme, aggro or go-wide, the best path forward will be determined in short order.

Vampires have a lot of potential as well and a number of very interesting builds have been suggested.  Personally, our first dip of the toe into this new standard is with a mono white vampire build with Oketra's Monument.

Anywhoos, get ready, set, and build.

For now, here are some sensible chuckles from our MTG Realm page on Tumblr - http://mtg-realm.tumblr.com/
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Air Azorious

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

Hope all of our American cousins to the south had an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday.  We had an opportunity over the weekend to not only play some standard, but some Commander and Modern as well.  We had not dipped out toe into Modern for quite some while and really need to get a grip on the metagame of this Magic: the Gathering format.

Today's post we do want to yatter a bit about Favorable Winds in Standard.  We had an odd but fun decklist when we first saw this back in Avacyn Restored and with the reprint in Ixalan, nostalgia has us building around this card again.  Why?  Because one can only be entertained to a definitive point in standard with the mono-culture of Energy decklists.  Perhaps we will get to a derpy build featuring Solemnity, but for now, let's take to the friendly skies with Air Azorious.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/air-azorious/

This does not look entirely bad on paper and we do have all the cards, so we will likely build for the kitchen table.  A one-drop Siren Stormtamer buys some measure of insurance against removal and Dreamcaller Siren spices things up with a Pirate sub-theme.  

The others are pretty much flyers with value or a relevant ability - Cloudblazer is card draw advantage, Aerial Responder sweet lifelink, Kinjalli's Sunwing to tamper with tempo, and Aven Wind Guide which lends support to tokens created with Oketra's Monument.  We would be rather happy to see a measure of token generation, grant the team flying and of course a pump with Favorable Winds.  

Anywhoos, looks fun which is fine with us as we are not expecting to take this to first place on a Pro Tour.

Land (22)
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Irrigated Farmland
9 Island
3 Plains
2 Shefet Dunes

Creature (24)
3 Aerial Responder
3 Aven Wind Guide
4 Cloudblazer
3 Dreamcaller Siren
3 Kinjalli's Sunwing
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Storm Fleet Aerialist

Artifact (5)
2 Aethersphere Harvester
3 Oketra's Monument

Sorcery (2)
2 Chart a Course

Enchantment (4)
4 Favorable Winds

Instant (3) 
3 Lookout's Dispersal

Sideboard (15)
2 Angel of Sanctions
2 Cast Out
2 Dusk // Dawn
2 Fragmentize
2 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Spell Pierce

3 Unsummon



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Token Friday

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Here in Canada, we are celebrating the Thanksgiving long weekend, rather than in late November when our American cousins incorrectly celebrate this holiday.  More on that over here if you are interested.  Anywhoos, to say the least, do try to get in to your local gaming store who should all be open this evening.  Our local store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario will have all the cooking burners on. As it is the first FNM in October - FYI - This month's Friday Night Promo is NOT a card but a 'token' - join in with other MTG fans over here on Reddit to express your excitement.

A safe trip to you If you are travelling to visit friends and family this weekend.  Speaking of travelling, there is a rather good thread on Magic and the TSA over here.  Here is essentially a discourse of stories of Magic: the Gathering players being screened by the Transportation Security Administration.  Personally, we've never crossed into the States with MTG cards and although could not contribute, did found the thread interesting.

Righto - next up - Standard B/W Tokens

We had been contemplating another decklist for FNM (we already have a lovely U/G Mefolk list), and wanted something with a heavy token theme.  We had developed a list very similar to the one Wedge, from the Mana Source had published recently and love it !

W/B Tokens, A deck by TheManaSource

Creature 8
4 Anointer Priest
2 Master Trinketeer
2 Oketra the True

Spell 25
4 Anointed Procession
4 Fatal Push
1 Fumigate
4 Hidden Stockpile
3 Servo Exhibition
2 Settle the Wreckage
3 Sram's Expertise
2 Start // Finish
2 Vraska's Contempt

Land 27
4 Aether Hub
4 Concealed Courtyard
1 Evolving Wilds
2 Ifnir Deadlands
3 Legion's Landing
6 Plains
4 Shefet Dunes

3 Swamp

Servos, warriors, vampires - all the tokens !  Looks like fun.
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Ixalan Standard Merfolk

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Wednesday ! Always a treat when Wizards of the Coast publish the next Magic Story for a new set.  To say we are giddy about the next Magic: the Gathering set Ixalan is a serious understatement.  The stories certainly fuel our excitement for the set.  Please do slide on over to today's story titled 'The Talented Captain Vraska' by the R&D Narrative Team linked right over here.  

The Blurb -

Vraska has never been happier. Finally able to be the leader she always knew she could be, she captains The Belligerent with the skill of the greatest of commanders. She had kept Jace Beleren alive initially to utilize his talents, but soon discovers that they make quite the team.

We definitely enjoy the story so far featuring amnesiac Jace, and finally learn what Vraska is doing the Plane of Ixalan.  Also of great (flavour) importance to us - as Vraska's home Plane of Ravnica has no large sea worthy of a proper ship, just how did Vraska pick up those sailing skills ?  Apparently if you are an Elder Dragon, you can transfer knowledge 'Matrix Style' - very cool !

Anywhoos - out today on the mothersite are the Ixalan Planeswalker Deck Lists.  These are great to quickly get into the game and be able to upgrade.  For more details, pop on over here.  Get these sleeved and boxed up with some Ixalan deck protectors / deck boxes from Ultra PRO, and you are ready to rock a Friday Night Magic event at your local gaming store.

Anywhoos - 
Here is something that we are working on now for the new standard season for Ixalan - Merfolk Go Tall, this will certainly need some more work and evaluation.
• Post-Ixalan Standard Constructed Merfolk. Go tall with +1/1 counters with Metallic Mimic, Vineshaper Mystic and Implement of Ferocity.

• Cash in with on those +1/+1 counters with Herald of Secret Streams and Armorcraft Judge.

Land (21)
4x Aether Hub
4x Botanical Sanctum
5x Forest
4x Island
4x Unclaimed Territory

Creature (29)
3x Armorcraft Judge
4x Herald of Secret Streams
3x Jade Guardian
3x Kopala, Warden of Waves
4x Kumena's Speaker
4x Metallic Mimic
4x Shaper's Apprentice
4x Vineshaper Mystic

Instant (7)
3x Blossoming Defense
4x Perilous Voyage

Artifact (4)
4x Implement of Ferocity

Sideboard (15)
3x Dive Down
3x Essence Scatter
3x Heroic Intervention
3x Spell Pierce

3x Unsummon


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Ixalan B/W Tokens

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

On Friday, concluding the official preview season, the full Ixalan card image gallery went live over on the mothersite.  Since Friday, we here at MTG Realm, like many other gamers, we sequestered ourselves and went to the drawing board to create and develop ideas for standard constructed decklists.  At the beginning of previous standard seasons, we would attempt to update an existing 'tried and true' decklist, but with 4 of the 8 Magic: the Gathering sets rotating out of standard, there was perhaps only two or so good lists not adversely affected.  One suggestion is to build one of the 4 Ixalan tribes, but it appears that only Dinosaurs and Pirates presented strong enough options, with Merfolk and Vampires seeming weak, at least until improved support for those tribes are available in the next set, Rivals of Ixalan.

Early on in the previews, we were rather keen on Orzhov Black / White Vampires but were soon dissuaded from pursuing this.  One of favourite decks of all time was a Black and White Token strategy during the original Innistrad block with Intangible Virtue (Creature tokens you control get +1/+1 and have vigilance) at its heart.  When Aether Revolt was released we attempted to mimic a black white token list again, with Hidden Stockpile and similar synergies and again with Amonkhet's Anointed Procession.

In Ixalan, we are now presented with another opportunity to attempt a similar strategy with the combination of Legion's Landing and Call to the Feast.  With Anointed Procession and Hidden Stockpile still in standard constructed, is it enough to make this a serious consideration ?  There is no good anthem effect available at this time, so perhaps a gain and drain scheme but having something as as epic as Cartel Aristocrat and Blood Artist at this time is looking slim.  Perhaps we can hope for flooding the board early with tokens and dropping the opponent's life to critical before they land an incredibly large dinosaur.

Anywhoos, the above card images serve as a core to the yet to be developed list which might not get off the drawing board -
• Sacred Cat
• Anointer Priest
• Angel of Invention
• Servo Exhibition
• Hidden Stockpile 
• Start // Finish
• Anointed Procession
• Legion's Landing
• Call to the Feast
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Hour of Devastation Standard

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

The newest Magic: the Gathering set, Hour of Devastation is ready to be released tomorrow, right on time for the first opportunity to game with this new set legally in Friday Night Magic.  MTG Realm will be at OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario with a few tweaks to our existing decklists but nothing new just yet, until we've had an opportunity to discuss the merits of new deck ideas.  

Always a source of inspiration when a new set comes out, the Hareruya Pros have once again gathered and produced yet another great set of 'HareruyaWayfinder' decklist suggestions.  Let these lists inspire you to create your own monster to unleash upon your local gaming store.

• BG Zombies, Tomoharu Saito
Updated Amonkhet Zombies decklist with new Driven // Despair B/G split 'Aftermath' card and new Afflict beater Ammit Eternal.

• Hour of Eternity, Pierre Dagen
Green, Blue, splashing White has tons of draw, filter, and self-mill to deliver a zombie army punchline.

• RG Ramp, Martin Muller
Early game threat removal consideration followed by a generous number of ramp spells to land Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger for the win.

• UW Control, Lukas Blohon
Largely ported from previous iterations of blue white control, with the new addition of board-wiper Hour of Revelation.

• Crested Sunmare, Yoshihiko Ikawa
Black / White good-stuff with Walking Ballista and Aethersphere harvester, with a full punch of four Crested Sunmare to take advantage of a number of life-gain cards in this build.

• Temur Reason/Believe Ramp, Oliver Polak-Rottmann
Red / Green / Blue with your fav energy producers.  Full deck-set of new Aftermath card Reason // Believe to 'cheat' Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger onto the battlefield.

• UR Mill, Kenta Harane
Self-explanatory tech employing new cards Fraying Sanity to mill and Hour of Devastation to keep the board clear.

• RW Deserts Aggro, Michael Bonde
Odd but interesting port from the previous season's Red / Whhite Human tribal build.  New sauce includes decksets of Earthshaker Khenra and Ramunap Ruins with a singleton of Shefet Dunes.

• WB Midrange, Jeremy Dezani
Exactly as the name indicates, with a total of 10 Planeswalkers (Gids, Lili, and single Sorin).  New tech tutor Djeru, With Eyes Open looks for the Walkers, Sunscourge Champion chumps, and three copies of board wiper Hour of Revelation.

• UR Control, Petr Sochurek
Essentially the major active ingredients of the previous control decklist (Torrential Gearhulk and friends) with the addition of Supreme Will (an 'auto-include') and red board-wiper Hour of Devastation.

• Turbo Nicol, Kenji Tsumura
Green / Red / splash Blue with a suite of choice mana accelerators with Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh at the end of the tunnel.

• UR Emerge, Riku Kumagai
Standard Emerge tech to open up an early Elder Deep-Fiend, Wretched Gryff, etc.  New spice added includes Strategic Planning and Champion of Wits.

• God-Pharaoh's Gift, Atsushi Ito

New Blue / Red / Splash Black list using a deck-set of the previous set's Gate to the Afterlife to delivery a singleton of God-Pharaoh's Gift.  The new Striped Riverwinder and the previous set's Curator of Mysteries gets cycled lickety-split to become seeds for hasty zombies.

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Tuesday MTG Miscellany

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Here in Canada, we celebrated Victoria Day (named for Queen Victoria's birthday), also known as the May Long Weekend.  In some circles referred to as the May 2-4 weekend as it the holiday Monday was first celebrated on the 24th of May, and beer is conveniently packaged in a box of 24 bottles.  This of course means that staff at MTG Realm were nowhere near a computer but out the bakcyards / parks with BBQs and beverages.  To this end, we need today to catch up with some Magic: the Gathering news, so strap in and let's go.

There were a number of large tournaments over the weekend (including 'Game Day') for standard format players, which affords us a look at how the game is evolving after the release of the latest set, Amonkhet.

Closest to us was Gran Prix Montreal, where fellow Canadians and those further afield came together to decide the best player and best decklist.  out of 850 players on day one, 276 moved on to day two.  As expected, the most popular decks going forward into day two were (in order of popluarity) Temur Marvel, Mardu Vehicles, Mono-black Zobies, along with a showing of Black-Green aggro and Blue-Red control lists.

Grand Prix Saniago held concurrently with the one in Montreal over the weekend, had rather similar showings in popular decklists.  For the full details on each of the tournament results, pop on over the Wizards of the Coast Events Coverage Page linked here.

For Amonkhet Game Day, MTG Realm member 'CopySix' took a Red-White Humans decklist, featuring :
• Bloodlust Inciter
• Thraben Inspector
• Glory-Bound Initiate
• Honored Crop-Captain
• Thalia's Lieutenant
• Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• Hanweir Garrison

Unfortunately this list did not get to Top 8 at the Game Day event at our local gaming store OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario.  What caught our attention was the single decklist of Red-Green Energy at Grand Prix Santiago, played by Ignacio Saez, who took 6th Place.  This list has inspired us to dust off our old, and rather fun to play Red Green Energy deck and update it, for a spin at FNM.  

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Finally, We have an update to report for upcoming FNM promos, posted yesterday by WotC content manager for DailyMTG.com, Blake Rasmussen.  FNM promos (also Friday Night Magic promotional cards) are foil promotional cards provided by Wizards of the Coast as additional prizes at Friday Night Magic events.

2017

January - Noose Constrictor, illustrated by Kev Walker

February - Fortune's Favor, illustrated by Grzegorz Rutkowski

March - Incendiary Flow, illustrated by Slawomir Maniak

April - Servo Exhibition, illustrated by Vincent Proce

May - Unlicensed Disintegration, illustrated by Florian de Gesincourt

June - Aether Hub, illustrated by  Jonas De Ro

July - Reverse Engineer, illustrated by Jason Kang

August - Renegade Rallier, illustrated by David Palumbo

September - Fatal Push, illustrated by Alex Konstad 

The Fatal Push FNM promo has us very pleased and excited.

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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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