Pro Tour Top Eight, Standard Changes, and Pro Tour Drama

Pro Tour Top Eight Preview, New Changes to Standard, and The Drama from the Pro Tour!

Preview the Pro Tour Top Eight, discover the latest changes to the Standard format, and catch up on all the drama from the Pro Tour in Magic: The Gathering.

Pro Tour Modern Horizone Three is entering it's final day, and there has been a ton of excitement, some expected results, and some unexpected. The Nadu decks make up half of the field in the top 8. We expected that the deck would do well, and it is effectively dominating, thus augmenting the call for an emergency ban. Some news that I am happy about is that there are also two mono black decks in the finals, and they appear to have an alright matchup against Nadu. The top 8 also has representation from a Jeskai Control deck that was basically made to lock down the Nadu decks. Along with that, we also see a four color Nadu deck that brings in black cards to do win the mirror. Oddly enough, I was thoroughly amused to see that the Mono Black Necro Deck from Noah Ma is in first place so far! So we will be going over this deck today.

Also, there are some updates to Standard with a new type of release that we will be getting, and yes there are some crazy cards coming. There was also a judge ruling today that saw a player disqualified for misrepresenting boardstate in what they deemed to be an intentional manner. We will go over all of that, but first let's get to the deck that is on top so far!

Total Cards:

The Mono Black Necro Deck does exactly what it sets out to do. It draws almost the entire deck while Sheoldred, The Apocalypse is out, and it also takes advantage of being able to exile cards from hand to pay for spells to amass extra value and gain advantages. Oh yeah, did I mention that it can basically spam discard spells as much as it wants to?

Relevant Cards

It's here to stay, and some are even calling for this to get banned. We are able to evoke it from our hand and then we have four spells that allow us to bring it back once it is sacrificed. Even if we do have to go down some cards to cast it and can't reanimate right away, we will draw plenty more cards.

This is of course the main engine of the deck. This on turn three into Sheoldred, The apocalypse is pretty much GG if the opponent cannot answer. It also helps trigger Sorin of House Markov very quickly, and it could technically lead to a one turn kill if we drew enough cards with Sheoldred. His minus one ability could theoretically hit the opponent for 20 damage from Sheoldred drawing 10 cards.

When I hear people talk about this card, they usally say something along the lines of "This card never should have been printed." I don't necessarily disagree with them, but man does it create a massive amount of value for this deck. Being able to get rid of two cards you were going to discard anyway in order to cast a seven mana spell for free and then drain for four is great value. You are getting rewarded for doing something that you already had to do in the first place. In my opinion, all good decks are able to take advantage of that type of gameplay in some manner.

This is a great card in the mirror, and it kind of creates a game of chicken when you see the opponent with two mana up and you attempt to draw with Necrodominance. It really makes people think twice about drawing extra cards, and it's also pretty good against Nadu.

Changes to Standard

Starting this November, we are going to start having what are called Foundation Sets released for Standard. These cards will last for up to five years, and they may feature some cards from the past as well. This will likely be the solution to replacing core sets, and should help keep the format healthy while new cards are released. If we have a good core foundation of cards, I am confident that it could allow Wizards to print more unique and interactive cards in the individual sets that come out after. We don't have a ton of information on this yet, and we will receive updates on it, as it is currently about four and a half months away. We also have some standard sets that are coming out before that anyhow, and a rotation towards the end of July. Once we get through that stuff, I'm sure there will be plenty of updates for us to discuss and dive into.

Judge Ruling that Led to DQ at Pro Tour

A judge ruling came down in the later rounds of the Pro Tour that ended up seeing a player disqualified and ruined their top 8 hopes. They wer are at 11-4 in swiss when they learned the news. What ended up happening was that Bart Van Etten and Javier Dominguez were playing in round 13. Dominguez played a card that was going to eliminate Bart's Nethergoyf. Bart then played Not Dead After All onto the Goyf and the creature's toughness grew past the three damage that it was about to be dealt. He then said that it gets a wicked role token, but since it did not actually die, it never came back with a role token. This ended up being pretty relevant as the game progressed, because it misrepresented a true board state. It was determined that this advantage gained was incredibly relevant, and then ultimately decided that Bart had done this misrepresentation intentionally. Since it was deemed to be intentional, the result of round thirteen was reversed, and Bart was disqualified. It's a pretty interesting ruling, and it would be nice to have more info on the situation, because from the information that WOTC gave us, it feels like it could be up for debate that it was or was not intentional. The issue that then comes into play is that Bart has a history with cheating and is known for it - at least - that is according to the internet (and the internet doesn't forget). My best guess is that the way Bart talked about it made it seem that he was being misleading on purpose. That is kind of all we have to go off of right now, so we will have to keep an eye on that situation. It is incredibly relevant in my opinion because Dominguez ended up making top 8, and Bart didn't. We will have to monitor this one closely!

Anyhow, thank you for sticking with us this far, and we will be back in a few days to check on the final results of the Pro Tour MH3, and hopefully will have more info on the DQ itself!

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I am a Magic The Gathering competitive player, and streamer. I specialize in homebrew decks. My favorite formats are: Standard, Pioneer (Explorer on Arena), and EDH. I first started playing MTG in 2001, and have played on and off since then.

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Recapping the Pro Tour and Examining the Deck that ALMOST Obliterated Us All!

Pro Tour Aetherdrift has concluded, and it was no surprise that Domain is still the best deck in the format. It is too powerful, and the high amount of mana availability simply provides too much value for other decks to consistently have a chance against it. Matt Nass was able to secure the win in the mirror match, as Domain Overlords were the most popular deck in the top 8. Since we have a new set that just came out, that calls for innovation and some overall spice. The deck that we will examine today isn't exactly a new concept in the meta, but it certainly is something that nobody previously has had the stones to enter as a list in a Pro Tour Event. There were a couple of well-known pro players with this list, including Javier Dominguez, who has been known for having some unique decks in the competitive circuit. Although Javier didn't do as well as we normally see this past weekend, Christoffer Larsen nearly made the top 8 with this list. The deck went 9-1 in Constructed, and it's safe to say that it was one of the top performers on that side of things. Had Larsen maybe won one more match in Limited, he would likely have been in the top 8. It goes without saying that this deck has a spot in the current meta, and probably has some legs in Standard. It was something that was rather unexpected in the event, sure, but the high roll of the combo within the deck is undeniable. Even without the combo that the deck has, outside of that, it is simply a Golgari Midrange Shell. Those decks always carry a competitive win rate, so everyone has to keep it on the radar either way. We will take a look at the deck, and then I'll go over the combo, then see if we can figure out why the deck is seeing a resurgence. Obliterator is an incredibly fun card. Everyone wants it to have a home in some format, because there are few things more satisfying than watching your opponent sit there trying to figure out which land(s) they are going to keep, or deciding if they want to keep playing after they were just forced to sacrifice all of their permanents. We historically think of this interaction happening during combat. What makes this deck fun is that it can happen during combat, or with a simple one - mana fight spell. Something else that is noteworthy is the fact that this deck plays only 23 lands. My best explanation for it is that the spell that allows you to fight for one mana also allows you to get any basic land from the deck for the same price. I think that this almost treats it as having 27 lands, and in turn helps figure out what cards to remove in order to squeeze in the extra spell. Let's take a look at the relevant cards, then we will see why it's back and better than before.

Examining the Aetherdrift Mechanics, and Rating them for Limited or Constructed

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Zombies are Coming back from the Dead with Aetherdrift

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This Deck is Sure to be EXHAUSTING to Play Against

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I See a Monument and I want it Painted Black