1st Place in Week Five of the MPDC League Season Four

This week the MPDC League shifted to Standard Silverblack Tribal, which is a variation of the Tribal format in which at least one third of the total cards in the deck must contain the same creature subtype. Additionally, the format does not allow for any Sideboards.

The winner this week was Luc3k, who piloted a Rakdos colored deck with the Artificers tribe, making use of this prevalent theme from the Kaladesh block. Let's take a look at his list:

Unlike some recent innovations, this deck is simply about dealing damage as quickly as possible. It's constructed around six aggressive and/or mana efficient creatures: Aether Chaser, Sweatworks Brawler, Weldfast Engineer, Aether Poisoner, and Inventor's Apprentice. Not only do these beaters quickly ramp up the pressure, but each can immediately be equipped with Inventor's Goggles as soon as they enter the battlefield, making them that much more of a threat. But the biggest threats of the list actually come from Sky Skiff and Renegade Freighter, which are among the best Vehicles available in the format, especially since they are so cheap to Crew. Augmenting these threats are Lightning Strike and Unlicensed Disintegration, the latter of which can not only deal with any opposing threat but also levels direct damage to your opponent. Finally, the deck includes a full playset of Ramunap Ruins as well, which has become a staple in any Red-based deck for its dual role as a mana source early and as a direct damage dealer late to deal the final blow to your opponent.

Congratulations are certainly in order for Luc3k, who piloted this deck to a 5-0 finish, earning the 1st place trophy for last week. There is no doubt that the Artificers tribe is among the most powerful available right now, so it will be interesting to see if another tribe can fight through to victory. Hope you've enjoy this brief deck-tech, and I will see you next time.

1st Place in Week Four of the MPDC League Season Four

In the final week of Standard Silverblack for the MPDC League, another deck emerged to once again dethrone Energy. This time, well known Standard Pauper enthusiast joekewwl ran a powerful and streamlined MonoRed deck, taking advantage of the raw strength of various burn spells and one of the best creatures in the format right now: Ahn-Crop Crasher. Let's take a look at his decklist:

Although this list only includes 5 actual burn spells (3 Lightning Strike as well as singletons of Abrade and Magma Spray), a few other cards serve a similar function: Ramunap Ruins, Sand Strangler, Fling, and Struggle // Survive. The bulk of the deck is actually creatures, with a noticeable Artifact creature theme that stand well on their own but also enable utilizing the sweeper Incendiary Sabotage. Of these, both Filigree Familiar and Treasure Keeper provide additional benefits when they come in and leave play, making them excellent sacrifices for Fling. Additionally, Consulate Dreadnought, along with the powerful Charging Monstrosaur, provide two massive threats to finish off your opponent, especially if you can sneak them through using the Exert feature of Ahn-Crop Crasher. And as if these threats are not enough, the deck includes a couple copies of both Siege Modification and Cartouche of Zeal, making your creatures all the more powerful.

For the Sideboard, you have additional copies of Lightning Strike, Abrade, and Magma Spray, along with 3 copies of Blazing Volley to help knock down tokens and Hijack as a nice way to turn your opponent's threats against him. Finally, both Blur of Blades and Furious Reprisal gives the deck some more nuanced ways of dealing with particular creatures.

Congratulations are certainly in order for joekewwl piloting this deck to an impressive 4-1 victory in this last week before we shift over to Standard Silverblack Tribal. It will certainly be interesting to see which tribes emerge as the most powerful. Hope you'll have a chance to participate. See you next time!

MPDC League: Silverblack Tribal Rules

This week the MPDC League switches to the Silverblack Tribal format! Once upon a time, Tribal was actually an official format on Magic Online, existing in both a Standard and Classic variants. This format is all about creature combat, emphasizing a particular sub-type of creature to create what is essentially a theme deck of that particular sub-type. Traditionally, the rules for the Tribal format were as follows:

1. One third of the total cards in your deck must share a single creature type. Technically this does include non-creature permanents that have a creature type (although no such cards are currently in Standard). Also, "Artifact Creature" is NOT a creature type, as Artifact is a card type, not a creature type.
2. No Sideboard is allowed.

 For the MPDC League, both of rules will be in effect. Two additional rules exist:

1. All cards must be either Commons or Uncommons that are currently in the Standard set.
2. Your chosen creature type cannot be "Human" (although you can include Humans that share a different creature type instead).

And just as before, there are currently no cards banned for the MPDC League.

If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email at gwyned at gmail dot com. Good luck and have fun!

1st Place in Week Three of the MPDC League Season Four

For the first time this season, a non-Energy deck managed to go 5-0 in this week's MPDC League. Long-time player smashin piloted a Golgari Rock style deck to victory, combining excellent spot removal, beefy creatures, and creature enhancements in the form of Auras and counters. I personally had the chance to play against this deck, and I can honestly say I got destroyed very quickly in both our games. Let's take a look at the decklist:

This deck definitely utilizes a creature-centric strategy with a nice Merfolk sub-theme. Both Merfolk Branchwalker and Tishana's Wayfinder can pump themselves with Explore, while Vineshaper Mystic further enhances Merfolk and generally comes into play as a 2/4, making it tough for Red decks to deal with effectively. Additionally, both Ridgescale Tusker and Winding Constrictor both synergize well with all these +1 / +1 counters floating around, with Armorcraft Judge being the ultimate payoff if you can assemble the team.

The deck also utilizes Walk the Plank and Fatal Push for removal, Blossoming Defense to protect its creatures, and River Heralds' Boon and Cartouche of Strength to buff its already beefy creatures. Finally, the two copies of Hashep Oasis can also be used in a pinch to push through the last points of damage once you know your opponent can't do anything to stop your creatures.

For the Sideboard, you have the versatile Crushing Canopy to counter either Enchantments or Flying creatures, Lifecrafter's Gift to further spread your counters against opponents with little to no spot removal, and 3 copies of Cartouche of Ambition to allow you to not only deal with tokens or other weenies but also give you some much needed Lifegain against aggressive decks. Additionally, Skittering Heartstopper can serve as another cheap removal, while Destined // Lead gives you additional ways to protect your creatures and can be used to setup the killing blow from your unblocked creatures.

This is definitely a fun deck, and one I highly suggest you check out. With it going 5-0 this past week, it's sure to be a contender, so be sure you're ready to face it!

My Take on Temur Energy

If you've been participating in the MPDC League (and let's face it, if you're reading this blog, you probably are), by now you are well aware that Energy decks have been the early front-runner for the most dominant deck of our small metagame. This archetype was piloted to back-to-back 5-0 records for the first two weeks of the league, and continued to place well for the third week as well.

As promised, today I want to look at my own version of the Energy deck, inspired mostly by Polyjak's original list. Here's my decklist:

My intent in building this variant was to diversify my threats. I felt Polyjak's version relied too much on winning with a host of Thopter tokens from Whirler Virtuoso, and didn't often do well when that plan didn't come together. So I opted to add in Thriving Rhino as another important threat and Aether Theorist to provide early blocking and card filtering. But more importantly, I also added Empyreal Voyager. This creature not only gives the deck a Flying threat, but also provides a potentially limitless source of additional energy, making all of the other Energy threats that much more powerful and consistent.

To make room for these changes, I had to cut all of the Ahn-Crop Crashers and Rogue Refiners, despite how good the former card is. I also dropped to only 2 copies of Servant of the Conduit, which I felt like was unnecessary considering how much Land the deck consistently drew. Finally, I also wanted the ability to extend the deck better into the mid- and late-game, and opted for Glimmer of Genius.

I changed the Sideboard entirely other than  Sentinel Totem, adding in 2 Shielded Aether Thiefs for more defense and card draw, 3 copies of Manglehorn as my Artifact hate, 3 Blazing Volley to counter rival token decks, and Ice Over as an inefficient but necessary way to deal with creature too large for burn spells to kill.

I've had only middling success with this deck, going 2-3 for the last two weeks with it. But overall it's been decent. If you have any thoughts on how it might be improved, I'd love to hear it.

Next time I'll take a look at the deck that went 5-0 this week. And believe it or not, it wasn't an Energy deck!

1st Place in Week Two of the MPDC League Season 4

Once again this week in the MPDC League it was all about the Energy. Congratulations to AEFabricio, who took his own version of the Temur Energy deck from last week to an undefeated 5-0 record in Week Two of the MPDC League Season 4. This is all the more impressive considering that the field of players continues to grow, with 21 total participants for this week. For his version, AEFabricio added two very interesting artifacts that give the deck added reach in the long game and synergize quite well with its overall strategy. Let's look at his list:

As I mentioned, the biggest difference between the two lists is the inclusion of Decoction Module and Fabrication Module. The former guarantees that you'll have a steady supply of Energy, while also allowing you to return your creatures to hand to generate even more. The other one makes the steady supply of Energy even more potent, giving you a +1/+1 counter for each time you generate one or more points of Energy. And, if you have nothing better to do with your mana, you can spend four to generate a single point of it (of course granting you another +1/+1 counter in the process). Additionally, the deck relies upon 2 copies of Trophy Mage to allow you to fetch whichever of these two Artifacts is more helpful at that moment, making it very likely you'll have access to them whenever you need it.

Of course, to make room for these Artifacts, you have to give up a significant number of other cards. Gone entirely are Ahn-Crop Crasher, Abrade, and Blossoming Defense, with 2 fewer copies of Rogue Refiner as well.

This version also has a very different Sideboard plan. Blossoming Defense shows up as a 2-of here, as does Appetite for the Unnatural. Beyond that, you have Manglehorn for additional Artifact hate, Fiery Cannonade as mass removal, Magma Spray for spot removal and some Graveyard Recursion hate, and By Force as a silver bullet against other Artifact-token decks.

If you've played with or against both versions of this deck, I'd love to hear your feedback about which you think is better and why. But it's clear that Energy strategies have become the dominant factor in the MPDC League right now, for better or for worse. In fact, I've got my own version that I've been playing with, and I hope to write about that next time.

1st Place in Week One of MPDC League Season 4

So despite my best intentions, I didn't manage to get a second blog post done last week. I ended up traveling during the middle of the week, and with my kids all on an extended school break, my time in front of the computer was limited. However, I did want to cover the winning deck from the first week of the new season of the MPDC League, so I figured I would go ahead and get this up today, even though it's several days too late. But better late than never.

For our first week of Season 4 of the MPDC League, Polyjak's Temur Energy deck went 5-0 to earn its 1st place spot. While there's lots of things going on in this deck, its primary path to victory is to create a host of Thopter tokens from Whirler Virtuoso, backed up with several other strong creatures and some potent removal spells. Let's take a look at Polyjak's list:

Obviously the deck's gameplan revolves around creating lots of Energy, and it has several strong ways of doing so. Aether Hub, Attune with Aether, Harnessed Lightning, Rogue Refiner, Servant of the Conduit, and Whirler Virtuoso all produce Energy tokens when they come into play, while  Longtusk Cub gives the deck the ability to produce even more over time. Generally speaking, all that Energy goes to fuel a mass of Thopter tokens, but can also help make Longtusk Cub into a monstrous threat. Or, when all else fails, you can simply smash into your opponent with your diverse threats, utilizing the Falter-effect of Ahn-Crop Crasher to push through damage at an opportune time.

For removal, this deck makes good use of both Abrade and Harnessed Lightning, the former which also gets good use as Artifact-hate. While you only have eight copies between them, generally this will be enough to deal with your opponent's most important threats.

The deck's diverse mana requirements are easily filled by its six enters-the-battlefield-tapped dual lands as well as the fixing provided from Aether Hub and Servant of the Conduit.

Out of the Sideboard, the deck has a nice suite of permissions spells in nearly a full playset of both Negate and Essence Scatter. It also includes Sentinel Totem to help with Graveyard recursion, Appetite for the Unnatural for more Artifact or Enchantment hate, and Raging Swordtooth to give you some options against rival token strategies or just a big beater to throw at your opponent.

While I loved what this deck was doing and certainly couldn't argue with its success, in my own testing it seemed to keep coming up short. So for my own foray back into the league, I developed and piloted my own version of the deck. That's what I want to talk about next time.