Of the two base formats available on Magic Online, nay, in Magic everywhere, one generally has a metagame and the other has decks made from a limited supply of tournament packs and or booster packs on hand. In the past, the metagame for Standard has been viewable in snapshots taken every time some large event is held. For instance we had Worlds in December last year, and we'll have Honolulu in March this year. The Grand Prix/Pro Tour Qualifier circuit has helped create a living metagame that changes from week to week, for both the Extended and Block Constructed sub-formats. While these are only at certain times of the year, it's far more than what we usually get for Standard.

Of course, if you spend your evenings on Magic Online, that's not the case at all. With multiple tournaments each week, and almost non-stop eight-man Standard queues, Magic Online has an ever-evolving Standard metagame that is both an echo of real rife and a hideous distortion of what you'll see in the big tournaments. Big tournaments such as the Pro Tour in Honolulu in just over three weeks time.

The difference between the World Championships in Yokohama and Pro Tour Honolulu in... erm... Honolulu should only be the introduction of Guildpact. Without Magic Online it would most likely be just that simple, but the problem is what was played in Japan is not necessarily what is being played now, online at least. An extensive bridge is being built from Yokohama to Honolulu, and soon enough we'll get a good look at it in completion, but until then, let's take a sneak peak at the Work in Progress.

It all began with the Japanese domination on home turf. Their GhaziGlare deck took three places in the Top 8 at Worlds, and guided Katsuhiro Mori right through to the crown, winning over the hearts of many who had despaired that Green/White would never be a playable color combination in Constructed again. Joining the GhaziGlare deck was Ding Leong's Critical Mass with a splash of Black, Akira Asahara's Enduring Ideal Combo, Marcio Carvalho's Blue/Black Control, Andre Coimbra's Green/Black/Blue Aggro Control and of course, Frank Karsten's Greater Gifts deck. Blue/Red stood up and made a showing outside of the Top 8 with Werner Cloete's Blue/Red Hattori Hanzo Tron deck finishing 6-0 in Standard, and the Blue/Red Magnivore deck making an underwhelming entrance and failing to place anyone anywhere worth talk about. Here's the king of the castle:

GhaziGlare A Standard deck, by Katsuhiro Mori 1st place at a Worlds tournament on 2006-02-12 Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 3 Pithing Needle Creatures 1 Birds of Paradise 3 Llanowar Elves 4 Loxodon Hierarch 4 Selesnya Guildmage 4 Wood Elves Enchantments 3 Glare of Subdual Instants 2 Congregation at Dawn 2 Seed Spark	Legendary Artifacts 3 Umezawa's Jitte Legendary Creatures 3 Arashi, the Sky Asunder 3 Kodama of the North Tree 2 Yosei, the Morning Star Basic Lands 5 Forest 1 Plains Lands 4 Brushland 4 Selesnya Sanctuary 4 Temple Garden 4 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree Legendary Lands 1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers	Sideboard: 2 Carven Caryatid 1 Seedborn Muse 2 Greater Good 2 Naturalize 3 Hokori, Dust Drinker 1 Kodama of the North Tree 2 Yosei, the Morning Star 1 Kodama's Reach 1 Wrath of God
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Following the World Champs came the Annual Japanese “Finals” tournament, which rolls around at the end of every year (at least, I assume it does). Masashiro Kuroda took the cake, and probably ate it too, with his rendition of Adrian Sullivan's Eminent Domain. Apparently being able to steal opposing double mana lands like the Selesnya Sanctuaries from the GhaziGlare deck with Annex and Dream Leash is quite the beating, because Kuroda was not the only one playing that deck in the Top 8. Shuhei Nakamura no doubt did Werner Cloete proud with his version of the South African Hattori Hanzo Tron deck by throwing some Black in there for sideboarded Cranial Extractions and yes, you're reading right, Ribbons of Night. Add to that a Greater Gifts, an Enduring Ideal and two Battle of Wits decks and you'd probably be wondering where the GhaziGlare decks, the Blue/Black Control decks and even the White/Red Aggro decks that littered the tables in Yokohama have all run off to. The Top 8 can be found here, and here's the winning deck:

U/r/b Control A Standard deck, by Masashiro Kuroda 1st place at a Miscellaneous tournament in Japan on 2006-01-01 As reported at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/bd209 Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 2 Boros Signet 4 Dimir Signet 2 Fellwar Stone 3 Icy Manipulator Enchantments 4 Annex 4 Dream Leash Instants 4 Mana Leak Legendary Creatures 2 Keiga, the Tide Star 2 Kokusho, the Evening Star	Legendary Enchantments 1 Honden of Seeing Winds Sorceries 3 Pyroclasm 2 Tidings 4 Wildfire Basic Lands 1 Island 2 Mountain Lands 4 Shivan Reef 1 Sulfurous Springs 4 Tendo Ice Bridge 2 Underground River 4 Watery Grave Legendary Lands 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge 1 Miren, the Moaning Well 1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse	Sideboard: 3 Bottle Gnomes 3 Hinder 2 Smash 2 Cranial Extraction 2 Persecute 1 Pyroclasm 2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
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Let's fast forward to last weekend and have a nosey about some of the Premier Events that went down, to see if we can't see how things are shaping up before Guildpact descends on Hawaii.

On Sunday the Fifth of February, fifty-five players duked it out for the doubled up prize pool. The cut to the Top 8 revealed the following players still in contention:

BOZ — Four Color Gifts
AikTheOne — Red/White Aggro
Little_shaves — Zoo
Aylon — Zoo
Draccon136 — Magnivore
Esella Green/Black/White Aggro Control
Slider37 — Magnivore
WedUk — Blue/Black Tron

From this we can see that Aggro is still going strong. Both as a burn heavy build or the Zoo approach with its Watchwolves and Moldervine Cloaks, and both hammering home the lesson that if you're not prepared to face Aggro, someone will Aggro your face. Also showing up is the Magnivore deck that didn't do so well in Japan. Watching the replays, you can see how powerful casting Eye of Nowhere on a land on turn 2 followed by a Stone Rain of turn 3 can be. Anything missed can be mopped up by Pyroclasm or Wildfire.

The Gifts deck didn't seem overly surprising, other than the fact that it wasn't using Karsten's Greater Good engine at all. Instead, it relied on tried and true Hana Kami recursion. It is also interesting to see that the Blue Tron variants have now branched into Black as well. Either as straight Blue/Black or Blue/Black/Red, the point is usually much the same. Do abusive stuff with Tron, like playing a turn 4 Keiga, the Tide Star. This seems to have completely replaced the straight up Blue/Black Control decks that seemed so prevalent going into the World Champs.

esella's Green/Black/White deck of Stuff You'd Generally Expect fell to Draccon136's Magnivores and Wildfires, but WedUk's Blue/Black Tron managed to stop Slider37 from doing the same to him. aylon bested Little_shaves in the Zoo mirror and AikTheOne took down BOZ and his Gifts deck. AikTheOne then beat WedUk with his Red/White Aggro deck, and Droccon136 beat aylon with a Magnivore or two before they then split the finals and no doubt went off for a good hard sleep to celebrate.

Later that day, thirty-six players had a go at another doubled prize event with the cut rolling out as follows:

Kingoberon — GhaziGlare
kortnee — GhaziGlare
renappel — Four Color Gifts with Wildfire
StraightOuttaVenice — Red/White Aggro
Renecane — Eminent Domain with Black
equatis989 — Blue/Red... (Magnivore?)
Twistum — Green/Black Aggro Control
AndyProbasco — Green/Black/White Aggro Greater Good

GhaziGlare shows that it is still out there and still going strong, and AndyProbasco's Green/Black/White deck of Good Stuff looks very much like another GhaziGlare deck, but instead with Greater Good tendencies, Moldervine Cloaks, and a Putrefy or two. renappel caused some issues with his non-standard Gifts deck by randomly throwing out Wildfires, drawing cards with Trade Routes and crushing with such sideboard gems as Ribbons of Night (again), Helldozer and Lifegift. I assume Life From the Loam is in there somewhere, but I never saw it.

kingoberon and kortnee were lucky enough to get mired in a GhaziGlare mirror match which can only be described as “mind numbing” to watch. renappel beat out StraightOuttaVenice, AndyProbasco beat Twistum and Renecane beat equatis989 so quickly that I didn't really get a good look at what he was playing. AndyProbasco's Green/Black/White deck then beat renappel and his Wildfire Gifts and Renecane's 3 Color Eminent Domain beat kortnee before falling to AndyProbasco in a finals that went to the third game.

On Monday, fifty-one players decided to skip work or school or whatever they had planed already to fight it out in yet another double-prize event. After the dust settled, the Top 8 looked like this:

Phyrexian War Monkey — Blue/Red Hattori Hanzo Tron
Al8ert345678900 — Blue/Red Howling Mine dot deck
Pepzinks — Red/White Aggro
aylon — Blue/Red Howling Mine dot deck
AikTheOne — Red/White Aggro
nagul — Eminent Domain
Thommo — Blue/Black Tron
subliminal man2 — Magnivore

Pepzinks tried to be the interesting one in this Top 8 by bumping up the burn count in his Red/White Aggro deck. He utilizied Lava Spike, Glacial Ray and Viashino Sandstalker in addition to the usual Volcanic Hammer, Shock and Flames of the Blood Hand combo, but was left wanting in the face of the two Blue/Red Howling Mines decks that appeared to steal the show. aylon lost to mana screw in two straight to Pepzinks, but AL8ert345678900 beat Phyrexian War Monkey, and then subliminal man2, before splitting the finals with AikTheOne.

This strange deck seemed to run off of a smatter of sorcery based card drawing and the unmistakable power of Howling Mine and Kami of the Crescent Moon. I saw Boomerangs bouncing turn 2 lands and I saw Sudden Impacts fishing off what Ebony Owl Netsukes got started. That's right, Ebony Owl Netsuke, and sometimes even in multiples. It's honestly worth logging in and checking out, it seems that odd. I'm loathe to rubbish the deck outright however, because last time I did that the deck I was chewing out turned out to be Mono Blue Tron.

That's how things are going right now in the Premier Events on Magic Online. We'll keep a close eye on things leading up to the Pro Tour and see just how much or how little an impact these results have on what gets played under palm trees and sunshine.

Until next week, don't forget to brush your teeth.

(blisterguy)

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