Reid Duke has added another trophy to his mantle—that of StarCityGames.com Worcester Legacy Open champion! Defeating his good friend Matt Costa in the finals, Reid Duke joins Jeremy Dombek as an Open champion on the weekend.
The Indianapolis Invitational is next weekend—get ready to watch Jacob Van Lunen, Matthias Hunt, and the debut of Reuben Bresler on commentary! We’ve got some other surprises in store on the coverage end, so be sure to follow @SCGLive and load up #SCGINVI this weekend!
“You have the Scavenging Ooze,” Reid noted, each player looking over the other’s list. “You have the Hapless Researcher!” Matt replied. Looking deeper, Reid noticed that Matt’s deck was about as good against him as it could reasonably get.
These players met in the Swiss, but this match was for the right to keep their marbles in the mix—the winner would advance to the finals. It was a mirror match, but these players’ sideboards were very different and it promised to be an interesting RUG matchup.
One of the more unique lists in the Top 8, Thomas brought Bant to the table. His Noble Hierarchs could give him a mana advantage against Matt’s RUG Delver list, although it wouldn’t be an easy feat—this was Matt’s second Top 8 in as many days!
Robby’s sole loss on the day was to Chalice of the Void, which made the RUG player less than thrilled to be playing Greg Giard for Top 8. Greg’s MUD list had performed on and off the camera today, and he too was just one win from locking Top 8.
Matt’s on track for a second Top 8 if he wins this round, while Greg is a contender on Elves for the Legacy event. Both decks are capable of blistering starts, but if Matt can control the board and start attacking with a creature or two, he’ll close out games before Greg’s engine comes online.
Invitational champ Max Tietze made it out to Worcester this weekend, and had started strong in Legacy with Sneak and Show. Christian Calcano was running Esper Stoneblade, with a list very close to the one Tom Martell championed at the Grand Prix in Indianapolis.
Disruption is rapidly becoming the name of the game in Legacy, and when coutnerspells don’t cut it... players will turn to discard. Tom Fetterman started strong in Worcester with just such a strategy, piloting Deadguy Ale.
These Esper Sun Titan decks have been performing well in recent weeks, with Michael Belfatto seizing the Columbus Standard Open just a week ago. Now, Jeremy Dombek was looking to take down his third Delver player of the Top 8 for the trophy, and make it two-in-a-row for Titans. Could Shawn Herr shut him down?
Matt Costa hasn’t stopped sleeving up Delver of Secrets this year it seems, but Shawn Herr is no stranger to the archetype, either. Both players were familiar with the mirror, and it promised to be complicated matchup between two different builds of Standard’s biggest player.
Jeremy was one of two players in the Top 8 not playing Delver of Secrets, but he was still packing Seachrome Coasts and Ponders in his Esper Control list. Sun Titan had just taken down the #SCGOH Standard Open—could it repeat in Worcester?
These two players were tired, embattled, but each eager for a shot at the Top 8. With one loss apiece they’d been forced to play it out due to their tiebreakers. Kei, on Delver, had a tough fight ahead of him against Chester’s B/W Tokens list.
Larry suffered some stumbles early in the event, but he’d rallied to make it within a couple wins of a shot at Top 8. Piloting Delver of Secrets, Larry faced Tim’s Esper Control list this round, a list with a lot of elements designed to give creature decks like his some trouble, complete with the Sun Titan endgame.
Dave Shiels has been making some deep runs in Standard over the past couple seasons, with a GP win in Dallas and a finals finish in GP Baltimore. Ian came to this event with his brother Reid Duke—another player having a standout season—but had decided to play a different deck, successfully so far.
You may remember Christian Calcano from such feats as Grand Prix Minneapolis, where he made #ThreeSulfurFalls a meme and hashtag en route to winning the entire tournament with a rogue U/R Delver list. Today he’s rogue once more—but with a very different deck.
Gerard’s never eager to sleeve up the Deck to Beat—he’d much rather be attacking it from unexpected angles. That’s exactly the sort of mentality that led to the creation of his deck for this weekend’s event.
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